Welcome Back!

Welcome back everyone – we have now completed our first full week back at Sunninghill and it is wonderful to have you all back after the Summer break!

The heavy rain we have had intermittedly has certainly not dampened Sunninghill’s spirits! The children have been so excited to see each other, and having chatted to lots of the children and also to parents at the gate, it really does sound like most of you had a wonderful Summer! The children have come back very happy and excited about the term ahead – it’s definitely going to be a busy one.

The new fort, built with funds from the PTFA, has been a huge hit with all our children, and a very excited new addition to the school grounds!

It has been wonderful to welcome all our new Sunninghill Prep pupils, Florence, Eli, Phoebe, Connie, Ewan, Yasmin, Rosie and Beatrice in Reception, William in Form 1, Eben and Florence in Form 3, Elias and Gianni in Form 4 and Jia Wei in Form 5. On Monday we also welcome Penelope who will be joining us in Form 2.

We also welcomed back Ms Wake-Walker after her maternity leave and congratulated our new school prefects and Head Boy, Felix and Head Girl, Lottie. We know that they will all be wonderful role models and we are very proud of them all.

In Friday’s assembly we talked about our school values, what they are and how they are demonstrated in school. We discussed what pupils need from their classmates and teachers to learn well, and what they need to do for their friends and teachers to help them do well in school. I was amazed at the maturity and thoughtfulness of the answers that I received across all the year groups.

Last week we celebrated Alice and Lilia, who have both won a writing competition, and are now published authors, as their short stories are published in the book ‘The Magic Map’. Our well done winners at the end of last week were Gianni, Elias, Eben and Florence for settling in so quickly to their new school. This week Bea, William, Millie, Sofia, Beau, Sonny Jia Wei, Rory and Oscar were our well done winners. William C, George, Logan, Hamo, Callisto and Coco were our Academic Excellence winners.

Our first 4 Cs winners of the year are Charlie and Ava for Commitment, Rory and Eben for Compassion, Alice and Elias for Courage and Phin and Sofia for Creativity. Well done to all of you – a great start to the year!

This week we were delighted to share the news that Harmony Neaves and Ellie Tite, in our Little Robins Nursery, have recently passed their NCFE Cache in Early Years Workforce, Level 3. They have both worked incredibly hard and are absolutely wonderful members of our fabulous Nursery team. Congratulations to them both – we are really proud of their hard work and achievements.

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Reception class have settled so well into school life, and Mrs Thorpe, Ms Livesey and Mrs Culshaw have been so impressed with them all. They have been studying Autumn, and I was delighted to receive a knock at my door, with a portion of apple crumble that they had made from scratch – including picking the apples! Well done Reception – you have been amazing – and the crumble was delicious!

Form 3 have been enjoying DT this term for the first time. They started off carrying on with their DT projects where they have started to saw the base for their boat. Once cut, they used abrasive paper (sandpaper) to sand down the rough edges. They were having such a great time and were being super sensible with the saws. Form 4 have also been making puzzles during their enrichment session in DT.

Form 3 were all also absolutely amazing at their first sports fixture at Clayesmore today. It was wonderful to hear from a Form 3 parent how impressed she was with Form 4 who were there to look after them and show them the ropes, and were so kind and thoughtful. Form 3 were all so excited to represent Sunninghill and played incredibly well and were an absolute credit to Sunninghill. A very enjoyable first fixture!

Thursday night saw the first of our sailing club sessions at the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy. Despite the strong winds, our 9 intrepid sailors had a great evening out on the water. They especially enjoyed it when they were asked to capsize the boats!

Forms 1 and 2 enjoyed their first violin lesson today. Fantastic listening and a really great first lesson. It is wonderful to see the children developing a love of music from such a young age, which we hope will develop into a love of music for life. Form 7 also loved their lesson on the steel pans!