Shrewsbury School

Assalamu’alaikum and hello dear readers!

It’s finally time to introduce you to SHREWSBURY SCHOOL! YAY!

This is just about a quarter of the school ground. Maybe less.

First things first: 'Sh-rou-wsbury,' not 'Shrewsbury' and definitely not 'Strawberry'.

Honestly it doesn't matter, but posh people are, well, posh.

There are only 4 Bruneian students that are currently studying in this school; there’s Amalina (Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics (AS)) and Sylvia (Maths, Futher Maths, Biology, Chemistry, English (AS)) in the Upper Sixth and  Raudhah (Maths, Biology, Geography, Chemistry) and Farhanah (Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry) in the Lower Sixth.

THE SCHOOL

Main School Building

Soo a little bit of the history...

Shrewsbury School has been around for c e n t u r i e s. It was originally a boarding school for boys only until 2008 when they decided to introduce girls into their Sixth Form and it’s not until this September that the school became fully co-educational i.e. we finally have girls too in the Lower School!

But even so, the school still has way more boys than girls...

What does the school offer then?

Sylvia: It's a highly sporty school, but it doesn't miss out on musically and academically talented students either. The classrooms are bright and highly conducive (the lack of drawers though), and most of the teachers are quite good (albeit a little weird). Here, the students constantly argue with teachers in class (in a positive way), so you're bound to develop your critical thinking and especially debating skills. We've also  had our most successful School Play ('Cyrano de Bergerac') so far with the introduction of Miss Brown as Director, so hopefully the Drama department is gonna flourish even more in the future as well.

Nope, still not the whole school yet.

This school does often try to bring out the full potential in students. Students are constantly encouraged to participate in various sports events (ugh), and if you're even the least bit good at singing, don't be surprised by people randomly jumping on your back to scout you into Chapel Choir. As a student who took 5 subjects at AS, I had a lot of support and teachers were very understandable and appreciative of my timetable, so I never broke down (too badly) under the academic pressure.

The school's also really useful when you want to arrange community service/work experience in a local nursing home/hospice; you can even request what type of experience you'd prefer. We have Medic Malawi (which I joined last summer) where we students volunteer and help out at an orphanage in Malawi. Admittedly, the trip was costly, but the experience was definitely worth it.

Most importantly, we have HALAL FOOD EVERYDAY! (oh and our bedrooms are pretty).

BOARDING LIFE

How does it like?

Emma Darwin Hall

Amalina: The school has 13 houses altogether; only 3 for girls and the other 10 for boys. Sylvia, Farhanah and I live in Emma Darwin Hall (EDH) - a relatively new house with a more modern design compared to the boys' houses. Raudhah, meanwhile, is the only Bruneian living in Mary Sidney Hall (MSH) which is slightly far away from EDH and the main school site.

Lower Sixth pupils have to share their rooms between two and change their rooms and roommate every term. Some people might be lucky enough to get the same room twice consecutively (like Farhanah had last time). They don't have to suffer the agony of having to pack ALL their stuffs, move into a new room AND unpack everything again like the others do (which, I think, is unfair bwahaha). Whereas, the Upper Sixth pupils get the privilege of having single rooms (mostly) on the top floor where the corridor is quiet and peaceful most of the time.

EDH common room

We have callover at certain times of the day where everyone in the house has to gather in the common room, our attendance taken in and the housemistress will inform us about upcoming events or mention any house's achievements or sing 'Happy Birthday' together to whoever has their birthday on that particular day!

Unlike breakfast and supper, going to lunch is compulsory. If you're missing for no reason, just wait for it... Matron will definitely hunt you down! *plays scary music background* In the evening, we are expected to be at our desk doing Top Schools (or homework/prep as you probably call it) from 7.30pm to 9pm. Around this time, the house tutor in charge for the evening will go around the house to check up on us. Then at around 10pm, the housemistress or matron will come round to make sure that we are all in our respective rooms, getting ready for bed (*coughs* or pretending to get ready).

Being a boarder is not so bad after all. Other than the fact that we can't cook in EDH, we don't have nutella in our kitchen and we don't have en-suite rooms like those in MSH, everything else is great. Alhamdulillah.

SHREWSBURY AND THE TOWN

Shrewsbury is just a small, pretty and peaceful county town in Shropshire, situated on the River Severn.

Shrewsbury Town surrounded by the river

From Shrewsbury to London, there is unfortunately no direct railway to Paddington Station (which is the nearest station to Brunei Hall) so we have to go from Shrewsbury station to London Euston station with at least one change and finally, by taxi or bus to Brunei Hall. The journey can be a bit tedious sometimes but what to do. :(

Shrewsbury Town

Eventhough Shrewsbury is small and looks a bit old, they do have quite plenty of shops (eg. H&M, New Look, Next, etc), convenient stores (eg. Poundland, Home Bargains), cafes (eg. Starbucks, Costa, Cafe Nero), a few halal restaurants (but you have to ask first as they don't usually show it on their doors) and there's also a cinema just out of town. Shrewsbury is of course not as exciting as London but it's surely a pleasant place to live in.

Is there anything special about Shrewsbury?

Darwin's statue in front of the library

The locals seem to be very proud of the fact that Charles Darwin was born and raised here in Shrewsbury (and he went to Shrewsbury School too when the school was still in town - the building has now become the town's library) hence the reason why you will see the name Darwin or Charles Darwin statue in every corner of the town (and especially in our school). Darwin Shopping Centre. Darwin Society. Darwin building. Darwin room. Blablabla.

I'm sorry, Darwin. No hard feelings. :*





Alright. That's all for now. Thank you for reading! :D