Mr
Reddin Mr Reddin
is making very good progress following his hip operation.
He is at home, missing school and sends best wishes to the
many students who will be taking tests and public
examinations this term. He plans to return early in May.
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| School
Day Changes With the
increasing emphasis on external examinations (now in Years
9, 11, 12 & 13) we are having to look at greater
flexibility to allow 3 hour exams in morning and afternoon
sessions.
During the main period of the exams, we
will be having the lunch break at 12.05, starting
afternoon school at 12.55 and, since there are no major
school assemblies, finishing at 3.15 pm.
This will run as a trial for this year
from 4-29 June and we would value parents' comments
afterwards to evaluate the impact of this change.
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Help
please ! We are in need
of adults willing to act as invigilators for the public
examinations, especially during June - either mornings,
afternoons or whole days! There is a small remuneration
for this - please contact Mr Tilley or
the Finance Office at the school for more details.
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| Help
for Parents A separate
letter is being sent home giving details of a meeting for
parents to be held at school on 10th May at 7.30 pm. This
is by way of being an experimental evening and is intended
to offer help and advice to parents trying to cope with a
family break-up.
The meeting which, on this occasion, is
for parents only, will bring together a number of
agencies which can offer help and support. If you are
interested please do return the reply slip on the letter
as we do need to know how many will be attending.
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| Spring
Concert Those who
attended the Concert on 5th April were unanimous in their
praise for all who took part. The programme, co-ordinated
by Mr Ben Langford, provided a very
popular mix of music, performed to a high standard with
evident enjoyment for participants and audience alike.
All of the school's major ensembles -
choirs, jazz band and orchestras - took part, with solo
contributions from Tim Boniface and Emily
King.
The Stompers, yet again,
contributed their special brand of entertainment and
music teachers Mrs Daune and Mr
Cordell were skilled accompanists. The
evening offered an impressive range of music, quality of
performance and enjoyment for all.
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| Celebrations!
Anyone who has watched
with interest the impressive building work going on at St
George's Church, Ashtead to provide the new Christian
Centre Complex will be pleased to know that Easter, most
appropriately, saw its re-opening. A week of events is
taking place to celebrate the re-opening including a
Flower Festival from 26th-29th April.
A group of enthusiastic youngsters, ably
led by Sam Coates, Relational Youth
Worker, have devised a collage depicting the school
badge which will be hung as part of the parish's 'links
with schools' display. St George's will be very pleased
to welcome visitors to see the displays and the new
buildings.
We also wish Sam the very best of health
and happiness as she commences her maternity leave. David
Bailey is her stand-in as Relational Youth
Worker.
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NCT
Tests All of Year 9 will
be taking their National Curriculum Tests in English,
Science and Maths from 8-15 May inclusive. Other subjects
will be assessed internally. Please make every effort to
get pupils to school punctually.
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Best
Wishes We shall miss Mr
Will Smith, Head of Science, who left us at
Easter to take up a promotion as Assistant Headteacher at
Greenshaw High School, Sutton. Mr Rolaston,
currently Head of Biology, will take over as Head of
Science in September.
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| Rag
Day Returns Sixth
Formers devised a number of ingenious methods of raising
money for charity during their Rag Days and, as a result
£1,840 was collected by the end of term, with promised
sponsorship likely to make the total up to £2000. This
excellent result means that sizeable donations can be made
to Macmillan Nurses Cancer Appeal and to Tadworth
Court Children's Hospital.
The Break Out enterprise tested the
participants' powers of persuasion and one group got as
far as Nice, others reached Cherbourg and Calais, while
the Isle of Wight and Oxford were the best returns for
this country.
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Prayer
Group Date for the next
Prayer Group meeting for Parents is Monday, 14th May at
8pm at the school. Anyone wanting more information or who
would like to request a prayer, should ring 01932 865476.
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| Japan
Day All Year 9 pupils
will be participating in a cross-curricular Japan Day
on Monday, 21st May. All pupils will have the opportunity
to take part in an array of activities, ranging from
origami and making masks to playing softball. It is hoped
that as well as being a valuable addition to their
studies, it will also be a lot of fun.
If parents have any materials or
information which could enhance the day, please contact
Miss Wraight.
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| Sailing
Holiday 34 pupils and
four staff enjoyed a week at the Medina Valley Centre,
Isle of Wight over Easter. All students gained an RYA
Sailing Certificate. There was plenty of wind, if a little
cold, and a highlight was a day-sail down the River Medina
to Cowes and out into the Solent and westwards to land at
Newtown River for lunch.
Apart from practical sailing sessions and
theory work ashore there was still time for leisure
activities and everyone returned home looking
wind-tanned and happy.
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| Well
Said! Anna
Langridge in Year 13 and Howard Ebison,
Year 12, have achieved outstanding results in their LAMDA
Speech and Drama examinations. They took acting as well as
verse and prose exams - a daunting task which most
students avoid. Howard gained his silver medal verse and
prose award and Anna achieved honours in her gold medal
examination.
Then, in March, Howard (silver medal) and
Anna (gold medal) gained honours in their Acting exams -
Howard scoring 135/150 and Anna 139/150. Not
surprisingly, Anna plans to go to university in October
to study Drama and Howard will go on to take his gold
medal in acting and verse and prose.
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Time
for Tasting Food and
Technology students from Years 9 and 10 acted as food
tasting judges for a well known food company when they
gave their opinions on a new pizza product. The brief was
to assess a pizza which could be microwaved and to comment
on portion size, best topping and texture of base. The
pupils were forthright in their comments and
representatives of the company were pleased with the
experiment.
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Literacy
Strategy Next week sees
the start of Punctuation Fortnight for Year 7
pupils. This follows on from Dictionary Week
held last month and a similar programme of activities is
planned. The aim is to reinforce basic punctuation skills
for Year 7 across all subjects.
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|
County
Sound Information
regarding unexpected school closures due to bad weather
etc. can usually be found by listening to the local
radio. County Sound have now set aside an Official Storm
Line so that parents can tune in on 1566 MW County Sound
and 96.4 FM Eagle for up to the minute information.
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| Surrey
Youth Games Sports
loving pupils have the opportunity to take part in this
year's competitions at Guildford on 9th and 10th June and
get some extra coaching on the way. The 11 boroughs and
districts in Surrey compete in an Olympic style event
involving athletics, basketball, football, hockey, judo,
netball, rugby and tennis.
The PE department has been encouraging
youngsters to take part and handed out a number of
application forms for those who would like to represent
Mole Valley in a keenly-contested and enjoyable
programme. If anyone would like to know more, contact
Kate Flynn or Campbell Livingston on 01306 879194.
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|
A Day
Out Surrey's Emergency
Services Day will be held at Police Headquarters, Mount
Browne, Guildford on Sunday, 13th May 10am-5pm. This is
always a great family day out with plenty of activities
and hands-on participation and this year has the added
attraction of celebrating 150 years of official policing
in Surrey. The cost of entry to families is £3 with the
money going to charity. More information from 01483
482068.
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| Sporting
Round-Up Top of the bill
this month is the news that the Year 9 football team have
reached the finals of the County Cup. They beat Glyn
School 3-1 on Tuesday in the semi-final.
We have hopes that the Year 7 team -
unbeaten to date - will follow them but a backlog of
fixtures means they have yet to play their semi-final.
The boys' U16 Badminton Squad have reached
the finals of the County competition. Chris
Langridge and Philip Rippin
were selected to represent Surrey in this year's
Inter-Counties tournament and later this week Chris
plays for England in the Six Nations 2001 tournament in
Holland.
The weather has played havoc with the
cross country programme this year but we managed to go
ahead with the Inter-House competition using a course
confined to the playing field. In very challenging
conditions runners put up some very competitive times
with Polesden competitors seeming to have wings instead
of mud on their feet as they took six of the winning
team spots!
Years 7, 8 and 9 have shown great
dedication to Rugby this season and have trained and
played in dreadful conditions. Year 9 ended their
programme with a narrow defeat at Blenheim 32 - 26 with
Years 7/8 reversing the result with a 36 - 33 win the
next day. Mr Batchelor has been
impressed by the keenness shown and by the number of
exciting and high-scoring matches. "We are now a very
competitive unit", he said.
Therfield's link-up with Ashtead Cricket
Club is continued this year and we will be entering
teams in the league and county cup competitions. Girls'
sport has been hit particularly by the absence of cross
country in which we have a number of excellent
contenders. Netball and Hockey friendly matches and
tournaments have been played and we now look forward to
a summer of athletics, tennis and rounders.
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| Study
Leave Arrangements Year
12 will be taking AS exams and study leave starts on 22nd
May. They return to school on 20th June to begin their A2
courses.
The last day for formal lessons for Year
13 is Friday, 18th May and Year 11 have their Leavers'
Ceremony on Monday, 14th May.
Revision lessons have been organised for
Year 11 and they will be notified of these next week.
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Help
Wanted We still need
someone to serve tea/coffee for three mornings a week in
the Staffroom. Please contact the Finance Office if you
are interested.
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Marathon
News Our three marathon
runners all completed the course and can now proudly
display their medals and T-shirts. Mr Hostier,
Modern Languages, ran for the Coram Family Trust and
finished in 4h 24m. Jeremy Weeks and Peter
Butler came home together in 4h 29m and, thanks
to clever use of a mobile phone, had cheer leaders urging
them on at a number of strategic points.
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Pupil
Post Letters sent home
via 'pupil post' include :
Year 10 Exam details
Academic Tutoring times
Family 'Help' Evening on May 10th.
Look at the News home page to see if these can still be
downloaded.
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Resource
Centre Mrs
Burnham would like to thank all Year 7 parents
who donated books to the Library last month. The response
was an astounding £360 worth of beautiful new books. She
is now speedily adding to the catalogue of books available
for loan.
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Issue 87 25th April 2001