Generous
Support The school is
now the proud owner of two mini-buses.
The Friends of Therfield have funded a new 16-seater bus
costing £15,000 and made available £2,000 to repair the
old bus. These vehicles are absolutely crucial to the
school's out-of-hours activities and are in constant use
for visits, sailing and other sporting activities.
The Friends, being prudent providers, have kept a mini-bus
fund running for a number of years so that the full amount
did not have to be found at once and we are also grateful
to the National Grid for help in sponsorship. The Friends
would like to thank all parents for supporting the
activities which raised the funds and, in turn, students
and staff of the school would like to thank the Friends
for their ever present support and generosity.
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Lecture
Honour For the past four
years our Science teaching techniques have included CASE -
Cognitive Acceleration
through Science Education
- so much so that Miss Wood, deputy head
of the Science Faculty and a firm advocate of the system,
was asked by King's College, London to submit a paper for
the Tenth International Conference on Thinking.
Her paper was accepted and she delivered it at the
Conference, which was held at Harrogate from June
15th-19th. CASE is taught to Years 7 and 8 and the present
Year 10 was the first cohort to take the National
Curriculum Tests and achieved an 83% Level 5 pass rate,
well in excess of Government targets.
Miss Wood came back from Harrogate bubbling with
enthusiasm and greatly encouraged by the interest shown in
how Therfield uses CASE. 'All the eminent lecturers
present seemed positive that this was the way forward and
the promotion of thinking skills in the early years of
teaching Science is of prime importance. I loved every
minute of it!!", she reported.
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Rising
to the Challenge Our
mathematicians from Years 7 and 8 have, once again,
performed excellently in the UK Junior Maths
Challenge. This year the competition attracted a
record entry of 206,869 of which 72 came from Therfield.
Year 8 students achieved nine bronze, ten silver and six
gold certificates. Year 7 scored thirteen bronze and
twelve silver, with special congratulations going to Bethany
Page for securing the only gold for this year
group and also upholding the honour of the girl
mathematicians!
Year 8 gold awards were secured by Thomas Coton,
Stuart Cork, Thomas Crayden,
Tim Pitt, Thomas Rushton
and Richard Woods. Thomas Coton
gained the 'best in school' mark and, together with Stuart
Cork, was invited to participate in the next
round - the Junior Mathematical Olympiad for
which we await results.
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Please
Note A reminder
that Friday, 5th July is an INSET day and students are
not in school. Tuesday, 23rd July is the end of term and
school will finish at 1pm.
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Date
for your Diary The Governors
Annual Meeting With Parents will take place on
Wednesday, October 2nd, once again in conjunction with the
Friends Annual Meeting. Early in
September we will be holding elections for two new parent
governors and hope you will give some thought now as to
whether you will stand or seek to nominate someone.
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Support
Staff Wanted We have two
part time posts to fill for September - one for a Reprographics
Assistant and one for a Receptionist/Administrative
Assistant. Hours will be negotiable and the
posts advertised in the local Press. If you would like
more information, please telephone Barbara
Howarth, Finance Officer, at the school.
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Uniform
Sale A second-hand
uniform sale, organised by the Friends of Therfield, will
be held at school on Tuesday, 2nd July between 3.00 and
4.30 pm. Items for sale are still being accepted. These
must be in good condition and regulation school uniform.
Items are sold on a 50/50 basis and donations, of course,
are gratefully accepted. Letters have gone home about this
but if you need more information, please contact Sheena
Reeves on 01372 372531. Uniform sent in for
sale needs to be clearly labelled with name, tutor group
and price.
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Young
Poets It proved to be a
memorable occasion for our aspiring poets when the Year 8
group met Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion
at an evening arranged as part of Mole Valley
Literature Festival. Thomas Coton
and Oliver Marriage were hailed as the
first ever Youth Laureates and had the thrill of
reading their poems to a distinguished audience which
included Andrew Motion and Mole Valley Poet
Laureate, Linda Dowell. The group, under the
guidance of Mrs Penfold, have been
writing and discussing poetry at special sessions and have
produced an excellent booklet of their work.
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Concentrated
Reading Staff and
students who are taking part in the Carnegie
Shadowing Book Choice activity are reading
diligently to complete the book list so as to get their
considered judgement in by 'decision day' 11th July.
Books on the short list this year are - Love that Dog
by Sharon Creech, Amazing Maurice and his Educated
Rodents by Terry Pratchett, Journey to the
River Sea by Eva lbbotson, The Ropemaker by
Peter Dickenson, Jake's Tower by Elizabeth
Laird, True Believer by Virginia Ellwer Wolff
plus Stop the Train and The Kite Rider
by Geraldine McCaughreain.
It will be interesting to see if, this year, the judgement
of the Panel accords with the thoughts of the school
juries. For those wanting to access our thoughts, you can
check on them as they go on-line on www.ckg.org.uk
(click on Shadowing and Postroom).
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Music
News Cabaret Evening
will be held on July 11th - this is one of our most
popular social occasions and brings to a close a very busy
year for all our musicians. Information about the
programme and booking tickets goes out with this
Newsletter.
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Year
Seven Band Congratulations
to all those students who took part in the Practice
Challenge over the past four weeks - they completed a
total of 258 hours practice at home - that equals eleven
continuous hours! In a much closer contest than last term,
the Lower Bass section won with an average of 6.6 hours,
narrowly pushing the clarinets into second with 6.4 hours
each. Five students individually did 11-15 hours each - Graham
Potter, Rebecca Kyriacou, Heidi
Williams, Tim Rickard and Tony
Evans.
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Looking
at Paris Over half term
forty-two students from Year 8 travelled to Paris for five
days on a visit jointly organised by Geography and Modern
Languages. During the trip, their linguistic talents were
tested each day by having to order their own lunch and
also interview people on the Champs-Elysées. Students also
visited France Miniature, climbed up the Eiffel
Tower and took a boat trip along the River Seine.
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Higher
Education All Year 12
students came off timetable for one day to participate in
a number of activities designed to give them information
and guidance about applying to university. As well as
sessions on how to complete the UCAS form, choosing the
course and choosing the university, students attended
presentations from two outside speakers. The first was
from Project Trust, who organise gap year
placements around the world - Michael Traboulsi,
a former student, went to a Ugandan school as part of this
scheme.
The second was from SPW, another charity which
offers challenging and worthwhile gap year opportunities
in India, Thailand and Africa. The day went really well
and was a useful step in clarifying what can seem a vast
and complicated problem.
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Looking
at Canterbury Two
hundred Year 7 students made the annual Therfield
pilgrimage to Canterbury, following, to some extent, the
footsteps of those described so graphically by Geoffrey
Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. They visited
the Cathedral, site of the shrine to Thomas à Becket, the
castle and the Canterbury Tales Museum where
Chaucer's stories were brought to life. Despite the rain
on the first day, the students remained in good heart and
on the second day, the Year 7s were praised by both Museum
and Cathedral staff for their excellent behaviour.
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Ski
Trips Both the Senior
and Lower School ski trips next year will be going to
Austria during the Spring half term. The Seniors will be
going to Zell am See for the third year in
succession and Years 7-10 will be going to Zell am
Ziller. The dates are 21st Feb-1st March 2003 and
letters have gone home - Mr Hill is the
contact for the seniors and Mrs Wingrove
for the Lower School.
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Lost
Property As usual the
cupboard is full of assorted unnamed and unclaimed items,
the PE department and the Main Office has a number of
trainers - both singles and in pairs - and we even have a
pair of new very high heeled non uniform black shoes! This
is the last chance to claim lost items as we need to start
with empty shelves and cupboards in September.
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Computer
Tokens Thanks to all who
have contributed, we have collected 35,000 Tesco Computers
for Schools tokens. However, if you still have any
tokens hidden away at home there is still time to send
them in - Miss Peel is making a final
sweep before sending off the orders.
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Sponsorship
Wanted GNVQ Child
Development students need sponsorship for an infant
simulator which costs £428 - this is a more
sophisticated version of the mock baby they have
been using so successfully. If there is anyone willing to
help, Mrs Hook would be glad to hear
from you.
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How
to be a Blacksmith During
the Summer holiday, the Bridge Youth Club in
Leatherhead has eight places available on a course to
learn the skills of a Blacksmith's Apprentice. The course
takes place on 12th, 13th and 14th August and will cost
about £15. Students must be in Year 8 or above and the
Headteacher will be pleased to give you more information.
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Congratulations
Some good news on the
football front came when we heard that Antoine
Thompson in Year 10 has been selected to play
for the European Academy and will be representing England
at a tournament in Italy on 28th-30th June. Antoine has
been putting in some training at Bisham Abbey before
travelling to Italy.
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School
Meals From September the
value of a free school meal will be £1.40.
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Girls'
Cricket Following a
request from the girls to the PE department, an
enthusiastic squad from Years 7-10 have been training
regularly on Wednesday lunchtimes. They took part in a
tournament recently, came second in their group and missed
out by only six runs from going through to the
semi-finals.
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Young
People's Day Mole Valley
District Council plans to hold a day devoted to the
interests of young people on Saturday, 27th July at
Dorking. This follows a survey of young people in the area
- including Therfield students and will be a major event
giving information and displays on social and health
aspects and entertainment to include drama, art, sport and
music. Youth Workers have been visiting the school this
week to encourage our students to get involved.
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Sports
Academy A reminder that
a Sports Coaching Academy takes place at
Therfield over the Summer holidays. The five day courses
start on 29th July, Sth, 12th, 19th and 26th August and
run from 10am-4 pm. Most sports are catered for and the
age range is 9 - 16. The cost (special discount for
Therfield students) is £125. Non-Therfield £165. Pickup
Sport & Education of Ashtead are the organisers
and can be contacted on 01372 273141.
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Issue 100 published 26th July 2002