Cubitt newsletter summer 2016

Junior House Tennis: L. Vaughan For us as a house, tennis is not one of our major sports, however we gave it our best shot. The pairs were; Chesser and Green; House and De Unger; Batham-Read and Marshall; Fewings and Wilson; Vaughan and Mclean. To begin with we play East in which East won more games against us. Then we played Loveday and we lost by 1 game. After that we played North and we won comfortably. It was a very close contest for second between us and East. We were on equal amount of games won, so it went down to the first pair and we had won more individual games so that secured second place for us.

Senior House Cricket: O Trower

Cubitt Newsletter Summer 2016 Music: T. Chesser “It is hard to be humble when you are as great as I am.” So stated the late Mohammad Ali, with words that could easily be used to describe the state of Cubitt’s music. Following a good Cubitt representation in the Abu Dhabi music tour at the end of the holidays, Cubittians had great success in both Cranleigh Live, and lunchtime concerts. In fact, there was so much musical talent in the house that we were able to form a band to play some background jazz for CHDB’s leaving party. Cubitt’s musical highlight of the term came in the form of RocSoc, in which we were represented more than any other house, with acts from every single year. RocSoc also gave many the chance to make their debut on stage, and was most likely the start of numerous musical careers. Although we are losing two of our leading musical lights in Theo Golden and Cameron Scheijde, we look forward to a new batch of performers next year.

Cubitt had a strong team for cricket this year, and we felt confident going into the first game against Loveday. It was difficult test for us as Loveday set a tough total on the board. Unfortunately Cubitt fell short by a few runs. However, performances with the ball were excellent by Charlie Terry and Jamie Pudge.

In the 3rd and 4th playoffs, we came against East. Where Sam Guinness and Harry Deblaby took the bowlers apart, setting a decent total. We fielded and bowled well to get us over the line to achieve 3rd place. Thanks to everyone who took part and put 100% effort in for the house, it was thoroughly enjoyable despite the cold weather!

Senior House Tennis: Z. La Costa

The team consisted of myself, Rory Calnan, Rob Green, Freddie Edwards, Toby Chesser, Sam Lubbock, Gregor McIntyre and Jamie Pudge. We came up against Loveday in the 1st round and gave them a good punishing with each pair winning their individual games comfortably. Up next was East where, yet again, Cubitt Sailed through comfortably with three of the five pairs winning 7-0. Finally, we came up against North. At this point we knew we were in second place by a small margin and so we needed a big push. With the majority of the house supporting, we managed to pull it back and win overall with 84 games. A great effort from everyone involved and yet another trophy to Cubitt’s cabinet.

Housemasters Comments: CHDB

Speech Day was a wonderful occasion and a fantastic way to end the year and to say farewell to our U6 leavers. They have been a supremely talented bunch and we amassed a record amount of trophies this year largely down their efforts and leadership (just don’t mention house cross-country!) I am delighted to be bowing out on a high note with such an impressive year group and it has only been in these few days since the term has ended that leaving Cubitt has really sunk in – I’m sure it is the same for the U6 boys.

I do have very mixed emotions as it is sad in so many ways to be leaving after nine wonderful and rewarding years at the helm but I am also looking forward to my new post and reassured that I will not be too far away! More than anything I think I will simply miss the fun, banter and camaraderie of the boys (and house staff!) when wandering around the house and the warmth and supportive nature of the place. Perhaps the most notable feeling though is one of genuine gratitude to all those who have supported me and made my Cubitt experience as special as it has been. I have always felt a huge amount of mutual support from the parental body and the “working in partnership” phrase is perhaps banded about too glibly at times – I certainly believe in it and have valued it enormously. It is a very much a team effort and the wisdom, dedication and care of the tutor team and matrons is what has made Cubitt the place it is. I am thrilled that Sam is taking over and that Tim Fearn, Andrea Young and Jan Goldsmith are all going to be here to closely support him (along with the brilliant addition of Peter Bradnock) – there will be a natural sense of continuity but Sam will also take Cubitt from strength to strength in his own way. And that is me signing off … I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and don’t forget those sensible haircuts for September!

House Athletics: R. Cloete

House Badminton: F. McIntyre

Juniors, inters and seniors all performed brilliantly coming second, third and first respectively.

There were some outstanding performances in the juniors with Evans and Stiles coming first in their disciplines and a quick victory from the 4by400 relay team endured second place.

Despite having a small group of supporters Junior House Badminton proved to be a success this year for Cubitt. After the Seniors winning we had a lot of pressure on our shoulders.

While the B pair of James Green and Benjy Chesser managed to lose every game the A pair of Josh Elliot and I managed to win every game despite a lot of close results. Green and Chesser had originally picked themselves to be A pair as they were “the better badminton players”. But even with Josh Elliot being a last minute call up, proved them wrong and despite every other shot of his going into the net he was a handy player to have on the side. He also managed to get a little carried away and throwing his racket in the air and hitting Miss Sturdee in the head with his racket. Overall Cubitt Juniors preformed admirably and ended up helping further cement the Seniors strong performance on the court.

Unfortunately, the inters suffered from a lack of numbers, especially in the UV. However, valiantly the LV stepped up to the challenge, with a memorable performance from Jonte Marshall coming second in the long jump. The senior performance was truly inspiring, with Victories from Leman in the 400 and 800, Omari in the 100 and long jump and Will Gumpel in the javelin. However, a special mention must go to Cloete, Leman, Nicole and Deblaby for breaking the schools 4by 400 relay record and clinching victory for the seniors.

Overall, it was a proud day for Cubitt house, with so many poeple putting themselves up for the challenge, getting out of their comfort zone and performing so well.

House Cross Country: J. Pudge After an extremely underwhelming performance in the 4th form cross country this year Cubitt had a point to prove. Cubitt has, traditionally, always boasted a rich history of stronger runners - the likes of Leman and Harry De Blaby have set the tone for years - and now it was time for the whole house to live up to the hype and deliver on the day. Initially, it seemed a tough day for it with strong rain forecast but this didn't phase the runners, who were masterfully and tactically managed by William Gudgeon and James Pudge. Everyone ran their socks off and put in a huge shift for the house but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be and Loveday just snatched the win. We came second and special mentions must go out to Gregor, De Blaby and Leman in the seniors and the likes of Harvey Stiles in the juniors who did a fantastic job representing Cubitt in the most prestigious house competition of them all.

Junior House Cricket: C. Pyle The first game we were up against east which we knew would be a challenge from the beginning. We won the toss and bowled first but just couldn't get the wickets we needed. They ended on 64 which was a challenging score to reach and we came just short in the last few balls.

House Swimming: G. McIntyre According to a recent survey in the guardian, 1 in 5 adults cannot swim. However, in Cubitt it seems to be that almost everyone cannot swim. There is about 1 boy from each year group who can compete in a race without potentially looking like they might actually drown. However, we did not let this dishearten us. In the very first race, Max "the fish" Foster came 2nd and we believed that this could be our year. Sadly, we then went on a losing streak of races.

Special mentions must also go to Matt ‘the seal’ Talbot (who won all of his races), Angus ‘the barracuda’ Burns (for being the best swimmer in the school/Cubitt) and to Alastair Loedolff who managed to swim into the wall with his head at “full speed”. Overall, we managed to come 3rd overall which in itself was a victory. Big respect to all the boys who stepped up and tried to swim for the house.

In the next game for 3rd and 4th playoff we played love day and once again bowled first. We were considerably better then the previous game and kept them to a low score of 49. Our batsmen chased this down with ease which put us into 3rd place.

Junior House Golf: F. Morgan Our first match was against East and we knew that their team was quite strong and that they had a good chance in beating us, but we also had a decent team. For Cubitt we had, Me, Greeno, Jonte, Olly Corbett and Harvey Styles. I started off first and lost my match quite near to the beginning, Jonte had also lost his game and so did Olly, but Greeno and Harvey managed to play well and beat their partners.

Drama: G. Slade There was two junior plays this year, Treasure Island and Brave New World, which I was in.

It seems like ages ago that I auditioned for the play in December, I remember getting the role, Delta child, and being quite exited for what was coming next. The Rehearsals were good fun ,even though it took up a lot of my free time but ultimately it paid off as the performances went very well as Miss Seville was a very good director.

There were very few mistakes by the cast but all will have learnt from the experience. Overall I really enjoyed being in the play as it was extremely fun.

Junior House Challenge: L. Thompson We entered the final of the junior house challenge confident given our comfortable victory over south in the semi-final. The team, consisting of myself, Taylor Seager-Green, Benji Chesser and Ollie Corbett, was to face a Loveday team who had similarly coasted to the final. The first half of the contest left us with a tentative lead of a mere 20 points. However, our nerves began to ease as we neared the last of the questions with our lead consistently increasing thanks to Taylor’s ferocity on the buzzer and Benji’s proficiency in mental maths. Despite these individual moments of brilliance, it was ultimately a team effort that resulted in a resounding win by 190 points over a determined loveday opposition.