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RAG Week Full Report
Friday, 7 December 2018
Invicta has an incredible reputation for fundraising, and every year we enjoy seeing the money raised be passed on to our chosen RAG charities in our Summer Celebration Assembly and to hear about how it will be spent to make a difference to causes close to our hearts. This year, our Senior Prefect Team wanted to make their legacy with a different element of ‘Raise and Giving’ – to not only raise money, but to plan a Community Day for all of Sixth Form to give back and support the local community. This took months of organisation, networking and close communication with local organisations - but we did it! Our RAG Committee secured a wonderful range of activities for our Sixth Formers to sign up to, including: working at the Foodshare (and family food bank) centre in Ashford, building a beetle pyramid with Vinters Park Nature Reserve, singing Christmas Carols in Maidstone town centre, helping deliver lessons and Christmas craft activities at local primary schools and organising a social event in school for elderly people from the West Kent Befriending Service and local care homes. Our students were praised for their professionalism, enthusiasm and interpersonal skills. The day was a huge success, and we have received some beautiful comments and feedback from businesses, guests and students involved.
While Sixth Form were busy with their Community Day, the rest of the school enjoyed a ‘Sparkle’ themed non-uniform day, where we saw lots of sparkly clothes, flashing lights and many embellished glitter face designs.
Monday, 10 December
Traditional RAG week activities began in full swing with the first of our big dress up themes: Through the Ages. We had lots of cave women (Mrs Jackson included!), Pink Ladies, 80s lycra-clad Fame-esq designs, aliens, historical figures and everything else you could possibly imagine. Miss Woodford and Mrs Payne stood out the most (literally and figuratively!) with their not so subtle 6-foot-tall inflatable dinosaur costumes, complete with their own battery-powered fans to keep them inflated throughout the day.
At lunch, we had our highly anticipated Stars in their Eyes event. MFL showed off rare talents (for teachers) being able to both sing and dance; a newly formed Girl Group took on Spice Girls ‘Wannabee’ and the Leadership Group were determined to knock Maths off of their pedestal after winning for the last two years. We had a much-loved popular song (This is Me – The Greatest Showman), Mrs Derrick in a beard performing on a massive screen, outlandish costumes and possibly even more outlandish dance moves. We even bent the rules to have some very talented students singing for us – and yet, try as we might, we still could not compete with the Maths Men. After warming the audience up with some hilarious carpool-karaoke, the Maths Men came on to the stage with slick dance moves that the audience went wild over. Probably a well-deserved win, but there is always next year to try to beat them again.
As if this wasn’t enough entertainment, in the evening we had our ‘Musicals’ themed RAG Dance Show, and this really put into perspective our sorry attempts at dancing earlier in the day.
Tuesday, 11 December
Tuesday dress up brought us ‘Video Games’, with another valiant effort, including the odd Pacman chasing fruit and ghosts down the corridors and Mr Ehren sporting a homemade Sonic the Hedgehog costume complete with swimming cap.
At lunch, we had our first Man-O-Man performance for Years 7-9 and our poor/brave Sixth Form boys tried to impress the crowds with their skills in dancing, eating doughnuts without hands, getting into tricky yoga positions and the final strength test with audience participation. Sean Voong was crowned victorious for the second year in a row!
Wednesday, 12 December
Christmas swept over Invicta on Wednesday with students laden with cheesy Christmas jumpers, decked in tinsel and with some excellent effort in attaching fairy lights to outfits. What a perfect festive mood for our annual school Christmas lunch, as everyone celebrated with their friends, forms and teachers.
Thursday, 13 December
Our final day of RAG Week finished on a high with our ‘Disney vs DreamWorks’ theme. We had a huge assortment of onesies, animals, princesses and villains – as well as what appeared to be the entire cast of Toy Story! We also had our final Man-O-Man performance with the raucous crowds of Years 10 – 13 who loved every moment of it.
Alas, RAG Week is now over and our fancy-dress costumes return to the loft for another year, but what a week we had. Even with our reduced week down to four days, we raised an impressive £8,893.84. I would like to thank the Senior Prefect Team and RAG Committee who worked tirelessly to make this the success that it was, but it would not have been possible without the involvement from every student across the school. It is your excitement, contributions and love of ‘Raise and Giving Week’ that makes it what it is today.
