I visited Form 5 in the art room today just in time to catch Mrs Saines’ lesson on botanical drawing. She had arranged beautiful flowers on each table for the children to draw and paint in watercolour. I was impressed with both their focus and how they were able to apply the skills they have been learning in this unit of work.
Last Tuesday, our winning team from the regional Flying Start Challenge drove to the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton to take part in the final. The ‘Levitate team’ comprised Theo S, Sam H, Vishnu J and Charlie D. Thomas E went along as he was unable to join in with the regional event. The boys arrived at the museum in time to eat their packed lunch, then they were quickly put to work on two challenges. The first was designing a catapult to launch a chocolate egg using only basic materials such as lollipop sticks, elastic bands, tape and plastic spoons. The aim was to use as few materials as possible and they propelled their egg 5m.
The second challenge was to design a contraption to stop an egg from cracking when dropped from a height; the group told me that they made a makeshift parachute and wrapped the egg in cardboard and tissue paper. Their design was highly original and and they ended up winning the egg drop prize! The main event was the fly off’ between the gliders. There were lots of strong designs and one flew to 21m. Our group did pretty well with 17m. Well done to the whole team and I know you particularly enjoyed your tour inside Concorde.
Our ‘Levitate team’ beat 23 other teams from around the country to win the egg drop challenge and came 7th overall at the end of the day. Thank you to Mrs Baker for supervising the boys.
On Wednesday 27th and 28th March, Forms 7 and 8 took part in the UK Junior Maths Challenge. Mrs Salisbury, our Head of Maths, tells me that this year, for the first time, we completed the challenge online: 25 questions in one hour, with questions becoming increasingly challenging. This year there were 8 Bronze certificates and 2 silver certificates, with Alex B and Astral close to a Silver and Gold certificate respectively.
Yesterday we waved Form 6 off on their residential trip to the Brecon Beacons. After a night camping, the plan is that they will be climbing Pen Y Fan today so let’s hope the weather stays dry for them. With lots of exiting outdoor ed activities planned, I am looking forward to the updates from Mrs Thorpe and Mr Stazicker (signal permitting!).
It was lovely to see Form 4 playing cricket on the lawn yesterday in the sunshine. The Form 3, U9 team enjoyed their matches against Chaffyn Grove and Salisbury yesterday, winning both and demonstrating great skills. This afternoon, the seniors are playing cricket matches at Martinstown, plus away matches at Dorchester Middle School and Yarrells. Thank you to our parents for supporting!
