Events & Competitions

World Book Day

We had a fantastic World Book Day with guest poet Caleb Parkin. Along with inspiring readings of his poignant, playful poetry, Caleb crowd-sourced a recipe poem with Years 9 and 10; was interviewed on stage by students for an inter-schools Pride event; and took on the role of (a very friendly) Jeremy Paxman for the annual Staff vs Students Literature Quiz. Despite a strong performance from finalists Hallward’s House, the teachers’ team retained their quizzing title for another year. There was also a whole school custom Wordle Book Day competition with a few randomly selected winners who figured out that prose was the answer (to all known problems!).

Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW)

This year’s MHAW featured a Read-In in the library with hot chocolate, marshmallows and classical music; Everyone Reading in Chapel and the return of the Pop-Up Percival; a paw-some afternoon of dog walking on the Downs; and a special event for Year 13. During the latter, students were invited to the library to collect letters they’d penned to their future selves back in Third Form. There were tears of joy, confusion over having to translate from Elvish to English (shout-out to the Tolkien fans of 2017) and lashings of non-alcoholic Pimm’s for a terrific trip down memory lane.