On Tuesday 17 September six Felsted students attended the Uttlesford Schools Award Ceremony to be presented with their Jack Petchey medallions.  

Jack Petchey Awards are for students who have shown outstanding commitment to a particular area of school or community life. The Foundation was established in 1999 to encourage and reward young people who show effort and give to others. One award is given per month.

 
The Awards were individually presented to those still at Felsted at the Uttlesford Schools Award Ceremony by Cllr. Richard Freeman (The Chairman of Uttlesford District Council). Collecting their awards that evening were Darina Mironova, Alexander Findlay, Wendy Wang, Holly Pilcher, Isabella Hendricks and Sana Abu-Jabir. 
 

Shesh Abu-Jabir, Sana Abu-Jabir and Ewan Cacace provided some of the musical entertainment for the evening with a lovely jazz piano solo from Ewan (‘Turn out the Stars’ by B. Evans) and a fantastic jazz trio performance of the well-known song ‘Autumn Leaves’

Sana Abu Jabir – Year 11

Sana’s Jack Petchey prize was awarded for outstanding contribution to music at Felsted. Sana regularly helps with various musical activities and lessons in her free time such as Junior orchestra, Year 3 music lessons, a newly formed percussion group and school productions. 

Sana works hard with the younger children and encourages them to practice and progress in their music, but most importantly to enjoy it. Sana is an accomplished musician herself and she is a fantastic role model to the other students, keeping up her own music practice alongside her academic studies and being a valuable member of several senior school ensembles.

Isabella Hendricks – Year 13

Isabella set up and manages a student led Academic Peer Tutoring programme in school. The scheme involves the older students helping the younger students on academic subjects where they may be struggling. The subjects offered cover the range from English, Mathematics, Languages, Sciences and Humanities. Already some of the pupils who are benefitting from the programme are enjoying their subjects more and feeling confident in their abilities due to the help of the older students.

Olga Adhikari – 2019 Leaver
Olga worked closely within the Felsted school community to promote and encourage staff and pupils to be more environmentally friendly.  She was the force behind many changes including some which will help reduce the use of plastic, increase recycling and she was actively involved with the new Eco Club started last year.  

Darina Mironova – Year 13
Darina was awarded a Jack Petchey prize for her help in trying to make the school more environmentally friendly. She was the driving force behind "meat-free" Tuesdays and stood up in assembly to give a speech on all the reasons why. Most recently, she sourced 30 trees from the Woodland trust and coordinated the planting of them with other pupils. Darina is always seeking out other ways to encourage the school to be more environmentally friendly and is a great ambassador for this cause; she is currently working on a project to get the school to switch to using recycled paper.

Amber Aitken – 2019 Leaver

Amber was awarded a Jack Petchey prize for outstanding commitment to several aspects of school life and the community. She worked with the charity group and was involved in many fundraising projects such as Beat Mo, the Colour Run and Valentine roses. These projects have raised large amounts of money for charities such as Sparkle Malawi and Volunteer Uganda, both of which work with disadvantaged children in Africa.  

Amber also volunteered on a weekly basis to help children with severe and complex learning difficulties at the Edith Borthwick School. Amber gave 100% effort to these activities even though she had a heavy academic timetable and took part in other co-curricular activities.

Wendy Wang – Year 13
Wendy was awarded a Jack Petchey prize for support of international students at school and for her contribution to events for international students. Wendy worked hard on putting together a video for the international students and she also gave a speech in assembly in front of her peers. 
 
In addition, Wendy regularly helps out with the younger members of the school by doing tutoring, and she has also been a big support to a young Chinese girl in the school who was finding it difficult to settle in.

Alex Findlay – Year 13
Alex’s Jack Petchey prize was awarded for his contribution to the Year 9 ‘Junior Leader club’ each Wednesday. He helps to organise the Year 9 groups and encourages the younger students to take part in all activities with enthusiasm.  Alex has also helped at several expeditions where he has stepped forward to volunteer for any task without want of acknowledgment or reward.

Holly Pilcher – Year 12
Holly’s Jack Petchey prize was awarded for her commitment to Music and also for her commitment to charity. She takes part in many school musical groups such as jazz band, orchestra and choir and she always works hard in these sessions, along with encouraging and helping the younger members of the groups. 

Holly also set up a new charity initiative which involved asking members of the school to draw mini-portraits of themselves and then putting all the pictures together in tea towel which is being sold to raise funds for Farleigh Hospice.