King Lear was old and tired. He was weary of the business of his kingdom, and wished only to end his days quietly near his three daughters. Two of his daughters were married to the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; and the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France were both suitors for the hand of Cordelia, his youngest daughter.

Lear called his three daughters together, and told them that he proposed to divide his kingdom between them. "But first," said he, "I should
like to know much you love me."

Vanity, pride, deception, loyalty, duty and human folly will all be on display.

Performances will be on Thursday 24^th and Friday 25^th May at 7pm.

Please contact reception on 01784 266 930 to book tickets; £5 Adults and £3 children, payable on the evening of the performance.

In a short and dignified ceremony in the Ficino Study Centre on Tuesday, Geshe Tashi Tsering, resident teacher at the Jamyang Tibetan Buddhist Centre in London, officially blessed the beautiful Medicine Buddha Thangka that will hang on the staircase to theSixth Form.

("Geshe" is a title generally conferred in the Tibetan Gelug tradition of Buddhism on those who have successfully completed many years of monastic education and have thus attained a high degree of doctrinal learning; roughly the equivalent to the Western Doctor of Divinity. A "Thangka" is a Buddhist religious painting on a scroll which can have many meanings and uses; as an aid to meditation and visualisation, as a teaching tool, as an object of devotion and so on)

Geshe Tashi gave a brief talk to the Sixth Form, stressing the importance and universality of cultivating compassion and inner stability in which he highlighted Mr Boddy's words on the school website, "Within
every boy there is a brilliance and perfection waiting to be uncovered. This discovery is the essence of the St James education....Our belief is that a complete education should work to ignite each boys inner being, which is full of love and reason....Much of the work we do is to help pupils strengthen their powers of concentration and attention so they can tackle anything with confidence and efficiency".

Geshe Tashi then engaged in a wide-ranging question and answer session with the gentleman of the Sixth Form.

It was a real delight to welcome such a
learned and humble man to our school and we hope to have many more opportunities to do so in future.

("Geshe" is a title generally conferred in the Tibetan Gelug tradition of Buddhism on those who have successfully completed many years of monastic education and have thus attained a high degree of doctrinal learning; roughly the equivalent to the Western Doctor of Divinity. A "Thangka" is a Buddhist religious painting on a scroll which can have many meanings and uses; as an aid to meditation and visualisation, as a teaching tool, as an object of devotion and so on)

Geshe Tashi gave a brief talk to the Sixth Form, stressing the importance and universality of cultivating compassion and inner stability in which he highlighted Mr Boddy's words on the school website, "Within
every boy there is a brilliance and perfection waiting to be uncovered. This discovery is the essence of the St James education....Our belief is that a complete education should work to ignite each boys inner being, which is full of love and reason....Much of the work we do is to help pupils strengthen their powers of concentration and attention so they can tackle anything with confidence and efficiency".

Geshe Tashi then engaged in a wide-ranging question
and answer session with the gentleman of the Sixth Form.

It was a real delight to welcome such a
learned and humble man to our school and we hope to have many more
opportunities to do so in future.

Sanskrit is viewed by many philologists as the closest extant survivor of an earlier Indo-European root language which may be the
basis for a number of ancient and modern European languages. Its study can, also, open into many other fields of cultural, literary, philosophical and religious study.

This Year's scholarship was awarded to Taylor Hoyle (Year 12) and was presented by Dr Michael Williams. Dr Williams comes to St James
from Manchester University, where he was teaching until the completion of his Ph.D and will be taking over the role of Head of Sanskrit when Mr Stollar retires at the end of the school year.

That was the challenge faced by two groups of Year 11
Drama students at St James when they gave their examination performances and
they rose to it magnificently!

In "Biscuits and Balaclavas" we saw an intense performance with the ensemble cast portraying a tragically typical story from
"The Troubles" in Northern Ireland that did not flinch from hard questions and brutal truths.

"Rendezvous with Death" was a meditation on death in four
episodes, each examining what it means to live a good life and what it is in
life that truly makes it meaningful.

The audience was clearly impressed and showed it (the
Examiner was not allowed to express an opinion) and there was a very touching
and heartfelt tribute to our Head of Drama, Marie Wood, from all the boys at
the end of the evening.

It seems as though neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of
night, nor clinging mud, nor soggy tents can stay these Duke of Edinburgh
intrepids from their chosen task!

Last weekend's expedition to Ashdown Forest saw 24 Y10
boys practicing their navigation and camping skills in difficult conditions but
with tremendous exertion and good spirits, despite the continuous rain.

Everyone was, understandably, tired-out by the end of the
weekend.

The highly successful and popular Duke of Edinburgh Award
Scheme at St James senior Boys' is made possible by the exertion and expertise
of the remarkable staff members who give their time so generously. Great thanks
and appreciation go to Mr Prendergast, Mr Johnson, Miss Murphy, Miss Andrews,
Miss Brenan, Mr James-Roll and Mr Palmer.

Jonny Johnson

• Carrying the Flame on: 19 Jun 2012
• Carrying the Flame through: Harewood
• Age: 22
• Hometown: Leeds

Jonny's nomination story

At 6 months Jon was rushed into hospital not breathing and wasn`t expected to live. At 21 months he began speech and physical therapy, his family were taught sign language as they were told Jon would not speak properly, and that because he couldn`t understand phonetics and had limited short term memory he would not be able to read and write. The dyspraxia was manifesting as severe expressive language disorder, low spatial awareness and also an imbalance in muscle tone requiring the wearing of special boots and exercises to improve his ability to walk. His coping mechanism, for what must have been a very frustrating inability to question and communicate, was a beautiful smile, admired by every teacher that has taught him. He went to a language unit until he was seven and then entered main stream school where he was lucky to meet a teacher who believed in the spirit of human beings - from being given non-speaking animal parts in school plays she set him Henry V speech to learn by heart and give to an audience at speech day - perfect, the whole audience were in tears. She also set him running in Thursday afternoon cross-country. He went on to run and win for his secondary school, army cadets and now for his club Harrogate Harriers. He is now Assistant coach for his club and has taken many courses to improve the help he gives to the youngsters there. Recently he was sent by Leeds City College, where he is studying BTec National in Sport Science, to Vierumaki in Finland.

This was a great accompaniment to their upcoming trips to Rome & Pompeii and Greece, immersing them in the culture of the Ancient World in general and enthusing them for the week ahead.

"I am going to be an Olympic Torchbearer on Monday 23rd July 2012 as the flame passes through the London Borough of Merton.

I was selected by LOCOG as part of the Coca-Cola Future Flames scheme as a result of my work in the local community. I will also be working as a volunteer at the Paralympic Games from the 29th August - 9th September.

I have been keen to be involved in the Olympics since the 2005 announcement and am really looking forward to partaking in this way.

No doubt this comes as a surprise to all the sports staff!"

Eugene Carnell

Benedict Munden won the Boy treble class in the Richmond Music Festival. Eugene Carnell
again took the runner up spot in three classes - the open vocal, English Song
and Popular vocal. A number of other boys have had the opportunity to compete.