This term saw the first ever Great Felsted Bake Off house competition!
All the bakers approached the competition with a great level of enthusiasm, producing some interesting and delicious final pieces.
The winners were Yr 11’s Hugo and Henry from Deacon’s, whose delicious roulade was rolled in amaretti biscuits, filled with white chocolate cream and Greek yoghurt, and served with a white chocolate sauce and a raspberry coulis!
The winners were presented with winning aprons, a trophy for their house, and a prize each of a personally signed copy of Mary Berry’s latest book ‘Mary Berry’s Baking Bible’.
Just under 200 delegates came together to discuss and debate the ever present issues of migrants and refugees. Those in attendance were privileged to hear from James Simmonds-Read of The Children’s Society, who has worked with refugees since he began volunteering at university. James was joined by Souleymane, an asylum seeker from Guinea. Souleymane gave a first-hand account of what it was like to live as an asylum seeker in the UK, including his time spent in a detention centre.
Felsted has a formidable reputation for cricket both locally, regionally and nationally. Pupils begin to play cricket from Year 3 (age 8) and it is the main sport for boys in the Summer Term in both the Senior and the Preparatory School. Several Old Felstedians have gone on to become professionals for the County and England teams, including Derek Pringle, John Stephenson, Nick Knight and Tim Phillips. Cricket for girls became a main sports option in 2014, with two teams competing at local and regional level. 
After beating Hayes’, Bede’s and Charter School at Surrey Cricket Centre, their success rested on a win against Godolphin
Mr Sharp answered challenging questions from the audience that focussed on the future of retailing and high street stores. There were fascinating insights into how consumers are behaving in this high-tech world and the customer profiling that companies use to target their markets.
As well as playing for Felsted, many of the boys play at club, county and national levels. One individual completing a particularly memorably season is 
Currently Director of Hockey and Assistant Housemistress at Felsted, Loren has impressive sporting and academic credentials. Whilst studying for a degree in Zoology at Durham University, Loren played England U21 hockey, was part of the University National Champions team, gained life membership to Team Durham and was awarded a Durham University Full Palatinate. Gaining a full athletics scholarship to the University of Connecticut, she studied for a Master’s degree in Animal Sciences, receiving numerous USA collegiate hockey accolades in the process. Loren, who left Felsted in 2006, is really excited to be taking up this more prominent sporting role at Felsted;
The initial idea followed research involving 2.4 million pupils, which looked at the positive impact of CREST awards on GCSE results and A-Level uptake in Science among pupils from low income families. This paper was presented at the House of Lords in January, where a key recommendation was to conduct more long term research analysing the effect of CREST on pupils from deprived areas.
Felsted Headmaster, Chris Townsend, comments;
Christina is a Specialist Leader in Education for Science, and leads network of primary school teachers in the Chelmsford area, aiming to inspire and raise standards. Christina is committed to Science outreach programmes for pupils across the county, as well as delivering the Science curriculum at Felsted's 'International Residential Summer School'. With the Department for Education and the British Science Association keen to hear the findings from the proposed Rolls Royce project, she is confident the results will have wide reaching impact.
The Steel Band provided the entertainment in the marquee whilst guests assembled and had a pre-concert drink, helping to getting everyone into a summer mood, despite the grey clouds and the drizzle. For many, this was the first orchestral concert that they had attended and they were blown away by the sound of the orchestra as they played music from the Empire Strikes Back. Bella Westlake (flute) and Rahel Gerrens (cello) were the soloists of the evening and they held the audience captive with performances of Rutter's Suite Antique and Tchaikovsky's Nocturne for Cello; you could have heard a pin drop in the rests.
For many, the highlight of the evening was the performance by the newly formed "Diamond DofE Staff Choir". Their rendition of New York, New York! was excellent (and memorable for all the right reasons). This performance alone raised over £200 for the DofE. Further donations can be made online.
In the semi-finals, Felsted faced Sedbergh and bowled them out for 133 runs inside 19 overs. The boys chased down this total with seven wickets to spare and faced a strong Millfield side in the Final. Millfield’s impressive total of 224 proved to be just out of Felsted’s reach on the day, but this placed them a highly impressive second out of 132 teams across the country.
Sixth Formers Sam Wisbey, Jemima Upton and Molly McGuckian were competing against 57 other teams from schools across the UK.
Felsted has had a number of successes at regional and national level in the past few years, including a significant number of individual and group qualifiers for the NSEA National Schools Showjumping Championships in October 2016.
(Anthony Hickling & Mr Chris Townsend, Headmaster)
Headmaster, Mr Chris Townsend, comments; “It is fantastic to see such strong results, with ten pupils achieving a clean sweep of A* and A grades, and nearly half of all GCSE exams being graded at A or A*. Every single pupil passed both English Language and Literature, while Maths achieved 98% A*-C, to build on some stunning results from the accelerated group who took their GCSEs earlier in the year. English, Latin, Maths, Design Technology, Music, RS, Theatre Studies and Greek all achieved more than 90% A*-B. While some schools are under pressure to move away from the creative subjects, it is particularly good to see Music, Design Technology and Theatre Studies doing so well. I am very grateful to the hard work of all the teaching staff at Felsted, the support of the parents, and most importantly the commitment of the pupils themselves in achieving these impressive results.”
Among the stand out performers were Will Barker, Samual Barratt, Tom Beale, Tom Blanc, Luke Bury, Ella-Rae Coleby, Scarlett Coote, Imogen Gander, Bethan Hudson-Lund, Alex Manson, Harry Raffan, Chiara Rocker-Cook, Jeremy Salmon and Bella Westlake. Many others also outperformed their predictions.
Bethan, a weekly boarder from Wickham Bishops, is a superb all-rounder, involving herself in all the fantastic music, drama and sport opportunities on offer at Felsted. Bethan will also be studying the International Baccalaureate in September, with a view to pursue her passion for Biology at University.
Samuel Barratt, a weekly boarder from Manuden, Herts, is delighted not only with his superb results (8 A*, 3 A) but also the news that he has gained a National Arkwright Scholarship. He will be studying Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry A Levels with a view to pursuing a career in Engineering.