Wellesley Weekly 9th September 2019

School Last Week

Start of Term

Welcome back to everyone for the start of the new school year. Particular good wishes go to the 36 new children who have joined the school at the beginning of this term. We are also delighted to welcome Mrs Sarah Reed who will teach our youngest pupils, Reception, in Junior House. Miss Kirstie Hopkin is also new and she will be teaching our Year 3 class (JH) as well as taking a lead role in Junior girls’ games. Mr Mark Curtis takes over as Catering and Domestic Manager. They are all fantastic additions to our team and we wish them all a happy and fulfilling time at Wellesley.

Music

Music lessons start back up this week. We are currently offering drums, piano, flute, clarinet, recorder, singing, viola and brass. Guitar lessons will be starting as soon as possible with our new teacher in the next few weeks. We currently have over 60 instrument lessons a week and we hope to build this up further this term.

General Knowledge

The annual individual General Knowledge competition took place on Thursday, with all the children taking the same paper. Congratulations to the winners in each year group, who were as follows:

Prizes will be awarded to all these winners in the Final Assembly at the end of term.

school play

Auditions took place late last term for parts in the Senior Play, ‘Finian’s Rainbow’. The major roles in the cast have been allocated and just parts in the ensemble remain to be filled. Rehearsals begin this week, continuing in the evenings throughout the next two months before the performances in November. 

Saturday Chapel

All parents, of both boarding and day children, are very welcome to attend the chapel services on Saturdays as detailed in our calendar. At our school only service on Saturday, Mr Franklin spoke about self-belief and courage and we were treated to a beautiful duet from our Head and Deputy Head chorister – Tom Leonard and Katie Baird. Well done, Tom and Katie. Mr Spencer will be addressing the school this Saturday, and the service begins at 12.20 pm to which all parents are very welcome and there will be soup and sandwiches in the library following the service.

Sunday Activity – Wellesley Heptathlon

This year’s seven teams had seven activities to navigate – clock golf, football skills, basketball, skittles, monkey trail, stump shy and croquet. Teams included children of all age ranges and each team’s captain was tasked with encouraging his / her team to ensure they all worked well together. This year’s winning team was ‘The Gorillas’, captained by Tom Leonard and included Harry Heming, Alexander Long, Patricia Fernandez-Alvarino and Teegan Pretzlik who all demonstrated great enthusiasm, skill and teamwork. Thanks to Mr Franklin, Mr Spencer, Mr Nichol, Miss Tuitt, Mr Robinson, Mrs Brown and Mrs Franklin for supervising the activities.

School This Week

Team of the Week

The ‘Team of the Week’ will be announced at each Monday’s assembly. This week’s winners, for demonstrating impressive responsibility and teamwork in helping our new pupils to settle, are our “pilots”. Well done. They will be rewarded with cookies and squash in the Headmaster’s drawing room during Thursday’s morning break.

6 of the Best

The first piece of artwork of the year has been selected by Mr Parfitt to hang on the wall of the Headmaster’s study. It was selected from a number of great pieces completed over the holidays by our pupils. Congratulations to Mola Etan, who’s still life chalk pastel artwork was selected.

activities

The programme of afternoon and evening activities kicks off in full this week. Thank you to Mr Kearns for his efforts in co-ordinating the wide range of pursuits.

Evening Activities

A letter from Mr Kearns updating parents about our evening activities has been sent out (and is available on the portal). Please could parents keep an eye out for this. A copy of the letter is also on the activities notice board in Red Covered Way.

Sporting Fixtures

Sports fixtures begin this week with hockey and soccer matches against Dover College, St Edmund’s and Junior King’s. Good luck to all our sportsmen and sportswomen for a successful season.

Captain of football

The first sporting captain has been appointed. Congratulations to Freddie Miles who is this year’s captain of football. Best of luck to him and his team for the season ahead.

Team-Building

Children in Block 4 will be taking part in a Team-Building day on Friday led by Mr Longdon and Miss Wallace. This will include plenty of fun and solving various problems requiring the children to work together. We wish everyone a very enjoyable day.

Sunday Outings

Boarders this weekend will be accompanying Mrs Williams and Mr Parfitt to Wingham Wildlife Park.

coffee morning

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to the start of term coffee morning.  It was lovely to see so many of you and we look forward to a successful term.

Dates for the diary

Thursday 19th September Genes for Jeans Day.  The children may wear their jeans/denim into school on Thursday 19th September and £1 will be added to your school bill. 

Friday 27th September Macmillan Coffee morning.  Come along to the Headmaster’s private side after drop off for coffee and croissants and a new game of dunk the biscuit in the cuppa!

Menu

This week the kitchen will be serving Menu 2.

Matches Last Week

On Social Media