This morning we were delighted to welcome Charlotte from Restless Development, a fabulous charity working to improve the lives of young people around the world. Charlotte came to talk to us today about their school triathlon event that is being held on Sunday 12th May. Last year they had over 7000 children from over 100 different schools take part in this event, raising just under a million pounds.
Children from Forms 3-6 are invited to take part in this unique sporting event designed especially for young people. Children get into teams of 4 and come up with a fun creative team name. Then they get fundraising. On the day, the three sports are completed in a relay format, allowing each team member to swim, cycle and run before crossing the finish line as a team. All abilities are welcome to take part in this event! We hope we can send as many teams of 4 as possible to the event, held at Bryanston School for our area. More details to follow, but please ask your child to think about who they would like in their team. But remember this is a fun event, and we want everyone to be included, and you do not need to have ever done a triathlon before!
After our talk we celebrated our well done winners for the week, Elsie, Toby, Arthur and Sukey! Academic Excellence went to Grace, Ivy, Evie, Sasha and Natty. Our 4 C’s winners this week were Emily R for commitment, Frank for creativity, Violet for compassion and Jonah for courage. We also handed out a lot of bronze and silver house point badges! Well done to you all!
Thank you also to Lottie who accompanied the school as we sang; ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’. She played brilliantly!
This week, we were delighted to welcome the Casterbridge Rotary Club, Dorchester and the judges, Tony Boyden, Ron Wrigley and Julian Snook at the start of the 2024 Rotary ‘Youth Speaks – A Debate Competition.’ We had some fabulous debates including; ‘Should homework be banned?’ ‘Should we invest in Space research?’ Should schools have daily games and PE lessons?’ ‘Is the use of social media to be encouraged as being beneficial for young people?’ and ‘Should mobile phones be allowed in classrooms?’
Well done to all the Form 7 and 8 children who took part and worked so hard on their debates – it was clear so much research, and so much practice had taken place. Thank you also to Mrs Fernley who worked so hard with all the children to get them up to this very high standard. Sunninghill Prep won this local heat, and the winning team, comprising of Iris, Charlie and Katy, will go through to the next round, with Katy winning speaker of the night with her persuasive arguments about why homework should be banned. Although very impressed with her arguments, I am still not entirely convinced….
Speak Out. Stay Safe
This week, Reception to Form 6 had an assembly created by the NSPCC to encourage them to have the confidence to ‘Speak Out’ to a trusted adult or to contact Childline if they have a concern or worry. Forms 2, 5 and 6 also had the opportunity to be part of a workshop with trained members of the NSPCC during their PSHE lesson. This has been a great opportunity to reinforce this message with all of these children and to make sure they know the ways they can get help and support if they need it.
Form 8 have been studying the Holocaust in their English, history and religious studies lessons over the last few weeks and produced poetry which they performed as part of the Holocaust Memorial Day held at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester. It was a very emotional and poignant event. The pupils should be very proud of the work they produced and of the positive response they received.
Form 7 pupils visited Shire Hall Historic Courts yesterday during their geography and history lessons to discover the role Dorset has historically played in smuggling. They looked at evidence related to individuals who were caught in the act and were shocked by how young some of the offenders were and the punishments they received. Two of the children found out that the village where they live was in fact a prime spot for smuggling! Next week, we will be hosting a follow-on session at Sunninghill, where the children can continue to develop their knowledge and understanding of these local stories and the evidence related to it.
We have had another fantastic week of sports this week. On Wednesday, we held our house hockey competition for our Senior Prep boys! Mr Willemse said; ‘Great camaraderie, fierce competition and an incredibly tense final, but in the end Frome were the victors with Purbeck a close second! Well played everyone!’ Meanwhile the senior girls were playing Colfox, and below is the match report from Katy!
‘This week has been an amazing week. But in sport it has been phenomenal. I went with Form 7 and 8 this week as we had netball matches against Colfox. In the third quarter for Form 8’s they were winning, and they all thought about our four C’s. They took compassion and wanted to give the other team another chance, so they all swapped their positions to something they had never played before. Katy swapped to GK, Izzy swapped to WD and Tabby swapped to GS.
The whistle blew and Tabby made a run into space. She then ran back into the D, grabbed the ball and with some courage she scored a goal. Everyone on the pitch clapped for her as this was her first time being a shooter. They went back to their positions and Tabby scored 2 more goals and Form 8 went home with a win.
Form 7 also played Colfox. It was very windy and cold but all of them showed great courage and got out to the pitch and played an amazing game. Although they may not have come home with a win, they certainly came home with a feeling that they had tried their best and that is all that matters.’
Thank you Katy! I am hoping we will get some regular match reports from our senior pupils!
Last week we talked about the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch which is taking place this weekend. Please don’t forget to fill in your form noting down any birds that you see over the weekend. Junior Prep have already been bird spotting this week with Liz – it’s amazing how many different varieties of our feathered friends visit our gardens here. It must be all those delicious treats the children have been making them!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
David
