Junior Reflections Week 13 December 2024

Dear parents,

What a fun filled week we have had and I can’t believe that I am writing the final newsletter of 2024, life seems to be racing away. The Carol Concert was simply wonderful, and everyone sang their hearts out; pupils and audience alike. A special mention to our two soloists, Agnes and Vally, and to all our young readers, who were simply brilliant.  I hope that this set us all up for enjoying the festive period and a special thank you to Mr Titchin and Ms Cox, who masterminded the whole service.

Festive fun

Christmas jumper and hat day was a spectacle to behold. My turkey hat is now a true tradition, and there were many sparkly jumpers and light-up hats that made the school twinkle. Christmas dinner was superb, with crackers pulled, jokes told and lots of full tummies. Thank you to Mr Swan and the catering team for making this event so delicious. The pupils then continued the day with fun-filled parties in their form rooms for the afternoon. More Christmas joy was followed with our Christmas service held at St Leonard’s Church on Friday, led by Rev Close; our readers were confident and articulate, and the whole school sang their hearts out.

Bebras challenge

Over a fortnight in November, all the junior school took part in the Bebras computational thinking challenge. Form One pupils took part in the Kits age category, Upper One and Lower Two pupils  in the Castors age category and Upper Two entered the Juniors age category. Upper Two is the first opportunity for pupils to take on the challenge independently as in the lower years, it is a team challenge where communication between team members is critical to success. We were particularly impressed to receive the results and find that 46 of our pupils were ranked within the top 10% of the UK’s participants, which is an extremely impressive achievement. These pupils will receive a gold award certificate to recognise this.

In each of the age categories, there is a Best in School award. This was won by two teams in Kits: Edward and Jack, and Serena and Bel. Samir, Barnaby and Tate won the award for the Castors age group with impressive full marks! In the Juniors category, both William and Mabel won this award and also received full marks. Even more impressively, William has received the Best in School award in three of his four years in the junior school and scored full marks in at least two of those challenges!

Staff departure

This morning, we bade farewell to our wonderful gap student Joe Poustie, who is off on his travels on Tuesday. I am sure you will join me in wishing Joe all the very best; he has been a simply brilliant gap student. We are very sad to see him go but he has promised to come back and visit.

Lower Two robot morning

This year’s Lower Two Robot Morning was a great success! Our pupils once again demonstrated remarkable perseverance and resilience as they engineered and programmed their robots.

The event was filled with excitement and innovation, as students tackled complex challenges with determination and creativity. Their programming skills were put to the test, and they rose to the occasion, showcasing their ability to problem-solve and think critically. A special mention goes to Alex, Tom, Max and Dexter, four A Level Electronics pupils, who volunteered their time and expertise to help out. Their support was invaluable, and their presence greatly appreciated by both pupils and staff. A huge thank you to Mrs Morgan for setting the morning up; it was brilliant. Scroll to the bottom of the newsletter to view photos in our Flickr albums.

Mobile phone parental forum

We had a packed house yesterday evening for the forum looking at mobile phone use in school. It was incredibly helpful to reflect on the positive and negative impacts of mobile phone use for children and to think about how we can develop our policy going forward to ensure that we place pupil wellbeing at the heart of our decision making. Dr Rory Conn, a parent in the junior school and a child psychiatrist, helped us to understand the clinical impacts of social media and mobile phone use on the wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. Mr John Wood and Mr Mike Glanville, who are leading this important policy review, took the forum through some questions and the data from the survey which more than 570 parents responded to earlier on in the term. We are on track to share the policy with parents next term and we will continue to reflect carefully on this important topic.

Young Enterprise

Next Wednesday is our last day of term, finishing at 12 noon and I wanted to let you know that if you wanted to do some Christmas shopping with us, then one of our Young Enterprise teams, called Exewicks Candles, will be selling their homemade candles from the junior school playground.

And so, as I come to the end of the last newsletter for 2024, it leaves me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.