Welcome Back!

Welcome back – and what a fabulous start to the Summer Term we have had! With pretty much wall to wall sunshine, we have got straight back into the swing of things after the long Easter break – with theatre trips, residentials, special visitors and some fabulous awards to celebrate.

I have loved seeing the children playing so happily together during their break times, and it has given me particular pleasure to see the older children playing with our Junior Prep, and enjoying the fabulous blossom that is in full bloom. These captured moments really make Sunninghill such a special place.

This week we welcomed Ruby and Maddy to Sunninghill. They have already settled so well into life here at Sunninghill and we know they will make a great addition to our school community.

In assembly this morning we welcomed our new Heads of School – Rosa and Louis. We know they will be excellent role models to our younger pupils and a great support to the staff. We also congratulated Felix for becoming our sports prefect for cricket this term.

We also congratulated Ava, Rosie, Connie, Yasmin and Jonah for receiving a Well Done certificate – a great start to the term.

I was also incredibly proud to share the results of our LAMDA examinations – which are amongst the highest scores we have ever received. 100% of our pupils received a merit or a distinction, with 92% receiving a distinction. Special mention must be made to Nora, Charlie, Olivia, Romeo and Fin who all received scores in the early 90’s! Juliet in Form 3 also received the highest score for her LAMDA of 95% which is a school record. Well done to all the children and to Mrs Noyce for achieving such great results, and to Louis for being such an excellent LAMDA prefect, helping all the children prepare for their examinations.

This week, Forms 3 and 4 have been on their residential at Brenscombe Activity Centre. The children enjoyed high ropes, climbing, abseiling, Bushcraft activities, a night walk, canoeing and ice creams on the beach! A huge amount of courage, commitment and compassion was shown all week – and they all had so much fun!

We are incredibly proud of our residential programme at Sunninghill, as it teaches the children so much – independence, teamwork, bravery, resilience and encourages them to try things they have never done before.

My thanks to the team at Brenscombe and of course to Mrs Gough and Mr Cracknell who have looked after the children so wonderfully all week.

On Monday afternoon, Junior Prep had some special visitors. Charlotte, our local PCSO from Dorset police and two of her colleagues came to chat with Junior Prep all about their role in the community. The children got to see some equipment that is carried in the police car, saw the blue lights flashing and even got to sit in the car! The children asked Charlotte some super questions and were very polite to our visitors.

On Wednesday, Senior Prep enjoyed a trip to the Poole Lighthouse Theatre to see an abridged version of Shakespeare’s plays. It was a lot of fun, and a great experience for the children.

We are absolutely delighted to share that our Little Robins Nursery has been awarded a Top 20 Nursery Award for the whole of the South West of England from daynurseries.co.uk, for the second year running.

Our Little Robins team are extremely proud to have been recognised with this award, which is based on the wonderful reviews that have been written by our nursery parents.

The nursery team work incredibly hard to ensure that all the children in our care receive the very best start in life, and that, as stated in our recent Ofsted Report, ‘children experience a warm, nurturing and highly supportive environment from the moment they join the nursery’.

It was an exciting week for Little Robins – not only did they win their big award, but we also opened up our new Preschool room! It was so lovely to see how proud and ‘grown-up’ our pre-schoolers felt moving into that room! Congratulations to Harmony who has been promoted as room leader for that room.

Friday enrichment began on this gorgeous Friday afternoon. While the windsurfers were enjoying their time on the water, Reception were enjoying outdoor games, Forms 1 and 2 were learning golf, Forms 3 and 4 were enjoying ice creams on Studland beach after a morning of canoeing at their residential, and the rest of the Senior Prep were learning expedition skills or playing rounders. What very lucky children.