Upper School Extra-Curricular

There a variety of clubs available at KAS for students to be getting involved in. From subject based clubs to sports to bands and choirs, there is never a dull moment.

We have clubs for football, netball, basketball, volleyball, trampolining and cheerleading, with most clubs participating in fixtures. We also have music groups such as Rock Band, Music Tech, Orchestra and Jazz Band to name but a few. Other clubs range from backgammon, life drawing, book clubs, Japanese Language and Culture, French & Spanish debate and blacksmithing.

Sailing

The school has three boats, built by staff and students (with help from boat designer Nigel Irens) and named after Viking King Alfred’s three daughters: Æthelflæd, Æthelgifu, and Ælfthryth.  There current opportunities for students to sail the KAS boats are the Thames Great River Race and weekly Choice at the Welsh Harp Reservoir.

Instrumental and LAMDA Lessons

Instrumental lessons for a wide range of instruments, music theory and voice are offered through peripatetic music teachers. Students have these lessons before or after school or come out of their lessons in rotation.

Our LAMDA teachers, Tammy Cornish and Jacquelynn Poole, offer lessons which can be taken one-to-one, in pairs or as a group. Lessons in both the Performance and Communications LAMDA syllabi are available, including Acting, Verse and Prose, Speaking in Public, Devising, Mime, and Musical Theatre. Students from Reception to Year 13 can take exams from Introductory to PCert. LAMDA Grades 6-8 are also accredited with UCAS points.

Lessons are usually 35 minutes long and charged for in advance. Students in public examination years are taught off timetable (e.g. before school, at morning break, after lunch; all other lesson rotate on a weekly basis.

These are not included in the school fees, payment is made direct to the teacher. To book private lessons complete the application form here.

Drama and Musical Productions and Concerts

There are many opportunities for students to get involved in drama and musical productions. Each year, there is an Upper School musical production during the Autumn Term. The most recent production was The Addams Family and other productions include Into the Woods, Guys and Dolls, Grease, Grimms Tales, Legally Blonde, High School Musical, Crazy For You and Les Miserables.

Throughout the year there is a Christmas concert, a Summer concert, a number of theatre trips, music concerts and soloist performances which can be seen at our Unplugged and Axemonsters concerts.

Duke of Edinburgh Award

The Duke of Edinburgh Award has been running at KAS for several successful years now. The award can be started in Year 9, 10, 11 or in the Sixth Form. The award is vocational in its nature, and can reward students with a great sense of achievement and purpose, especially when helping others in the volunteering section and when working in a team for the expedition.

Choice

All students have ‘Choice’ on either a Wednesday or Friday afternoon which brings students from different year groups to learn new skills and have an opportunity to do subjects beyond the curriculum. These may include, for example, Photography, Sailing, Skateboarding, Bouldering, Film Studies, Cooking, Football, Hockey, School Show, Costume, Treehouse or helping in KAS Lower School.

Curriculum Extension

A variety of curriculum extension opportunities are provided through a range of event:

• termly public debates, e.g. following the English Speaking Union’s School’s Mace format
• debating competitions in French and Spanish against other schools
• lectures and talks on a wide range of subjects
• Art/Photography workshops given by visiting art professionals
• Design Technology workshops
• masterclasses in Drama and Music related fields (e.g. Lesley Garret workshop for sopranos, Carol Ann Duffy Shakespeare masterclass)
• Mathematics Olympiads.

Camps

Following on from similar activities in Lower school, Camps are an integral part of our programmes in Years 7-9. Providing students with the experience of spending a week living in a community away from home, the Camps are not all under canvas, though they mostly require students to do all their own catering and cleaning, and be responsible for their own entertainment. They also allow students to experience mixing and co-operating with students from other classes and year groups, and engaging in activities that are very different from those they encounter in their daily school life.

The Village

In Year 8 this process is taken a step further when students spend a week living in self-built huts in a leafy corner of the school grounds – The Village. They are encouraged to be self-governing and self-sustaining and to live by the schools core principles of mutual respect, social responsibility, individuality and self-reliance, and the enjoyment of education through freedom and play.

Curriculum trips

There are a wide range of trips designed to enhance the curriculum and students have many opportunities to visit London’s varied cultural facilities. Last year, these included various plays and musicals, art and photography shows, and visits to galleries, workshops, museums, university degree shows, businesses, book readings and festivals. Biology and Geography students organise residential fieldwork in various parts of the country and abroad, and the MFL department takes students to France and Spain for intensive language practice. Art and Photography students travel every year to a foreign city, which in the past has included, Eindhoven, Berlin, Barcelona, Venice, Istanbul and Paris. The History/Government and Politics department has led trips to Normandy, Washington, Cuba and Moscow.

Each year a group of KAS Year 11 students go on a trip to Namibia to help the charity EHRA to protect elephants and to help local schools. Students fundraise to pay for the trip.

Following the Tsunami in Sri Lanka in 2004, The King Alfred School started a project that founded the Kinniya King Alfred pre-school in the north east of Sri Lanka. A group of students from The King Alfred School went out to Kinniya in 2005 to help start a massive clear up and to work with the children who had started at the school.  Since then there have been numerous visits from staff and students. KAS has funded this small school since 2005 and the school is almost financially independent now.

Every year there is a school ski-trip for Upper School students.

For the last couple of years The King Alfred School Society has organised and hosted a day of TEDx talks which has featured Upper School students among the speakers. Pitching their ideas and refining their talk before performing it in front of an audience is a hugely rewarding experience for our students. Find out more here.