Taylorian 2020

22 91% of our leavers have progressed to the courses and universities they chose, which are overwhelmingly Oxbridge and Russell Group universities, although three have gone to the US this year. All of this is most satisfactory. However, I believe I have saved the best until last. We continue to develop our exceptional provision for Design, Engineering and Technology. We cannot mark our progress with the usual cups and trophies, as unfortunately many competitions happen at the end of the academic year and so have been cancelled. As in previous years, we might have expected to report success in competitions such as Rampaging Chariots, the Triumph Design Awards, and the MTA Design Awards. Sadly, all were cancelled. However, there remains the robotics programme to comment upon. VEX robotics is a new enterprise for the school. It is essentially a competitive sport of robot building, in which the machines we have designed, built and programmed are driven against each other in competition, fighting it out in a purpose- built arena. In February, we hosted our first ever international Vex Robotics regional competition. We led a group of four schools and an industrial partner, ABB, to deliver the first ever regional event to be granted ‘Signature’ status - a high honour indeed. We had teams from around the world come to compete with us including some teams from as far afield as USA, Canada and Kazakhstan. It was the biggest regional competition ever staged in the UK. All of our Vex teams (five junior and two senior) made it through the regional competitions and six made it to the UK National Finals. Our Vex IQ teams won the UK Finals tournament with an ‘all school’ alliance — this is a first for any school in the UK. We now hold the ‘UK Champions’ double crown for the next year. Pleasingly, the second-place alliance also had an MTS team involved, so in effect the school won a double first and a second-place finish. Four of the MTS robotics teams were invited to take part in the Robotics World Championships in Tennessee as part of ‘Team UK’ — no other school or club had more teams invited this year. In total, the robotics teams amassed fourteen trophies this season. Sadly, the World Championships were cancelled due to the coronavirus. Nevertheless, this is a tale of extraordinary success in our first year of competition in VEX robotics. This list of triumphs is pleasing, but pales into insignificance when compared to the heroic way the DT department led the school to support the production of personal protective equipment for the NHS in the teeth of the epidemic. Faced with a crisis in our local hospitals, GP clinics and care homes, Andrew Duffey led his team to make many thousands of face shields. The Design Centre, so long a place of learning and experimentation for the pupils, became a manufacturing centre and an assembly line. Our initiative was eagerly seized upon by local doctors and nurses, as well as many OMTs who were also working in the front line against the disease. Mr Duffey then widened the circle of manufacturers, drawing in a coalition of other local schools and industry (many thanks to Amtico, whose CEO is an old boy and who provided invaluable support). It was a remarkable effort, which showed Merchant Taylors’ School in its best possible light. When we look back at this epidemic, we can do so with pride, in the knowledge that the school has played its part. What a year we have enjoyed and endured. A time of triumph and sorrow, where we have never been more united as a community, and yet have never been so separated. This is a year that will live in the memory. Yet I am happy to consign it to the past, and to look forward to a time yet to come. A time when our community gathers once again, reunited, to seek new success.