| Back
at the Helm I am now
fully back at the helm and very grateful to Mr
Geary, Mrs Hodgson and Mr Stewart
who took the main brunt of the extra work and kept the
school running so well.
We are looking for a number of part-time
teachers for September in English, Geography and
Religious Studies. If you know of anyone interested,
please encourage them to contact the school.
Regretfully we say goodbye to Mr
Winchombe who is leaving to take over as Head
of Faculty at St Paul's School, Sunbury. As well as
being an excellent Maths teacher, Mr Winchombe also set
up and ran the cycle registration scheme. We
congratulate him on this promotion and we shall miss
him.
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Mobile
Phones We do strongly
discourage these at school. A number seem to get lost very
easily and we remind parents that we can accept no
responsibility for these valuable items. See reminders
below.
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| The
Other Cup Final! Therfield
was involved in its own Cup Final on 14th May when the Year
9s played Archbishop Lanfranc School, Croydon
in the Surrey Final. We won 3-0 with
goals from Steven Douglas (2) and Craig
Hughes. The boys - and their supporters - had
the extra thrill of the match being played at Selhurst
Park. It was an excellent team effort throughout and
enabled them to win a competition in which 63 schools had
entered. Well done to all involved - members of the squad,
Mr Garner, Head of PE, Mr Mayhew,
Year 9 trainer, plus the many parents who have supported
them through all the rounds come hail, rain, mud and
out-of-the-way destinations!
Year 7 came close to
joining them but lost in the semi final of their group
to a physically much larger team from Southborough Boys.
To the chagrin of Year 7 this was the first match - cup,
friendly or league - they lost all season!
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Badminton
Our successes continue
with the U16 Boys retaining the Surrey Shield.
Chris Langridge, Philip Rippin, Andrew Morris,
Steven Latham, James Molyneux and David
Swingler had a good win, 6-3, over St John's
School in the final.
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Athletics
The District
Athletics Championships took place in awful
conditions last week and Therfield pupils again did well.
We came second in the Intermediate Girls, Intermediate
Boys and Junior Boys and fourth in the Junior Girls. Many
of our athletes finished in the top two in their events
and will go on to represent Central Surrey in the County
Championships. We are still awaiting final results from
the English Schools' Track and Field Cup, which was held
at Charterhouse School.
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Governors'
News We welcome Mr
Andrew Bingham and Mr Eric Skyte
to Therfield's Governors. Mr Skyte has served previously
on the Board and is a co-opted member. Mr Bingham is a
Chartered Surveyor, has two children, aged 12 and 9, and
is the newly appointed LEA Governor. Fetcham parents will
know him from his active participation with the Friends of
Oakfield.
|
| Success
in Maths Excellent
results followed the entry of 84 pupils from Years 9, 10
and 11 in this year's UK Intermediate Maths
Challenge. A total of 55 certificates
were achieved, twelve of which were gold. James
Claxton, one of the younger entrants from Year
9, gained the Best in School award. His reward
is to be invited to enter the European Kangaroo
an international event plus the chance to sit an even more
advanced paper set by the Maths Challenge organisers! Well
over 2000 schools took part and gold certificates are
awarded to the top 6%.
Therfield's Gold certificate winners were:
Dan Richards, Emily Parker, Nick Reeves, Philip
Rippin, Collins Ekere, Alex Christie, Luke McFadden,
Adam Harwood (Year 11), Rachel
Greenaway, Lydia Taylor (Year 10), James
Claxton, Helen Bartlett (Year 9).
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School
Day changes A reminder
that during June 4-29 we shall be operating a change of
timing within the school day. This is to allow greater
flexibility to cope with the ever-increasing demands of
external examinations. During this time 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 3.15pm.
This will run as a trial for this year and
we would value parents' comments afterwards so as to
evaluate the impact of this change.
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Job
vacancy A term time only
job is available in the kitchen - please phone Mrs Stedman
on 01372 375089.
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Help
for Parents The meeting
arranged by the School Counsellor for 10th May was
cancelled due to lack of response from parents. It was
intended to offer help and support to families where
divorce or separation was causing problems. Helen
Riseborough replied personally to those who had responded
and would be pleased to supply an information pack to
anyone else who is interested.
|
BCG
update Parents will be
aware that the BCG immunisation programme that protects
against Tuberculosis was suspended due to a national
shortage of vaccine. The Department of Health has now said
that the programme can be re-started. As there is a
backlog of several years among school pupils, the local
Health Authority has announced that it will begin to phase
in the programme in the Autumn term:
- current Years 10 and 9 will be
immunised next September (2001)
- current Years 8 and 7 in September
2002.
- consent forms will be sent home the
preceding July.
Further information from the School Nurse
Manager on 01372 735431.
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Prayer
Group The final Prayer
Group meeting of the school year for parents is Monday,
25th June at 8pm at the school. Anyone wanting more
information or who would like to request a prayer should
contact 01932 835476.
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| Looking
for talent Children's
BBC are launching a new music talent show and are looking
for entries from pupils between the ages of 12-18.
They are looking for singers, groups and
bands representing as wide a range of music as possible.
They hope to offer the winning act a recording session
with a leading music producer. Auditions will take place
in early July.
Videos, audiotapes, CDs or minidiscs
should be sent to 'The Next Big Thing', PO Box 17237,
London W12 6GY and the closing date is
8th June. More details can be gained by
visiting the CBBC Website www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc
or Ceefax page 532.
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Looking
Smart A great deal of
money has been spent recently on upgrading toilet
facilities at the school. Those in the Food Technology and
Music corridors have been upgraded at the cost of £60,000.
Work has just started on refurbishing facilities in the
Art Department and also in Learning Support.
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| Success
in Cookery Clare
Smith and her exotic kedgeree with corn
pancakes and special garnish has won through to the final
of the Creda Challenge.
Clare, who is in Year 9, successfully
competed against 24 other semi-finalists from all the
regions to gain one of nine places in the final. This
will be held on 19th June at the Birmingham College of
Food. Clare has already won a cooker for the school and
a watch for herself and will be billeted in a luxury
hotel in preparation for the final. We wish her every
success.
|
Help
for Greville Greville
School at Ashtead is looking for a full-time caretaker -
or two people to job-share. If you would like to know more
contact the School on 01 372 274872.
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Website
well used Over 6000
visits have now been made to the school website. Not only
does it provide a valuable source of information to people
seeking a school, many enquiries come from abroad, but it
has inspired a number of ex-students to tell us their news
and suggest reunions.
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|
Africa
Evening 26th June This
important event for Year 7 takes place on Tuesday, 26th
June. Bliss Bowles is a pupil who has found the run up
to the big day particularly exciting. In an
imaginatively written evaluation she says 'Lesson
time is like a sea of colour. I'm sure that with these
bright and beautiful costumes Africa Evening will be a
huge success. I hope that all of you will have a fun
night and be proud of your sons or daughters in the
performance - they've all worked very hard".
|
Japan
Day Year 9 spent a
fascinating day on Monday 21st May learning about the
culture, dress, sport, geography, history and literature
of Japan. They were given lessons by Japanese helpers in
origami, calligraphy and how to dress in a kimono.
Particularly popular was an exercise in testing the force
of earthquake tremors on buildings. They even produced a
newspaper - Konnichiwa Express - setting out
reactions to the day and thanking those who organised it,
with a special mention for Miss Wraight.
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| Wider
reading A number of
staff and 25 students are taking part in the Carnegie
Book Awards Shadowing Project this year. The aim is
to read 8 new titles written by popular authors for
children and then get together to discuss the books and
write reviews which are posted on the Library
Association's website.
At the end of the eight-week project the
group will judge which book should win the main award
and track the findings of the national panel to see if
they agree. Anyone wishing to read the students' reviews
will soon be able to find them on www.la-hq.org.uk/shadowing
|
Sailing
Success Lina
Haines and Sarah Waldman
gained RYA Instructor certificates at the recent
residential sailing holiday in the Isle of Wight. To gain
this much sought after certificate entails many months of
hard work, both practical and academic, and reflects the
commitment of both these Sixth Formers to sailing.
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| Collecting
Thank you to those who
collected Nestle 'Box Tops'. The Learning
Support Department has received its first cheque and is
now registered for the scheme next year - so please keep
sending them in.
Final orders for Books for Schools
via crisp tokens have to be in by 22nd June so please
send in any tokens you have lurking at home. We have
collected 7000 to date.
Computer tokens from Tesco are
still being counted and the ICT department would welcome
any used ink jet or laser cartridges - we
need 50 more to claim a computer!
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Pupil
Post BBQ &
Bedrock Friends Summer Celebration 30th June.
[this event has subsequently had to be cancelled for lack
of interest/pupil post problems]
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Music
News The Swing Band and
Main Choir once again participated in the Annual
Concert organised at Ashtead for elderly residents
in the area. Despite limited preparation time due to the
holidays and examinations, both ensembles performed
extremely well and received many compliments from the
organisers and appreciative audience. Well done to those
students involved.
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| Dates
round up Change of Date
- Therfield's Open Evening will now take
place on Wednesday, October 31 2001.
Holiday Dates 2001/2
- The Autumn term starts for students on
Wednesday/Thursday 5/6 September with a staggered
start depending on year group. (Tuesday, 4 September
is an Inset Day).
- End of term is 20 December with half
term on 22-26 October.
- Spring Term starts on 7 January 2002
and ends on 22 March with half term on 18-22 Feb.
- Summer term starts 8 April through to
23 July; half term being 3-7 June.
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Issue 88 23rd May 2001