I was immensely proud of all our school this morning during our beautiful Harvest Festival Service. Our Form 7 and 8 pupils opened the service with Funga Alafia, an African welcome song. Reception and Bobbins followed, and sang a wonderful Autumn Song – ‘Big Red Combine Harvester’, Forms 5 and 6 played the steel pans brilliantly, and Junior String Ensemble performed ‘Sing to the Lord of the Harvest’ beautifully. Form 3 read a fabulous Autumnal poem, Form 4 performed ‘In Da Fields’ and ‘The Harvest Lowdown’ and our Junior Choir sang ‘Harvest Samba’.
My thanks must not only go to these fabulous performers and music teachers but the enormous number of parents who came to support the children and gave so generously to the collection. Rosemarie Husain and Linda Hutton, who work for the Portland Foodbank and were our guests this morning, were so touched by your generosity and absolutely loved the service. My thanks to her for coming along today, and also to Rev’d Keith Magee. I must also extend my thanks to Liz and Mrs Culshaw for the beautiful Autumnal displays in the hall. It truly was a wonderful morning.
On Thursday we were delighted to welcome 24 students from Coastland College who are all studying to become future early years practitioners and teachers. They were toured by our Form 8’s, had a chance to meet with our teaching team, and had a talk from Ellie Tite, our graduate from Coastland College, who had her placement with us, and is now a much loved member of our nursery team. Ellie was a fantastic speaker and I was so proud of her.
This week we also celebrated another member of our nursery team, as Ella Plowman, from the hatchling room, received her award for Superstar of the Term, across all of the ILG 29 nurseries. This is such a well deserved recognition of her hard work, dedication and the special bond she has with the children. Well done Ella!
Form 3 have been creating monsters in art with Mr Moss this term! They had such fun doing this and they look amazing!
On Thursday a team of 4 talented mathematicians in Forms 5 and 6, Martha, Baxter, Rory and Sonny went with Mr Butcher to compete in the year 6 Queens college team challenge. The competition was split in to 4 challenging rounds that tested mathematical skill, team work, problem solving, strategic skills and even co-ordination in the relay round. It was brilliant to see our students working amongst likeminded children, really enjoying their maths and holding their own against larger schools. The children had a great experience and did themselves and the school proud. Well done to you all.
It has been wonderful to see all the Autumn activities that Junior Prep have been doing with Liz. It is so important that children learn a love of nature at such a young age, and Liz really does show them the beauty and miracle of nature in all their gardening lessons.
On Monday Form 4 had an evacuee experience day at Bovington Tank Museum as part of their history topic on World War 2. The children found out about how people shopped, cooked and planned their meals during rationing in WW2 in the reconstructed street scene. The staff at the museum commented on how knowledgeable the children were about life in wartime Britain and they loved their enthusiasm for this topic. Well done Form 4. We are very proud of you all.
Form 8 were lucky enough to welcome local historian and author Brian Bates to their history lesson on Tuesday. As part of their topic on World War I, Brian discussed what it was like for those living in Dorchester at the time of the Great war. He shared a range of photographs and information related to this and the children asked him some really excellent questions about. It was particularly fascinating to hear about the role children in played and the skills they had to acquire to become part of the war effort. A poignant part of the talk reflected on the Eldridge Pope family who lived in the building Sunninghill Prep school now resides. It was also really interesting to find out how Brian got into writing books and how he went about completing his research. A huge thank you to Brian for giving up his time to inspire the next generation of historians!
It was lovely to welcome Activate Performing Arts, who came in on Thursday to collect the cheque for the money you so generously donated at the end of our Sunninghill’s Got Talent last term. They were delighted with the money and asked us to thank all the families who contributed, and the children who put on such a wonderful show.
Half term also marks the end of Form 1 and 2’s ski-ing lessons in enrichment, and the end of our sailing and windsuring enrichment activities. The children have all worked really hard and made incredible progress with their ski-ing and water sports and really grown in confidence. They have all absolutely loved it!
This week we welcomed Seb, Jake and Freddy to Sunninghill and we are delighted to see how quickly they have settled and been welcomed into the Sunninghill family.
Reflecting on the first half term of this academic year, it is incredible what exciting things the children have packed in. I am so grateful to all my colleagues for making all these things possible, and I wish them, all of your children and all of you a very happy half term break.
Best wishes
David
