KINGHAM HILL ARE THE BRAINS OF OXFORDSHIRE

09 Jul 2015

General knowledge quizzing has taken off as a hugely popular activity among some of the pupils at Kingham Hill School. Since the arrival of Mr Gareth Williams (Head of Languages), a self-confessed general knowledge obsessive, the School has entered the national competition, Schools Challenge.

After two previous attempts, Kingham Hill achieved the distinction of being ranked first in Oxfordshire following the recent regional heats of the competition. The team, captained by Tyler Smith and including Tom Kay, Nick Stell and Ben Onime, won their first two matches, beating Abingdon School 440-330 and St Helen and St Katharine, Abingdon 380-240. In the final, against Dr Challoner’s School from Buckinghamshire, the Kingham Hill team lost 240-490. A valiant effort from our team ensured that, even though beaten squarely in the final, we came out as the top team in Oxfordshire.

Back at School, Inter-House Challenge has been a popular competition. Like Schools Challenge, it is based on the rules of University Challenge. Strong performances have come from houses – Havelock, Durham, Norwich and Bradford over the past three years. In addition, there is a thriving Quiz Club during Monday activities where the School team and other keen quizzers pit their wits against the toughest of questions on the buzzer.

The mastermind behind the quiz revolution at Kingham Hill is Mr Williams himself. He has been a competitive quizzer since he was a sixth former back in the 1990s. He has appeared on Fifteen-to-One on Channel Four twice. He also reached the quarter-finals of University Challenge as a member of the University of Manchester team. However, since coming to the School he has appeared on television a further four times (so far!). Last year, he took on one of the chasers on ITV’s The Chase and won. This year has been all about Mastermind.

In the first round, he came from behind after some tough questions on the Battle of the Somme with an impressive sixteen on general knowledge: you can see how he did by following this link – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hplmf. Following this success, he went on to answer questions on the Gospel according to Mark in the semi-final. A good performance on this specialist round followed by another secure general knowledge performance (see this link – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02k4hvf) ensured he got through to the Grand Final (see this link – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mxchp). This time, he took the Falklands Conflict as his specialist subject, encountering some rather long (and tricky) questions. An uncharacteristic general knowledge performance did not help him to climb up the rankings and he did not win (see link – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mxf61). Nevertheless, we are very proud of having a Mastermind Grand Finalist on the teaching staff at Kingham Hill.

So, the burning question must be: where next for quizzing at Kingham Hill? Mr Williams is enthusiastic about the future of the School quiz team – he is hoping for a victory at regionals in the next couple of years and a place at nationals in Schools Challenge. As for the next television appearance, who knows? Maybe he could make it as a chaser!

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