Wellesley Weekly 27th January 2020

Upcoming Events

NEXT STEPS: THE BOARDING OPTION

A chance to discover how modern independent schools
prepare young people to be the next business leaders
Saturday 21 March, 10.30am
Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ,
King’s Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY
Info and booking: www.benenden.school/next 

Stay and Play

Stay and Play will be held on Friday, starting at 2pm. The sessions are open to all and primarily aimed at children aged 0-4. Mrs Brown and Mrs Reed will be hosting these events in the Junior House and parents will remain with their children. All enquiries/bookings should be addressed to admissions@wellesleyhouse.net 

Easter cricket course

After the huge success of last year’s course, we are delighted to announce the dates for our Easter Cricket course – Monday 20th April and Tuesday 21st April 2020. This follows the news that Wellesley has been recognised by the internationally renowned magazine, “The Cricketer”, as one of the top 50 cricket playing prep schools in the UK. The full article can be downloaded here. The course is for boys and girls of all levels, aged between 6 and 13, and will be led by Wellesley’s team of qualified and experienced coaches. Please click here for full details on the course.  The booking form can be found by clicking here.

The Friends of Wellesley Quiz

The Friends of Wellesley Quiz will be held on Friday 20th March at 7pm. Once again Jean Latteur and his team will host the evening, accompanied by delicious curry and fizz. Team tables can be organised for between 10-12 guests. Tickets are £20 per head. Please contact Belinda Wakeling, belindawakeling@hotmail.com, with your team name, details and money if you would like to take part.

School Last Week

General Knowledge

The General Knowledge team travelled to King’s, Rochester on Monday afternoon to compete in the 1st round of the Rowland Constantine Shield.  To read more click here.

Burns Night Supper

We all had great fun with our Burns Night celebrations last Tuesday.  Following the consumption of haggis, tatties and neeps at supper, the children participated with gusto in a very enjoyable evening of bagpipes and Scottish dancing.  Thank you to Mr Curtis and his team for the wonderful spread, and to Mrs Spencer for organising and leading the dancing, both on Tuesday and for the rehearsals the previous week.

Pre-Prep Trip to Wingham

All the Pre-prep children enjoyed a fun and informative day at Wingham Wildlife park. As well as talks from keepers, the children experienced close up encounters with Humboldt penguins, lemurs and an enormous T-Rex. It was a great experience for our very youngest children who behaved impeccably on their very first Wellesley Haddon Dene trip. 

JB and EYFS Class visit to puppies

Last week the children in Reception and JB received an exciting invitation to visit a litter of poodle puppies living on the Ramsgate Road. The children loved meeting the poodle Mum Pepper and learning about the development of two week old puppies. The owners were so impressed with the children that they have invited us back to see the puppies again once their eyes have opened and they have become a little more active, they were also very grateful for the thank you letters that the children sent to them. 

Squash

Our annual trek to Tunbridge Wells to play Holmewood House is a much anticipated match, mainly because it is the only match we play children of the same age. For the U11s it is their only match of the season. It is always a tough fixture as Holmewood House are a formidable squash-playing school, but some matches were won and many were hard-fought. It is good to see as our players learn from playing strong opposition, and the ability to change game strategy in a match is one of the many abilities a sportsman or woman must have. Each player played two matches, the best of three and we recorded five wins. Well done to them all.

This Saturday sees the annual parents squash match. Seven children from Blocks 1 and 2 will be playing a family member. 

Shooting

Congratulations to Amelia Lawton who shot the highest score (of 99) achieved during Mr Latteur’s time in charge of shooting! Well done, Amelia.

School This Week

Block 2 & 3 Parent/Teacher Meetings

There are Parent/Teacher meetings for Block 2 and 3 this Saturday 1st February. They will be held at 11.45 am and will take place in the Old Hall.

Mark Reading

The first marks of term have been given and the standings are as follows:

Special mention goes to the following pupils who have achieved the highest set of marks for their year: Melody Flowers, Grace Flowers, Gracie Lawton, Henry Barker, Reuben Okotie and Joe Dawson.
The most improved pupils in each year group were Platon Shatokhin, William Franklin, Mimi Rowe, Reuben Okotie and Mola Etan.

Team of the Week

The winners of this week’s ‘Team of the Week’ are the U9 tag rugby team who acquitted themselves so well in their recent matches. They will be rewarded with cookies and squash in the Headmaster’s drawing room during a morning break.

Chinese New Year

On Tuesday morning we were treated to our Chinese pupils and some Block 1 pupils retelling the story of Chinese New Year and explaining about the animals of the Chinese Zodiac in our school assembly. The children also enjoyed a Chinese feast at lunchtime and for those that were able, the opportunity to show off their chopstick skills!

Music on Monday

Music on Monday was provided by Oscar Vaughan playing an original piece on the guitar with a cool “bluesy” feel for a Monday morning.

Scholarships

Further Scholarship assessments are taking place this week, with children travelling to their senior schools to compete for art, sport, drama and academic awards. We wish each of the candidates success.

Wellbeeing 

At Wellesley Haddon Dene, we firmly believe that the wellbeing of every member of our community, be they pupil or staff, should underpin every aspect of the school. Wellbeing is not something that can be taught – it must be experienced that is why we empower our pupils and staff to take responsibility for their own wellbeing.
In April 2019 Ms Anna H Moosuddee was appointed as our Wellbeing Lead to enable us to further develop our wellbeing strategies for staff and pupils and we have been busy developing a range of initiatives to support us on our journey to being more mindful individuals. Pupils have enjoyed learning yoga, massage and meditation at Wellbeing club. Ms Moosuddee and Madame Laurans have shown us how to make bracelets, taken us on mindful walks and even encouraged us to do some mindful eating! Ms Moosuddee has a lovely room where there is always calm relaxing music playing. We love going to see the colour changing lamps!

General Knowledge

The annual SATIPS General Knowledge Challenge takes place this week. Five children will be taking the Under 13 paper and five will be taking the Under 11 paper. Good luck to all the competitors.

Sunday Outing

The outing for the boarders on Sunday will be Paintballing at Quex Park.

Everest in the Alps Ski Touring Challenge

Described as the toughest four days on skis, current Wellesley parents, Colin and Camilla Norton will be joining illustrious team members who have completed this monumental ascent and face the height of Everest for the ultimate winter endurance challenge. Fighting their way up 2200m vertical per day for four consecutive days they will be driven onward by the desire to raise funds for the Silas Pullen Fund and the Everest Centre, both of which work to raise awareness, fund and carry out research to find cures for brain tumours. Please click here for further information.

Menu

This week the kitchen will be serving Menu 1.

Matches Last Week

On Social Media