Inside Heathfield issue 64

Issue Number 64 23 May 2017

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The days are getting longer and it’s lovely to see the younger girls out in the sunshine playing tennis or sitting on the lawn.

Of course examinations are also upon us and the girls are working hard ready for the rigours ahead. But an education isn’t just about what is in the classroom and this newsletter is full of the opportunities the girls are given to explore their subjects and their application to the ‘real world’. As we say at Heathfield, we prepare your daughters for their lives, not just their next educational step.

Speaking of which – how glorious to see our Old Girls on Fellowship Day. It was a beautiful day and the girls were hugely appreciative of all that their school had done for them; I was told some cracking stories too, about which floorboards the girls used to hide their treasure under. It’s clear that the trips and experiences the girls have today become the treasured memories of tomorrow, and we count ourselves lucky that we are able to be a part of that.

With all good wishes to you all

Best wishes,

Mrs Gardiner Legge

LVI Biology Fieldwork Trip On the weekend of 6­7 May, the LVI Biology class was joined by Luckley House School on our annual A Level Biology Field Trip to Nettlecombe Court in Somerset for three nights.

During the trip we investigated a variety of Ecological topics including plant succession and distribution of plants, and looked at different habitats of some aquatic organisms. With the data we collected we were able to carry out a variety of statistic calculations which was great practice for our exams.

Other activities we participated in were mark, release and recapture surveying a population of woodlice. and a humane way of calculating the local animal population using small mammal traps. Throughout the whole trip we were very lucky with the weather and the trip was a great success except for the fire alarm during Saturday night!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Miss Wells for organising such a great trip.

LVI Biology Students

Excellent Music Results Well done to Tamara, Tabby, Hum, Victoria, Ellie, Maya and Harriet who all sat various Music Examinations in the Lent term. The girls took examinations in Trumpet, Piano, Violin, Bass Guitar and Singing, and all passed with flying colours. A special mention must go to Harriet, who walked away with a Distinction in her singing exam. A remarkable achievement girls – well done to you all!

Form IV Business Trip On Monday 15 May the Form IV GCSE Business Studies students visited a local shop in Finchampstead to collect data for our controlled assessment. We created two questionnaires, one for the shop­keeper and one for customers to answer for us. We collected data from 15 people and left some with the shop­ keeper to hand out.

We found out that the shop advertised on a screen at the local doctor’s surgery, which cost £2,500 a year, but they found it was cheaper and more effective to hand out flyers locally instead. The questions that we asked ranged from ‘how old are you?’ to “what e­commerce do you think is better for the shop to use?” The shop had recently brought in a dry cleaning service which brought 200 more customers into the business, although 100 of these were already existing customers. On the site the shop also has a post office and a petrol station which brings in the majority of the customers to the shop. The shop has a range of products and most customers said that they didn’t see the need for the shop to expand, or if they wanted it to expand they didn’t want the shop to change.

The shop advertises on Facebook all their stock and items that they sell, and right now they think that this is the most effective way of using e­commerce. They want to start a website but they don’t want to do home delivery as this would be too time consuming. They had two customers in their nineties who they deliver groceries to as they are house­bound and can’t get to the shop.

Maddy, Form IV

Heathfield Careers ­ Life in Interior Design There are many girls at Heathfield who enjoy art and design, so it was no surprise that the recent Life in Interior Design talk was eagerly awaited. Emma Deterding, Heathfield Old Girl and founder of Kelling Design, an interior design and property staging company, was a special guest of Evie, the Careers Prefect.

Emma spoke about her life after Heathfield, which included living in Japan and running a catering business before returning to London to set up a property management company, Contact London. After selling this business, Emma started Kelling Design and has designed apartments in the best parts of London, country homes and properties overseas. The girls were impressed to hear about Emma’s experiences in designing the interiors for a magnificent new home in the Lutyens Bungalow area of Delhi, where plots sell for £80 million, not least because Emma was brought in as the Interior Designer before the client had found an architect.

However, before all this, Emma started working at Rymans after leaving Heathfield, where she learnt the importance of getting on with everyone, key business skills and that hard work pays off.

Interestingly, one of the main messages of Emma’s talk was the importance of getting on with people and being a nice person; the soft skills that previous speakers have encouraged.

Emma stated this was one of the most important things that Heathfield gave her. She encouraged the girls not to be shy about using their contacts and not to be afraid of taking a different path, stating that university was not right for everyone.

The talk was very well received and the informal setting, the St Mary’s Theatre foyer allowed a large number of girls to spend time speaking to Emma and her guests Frances Stanley (friend, fellow Heathfield Old Girl and school governor) and Georgina Wykeham (née Bowles, and another Heathfield Old Girl). Georgina is now the Managing Director of Kelling Design and Emma continues to work on projects.

Emma has a strong bond with Heathfield, with many family members past and present attending the school, including the Careers Prefect, Evie who invited Emma to speak. Emma was delighted with our Heathfield girls, stating that “they were a fantastically engaged audience and asked me some really insightful questions which made me think”.

We thanked Emma for the gift bags and delicious doughnuts. Emma was presented with one of the newly commissioned Heathfield Old Girl Speaker badges.

Rushi Millns, Head of Careers & Outreach

Form II Trip to Cheddar Gorge With the threat of heavy thundery showers, Form II set off to our second gorge of the year (having visited Ironbridge Gorge back in March).The focus of the trip was to see the landscapes created by the Carboniferous limestone that the girls had been studying, and to see how the area is used by people.

Our first stop was the impressive Gough’s Cave where we had a guided tour of the cave network. We were reminded how the gorge was formed following the giant meltwater rivers of the Ice Age and learnt about the 9000­year­old skeleton of Cheddar man, stalactites, stalagmites, the frozen river and the Lesser Horseshoe Bats that inhabit the cave. Form II were also surprised to learn that the caves had been used for many years to mature the Cheddar cheese made in the area – the giant truckles spend several months in the caves at the constant temperature of 11°C.

Our next visit involved climbing up the 274 steps of Jacobs Ladder to see views of the gorge, the village of Cheddar and the surrounding valley. Form II climbed up the lookout tower to see human features such as the reservoir and the quarry, which they had studied on their OS maps in the classroom. They practised their skills by drawing field sketches and trying to capture and label the geographical features before descending the steps back to the bottom.

We then travelled through time to the Stone Age in the new exhibition in Cox’s Caves before visiting the famous Cheddar Sweet Kitchen to purchase some samples to bring home. Then, following a little time to visit some of the other tourist shops and enjoy an ice cream, it was time to return to the minibuses, heavy rain having fortunately been avoided all day.

With thanks to our drivers, Steve and Guy, to Mrs Kemp who contributed her scientific expertise, and to Form II for their cooperation and enthusiasm.

Lesley Worrall, Teacher of Geography

Form I Rushall Farm Prizes Ella was awarded 1st place in the Science Prize for writing up the soil testing (PH, moisture and light) most scientifically, and Thea was awarded a prize for asking the most searching and well­thought out questions on the farm. Juana was given the Reporter's Prize for using

Antennae on the day, and Lara was awarded the prize for producing the most Creative and Independent report. Lara created an incredible Lego movie that portrayed various aspects of the trip extremely well.

Basia Mason, Head of Humanities Faculty & Subject Leader ­ Geography

Kaleidoscope perform at Jagz, Ascot Our school band Kaleidoscope played to an absolutely packed crowd at Jagz on the evening of Friday 19 May. The atmosphere was electric and there was an unbelievable turnout, including friends and families as well as staff and students. There was delicious food and drink on offer as Kaleidoscope took to the stage. Thank you so much to Su Mei Kong who organised the event, as well as all the staff who also helped. And of course thank you to Kaleidoscope for their terrific performance!

Fellowship Day Our annual Fellowship Day was held on Saturday 6 May, as we welcomed back Old Girls to revisit their school days. Lunch was served, followed by tours, a Chapel service, and tea. The weekend activities for our current pupils carried on as usual and the Old Girls delighted in seeing the array of opportunities, including giant inflatable slides, a mechanical bull, and sumo suits. Thank you so much to our catering team from Brookwood who provided the most fabulous lunch and cakes.

Prep Lacrosse Day We could not have asked for better weather as Fulham Prep, St George’s Windsor Castle, and Glendower arrived to take part in our annual Prep Lax Day. Everyone was given a coloured t­ shirt which mixed the schools up into 10 different teams. The girls began with a masterclass headed up by our Director of Sport Wendy Reynolds, which was followed by a few casual matches. There was a gorgeous tea provided by our catering team from Brookwood, who once again went above and beyond decorating the pavilion with bunting and ribbons.

Thank you so much to Fulham Prep, St George’s Windsor Castle and Glendower for attending, to everyone who helped organise this fabulous day, and of course to Brookwood for the delicious tea.

Royal Windsor Horse Show On Thursday 11 May the Equestrian Prefect Emma travelled to the Royal Windsor Horse Show. The Working Show Horse Class was held in the Frogmore arena. There were 15 competitors in the class, and each horse has to jump a clear round over rustic fences to qualify for the next section of judging. Seven horses went through, and eventually the winner was chosen.

Emma was escorted to the arena by a soldier in full dress uniform to present the “Will o’ the Wisp” trophy to this year’s winner. Following the presentation, Emma was given the opportunity to accompany professional show jumper Sophie Fawcett as she walked the course for her show jumping class.

After a sighting of the Queen and watching the end of the polo pony class, we made our way back from the show to complete the day’s studies at Heathfield.

Gill Glimmerveen, Equestrian Coordinator

Sports Report On Monday 8 May Heathfield took on the Papplewick School U12 swim team. Everyone swam brilliantly, but Heathfield lost narrowly with 65 points to 77. On the same day our U15A tennis players took on Luckley House and were victorious with a score of 7­1.

On Tuesday 9 May our U13 and U12 teams took on Luckley House again, this time in Rounders. The U13 team won 14­8, and the U12 team won 11­5. Excellent effort girls, well done! All our rounders teams played The Marist on Tuesday 16 May. Our U15 team won 21­ 17 and our U14 team won an outstanding 31­14, but unfortunately despite excellent play the U13 and U12 teams were just beaten.

The next rounders fixtures were against Holyport College on Saturday 20 May. This time our U15 team won 14­9, our U14 team won 12.5­10.5, and our U13 team won 7­3.5.

Unfortunately the U12 team from Holyport proved too strong for ours, although everyone played excellently.

May Open Morning On Saturday 20 May we held our most successful Open Morning to date. A total of 47 families were in attendance, and there was a wonderful atmosphere around the school.

Thank you so much to the students who helped tour families, the teachers who came in to talk about their subject, Brookwood for the fantastic catering and of course all the staff who were involved in organising the event.

Somerville Weekend, 6 & 7 May 2017 The background to the entire weekend was the extensive revision undertaken by many older students over both days. On Saturday morning there were sports fixtures against St George’s in tennis and rounders. Well done to all those who played! A few Form IV girls went to Bracknell to take part in the 5km ParkRun, while revision classes were held for GCSE English, Physics and Religious Studies.

Before lunch we were lucky enough to have some members of the Bracknell Fire Brigade come in to give Forms I and II an entertaining yet educational talk on fire and water safety.

After lunch various inflatables were available for all students on the lax field. There was a large bouncy castle, a mechanical bucking bull, sumo suits and a large inflatable obstacle course and slide. Many older students also enjoyed playing on these as a break from their revision. Some of the younger girls were playing all afternoon, trying to set the longest time for staying on the mechanical bull. The final winner was Katrina in Form I.

In the evening there was a disco for all Forms and hilarity ensued as all students dressed up as Heathfield teachers!

Sunday morning began with brunch at 10:30am allowing many to have a well­deserved lie in. GCSE Drama students rehearsed all day and at 4pm they gave a wonderful performance to Form I. Miss Johnson ran a scavenger hunt for Forms I and II which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

After lunch Form III travelled to Reading Climbing Centre for an introduction to the sport of indoor and rock climbing.

Chapel at 8pm brought the weekend to a close, where Father David preached on the theme of Christ the Good Shepherd. Everyone went to bed exhausted from a busy weekend but ready to take on the next week!

John Doyle, Head of House – Somerville

26 May ­ 4 June ­ Half Term 9 June ­ New Girls' Sleepover 11 June ­ Parents' Tennis Tournament 16 June ­ Private View 17 June ­ Sports Day, 10am start 20 ­ 24 June ­ Royal Ascot Week 8 July ­ Parents' Day

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