SOCIETY MAGAZINE 001
1888
HORRIS HILL SCHOOL
Lower School Nativity
Fireworks Display
The Chapel was in use again just before Christmas for the Lower School Nativity performance. This was the first performance at Horris Hill after the school has welcomed girls and it was lovely to see a number of our girls perform roles in a joyful celebration of the Christmas story. The Lower School was celebrated throughout the year for a number of very memorable performances which included a play [Rats], a concert and a Harvest Festival celebration bringing colour and display to the Chapel. Chloe Long played an instrumental role in ensuring that these performances were very successful.
Musician of the Year One of the highlights of the year is the Musician of the Year Competition just before half term in the Autumn Term. There were some tremendous performances this year, including a moving piano performance from Felix Wu in Year 7. The competition was won by Fintan Light with a tremendous and exhilarating drum piece. He was pushed close by strong performances by Ismail Khalid on violin and James Lee on piano. There are a number of very strong musicians at the school; we were thrilled when we heard that Ismail Khalid had been awarded a Music Exhibition to Winchester College.
Nursery Opening At the start of the 2022/2023 academic year we were very excited to open our new nursery within the Greenfield site building. The nursery combines a large amount of space with the ability for children to move safely outside on to a verandah, overlooking the Lower School play area. It has certainly proven to be an exciting addition to Horris Hill life, with 30 children now attending at the end of the first year. We hope that many of the children will stick with the school and move into Reception when they turn 4. With 29 children in the Lower School, the school is planning well for the future.
November started with our customary fireworks display down by the Kitchen Garden. There is a tradition of Year 8 parents leading the display and we were all amazed and delighted with a really super presentation which brought enjoyment to the whole community. It was followed up
with hot dogs, toffee apples and mulled wine down by the Dining Room. With growing numbers of parents from the nursery and Lower School mixing with some parents and children returning for an annual event, it was certainly a lovely family affair.
Future Schools Fair A valuable addition to our Spring Term Programme was our Future Schools Fair where we welcomed 10 familiar schools to Horris Hill. This was a chance for parents and the children in Upper School to meet with a variety of admissions teams, Housemasters and marketing teams from the most popular schools that our children move on to. This was such a success that we are going to add this to our annual set of events. The Sports Hall again doubled as a superb venue for this sort of occasion. With eight of our Year 8s moving on to Winchester, it was unsurprising that there were lots of pupils and parents keen to talk to the school from which our founder emerged.
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Horris Hill Day We departed from tradition in quite a spectacular way this year, putting up a marquee on Lower Field that allowed two fabulous days of celebration. We started with the Prizegiving ceremony that combined awarding prizes with some notable LAMDA and music performances from the children. That evening we held a live lounge, where children, staff and parents got up on stage to play and sing. The musical theme continued on the Saturday with a fabulous Summer Concert preceding the picnic lunches. Earlier in the day we had the fete on Lower Field and the Lower School Sports day. The day culminated with a staff v parents cricket match, which was won by the hosts.
Chinese New Year With a large number of our boarders coming from Asia, Chinese New Year is now a very important festival in our Calendar. We introduced a range of topics connected with both the Festival and the country as part of our teaching on the day. The kitchen was also able to prepare some delicious Chinese food. Perhaps the most fun part of the celebration was in the evening before the New Year when a group of our Chinese parents introduced some games and activities for our Year 7s and 8s that brought the occasion to life.
Colour Sport Colour sport continues to be a big highlight for the children in the Upper School. As well as the usual major sport competitions, there were some very exciting and well fought minor sport competitions, including a competitive cross-country relay for each age group and a testing colour duathlon on Horris Hill day, that involved a run-swim-
Burns Night At the end of January we celebrated Burns Night, with as many of the trappings as we could muster for a young audience. With a keen bagpiper in our midst we were keen to pipe in the haggis, even if the food was a culinary challenge for our senior pupils. This year we welcomed a new catering team from Thomas Franks and they always produced fabulous food on all occasions. This celebration was no exception.
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run format. We also made great use of the recently refurbished sports Hall, with table tennis, basketball and dodgeball all featuring in the range of sports competitions this year. The dominant Colours this year were green and red, with the latter winning two of the three termly competitions.
Remembrance Day
Lords Trip Towards the end of the Spring Term our Year 7s and 8s had the privilege of visiting Lords Cricket ground. With some illustrious cricketers having attended Horris Hill, it was appropriate for our players to prepare for the cricket season ahead with a trip to the ground, the Long Room and the museum to see a number of items and places associated with the game. Hopefully the sight of such a hollowed ground will inspire many of them to play cricket to a high level at their senior schools.
The Lower School produced a colourful display of poppies for the front entrance to their classroom block and it marked the start of a series of memorials for Remembrance Day. These included the Last Post and 2 minutes silence on the PB grounds outside the Music Block and then a Remembrance Day Family Service which included a series of poems and readings based around Anthony Seldon’s journey across Northern Europe. That journey traced the line of trenches and battlefields memorialising the Fallen of the Great War.
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Carol Service We welcomed Mr Bennett back to help give some gusto to the singing for the Christmas Carol Service. The service always takes place on the last evening of term with the Christmas holiday beckoning bringing a wonderful jollity and sense of festivity. A combination of staff and pupil readings, poems, carols and anthems made it one of the richer cultural occasions of the year. The service was followed by mince pies and mulled wine and the staff Christmas social. One of the nicest features of the choir is the beautiful red robes they wear for big occasions such as this.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The Year 4 and 5 play at the end of the term was a jazzy and enjoyable version of the classic Roald Dahl novel. Some wonderful Oompa Loompa costumes were combined with a dazzling surreal set to make this a fun and stimulating play in which many of the cast made their acting debut. The casting was very clever, with the five lucky children displaying all the ghastly and wonderful qualities that makes the story so memorable and enjoyable. It was a lovely way in which to finish the term.
Upper School Trip to Oxford Another innovation in the Spring Term was a trip to Oxford which involved all of Year 4 to Year 8. With all the staff supporting the trip, different year groups visited different parts of the city with younger children visiting the Botanic gardens and the University Music Department, whilst older children visited colleges, the Covered Market and the Ashmolean museum. Despite the rain, it was a memorable day which we hope will become a staple for the school calendar, with a different city chosen each time.
2018 Leavers Return
Visiting Speakers We welcomed 3 speakers to Horris Hill in the Summer Term. All of them had been on the most extraordinary adventures over the preceding years. The first talk was given by Elise Downing, who spent a year in her early twenties running around the whole coast of the UK. She turned her experience into a prize winning book called Coasting. After Elise, Guy Denison-Smith who is a former parent and a member of the Advisory Board of Governors, came to speak about how he led a group of army veterans, including several amputees, up the Yukon in Canada. His talk preceded a second trip in June with another group of army veterans. Lastly, we welcomed Tim Harris back to his old prep school. Tim had rowed across the Atlantic with a colleague from work and he shared the difficulties and triumphs of that trip with our Upper School children.
Historically the Leavers of Horris Hill come back to Horris Hill in the last year of their senior schools to reminisce about their time here and catch up with old friends. This year we welcomed the 2018 Leavers back from schools such as Eton, Radley and Winchester. They had a drink and a BBQ in the Headmaster’s Garden followed by a tour of the new buildings and a chance to test their skills with a football match on Lower Field. It was especially fun to see members of Year 7 and 8 joining in with them.
Farewell to Felix 2023 marked the end of Felix Beardmore-Gray’s long association with Horris Hill. Having arrived as a Gap student in 1976, Felix spent the best part of 50 years associated with our school. In that time, he has performed just about every role that it is possible to play, from leading sports teams and music to teaching almost every subject and running the senior boarding house. Felix has been a well-loved and highly respected servant of the school and we held a fitting farewell to him at the start of July. With a dinner in the Library and drinks in the Headmaster’s garden, Felix was able to connect with several former colleagues and Heads from his time at the school. We wish Felix every happiness in his retirement in Somerset.
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1888
HORRIS HILL SCHOOL Horris Hill School, Newtown, Newbury, Berkshire, RG20 9DJ Web: www.horrishill.com
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