Month: November 2024

35 Years of Czech Democracy

This November marks the 35th anniversary of the November 1989 Velvet Revolution, which brought about the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. 

On this occasion we were delighted to welcome Jan Bubeník, student activist during the Velvet Revolution 1989, in our school to talk with our students about his personal experience with the Velvet Revolution and his life before the fall of communism as well as afterwards.

The lecture took place as part of the ECP Lecture and Talk programme with the title My Velvet Revolution Story – My Dream Came True.

Jan Bubeník talked about how he was a student activist during the Velvet Revolution 1989, a member of the Student Strike Committee and later a deputy in the Federal Assembly. At the time of the revolution, he was studying medicine at the Faculty of Pediatrics at Charles University in Prague. In the whirlwind of events during the November and December days of 1989, he became a member of the Student Strike Committee, then a member of the Commission for Oversight of the Investigation into the Events of November 17, and, at the age of  twenty one, the youngest deputy in the Federal Assembly.

After the lecture, ECP students had an opportunity to speak with Mr Bubeník and ask questions. There were also follow-up discussions in tutor groups, which focused on the strongest moments in the lecture, the impact of individuals on changing history, and the connection between Jan Opletal and Velvet Revolution. Students were also watching a series of short videos reporting about the 1989 events. 

As part of homework, students were to think about current threats to democracy and ask their parents and grandparents about their experiences during the Velvet Revolution.

Velvet Revolution Festival

Celebrations of the 35th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution at ECP also included student-lef Velvet Revolution Festival. A group of students prepared various workshops for their peers. They were not allowed to select their workshop freely to remind ourselves that during communism there was no freedom of choice. 

The workshops, which aimed to recall what it was like during communist times, included designing a protest poster, Spartakiáda exercises, documentary watching or communist bake sale with proceeds going to the Ježíškova vnoučata charity.

One of the careers popular with ECP graduates is diplomacy. We have many former students who have gone on to work for either the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the European Commission or other public service organisations. One of the first was Jan Brunner. He graduated from the ECP in 1999 and following postings in Berlin and London, he is currently the Deputy Czech Ambassador to Austria.

The Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible for the recruitment and training of MFA diplomats. It runs training courses to prepare its students for diplomatic work. So when it was considering a school to trial its approaches to secondary school students, the English College was an obvious choice. The Diplomatic Academy usually targets its recruitment programme at university students so we were delighted when its Director, Dana Kovaříková, came into Elektra recently. Our prospective diplomats, most of whom have been involved in our Model United Nations conferences, the Student Council and the School Council, listened attentively as she spoke about the many opportunities open to young people in the MFA.

She was joined by Jan Brunner, who came back to Prague from Vienna to take part in the session. This meant that our students were not only able to hear about the route to becoming a diplomat, but Jan was also able to share with them his personal experience of what it is really like to serve as a representative of your country abroad.

Jan Brunner, when Deputy Ambassador to the UK, at the Czechoslovak memorial at the Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey

In October and November we had eighty-seven Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 students out on work placements, getting a taste of professional environments to help them plan their career directions in the next few years. Placements were in diverse fields ranging from business consulting, law, investment banking, architecture and government departments, to an orthodox women’s monastery, optometry, virtual reality and product marketing. Students loved how welcome they were made to feel in each of the placements, and being made to feel part of a team in the short time they were there.  

Highlights

Some of the highlights for the students were:

• Learning more about Czech defence, and how NATO and the EU work together
• Finding out about unfamiliar job areas such as transfer pricing and private banking
• Seeing the bare infrastructure of projects, and creating a design for the interior and a floor plan for a restaurant
• Experiencing how effective it is when people cooperate in the workplace
• Learning how car leasing works
• The challenges faced when diagnosing a patient, and the importance of customer service in the medical profession
• Being in a new environment and getting used to their needs and obligations
• The Coca Cola plant tour
• Meeting tourists and hearing their stories, and making their day better by being my best self
• Being able to connect creativity and work
• Using technology to analyse the effectiveness of social media advertising
• Seeing how important teamwork is in the workplace, and how much impact the people you work with can have in the job setting
• Meeting lots of experienced people, who tailored the program to our interests and helped us to develop our skills
• Observing an Act of Parliament being debated and approved
• Recognising how the things that we learn in school can be applied in the workplace
• Seeing how competitive businesses work both together and against each other
• Learning how important it is for a business to have a purpose to drive the determination to succeed
• Knowing that when you have a task to be completed in the workplace, it is your responsibility to take the lead and contribute as much as possible
• Being taken seriously as part of the team, which helped me to develop my confidence and was an amazing feeling
• Having interesting conversations with experts in their field. 

Placements

The placements were organised with the kind support of ECP parents and their work colleagues. We are very grateful to the parents involved in providing such excellent opportunities to our students, and the students themselves are hugely appreciative of the fantastic experiences that they had, enabling them to develop their skills beyond the classroom environment. Special thanks go to 4A Architekti, Businka-Dobrý Mír, Coca Cola HBC, Cushman & Wakefield, Direct Auto, eLens, Eversheds Sutherland, Grant Thornton, IP Fabric, Ministry of Defence, and Victoria VR for hosting students so warmly and giving them a taste of your professional worlds – we are fortunate to have access to such wonderful opportunities through ECP parents in our community!

Every year, the English College in Prague community remembers those who died serving their country.

Remembrance Sunday has its origins after World War I, which ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Every year, on the nearest Sunday to 11 November, every village, town and city in the UK holds a remembrance ceremony and there is a two minutes silence at 11am as a unifying community act of remembrance. The largest ceremony takes place at the Cenotaph in London where our Royal Patron, His Majesty King Charles III, lays a wreath of poppies.

Poppy Appeal

Here in school, we hold an assembly during the week before Remembrance Sunday. We sell red paper poppies for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal. Ex-service men and women make the poppies to support the charity’s work, which is to help those who still need its support today.

This year, Annexe School Council President, Ellen Semeradová, spoke at an assembly about what Remembrance is and what it is we are remembering. We were reminded that the poppy was adopted as a symbol of remembrance after WWI because it symbolised the return of colour to the battle fields of Flanders, as the poppy was the first flower to grow again after the end of the war.

Remembrance Sunday

Ellen and her co-Presidents, Anežka Bahbouhová and Tadeáš Vacha, together with student representatives on the School Council, Esme Kalovcová and Aneta Krejdlová, joined Dr Brown, Mr Emmerson and Mrs Hearn at Prague’s own Remembrance ceremony. It took place in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Olšany and the British Ambassador, Matt Field OBE, led the ceremony. Mrs Hearn’s late father, Rudolf Poledník, was a Czech airman in the Royal Air Force during WWII. His name is engraved on the plinth of the Winged Lion memorial at Malostranská.

Our students play an important role in the ceremony, helping young Scouts, Cubs and Beavers from the 1st Prague Scout Group place religious symbols on the graves of the war dead buried in the cemetery.

They pause for a moment by each grave to remember the person buried there, all of them under 30 years old. Especially poignant are the graves that bear the words ‘Known unto God’. This means that it had not been possible to identify the soldier, sailor or airman buried there. It also means that somewhere, there is still a family who never knew what happened to their husband, son or brother, only that they had been recorded as Missing In Action.

It is thirty years since the English College in Prague opened its iconic blue doors to students for the first time. So this year’s Founders’ Day, held in the beautiful setting of Pražská křižovatka, was a particularly special occasion. The whole school community came together to celebrate our Founders, Ann Lewis and Dr Martyn Bond, and also to remember our first Headmaster, Hubert Ward, who died on Easter Sunday. 

The Hubert Ward Prize for Service to the School

We were treated to a wonderful evening of music and tributes, which saw many students receive prizes for their outstanding work. There was a new prize this year – The Hubert Ward Prize for Service to the School – which went to Tomáš Vachutka in Year 3, presented by our guest speaker, Vanessa Ward, Hubert Ward’s daughter. There was also a very impressive display of artwork. The highlight of the exhibition was an amazing model of the reconstructed and extended school building. It was built by our Year 3 student and aspiring architect, Ariya Man, and was complete with the roof and lower floors lifting up automatically to reveal classrooms filled with 3-D printed plastic furniture. 

ECP Alumna – Eva Indruchová

It was particularly good to see many ECP graduates there. One of them, Dr Eva Indruchová, graduated in 2002 and went on to qualify as a lawyer. She has written this personal account of the evening that we are delighted to share.

Eva writes:

As a proud former student of The English College in Prague (ECP), I had the pleasure of attending the ECP Founders’ Day and celebrating the 30th anniversary of my beloved College. It was heartwarming to hear about the school’s beginnings. It all started back in the 1990s with a vision to revive the tradition of British style education in Prague, originally established in 1927 by the Prague English Grammar School, which was closed down under the Nazis, and later in 1954.

Royal Patron

The English College Foundation was then established, with President Václav Havel and His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales, as joint Founder Patrons. I am delighted that His Majesty King Charles III has decided to continue as Patron of the ECP.

On this special occasion, we paid tribute to our Founders Ann Lewis and Dr Martyn Bond and the first Headmaster, the late Hubert Ward. His daughter, Vanessa Ward, gave a moving speech, followed by Denis Keefe, the Chairman of Governors, Dr Martyn Bond, and the third Headmaster, Peter de Voil.

British Ambassador

It was wonderful to see the support also from the British Embassy Prague, with a video message delivered by Matt Field OBE 

ECP’s Legacy

Of all the schools I have attended, the English College shaped me the most. Václav Havel once said that the students of the ECP emerge “at home on the international scene”. This couldn’t be more true for me. Having lived in the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium and France, I am active in several international organisations and focus on business and international relations development. Yes, I can confirm, I feel truly at home on the international scene, and I am proud to carry the ECP legacy and spirit with me!

So thank you to everyone involved in the organisation for an excellent evening and here’s to the next thirty years.

You can watch the whole of Founders’ Day via THIS LINK

or the shorter, edited version HERE

The English College in Prague has published a new issue of The ECP Newsletter.

Read the latest issue of the ECP newsletter. It brings information about start-of-year trips, student successes, new staff, Festival of Arts, interhouse competitions, other activities and so much more. You can access the newsletter via this link.

Summary:

• HM’s message
• New staff
• Student successes
• News
• Trips
• Sports at ECP
• Arts
• Book Talk
• ECPN

You can look at the archive of ECP newsletters here.

Here is a link to the previous newsletter issue.