What a busy week we have had as we draw into our half term holiday! The weather has been absolutely glorious all week which has made everyone very happy. I have loved seeing the children playing in the sunshine, enjoying their lunch outside and practising their athletics ready for sports day. It really feels that, at last, Summer has arrived! This week has been assessment week. The children have all worked very hard and I have been impressed with their positive and calm attitude towards these assessments. I’m sure they have all done very well!
This morning, I was delighted to watch the fantastic Form 1 assembly on ‘Houses and Homes’ – the subject of their topic this term. Form 1 told us about the types of houses people live in and gave us a little bit of history about the uses of the rooms in this building, before it became a school. This was especially interesting after my meeting with Jeremy Pope last week who stayed here when he was a child. Form 1 created the most wonderful model of this building, as it would have been 100 years ago, together with a replica of the exact wallpaper that adorns our drawing room, and designed their very own William Morris inspired wallpaper that they have created in class. If you are near the Drawing Room, do pop in and have a look at it close up! It is fabulous.
It has been a very sporty week this week! On Tuesday, our U8 and U9 students headed to Leweston School for some fantastic cricket matches. The children all had a great time and are using all the skills they are learning in their lessons in match situations. Great work from you all.
On Wednesday, a group of students attended the Bryanston Swimming Gala with Mr Willemse. Some very successful individual races and relay races and wonderful support from parents and students.
It was also a great week for sailing with the National IAPS sailing competition for the U11 and U13 teams, held at the Andrew Simpson Centre at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy. Well done to our U11 team; Natty, Ren Ren, Leo and Hamish!
Another glorious day on the water followed on Thursday, with the U13 team consisting of Scarlett, Freddy H, Freddy P and Will. We were absolutely thrilled to come second out of 18 schools, and even more delighted that Will and Freddy P came 1st in 3 of their races, out of 36 boats. An absolutely incredible achievement!
All the schools commented to Mr Stazicker how fortunate we are at Sunninghill to have such a world class facility on our doorstep. We are very lucky indeed.
Form 6 had a fabulous day at Bryanston on Tuesday with Mrs Evans and Mrs Nolan- Stone at their Eco Challenge Day. The children were split into groups, and took part in 3 of the following challenges; making masks of endangered animals, designing an eco school, identifying trees in the grounds of the school, building a bug hotel and discussing the impact of climate change. The children were delighted to see Astral, one of our former Sunninghill pupils who is now at Bryanston. Astral is on the Eco Committee and helped lead one of the activities.
Carrying on with our eco theme, Heidi, Mabel, Max and Daisy, had a lovely time making wooden spoons from twigs so the children could have an ‘egg and spoon’ race. George in Form 1 even created a beautiful bug house in the low ropes yesterday which Liz Stein described as ‘wonderful!’.
Three of our children; Dexter, Guy and Beau also attended Bryanston this week for an Orchestral Day. Lesley Nolan-Stone says; ‘We had a wonderful day at Bryanston’s Orchestral Day. The progress the children made throughout the day was incredible and we were all blown away by the standard of the final concert at the end of the day. Former SPS pupils, and music scholars Astral and Will, had been chosen to perform as part of the concert, so it was lovely for us to get to see them. Congratulations to all involved and thank you to Bryanston for hosting such a wonderful day.’
Finally, our Summer Holiday Club is now available for booking. Mr Holland has been working incredibly hard all term to deliver a Holiday Club programme that we hope your children will love. This Summer, we will be splitting the children into 2 groups – 3-7 year olds and 8-13 year olds. Also, following the success of our Easter Music Club, we will also be introducing 5 new specialist clubs. For full details and the booking form, please go to our website:
Holiday Club
We hope you all have a wonderful and very restful half term holiday.
Best wishes
David
