Mrs Moss and Mr Stazicker were at work early yesterday morning polishing cups ahead of our endeavour award assembly! Endeavour cups are calculated from the teacher effort grades in the school reports. The children who have consistently put in the best effort across all subjects earn the cup. Sport and Music half and full colours were also awarded. We also announced, as is customary, the House Points Winner and this term Frome won the trophy!
At the close of the assembly, we said farewell and thank you to Mme Shilliday after 14 years of loyal service. Heading up two departments (Science and French) she is an extremely talented, and well-respected teacher. Mme Shilliday is moving on to a new challenge teaching exam classes. We wish her well in this new role!
New for 2021_22, our new Student Council was announced in the assembly. Nominations were decided by pupils in Forms 3-8 and they enjoyed voting via a ballot box. Thank you to Mrs Johnstone who co-ordinated this. The newly formed council will be meeting in the drawing room for the first-time next term. Our aim is to increase the amount of input children have in the running of the school. Mrs Thorpe will kindly continue to promote Pupil Voice to ensure our younger years continue to get a say.
After the assembly, Junior Prep were asked to meet a special visitor in the drawing room. They were delighted to find Father Christmas and his elves sat by the fire waiting for them. They had even come bearing gifts! Our thanks to the PTFA for contacting Santa to arrange this.
A little later on Thursday, we all enjoyed singing carols outside around the fire pit. This is a slight change on tradition for us and it was great to see some parents braving the cold to join us, although we were very lucky and the sun shone.
Kerry and her catering team pulled out all the stops to serve us a delicious Christmas lunch with all the trimmings. We are very grateful to them, as always. The dining hall looked fabulous and thank you to Sharon for putting up all the decorations. This year I chose to sit with Form 5 and 6 and it was quite an experience. They sang tunefully but very loudly to the Christmas soundtrack all the way through! Thank you to Mr Stazicker who organised the ice-skating sessions in the afternoon for the seniors. Our younger children enjoyed a medley of traditional party games and music!
Today has been rather an emotional one for us all. Our retired headmaster, Mr John Thorpe, returned to Sunninghill for his official leaving and he enjoyed being a very special guest at our Carol Service. Mr Thorpe joined us for one of our loveliest events together, walking through town two by two in our red blazers to get to St. Peter’s Church.
Afterwards, back at school, we welcomed parents, governors and staff to enjoy mulled wine, mince pies! After speeches, gift giving and a few tears, everyone was delighted to have an opportunity to say thank you for all he has done for the school, and to pass on their good wishes for the future.
On Saturday, staff will be enjoying letting their hair down at our Christmas social, probably best I do not divulge the location and I will not be sharing any photos of this on the blog!
I hope this festive period offers you all a quiet moment to gather your family and friends together and that you find a little bit of time to rest yourself.
Tuesday 4th January is an INSET day for us, with COVID testing appointments for seniors.
We look forward to welcoming everyone back to school on Wednesday 5th January 2022!
From all the staff at Sunninghill, I wish you a Happy Christmas and New Year.
Nancy Sewed
