Junior Reflections Week 22 2024
Dear parents,
Poetry by Heart
I had the absolute privilege of starting my week off with the finalists of Poetry by Heart; each and every one of the pupils who performed was superb and can be very proud of themselves. To stand up in front of the whole school and recite a poem takes tremendous courage and it was such a wonderful start to my week. I didn’t envy the judges who had the job of choosing Lower School and Upper School finalists but well done to: Vally, Ben, Monty, Agnus and Niyati and a special well done to overall winners, Finn U1 and Rory U2.
Celebration of Singing
On Wednesday I joined the Celebration of Singing where we invited Whipton Barton Primary and Wynstream Primary to sing with our Junior Singers. The chapel was full of enthusiastic singers, and it was wonderful to partner up with our local primary schools to share our love of music. Well done to everyone involved.
World Book Day
World Book Day was a huge success, and even though I was unable to attend due to being at an iTrust board meeting, I had many pictures and videos sent to me. The day brought excitement and creativity to the junior school, and it was great to see staff and pupils dressed as favourite book characters, filling our playground with colour and laughter during the early morning character parade. Our pupil librarians led a lively assembly on Wednesday, featuring Michelle Robinson’s poignant poem ‘Someone Else’s Shoes,’ highlighting books’ power to foster empathy and knowledge.
Author, Sam Sedgman, conducted captivating workshops for each year group, inspiring storytelling adventures. He discussed his latest release, “The Clockwork Conspiracy,” with the Upper School and shared tales from “Adventures on Trains” with the Lower School, leaving our pupils eager to explore more of his adventures and I am sure they will make good use of Sam Sedgman’s books, which are stocked in our library. The rest of the day consisted of quizzes, illustrating, sing-alongs, bookmark making, and the unveiling of the staff edition of ‘Where’s Wally 2024.’ A huge thank you to Mrs Hardy for masterminding the event; as always, it was a huge success.
Sports news
Mr Dutch and Mr Guy took a group of swimmers to Millfield to compete in the IAPS swimming. All the pupils performed brilliantly, and I look forward to sharing the results in more detail in the near future.
Viking Rocks
The school was certainly rocking this afternoon with an outstanding performance from all the Upper Ones in their play, ‘Viking Rocks’. There was some superb acting and I thoroughly enjoyed both performances. It certainly got my feet tapping! Well done, everyone, and thank you Ms Cox.
International Women’s Day
Rev. Close was delighted to welcome the junior school to the chapel today on International Women’s Day. Pupils had some fun with a quiz on the subject which the pupils answered intelligently, and they got to think about how we, as boys and girls, can help make the world a more equitable place. The big message for the girls was, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something because you are a girl (except go in the boys changing rooms!)”.
Tomorrow, I get the privilege of spending the morning interviewing for senior school prefects. This is a really enjoyable morning and I am always so impressed with the 40 candidates; I am sure it will, as always, be an extremely difficult decision.
Wishing you all a good weekend,
