www.swps.org.uk Like us on Facebook Follow @SWPSOfficial on Twitter Head‘s News It seems extraordinary that we have already reached Half-Term. Where have the seven weeks gone? Of course the passing of time moves more quickly when we are busy and engaged. Already the Year 7s seem older and more mature. Proust once wrote that our bodies are the material that makes time manifest and how true that is as students grow up. Over the previous weeks we have seen some excellent netball, hockey and rowing, some thoughtful and thought-provoking Extended Project presentations from the Senior Sixth as well as a beautiful Chamber Concert. In addition, our building projects are moving ever onward to completion. As the girls approach their break and take a well- earned rest, I suspect that they, in fact, will not be any less busy or less occupied than when they are at school. Given the range of trips taking place during this period and the variety of activities many of them participate in outside of school, I know that SWPS girls will be very fully occupied indeed. Nonetheless, in the following two weeks the rhythm of their lives is altered. The girls will undoubtedly do different things in different places and probably to a different criterion. This break in the rhythm of life is hugely important. It gives us the chance to reflect and to consider - a moment to pause and evaluate. I recently talked to the girls about this precious opportunity for thinking and how important it is to us for our well-being. Time spent reflecting on what we are doing, considering how we might do something differently, not necessarily better, is never wasted. Schools imitate life in many ways and none more so than the constant pace of activity. They are busy places and the feeling that there is not enough time can often lead to our biggest mistakes. So when the time to relax, pause and reflect is on the horizon, I hope all the girls seize that moment and use it wisely. C Muller Head Date for your diary: Saturday 25 June 2016 - Year 11 ‗Prom‘ To celebrate the end of exams, a committee of elected Year 11 students will be organising this event during the Spring term. More details to follow! New website goes live! We are delighted to announce the launch of our new website, which went live a few days ago. So far we have had great feedback, especially about the ease with which the content can be found. We will be constantly updating and tweaking it, but a huge congratulations to Mr Hallsworth, who has put in an enormous amount of work on this project over the last few months. Do remember that the calendar feature enables you to filter and download events to your own diary, which you may find helpful. Also, there is a list of upcoming Residential trips until 2018 which will continue to be updated with any changes of details. Inter-House Bake-Off Final There were lots of lovely smells coming from the HE room on Thursday due to the Inter-House Bake-Off final. There were 12 competitors; 3 from each house. Representing Lonsdale were Abi North (8AS), Felicity Cunliffe (8LT) and Ria Konkumalla (7L). Montagu had the following competitors: Nadia Ivanova (8SB) , Zoe Lewis (9KD) and Ayra Tengku (7M). Representing Pankhurst were Sadie Koram (8CC), Niamh Moynihan (7M) and Alice Hogan (8CC). And Quant: Sasha Glasson (9ES), Sharanya Roy (7Q) and Jemma Smith (7Q). The pupils repeated making a jam Swiss roll as they had for the heat but some opted to add in some extra decorations to add a little extra to the finished result. The judges enjoyed tasting all the Swiss rolls and were very impressed with the high standard. The results were as follows: 1 st place – 50 House points Lonsdale (Felicity Cunliffe 8LT) 2 nd place – 25 House points Lonsdale (Abi North 8AS) Joint 3 rd – 15 House points Montagu (Zoe Lewis 9KD) & Quant (Jemma Smith 7Q) Huge thanks to Mrs Eldridge and Mrs Blyther for stepping in at the last minute to judge and to Claire Hopkins (S6PT), HE prefect for her help. S Hay SWPS News 16 October 2015 Photography Club This term Mrs Sumeray has been offering a school Photography Club at lunchtime, and has seem some excellent work. The star photo this week is by Saskia Frayling of a ladybird on pampus grass, in the school grounds. R Sumeray
Transcript
www.swps.org.uk
Like us on Facebook
Follow @SWPSOfficial
on Twitter
Head‘s News It seems extraordinary that we have already reached Half-Term. Where have
the seven weeks gone? Of course the passing of time moves more quickly when we are busy and engaged. Already the Year 7s seem older and more mature. Proust once wrote that
our bodies are the material that makes time manifest and how true that is as students grow up.
Over the previous weeks we have seen some excellent netball, hockey and rowing, some thoughtful and thought-provoking Extended Project presentations from the Senior Sixth as well as a beautiful Chamber Concert. In addition, our building projects are moving
ever onward to completion. As the girls approach their break and take a well-earned rest, I suspect that they, in fact, will not be
any less busy or less occupied than when they are at school. Given the range of trips taking place during this period and the variety of activities many of them
participate in outside of school, I know that SWPS girls will be very fully occupied indeed. Nonetheless, in the following two weeks the rhythm of their lives is altered. The girls will undoubtedly do different things in different places and probably to a different criterion.
This break in the rhythm of life is hugely important. It
gives us the chance to reflect and to consider - a moment to pause and evaluate. I recently talked to the girls about this precious
opportunity for thinking and how important it is to us for our well-being. Time spent reflecting on what we are doing, considering how we might do something differently, not necessarily better, is never wasted. Schools imitate life in many ways and none more so than the constant pace of activity. They are busy
places and the feeling that there is not enough time can often lead to our biggest mistakes. So when the
time to relax, pause and reflect is on the horizon, I hope all the girls seize that moment and use it wisely.
C Muller Head
Date for your diary: Saturday 25 June 2016 - Year 11 ‗Prom‘ To celebrate the end of exams, a committee of elected
Year 11 students will be organising this event during the Spring term. More details to follow!
New website goes live!
We are delighted to announce the launch of our new website, which went live a few days ago. So far we have had great feedback, especially about the ease with which the content can be found. We will be constantly
updating and tweaking it, but a huge congratulations to Mr Hallsworth, who has put in an enormous amount of work on this project over the last few months. Do remember that the calendar feature enables you to filter and download events to your own diary, which you may find helpful. Also, there is a list of upcoming Residential trips until 2018 which will continue to be updated with any changes of details.
Inter-House Bake-Off Final There were lots of lovely smells coming from the HE room on Thursday due to the Inter-House Bake-Off
final. There were 12 competitors; 3 from each house.
R e p r e s e n t i n g Lonsdale were Abi North (8AS), Felicity
Cunliffe (8LT) and Ria Konkumalla (7L).
Montagu had the following competitors: Nadia Ivanova (8SB) , Zoe Lewis (9KD) and Ayra Tengku (7M).
Representing Pankhurst were Sadie Koram (8CC), Niamh Moynihan (7M)
and Alice Hogan (8CC). And Quant: Sasha Glasson (9ES), Sharanya Roy (7Q) and Jemma Smith
(7Q).
The pupils repeated making a jam Swiss
roll as they had for the heat but some opted to add in some extra decorations to add a little extra to the finished result. The judges enjoyed tasting all the Swiss rolls and were very impressed with the high standard. The results were as follows:
1st place – 50 House points Lonsdale (Felicity Cunliffe 8LT)
2nd place – 25 House points Lonsdale (Abi North 8AS)
Joint 3rd – 15 House points
Montagu (Zoe Lewis 9KD) & Quant (Jemma Smith 7Q) Huge thanks to Mrs Eldridge and Mrs Blyther for stepping in at the last minute to judge and to Claire Hopkins (S6PT), HE prefect for her help.
S Hay
SWPS News
16 October 2015
Photography Club This term Mrs Sumeray has been offering a school Photography Club at
lunchtime, and has seem some excellent work. The star photo this week is by Saskia Frayling of a ladybird on pampus grass, in the school grounds.
Breaking the Cycle On Tuesday, Year 11 had a talk from the
charity ‗Breaking the Cycle‘ as part of their PSHCE lessons. The program stresses honest communication and forgiveness as a way of resolving conflicts and easing the tensions that linger afterward. The
speakers, Julie and Dan, told Year 11 about some of the tragic and heart-breaking events which have shaped their lives, and how they managed to overcome the bitterness and hatred that resulted. Everyone listening took away a valuable lesson about the power and importance of forgiveness.
C Worman
Sixth Form Politics students visit the Houses of Parliament
The grey and dismal weather was in stark contrast to the magnificent buildings of the Palace of Westminster. The highlight was going into the two chambers, which are much smaller in real life than they appear on television. The
benches in the House of Lords are covered in red leather, because red is the colour of nobility and the benches in the House of Commons are covered in green leather. There are several theories as to why green is used in the Commons, including that green dye was the cheapest.
The bound copies of Hansard, which is where every word spoken in the two Houses is recorded, are also bound in the ―team colours‖ of red and green. Hansard, we were told,
goes back 200 years. We also
learned that there are more than 1000 rooms in the building and, while our tour took us through only a few, they were also the most
politically significant. Our visit gave us a tiny glimpse of political, historical and architectural features of this most iconic of buildings and was really the icing on the
cake for our students studying A level politics. I Harris
Sports News Congratulations to Maisie Bristow. Maisie
has accepted two places in sailing squads
for the 2015/16 season, aimed at improving the skills and abilities of
talented young sailors. The South East Zone Squad, organised by the Royal Yachting Association (RYA), and the National 4.2 Squad, operated by the International Topper Class Association (ITCA), select
sailors from national and regional areas based on the sailor‘s performance at racing events run all over
the UK. Maisie has raced at a wide range of venues
i n c l u d i n g P w l l h e l i , Lowestoft and also the Olympic Sailing venue in Weymouth (WPNSA). Maisie sails a boat called a Topper at her local sailing club, Island Barn Reservoir Sailing Club, based in West Molesey.
The squads run over the winter, with the first training events taking place in November - just as the temperatures start to drop!
Maisie has really shown determination to get to this level of sailing, improving her sailing skills in a variety of conditions, culminating in the recognition from the
selectors this year. Last year Maisie was also selected for the National 4.2 Squad. Attached is a picture of Maisie from the 4.2 National Championships at Leigh & Lowton (near Wigan).
Congratulations to Mirren Black who has recently been selected for Team GB Cadets for a European competition in Vienna at the beginning of November.
It is an U17 event, and Mirren is the youngest team member.
Congratulations to the U14 netball team who have
qualified for the Surrey Finals: they beat Kingston Grammar 10-4, Cranleigh 6-3, Epsom College 9-2, St Johns 10-0 and drew with St Cats 5-5. They topped their group.
R England
Rowing News Year 10 were in
action at their first
race in Bedford last Sunday. It
was a new experience for all racing in small boats and the girls learnt some important skills of racing solo and steering a racing course without a cox. There were
excellent performances by all and in particular Emma Southern finishing 4th in the singles race overall and Lily Porter and Jo Hatfield coming in fastest SWPS double of the day. Well done all!
R Rowe
DofE News Last weekend this
year‘s gold DofE
groups went on their training expedition
in the Brecon Beacons. These groups are going to be brilliant! The weekend was all about learning to navigate in the mountains, mostly away from footpaths. The girls were really
good at this, even on the Saturday morning, when it was very foggy and visibility was down to about 50 metres. We had a lovely weekend, with lots of sunshine and singing.
The next gold outing is the practice
expedition in the Lake District in the Easter break, when the girls will be camping and carrying full packs.
Miss Golding—Sudoku Championships, Sofia, Bulgaria On Monday and Tuesday this week, whilst the SWPS
girls were busy working hard at school, I was sitting
in a hall in a hotel in Sofia, solving Sudoku puzzles for my country. The selection process had been tough – only 4 participants from each country make the A team, with a further 4 possible for an unofficial B team. I had beaten out competition in the UK Championship back
in July, and hence was competing here in Bulgaria. The first round was Classics – a booklet of 12 Classic Sudoku puzzles to solve in 30 minutes. With 5 minutes to go, two of the fastest solvers declared
themselves finished, leaving a bit of a gap between
them and myself! Other rounds followed, involving many variants with extra rules (for example Anti-Knight Sudoku, where you cannot repeat a number within a knight‘s chess move; or Fortress Sudoku, in which numbers on the walls of the fortress must exceed numbers directly outside the wall).
The competition was completed with two team rounds. The first was a Sudoku relay, solved by using previous puzzles completed by team mates. The second was a giant Sudoku puzzle formed of many
overlapping grids, and complete with extra regions, which the whole team solved at once, crowded round a table. This was enormous fun, and had the added
thrill of the UK team finishing early to claim bonus points. The final was held late on Tuesday afternoon, and by Prize Giving in the evening the results were ready. Overall, I had made it to 58th place (44th of the official
competitors), and the UK team had done spectacularly well, coming in 8th place overall out of the 33 countries taking part. An amazing result, and thanks
to the SWPS community for all their support and encouragement!
H Golding
Chamber Concert – Tuesday 13 October The concert began with the song ‗Some Enchanted Evening‘ which proved to be a very appropriate title
for what was to follow! The audience were held spell-bound by the wonderful performances of the thirty-four girls who presented a beautiful programme of solos interleaved with vocal and instrumental duets and trios. The standard of playing was extraordinarily high, the result of many hours of diligent practice.
Along the way the musicians have been brilliantly
supported by their ‗peri‘ teachers, and by Matthew Stanley who provided the piano accompaniments for many of the instrumentalists and singers. Congratulations and a big ‗Thank you‘ to all the performers, and to the girls who supported them behind the scenes, for providing the audience with
this outstanding and inspiring evening of music. T Scrutton
Library Lines At Lower School Book Club‘s first meeting of the
academic year, there were many varied and exciting book recommendations for relaxing reading over the half-term break. Several authors topped the list: Rick
Riordan, Sophie McKenzie and Sarah Alderson. Happy
reading! S Bank
Wacky Hair Day On Fr i day 16 October, 7M ran a
'Wacky Hair Day' in aid of their chosen char i ty, Cancer Research. Lots of girls throughout the
school got into the spirit of the day and donated £1 to wear their hair in
a crazy way, alongside wearing their own clothes for the Ghana mufti day.
T Tyler
Year 8 Butser Farm Trip Year 8 were out on their
exciting visit to Butser
Ancient Farm this week. To help them understand in more detail what they‘re
studying in their Classics and Latin lessons, they helped make metal jewellery, slapped daub on the walls of a shelter, had sword fights and
c r e a t e d works of a r t . A fantastic day was had by all and
there were no sword injuries which was a plus!
Boathouse Progress
Feeder Netball Tournament, Saturday 10 October Congratulations go to Hall Grove who were once again
the worthy winners of last weekend‘s annual
tournament. The standard of netball by all competitors impressed our P. E. staff, and some of the matches were extremely closely fought. The other schools taking part were Halstead, Laleham Primary, Holy Family Primary, and Twickenham Prep. School. C o n g r a t u l a t i o n s especially go to Helen
Sproston and Saskia Eldridge-Hinmers in Year 11 for taking on the organisation of
