It’s our first full week back of the Autumn Term and it has been jam packed with activity! In our assemblies this week we have been celebrating some incredible successes of the children in all the challenges they took up this Summer. Not only have they all stepped out of their comfort zone and tried something new, they have also undertaken science experiments for Mrs Evans and written daily journals for Mrs Fernley in Forms 6-8. As usual we celebrated some good work awards with the children who have made a great impression on their teachers in their first week. Well done everyone!
Today in assembly we also had a visit from Giles Watts and Julie-Ann Booker from Dorchester ‘Streets Alive’ who came to talk to the school about their fabulous initiative – an event being held in Dorchester town centre to celebrate International Car Free day which is on Friday 22nd September. There will be a festival with stalls, music, activities and demonstrations all held in the Acland Road car park from 12pm – 5pm. Around 500 school children will be attending, along with members of the public, with the central idea being to encourage a behavioral change from using cars to using active transport – walking, cycling and scootering – for both health reasons and for our climate! Our Form 4’s and 5’s will be going along to the event as part of their enrichment programme, but for all other years, please try and pop in after school and support the event. It sounds like a lot of fun with a very important message.
Our Form 5’s have just returned from their residential and have had the most fabulous time in the Wye Valley with Rock and Rapids Adventures. Mr Stazicker and Mrs Baker tell us that the children have been incredible courageous and resilient as they took on some amazing challenges – not least canoeing for 7 hours in one day! They have been climbing and camping and I think we will have some very tired, but happy, children this evening!
I talked last week about our Sunninghill community showing compassion.
Tomorrow we have 2 events happening that I wanted to mention. Our Sunninghill sailors, Freddie and Will in Form 8, Scarlett, Hamish and Leo in Form 7, Max in Form 5 and Benjamin in Form 4 are all taking part in the ‘Bart’s Bash’ to raise money for the Andrew Simpson Foundation.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/sunninghillwriteup?utm_term=XPgMD5gGG
Also tomorrow, Mrs Telfer will be undertaking her incredible 100km in one day challenge to raise money for Mosaic – an amazing charity that gave her and her family so much support when she lost her husband in a tragic accident in 2015.
www.justgiving.com/page/joanne-telfer-100km
Hamish has also impressed us this week by coming into school with short hair for the first time since Form 2! He decided last weekend that he wanted to cut off his hair and donate his locks to the Princess Trust so a child can benefit once it has been transformed into a wig. It costs £550 to make a wig, so we would love to help Hamish raise the funds to ‘process’ his hair for such a wonderful charity.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/hamish-hair-donation
If you can support any of our fundraisers this weekend we will be incredibly grateful. We are so proud of all of them for showing such incredible compassion, as well as courage and commitment.
Yesterday, Form 8, Mr Holland, Mrs Nolan-Stone and Mrs Fernley visited central London as part of Form 8’s English curriculum.
The weather was perfect for site-seeing and the view from Lambeth Bridge was stunning. The lucky Form 8’s watched “Macbeth” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, impressively close to the actors, and had a sense of what the original performances in the Elizabethan theatre might have been like.
On the subject of Mrs Fernley, I hope she will not mind me mentioning that this week she celebrated a rather special birthday, so her Sunninghill family would like to wish her a very Happy ‘Special’ Birthday!
Tonight we were absolutely delighted to welcome so many of our families, to our ‘Welcome Back BBQ’. We could not have been luckier with the weather – perfect for a swim and a BBQ – and so lovely to see everyone catching up and enjoying the last of the Summer sun! Thank you to everyone who came and supported this event!
We hope you all have a wonderfully restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all next week.
Best wishes
David
