Celebrating Achievements

PGS Prizegiving returned to the Portsmouth Guildhall this year with the whole of the Senior and Sixth Form pupil community taking part in this celebration of collective and individual success.

Joined by nearly 200 parents and guests, the Guildhall provided the perfect venue for the community to gather to congratulate the prizewinners for their efforts and achievements. “I recognize that every day individual pupils achieve success in many ways. Sometimes these do not appear to be major things, but when they are all added together, they result in the considerable achievements that we see from all our pupils,” said Mr Wickes, Head of The Portsmouth Grammar School in his welcome. “It is not the impressive buildings that make our school, it is you, the pupils, that make it such a special and inspiring place.”

The ceremony then moved on to the awarding of over 180 prizes celebrating the academic successes of pupils. These included subject specific prizes along with the named prizes such as the J D Hopkinson Prize for Earth Science, the Sir William Crossman Memorial Prize for Mathematics, the Kenneth Budden Prize for Electronics, and the Mike Barnard Prizes for Sport.

The qualities of the PGS Core – curiosity, creativity, commitment, courage, compassion, collaboration – underpin every aspect of PGS life. They are designed to help pupils make the best of the opportunities they have and to forge purposeful pathways for the future. Following the subject specific prizes, over 70 prizes were then awarded to pupils for achievements reflecting each of these values. These prizes include the Marconi Cup for Technology – a prize established by Marconi Space Systems Ltd as a competition for the best piece of original work concerning a new industrial product or process, the Tudor Prize for Theatrical Promise, the Ivan Nelson Memorial Prize for Medicine, the Ashleigh Dekker Prize for Netball, the Amy Nguyen Sustainable & Social Environmental Stewardship Prize, and the Normandy Veterans’ Association Shield.

The event also gave our most recent alumni the opportunity to return to a school event to receive awards for their achievements in their final PGS year. This included Bruce Mao who joined PGS for Sixth Form from Suzhou High School of Jiangsu Province-SIP who was awarded the Ian Newberry Prize for Progress for his engagement and contribution to school life during his time at PGS. Bruce is now at Imperial College London studying Physics with Theoretical Physics.

Following the prizes, the Guest of Honour at the ceremony, Mr Ronit Kanwar gave a speech reflecting on his career and achievements including co-founding Empower Energy, an award-winning social enterprise which has distributed solar lamps across the state of Odisha, India. Founding this business at such an early stage in his career he told the pupils that, “Mistakes are your income, take risks, be bold and ambitious, do something and change the world.” Ronit has been named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list and is now a Director at Schmidt Futures building partnerships and developing new initiatives.

The event closed with speeches given by the Head Prefects, Sophie H and Henry B who spoke eloquently and confidently about their time at PGS and what the school has meant to them. Do click here to read their wonderful speeches.