Inside Heathfield issue 65

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Issue Number 65 19 June 2017

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With less than a month to go until the end of this school year, there is no sign of things slowing down at Heathfield. Girls have been sitting public and internal exams and there is an atmosphere of serious work throughout the school during the working day. As staff we recognise the pressure that girls face at exam time, and as you read these pages you will see that it has definitely not been ‘all work, no play’!

Speaking of play, it was lovely to see so many of you at Sports Day held this year here at Heathfield for the first time in many years. I hope you enjoyed yourselves and please do let us know if there is anything we could do to improve it even more.

Parents’ Day on Saturday 8 July is our occasion to celebrate another wonderful year at Heathfield and to say goodbye to our outgoing Upper Sixth girls. I take this opportunity to remind you that all girls are required to attend; it’s important that we celebrate together as a whole school and mark the many achievements of the year, as well as bidding farewell to some long­standing members of staff.

As always, this newsletter gives a flavour of what has been going on at Heathfield over the last couple of weeks; I hope you’ll enjoy reading about what the girls have been doing.

With best wishes

Mrs Gardiner Legge

End of Term Assembly The end of the Lent term came with the announcement of various awards and badges, celebrating achievements and hard work across the start of the summer term.

Music exam certificates were officially presented, as well as badges for commitment to Choir, followed by LAMDA and Ballet certificates, Drama badges and Top Twelve badges.

Earlier in the year Form I and II took part in the Junior Maths Challenge, which is a

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national competition. Juana, Form I, was awarded Silver and Best in Year, and in Form II, Past Issues Tamara was awarded Bronze, Auriel was awarded Silver, and Lily was awarded Gold andTranslate Best in Year.

Staff awards were also announced. Well done to India, Emma, Katy, Lara, Vasilisa and Tina who were awarded their Platinum Merit Awards.

Finally, Highflyers of the Lent term were celebrated. Well done to Lucy who was commended for her piece of Music work which won full marks, making her the Highflyer winner in the Expressive Arts Faculty. In the Humanities faculty, Katrina’s piece of writing for Religious Studies and Thea’s board game for Geography both saw them being awarded Highflyers.

Martian colonist Ryan MacDonald visits Heathfield to talk about Life on Mars Staff and students were in for a real treat on Wednesday 24 May when Oxford­educated 24­ year­old Ryan MacDonald, a Theoretical Astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, Science Communicator, and one of the one hundred international Astronaut Candidates for Mars One’s proposed 2031 mission to the Red Planet, came in to talk to us about his forthcoming voyage. Ryan is one of 200,000 people who applied for a place on the $6bn mission, which the Dutch non­profit organisers plan to film for a documentary series.

In his talk, Ryan explored the greatest adventure of the 21st century: our journey to becoming a multi­planetary species.

Humans will go to Mars one day. But unlike the mission to the Moon, the question being posed is: could we skip the ‘plant­a­flag stage’ and establish a permanent human settlement on the red planet?

The Mars One project intends to send 4 people on a mission to Mars in 2031. Unlike other proposed missions, the astronauts will live and work on Mars for the rest of their lives. They will become the first settlers on another world. The missions will start with a series of

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robotic excursions, the first one of which is planned for a 2022 departure.

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What challenges will need to be overcome to make a Mars settlement a reality, and how can they be dealt with? What technologies will be needed for a small community to survive (and ultimately thrive) on the red planet?

Ryan has spoken about the mission at international conferences, schools, colleges and universities around the world, seeing it as an excellent opportunity to promote the potential of STEM education and careers. He has appeared on both national and international TV and radio, discussing the unique challenges of human spaceflight and life on Mars.

Ryan believes passionately in the inspirational potential of human spaceflight, and seeks to demonstrate first­hand how far science can take a person. More than anything, he strives to show young people that if they dare to believe in their dreams, then even the stars themselves are within their reach.

Form IV Geographers discover the coastal and rural elements of the Slapton Ley area, Devon On May 21 the Form IV ‘Geog Squad’ set off for a 3­day residential field trip to prepare for their GCSE fieldwork next year. At last, they were to set foot on Slapton Sands, a textbook example of a bar, as well as learn how to master techniques of geographical investigation.

The girls were given enough time to grab lunch before being ensconced in a classroom.

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Chloe, the Field Studies Council leader, proved to be a great success both in terms of Past Issues Translate delivering excellent Geography and in keeping everyone’s interest. Throughout the afternoon Chloe introduced important elements such as questions to ask when faced with resources, how to use secondary sources such as song lyrics about Country Life along with census statistics on changing rural populations, how to use collector app on an iPad to map emotion in the local village of Slapton, as well as the usual primary data collection of pedestrian and traffic counts and land use mapping.

The next day the sun shone on the coastal investigations of Start Bay, looking at hypotheses to test on physical processes, coastal management, cost benefit analysis, beach profiling and shingle analysis. The girls learned about sampling strategies such as systematic sites along the beach, and how to use fieldwork instruments like clinometers, to measure the angle of the slope. Each return to base brought an hour’s classroom focus on presenting, analysing and evaluating results collected that day. Hot off the press!

The final morning, despite cool mists, the field sketches of Mattiscombe Bay illustrated the various concepts grasped such as lithology linked to contrasting landforms. Another random sampling session took place involving picking up four rocks each – with eyes shut!

To check impartiality this was repeated twice. A quick analysis of these sediments on the beach alongside a geology map illustrated the dynamic nature of this coastal area. A great outdoor learning environment! This trip was so successful that next year’s group has already been booked in, but the Form IV Geog Squad 2017 is a hard act to follow!

Basia Mason, Head of Humanities Faculty & Subject Leader ­ Geography

Form I Spanish Armada Board Games Form I girls were recently presented with the challenge of creating an imaginative board game designed on the story of the Armada. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the task and got stuck in, coming up with some fabulous ideas. Katrina, Elicia and Sabie were runners­up for Most Imaginative Game, Ella and Lucy were commended for Most Historical Content, and

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Thea and Frankie excelled in creating the Most Challenging game. The overall winners were Past Issues Juana and Lara, for their game’s historical content, good design and being the mostTranslate playable and fun. Well done everyone.

Mrs Lesley Worrall, Teacher of History

New Girls' Sleepover On Friday 9 June 25 girls who will be joining Heathfield in September came to stay for the traditional New Girls’ Sleepover. It was a fantastic day filled with lots of exciting activities.

They played an array of games and everyone got the chance to toast some marshmallows over a barbeque to make s’mores. The evening drew to a close with a movie and popcorn in the SMAT, before the girls retired up to the dorm rooms for a well­earned sleep.

The following day, the sun shone as parents current and new, along with various members of staff, enjoyed a delicious barbeque on the field. Thank you to our fantastic catering team from Brookwood for arranging this. It was a really successful sleepover and we hope all the new girls and parents are as excited for September as we are!

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Taster Day On Tuesday 23 May we had the pleasure of welcoming 25 Year 5 girls from various prep schools for a Taster Day, allowing them to get a feel for what Heathfield is all about.

The girls began the day with Art and Science workshops, and after a delicious lunch they also had the chance to play on the Boarding Schools’ Association “Boarding Bus” which has been renovated to look like a bedroom. Later in the afternoon they also took part in an English lesson and PE.

Thank you so much to the staff for organising this day, and to our Head Girl team who accompanied the girls at lunchtime.

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Ascension Day Thursday 25 May was a special day in Chapel, dedicated to honour the Ascension of Jesus, which we celebrated in Heathfield tradition in the form of ice cream. An ice cream van parked itself up in our grounds and the girls had the chance to enjoy the sunshine with a nice refreshing lolly!

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Sports Report On Tuesday 23 May our U14 rounders team represented Heathfield in the Ascot Schools’ Tournament, finishing an outstanding 6th out of 14 schools. On the same day our U12 tennis team took on St Mary’s Ascot, but despite their excellent effort they lost 6­10.

On Wednesday 24 May the U15 rounders team played St Mary’s Ascot who unfortunately proved too strong and the match finished 15­26. In tennis, many congratulations must go to Florence, Sophie, Minty and Kiki who won their first Aegon Cup match vs St Mary’s Ascot – excellent work girls!

On Saturday 10 June Heathfield hosted LVS for a morning of rounders and the Heathfield teams put on excellent performances. The U15A team won 19.5­18, U14A won 14­6.5 and the U14B team won 11­6.5. Congratulations to Tina, Maddison, Sophie, Florence, Phoebe and Hum who were all awarded Player of the Match in their age categories.

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de Valois Weekend, 10 & 11 June 2017 The weekend was a buzz with new girls staying for their first sleepover at Heathfield. As Saturday morning came around the girls had eventually dried out following their water games with the LVI Prefects from the evening before and they were keen to enjoy a taste of what’s to come in September.

To continue with their boarding experience they followed an action­packed morning involving art and design, dance and drama, concocting ‘freak­shakes’ and a spot of rounders followed by a BBQ in the glorious sunshine. All too soon it was time for the afternoon activities to begin and to say goodbye.

The weather was in excellent form for an afternoon on the water as a coach­load of girls departed to the JB Ski Water Park. Girls spent the afternoon conquering challenges on the inflatable Aqua Park and catapulting each other into the water as well as trying their luck at knee­boarding.

That evening we were entertained by a vast array of musical medleys from past to present day as the First to Fifth Form all vied for use of the microphones at a Karaoke / Disco evening in the Theatre.

Sunday morning saw the senior students up bright and early for Revision Mass followed by White Chapel for the remainder of school. Thank you to Ella and Lara for giving the readings and Allie and Libby for the prayers.

As the majority of the school settled down to revision in preparation for the week ahead a

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number of parents and girls battled it out on the tennis courts. Congratulations to Immie and Past Issues Translate her father for placing first followed by Florence and her father coming a close second.

At 2pm girls took a break from revision and made the most of the warm weather to play some rounders before heading to the pool to cool off and relax before the week ahead.

Janet Talbot ­ Head of House, de Valois

20 ­ 24 June ­ Royal Ascot Week 8 July ­ Parents' Day 15 July ­ 12 August ­ Summer School 5 September ­ Form III and LVI girls return 6 September ­ Form II, IV, V and UVI girls return 7 September ­ Form I girls start 7 September ­ Start of Michaelmas Term

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