Junior Reflections Week 17 January 2025

Dear parents,

Drone Day

Monday morning brought a unique start to the week with Drone Day, an event that kicked off with great excitement. The day was a resounding success, featuring STEM workshops for Lower Two and Upper Two pupils. These workshops were organised by house groups, providing a wonderful opportunity for pupils to collaborate across different classes and year groups.

All pupils, including our younger learners in Form One and Upper One, attended a special assembly showcasing the drones in action. This assembly was a source of inspiration for our younger pupils, sparking excitement for their future opportunities to program drones. During the workshops, pupils successfully programmed drones using the Swift programming language, with up to 11 drones flying simultaneously in the Andrews Hall at various points!

For those who were inspired by the activities, the video games created during the sessions used MakeCode Arcade. Pupils can save and access these games using their school accounts. Additionally, Swift Playgrounds, a free iPad app for programming apps for iPads and iPhones, is now available on all Upper Two pupils’ school iPads.

Careers

Upper Two pupils were also joined by Mr. Stuart MacKintosh, Head of Economics in the senior school, who delivered an engaging talk on future career opportunities, entrepreneurship, and navigating a changing job market. The session sparked a flurry of creative ideas, and we’re excited to see the resulting projects take shape.

Thought provoking talks

On Wednesday, Upper Two enjoyed a fascinating maths talk by Zoe Griffiths from Think Maths. The session explored various mathematical problems, focusing on topology and the Möbius strip, and concluded with a spectacular smoke-ring finale. Comets Club was led by Rev Close where pupils discussed “What’s it like to be a vicar?” The pupils visited the chapel to discover the various duties of a vicar. The group stepped into the roles of a wedding party and learned about the key moments of a ceremony. A big thank you to Rev. Close for leading such an engaging and informative Comets session.

Open morning

We held our first informal open morning of the year where prospective families can see our school in action. As always, our Upper Two guides were outstanding, talking so positively about their school; we sometimes take for granted how lucky we are, here, at Exeter School. Often when writing about all the things the pupils have done I am amazed at how we fit it all in but we do! For me all the little extras are what makes this school so wonderful.

Sports fixtures

The lower school kicked off the fixture season on Thursday with a fantastic mini tournament of netball whilst the boys got stuck in playing hockey against ECS. A fun afternoon of sport which luckily was not stopped by the weather.

Wishing you a dry weekend.