The Buzz Summer 2015

CRANLEIGH PREPARATORY SCHOOL

E H T

B UZZ

By the pupils. For the Community.

SUMMER TERM 2015

Perfect Prefects

By Henry M, 6Ho After lots of meetings and consultations, Cranleigh Prep are proud to announce their full array of new prefects for the academic year 2014-15!

Whilst we have always had prefects, this year (for the first time) we have trialled a new system for awarding this status. The system involved all of the Form 6 pupils completing two selfassessment forms during the year. Points were awarded to each pupil for their contribution to the school in sport, music, charities and the whole Cranleigh community.

Over the course of the year points were totalled and Bronze, Silver and Gold Leadership awards were given to pupils according to their contribution to the school this year. All of the pupils reached one of these leadership awards and those with a Gold were deservedly awarded their prefect status.

Our prefect team, 2014-15

Farewell to Form SIX Our ‘Class of 2014-15’ are leaving at the end of this term to attend their chosen Senior Schools.

We wish them every success as in their new schools and thank them all for their hard work, enthusiasm and friendship during their time with us.

We will miss you, and invite you to keep in touch and let us know how you are faring….

T HE B UZZ

P AGE 2

An Interview WITH Mr Dale-Adcock Director of Studies at Cranleigh Prep

By Zoe B, 6Ha and Millie W, 5B We interviewed Mr Dale-Adcock, Director of Studies and Geography teacher, and we asked him ten questions about his personal life, embarrassing moments and his jobs at school.

1) If you did not teach Geography, what would you teach?

I would like to teach Art. Mrs McNiven would disagree and my graphs are not the best, but...

2) If you were on a desert island, what three things would you bring? a) A massive bar of Toblerone chocolate

Mr Dale-Adcock at home with his family

b) Sebastian Faulk novels

7) What is your favourite part about Cranleigh School?

c) A boat!

I like to watch prizes being awarded on Speech Day.

3) What is the naughtiest thing a pupil has ever done? 8) If you had a superpower, what would it be and A boy once stole a photo of me and adapted it so I had a gun in why? my hand (Mr Howard will show you a copy with pleasure, if I would like to need no sleep and to never get tired so I could asked!) have double the life awake.

4) How long have you been teaching for?

9) If you did not live in England, which country would you live in ?

I have been teaching at Cranleigh Prep for 15 years.

5) What do you do in the holidays ?

I like to catch up on sleep and also do some cycling.

6) If you could go back to any year what would it be and why?

1978. I was about four years old and I lived in Kuwait, so everyday was like a massive holiday.

Anywhere with Mountains; either in France (in the French Alps) or perhaps in New Zealand.

10) What is your favourite food and your most hated food?

My favourite food is Welsh lamb with all juices. My most hated food is sweet corn because the texture is weird, and it gets stuck in your teeth.

Cranleigh Prep’s History Star Because of Nick’s impressive score in the first exam, he was This year Nicholas P joined hundreds of pupils from around given the second pathe country in entering the Townsend Warner History Comper. In this paper, he petition. This is a national competition for Prep Schools to test placed amongst the the knowledge of their most talented historians. Nicholas had top fifty pupils and so to tackle two exam papers as part of the competition. The first he received a prize of paper, was based on some of the most obscure and littlea voucher. known events in history. The second, was a very long essay Overall, Nick got an that took two hours to complete! The only way to get to the second (challenging) paper, was to be in the top 200 perform- astonishing score, ers for the first paper. Nick ended up with a result of 60% in which was said to be the first exam and placed 79th, out of 800 young historians! one of the top scores out of the remaining 200 people. Nick was congratulated with a whoop of applause in Chapel and he was also presented with his voucher by Mr Wilson.

By Alessandra J, 5B

SUMMER 2015

P AGE 3

FORM FOUR VISIT oratory school science experience day

By Naalini B, 4T and Willem S, 4T Who would ever have thought that a cabbage could turn our milk purple? This happens because red cabbage is an indicator and it changes colour depending on whether a substance is acid or alkali. These were just some of the amazing activities and experiments that we did on our wonderful Science trip to the Oratory School Science Experience Day. Ten lucky Form 4 pupils joined Mr Till for this very exciting day in the labs.

As well as these Chemistry experiments, we also made a model to show how the lungs work in the Biology session. During the Physics activity, we had to build a box girder bridge from newspaper. These activities really helped us to work together as a team.

Farewell to our leaving teachers

By Hebe B, 6S, Zoe B, 6Ha and Amelie L-P, 6Ha Mrs Thistlethwaite is a very beloved French teacher at this school and has worked here for around 15 years. She has enjoyed the success of all the pupils that she has taught. She says that she has been very lucky with her career and has particularly enjoyed her time here at Cranleigh Prep. She will miss the ‘buzz’ of the classroom and all her Common Room friends. Her plans for the future are to see more of her family and hopefully move back to Cambridge when her husband retires.

Miss Blackmore is a great Form 3 tutor and a brilliant sports coach who has worked her for just under three years. Her plans are to move to Cambridge with her fiancé and start a new job as the Head of Girl’s Games at The Perse School. Her most memorable moments of CPS are the Sports Days, when Hearts won, and Christmas time. She is very sad to leave, but excited to be going back home.

Mr Hitchen, Mrs Thistlethwaite, Miss Blackmore and Mr Forster Sadly, this year we are losing four very dear members of our staff; Mr Forster, Mrs Thistlethwaite, Miss Blackmore and Mr Hitchen.

Mr Forster, ( affectionately known as Fozzy), is an Sports teacher and has worked at Cranleigh for four years, as well going to school here as a pupil. Mr Forster says that he will miss all the children, the friendly atmosphere, sport and the food. He is looking forward to a new challenge and is hoping to become a Geography teacher as well as being heavily involved in sport.

Mr Hitchen has been teaching Drama here for 15 years. Before Drama, he used to teach Singing here on Thursday mornings prior to driving to London for performances of Blood Brothers!

His favourite moments have been working with small groups of talented pupils and rehearsing as if they were professional actors. He says that you can forget the stress of the previous week’s rehearsals when a production goes well!

Mr Hitchen plans to keep busy by teaching Singing, examining for Trinity Music and maybe even returning to the stage. He says that he will miss roast potatoes on Tuesdays and all the hot puddings.

T HE B UZZ

P AGE 4

What’s in store for you next year?

We asked pupils in each of the year groups to write about their year at Cranleigh Prep - the highs, the lows and any other advice that they could offer. Read on to see what you may experience next year!

Form 2

Form 1 Amelia C and Ludo D, 1PM During my time in Form 1, I have had lots of fun. My favourite thing has definitely been Privilege time, where we have had discos, a pyjama party and played on Top Pitch. You will also enjoy the Christmas Lunch at the Senior School, where you will love the crackers!

Miss Wild, our French teacher, is splendid and she makes French really fun. You will also get to go on school trips like Kew Gardens and to a farm, where you will get a packed lunch. You don’t need to worry if you don’t know anyone, as you will make loads of friends. We have enjoyed Form 1 and we know that you will too!

Millie J, Lucy M and Stirling S, 2R When I came into Form 2, I was really nervous about having Saturday school. Now I know that Saturdays are really fun. We have Theme Days, where we get to dress up, fly rockets and make an indestructible air raid shelters.

The best bit about Form 2 is if you impress a teacher with your amazing handwriting, you will get a ‘Pen Licence.’

Just to warn you: you can have it taken away too!

The highlight of our year was making friends.

We will miss the teachers as they are really kind and helpful. My advice to new pupils is to behave and have some fun!

Making rockets on a Theme Day

Form 3 Poppy S and Jade M, 3EB

Form 4 Rye E, Katherine E and Emily J-P, 4C In Form 4, you will need to be more independent, organised and you will also find that the teachers are stricter than in Form 3. Be warned that you need a sense of humour, particularly if you are in Mr Carne’s class!

All of the Form teachers are great fun and they will always have time for a joke. One of my favourite days was the Form 4 Science trip to the InTech Centre in Winchester.

Viking warriors!

The highlight of the year for us was the Camp Night. You had to behave otherwise, you had to hug a tree! We were put into teams and we could win points for our team in the different activities; we lost points if we shouted out.

Form 3 has been exciting and fun; you always want to learn more! You have much more responsibility and you have to move classrooms a lot more because you have more teachers.

However, be warned, you get more prep! We also do CDT and Food Tech on Saturdays. This is where we make things out of wood in the CDT workshop and we cook different dishes in the kitchen.

In Form 3, you also get to have lunch first so you can have first pick of the delicious desserts. Many of us enjoy boarding. It is great fun when you can stay at school overnight with your friends.

Camp night on Top Pitch

P AGE 5

SUMMER 2015

Form 5

Form 6

By Imogen F, 5D

By Freya J, 6Ho

Moving to Form 5 is great! You get to go on a school trip to York in the Summer Term and you also get new teachers. You are given doughnuts as a Friday treat, if you have no minutes. I have also enjoyed joining more clubs and participating in performances of the end of year plays.

Cornwall, 2015

But its not all trips and doughnuts! Be aware that the work gets harder; you get more prep and responsibility and the teachers start to expect more of you in your work and behaviour.

Overall, it is busy but fun if you make the most of all the opportunities available.

When moving into Form 6 you have many things to look forward to. Obviously, your workload increases and you have to focus on your Scholarship or CE preparation. But it is not all work in Form 6…

Form 5 visit to York Minster

Some of the many activities to enjoy are Cornwall, Activities week and a trip to Amsterdam, if you are in 6Ho. It is great being top of the school, being able to be in first teams, be a sport captain and having the privilege of being able to be a prefect, or even Head Boy or Head Girl!

And if you are moving on to Cranleigh School?..

We invited Millie C, our Head Girl in 2013-14, to tell us how she had found her first year at Cranleigh School.

Moving from the Prep School to Cranleigh Senior School was, initially quite a shock, but soon I became used to the ways of Cranleigh and how I was no longer at the top of the school.

I can't believe that I have almost finished my first year here; it truly has flown by. It seems like only the other day we had our Team Building Weekend, which was a great chance to see old friends and make new ones.

Some of the highlights of the year have included House events. The house Performance is the first house event you will take part in. The Sixth Form in your house choreograph a dance for the Forth Form to perform in front of all the school. It is so much fun and my advice is to ‘get stuck in’ and try your best to win.

There is always something to get involved in for the house, whether it is house swimming, house fives, house athletics, house hockey, house netball, house cross-country, house climbing, house rounders, house tennis or even house chess.

There is something for everyone! When I first joined, it soon became apparent that your house is a big part of Senior School life. If you are a boarder, you practically live there; you do prep there, and registration. Soon you will become part of the house "family", no matter which house you are

allocated, everyone thinks their house in the best after only a few days.

The activities I was amazed at the wide range of sports and activities that were available to me. Whether you do archery, climbing, abseiling, canoeing, CCF, D of E, baking, squash, trampolining. There are endless opportunities and my advice would be to do as much of it as you can, but also be prepared to be exhausted...but it is a ‘good’ exhausted!

T HE B UZZ

P AGE 6

Carnegie Book Group

By Charlotte R, 5D

Our Carnegie Book Shadowing Club meets once a week in the Library to discuss books nominated for the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Book Medal. We talk about the good and bad qualities of each book. The Carnegie Book Shadowing Club has packs that inform pupils about the Carnegie Book Medal and tells readers about nominated books and their authors.

The Carnegie Medal is a competition to decide which children’s book is nominated as an outstanding book for children and young people. All the books are completely different genres. School pupils in clubs like ours can ‘shadow’ the books and write online reviews. There are eight books to choose from this year: Apple and Rain, Middle of Nowhere, Tinder ,Cuckoo Song ,The Fastest Boy in the World, More than this and Buffalo Soldier and When Mr Dog Bites. Pupils all have their different opinions, but these are a couple of our favourites: Tinder is about a man who is injured in battle and as he tries to defy death he finds himself on a journey to realm of dark magic and mystery. He meets a girl and learns the powers of the tinder box, plus the secret of the wolves.

Apple and Rain is about a girl whose Mum left her when she was two and came back after eleven years with a long lost sister.

SKI Trip to Arosa, 2015

By Ambrose W, 5F On the 21 of March, 2015 at the very social hour of 4 o’clock in the morning, thirty three brave explorers boarded the coach for a trip to Heathrow Terminal 5 for the 2015 Ski Trip to Arosa, Switzerland. Having boarded the plane and having taken two separate trains to get up into the mountains, we arrived. At the station in Arosa, we were warmly greeted by the hotel owner. After a short walk to the hotel, we unpacked our bags.

On different days, we had different activities such as fancy dress contest judged by Zaid M and Nick E (congratulations to Louis M dressed as a gorilla and Will G dressed as a banana, who won). We also had a bingo night and a quiz night. On top of this, Mr Manning and Mrs Sharpe would take people tobogganing as an ‘optional extra’ every other night. On the first trip, only four people chose to go tobogganing as, not surprisingly, most people were very tired. On the second outing, however, many more people joined in and thoroughly enjoyed this activity.

In the morning, we would be greeted by the friendly staff at the ski rental shop. From 9:30 to 12:15, we would ski and then have lunch. At 1pm, we would carry on skiing until 3:30 in the afternoon. After this, accompanied children could carry on skiing with their parents if they wanted to and unaccompanied children could spend time relaxing at the hotel.

On the pistes, there were many various activities, such as the speed check challenge, in which you get an accurate representast

tion of your speed and a run called ‘wood ranch’ which features many jumps.

On the final night, it was Prize Night, where certain individuals received prizes. Digby W won a prize for only being able to turn right for three days; Jack C and Henry M won the joint prize for worst injury.

All the children and parents enjoyed the holiday; special thanks to Mr Howard, Mrs Jolly, Mr Manning and Mrs Sharpe without whom, this trip would not be possible.

T HE B UZZ

P AGE 7

Magical, medieval york

By Georgie M, 5D At the crack of dawn on Thursday 14th May, Form 5 headed to Yorkshire on a six hour coach journey. Firstly, we headed north of York and we stopped at Rievaulx Abbey.

Rievaulx Abbey is 883 years old! It is now a beautiful ruin as it was one of many Abbeys to close during Henry VIII’s reign.

After lunch we had a quick visit to Clifford’s Tower. We walked right to the top of it and saw the beautiful view of York.

Later, we visited York Museum where the pupils looked at the exhibits about World War I. We also went around a life-size reproduction of a Victorian street.

After that, we visited Helmsley Castle which was partly a Tudor manor and a defensive castle. This helped us to see all the features of castles that we had been studying in History.

We stayed at the Youth Hostel in York which provided comfy bunk beds and tasty food. On the first night, we had hamburgers and chips and orange cheesecake, yum! We had some revision time after supper to prepare for our History assessment the next morning.

In the evening, we had a ‘ghost tour,’ walking around the narrow alleys of the city and listening to spooky stories that happened in certain places.

The next morning we had to leave York. We were very sad and disappointed to leave as we loved this cultural city.

Thank you to all the teachers for looking after us and making the trip so special.

Afterwards we had free time, where we were allowed to socialize in or out of our dorms. Then went to bed but well we didn't really go to sleep for quite a while!

Next morning, we had the 45 minute History assessment and afterwards, we walked along the banks of the River Ouse to York Minister. York Minster is an amazing historic cathedral in which Prince William of Hatfield is buried. It was a site of pilgrimage in medieval times and medieval visitors used to think it looked like heaven, as it was so grand.

A Super Summer Concert

By Ella J, 6Ho

Form 5 at Rievaulx Abbey The concert got off to a marvellous start led by the Concert Band showing the very best concert talent in the school. This was followed by the Recorder Ensemble and Training Percussion Group; both of these performances proved that we have much growing talent.

The Chapel Choir, Percussion Group and String Orchestra continued on after which were all great performances and we obviously have some talented musicians at the top of our school. The audience really enjoyed joining in with the choir’s warm up song, Mrs O’Leary.

The training choir, guitar group and training band were absolutely magnificent and were great to listen to.

Last, but not least, was the Form 3 Harmony group and the Chamber Choir. The Form 3 Harmony Group were superb and the joint effort of that group and the chamber choir brought tears to people eyes! To conclude the concert the Chamber Choir sang acapella and a lovely version of Lean On Me.

As we do every year, Cranleigh Prep School’s summer was kicked off with the prestigious Summer Concert. The concert showed an array of musical talent but proved that Cranleigh has loads of it!

We all thank Mrs Beddison and all the music staff for not only teaching all of our wonderful musicians, but never failing to produce amazing pieces of music for us to listen to. You make these concerts so enjoyable to come to.

T HE B UZZ

P AGE 8

We are sailing, WE are sailing...

By Will G, 5F and Blake K, 5P The 21st of May was a hot summers day and a team of keen sailors consisting of Jasmine D, Lila M, Blake K and Will G set out on an unforgettable trip to the IAPS Regatta at the Olympic Sailing Centre in Weymouth.

On arrival, the team felt a surge of determination to do our very best. We could not have asked for better weather -the sun shone brightly and there was a perfectly consistent wind.

Overall, it was a very successful day with Will and Blake coming 10th out of 46 boats. Lila and Jasmine also hugely improved their sailing skills. It was an amazing experience and for some of us, it was our first competitive race.

Lila, Jasmine, Blake and Will at the IAPS Regatta

Top Tennis this term

By Toby E, 6W and Honor R, 6W Cranleigh School has been running a Prep Schools’ Tennis Tournament for 45 years. The tournament is so old that even Mr Batchelor played in it as a boy!

On Friday 19th June, our Tennis Squad ventured over the road to take part in this celebrated event. The three girls’ pairs arrived full of confidence after an unbeaten season and the boys fielded the same squad that defeated Windlesham earlier in the season. The boys had a rocky start with a couple of early losses piling on the pressure. However, all the pairs came good with Jacob H and Sam T getting as far as the semi-finals and the other two pairs finishing 7th and 9th out of 15. The girls had some equally tough matches - one of the opposition schools even had a junior Wimbledon Champion for her age group! All three pairs rose to the challenge with Honor and Lulu achieving third place and the other two pairs coming 4th and 8th out of 10.

Thank you to Miss Gibson for accompanying us and supporting us. We have also been lucky to have extra sailing lessons on a Wednesday afternoon that Miss Gibson has organised at Southwater Watersports Centre for Upper School pupils.

Sports highlights Matilda C came 2nd in the YCCF European Climbing Competition in Austria.

Abbot Sports Scholarships to Cranleigh School were awarded to Rosie H, Lulu F, Will F, Will T and George E. Sports Exhibitions to Cranleigh were awarded to Rosie W and Joshua M. Olivia R was awarded a Sports Scholarship to Priorsfield and Peter S received a Sports Scholarship to St John’s, Leatherhead.

At the IAPS National Swimming meet at Crawley, Max W won the 50m breaststroke in a new national record time. Max has also been selected for the Regional Development Programme as part of England Talent. At the IAPs finals Jess B came 3rd in the 25m Butterfly and Lulu F placed 4th in the 50m. BreastPeter S, Finn T and Sadhbh S all qualified for the IAPS National Athletics in Birmingham.

Oliver C and Will F have been selected for the Harlequins Academy, and Toby E and Peter S have represented Surrey in the U14 Rugby team.

At the Inter-School IAPS Triathlon at Dulwich Prep, Kent, Mark W placed second, and Heather A was 6th in the U12 competition.

William G, Mark W and William W attended the IAPS Golf Championships in Shropshire in June.

‘The Buzz’ is printed on recycled paper