Oracle 2014

02-13

Annus Mirabilis—Year Eight 02-03 04-05 06-08 09-12 13

14-23

Farewell to Year Eight Dolphin Night The Alps Expedition Other Trips, Visitors and Theatrical Experiences Stratford Residential Trip

Year Seven 25-28 28-33

34-50

76-77

Design Technology and Art

78-92

Sport at Dolphin 80-81 Football 82 Rugby 83 Hockey 84 Netball 85 Athletics 86 Rounders Tennis 87 Judo Gymnastics Swimming 88-89 Cricket 90-92 Sports Days

Snowdonia Walking Trip Other Trips, Visitors, Theatrical experiences, Creative Writing and Art

Features 34-37 Science 38 Forest Schools 39-40 Cross-Curricular Day 41-45 An Interview with Judy Seall 46-50 Edinburgh Festival

51-65

66-69

Performance

51-53 Year Seven and Eight Play: These Fragments 54-55 Shakespeare in Schools 56-57 Year One, Two and Three Play: Prickly Hay 58-59 Year Five Play: The Clock that Rocked 60-61 Reception Play: Big Bad Wolf 62-63 Junior Concert 64 Senior Concert 65 House Music

Charities and FunRaisers Events 66-67 Charities 68-69 FunRaisers

Whole School 70 Awards and Scholarships 71 Twelfth Night (Festival of Kings)

School Council 72 Chinese New Year 73 Stargazing

European Day of Languages 74-75 Clubs and New Clubs

Years Seven and Eight 14-17 Adventure Week 18-23 Northumbria

24-33

70-77

93-98

Nursery

99-103

93 Elaine 94-98 Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences,

Activities and Charities (See also page 66)

Reception 99-103

104-109

Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences and Activities

Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences and Activities

Year Two 110-113

114-118

119-122

Day Trips and Activities Four Days in Dorset South Downs Walking Trip Day Trips, Activities and Theatrical Experiences

Year Five 125-126 127-129

130-131 132-133 134-136

Three Days in Boulogne Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences and Activities Brecon Beacons Walking Trip Day Trips and Activities Ironbridge Field Trip

Year Six 137-142 143-144

145-147 148-149 150-151

152-154

Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences and Activities East Sussex Residential Trip

Year Four 119-120 121 122 123-124

125-136

Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences and Activities

Year Three 114-117

118

137-151

Year One 104-109

110-113

CONTENTS — DELPHIC ORACLE Contents — Delphic Oracle

Delphic Oracle 2013-2014

North Wales Residential Trip Day Trips ,Visitors, Theatrical experiences and Activities Lake District Walking Trip Other Trips Year Six Party

Old Delphinians 152-154 155-160

Old Delphinian Announcements Old Delphinian News

1

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

ANNUS MIRABILIS — YEAR EIGHT

Our Final Year

Dolphin School Year Eight Leavers July 2014

Major Awards Atro Autio

Awards 2

Anna Seall Atro Autio Connor Brown

Science

Art Sport Technology

Valete Centre front clockwise: Anna Seall, Connor Brown, Daisy Rodgers, Tommy, Atro Autio, Spencer Clarke, Peter de Carvalho, Henry Best, Paris Ferguson, Emily Batchelor, Gabriel Kasinski, Charlie Teague

House Captains 2013-2014

Thank you to the outgoing captains, for their hard work and support this past year, not only in the organisation of their teams for house matches, but also for their encouragement, leadership and example set for those in the younger years.

- Tommy for Lancaster - Emily Batchelor and Anna Seall for Plantagenet - Atro Autio and Henry Best for Tudor - Connor Brown for York

Tommy Reading Grammar School

Peter DE CARVALHO Holyport College

Atro AUTIO Reading Grammar School

Paris FERGUSON Gillotts School

Emily BATCHELOR Queen Anne’s

Gabriel KASINSKI Holyport College

Henry BEST Sir William Borlase Grammar School

Daisy RODGERS The Abbey (Also offered Academic Scholarship at Luckley Oakfield)

Connor BROWN Abingdon School (Drama Scholarship)

Anna SEALL Holyport College

Spencer CLARKE Holyport College

Reception in the Garden for Year Eight and their Families

Charlie TEAGUE Leighton Park 3

4

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Dolphin Night

5

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight 6

The Alps

An excited but still bleary-eyed Year Eight climbed aboard the minibus and set off at 04:20, one post-exam Friday morn! The aim of this trip is to provide a challenge beyond that of the walking trips at home and a fitting finale to the five-year programme. The first challenge was passed by all, including parents: to arrive at school on time!

Our next stop was the Col du Lautaret, a scenic mountain stop ideal for a picnic, with breathtaking views of the Montagne des Agneaux and other pics. Oft-used by the Tour de France, one of these days the road will be closed to us and we will have to take the long way round. Until now the dates have not clashed!

Behind the scenes, and perhaps not mentioned at the trip meeting, lies a curiosity amongst the staff to see how the Year Eights will cope in increasingly deprived conditions. The initial debasement of all things considered to describe a decent standard of living arrives in Lyon with a foray into the land of the Hôtel Formule 1, deliberately sited barely off a motorway slip road. Normally I would talk about how the shock to the system is reversed when the very same establishment in Dijon on the return journey is then considered a luxury, after all that has been experienced in the Alps. But Charlie it was who said surprisingly, ‘Actually these are pretty cool. I quite like them!’ Maybe the fact that France were winning their World Cup match that night and could be viewed in the bedrooms helped soften the blow. Alas, England were already out.

We arrived at our campsite in the afternoon, tired but still in a buoyant mood. Not content with conditions at an F1 hotel, we sought en masse to sink still further with what used to be quite a basic campsite. No longer; the once municipal site had been revamped by a private company and the long-drop loos replaced by flush toilets. Quelle surprise! Avec piscine chauffée et en plein air aussi! Showers that previously could not guarantee hot water now belched out gallons of the stuff. Oh dear, so how can we really ensure the children encounter a tough few days with no running water or other luxuries? How about a mountain hut?

Not before acclimatising, though, with a trek up to the Glacier Blanc, carefully negotiating our way around the vicious and stalking marmots and chamois, some at worryingly close proximity. The Dolphin tradition

of wallowing in a pool of glacial meltwater continues, each year-group endeavouring to better the last. This time Atro set the tone with a lengthy, expressionless chill-out, only to be beaten at the last by Spencer, with a thirteen-second spell with his head under the water, madness. There then followed an impromptu session of sliding over smooth rocks or down snowy slopes before we descended to an eagerly-anticipated ice cream.

And so to our first via ferrata, a series of steep (at times vertical) climbs with rungs, cables, helmets, harnesses, lanyards and karabiners. With the occasional overhang thrown in for added disquiet. With a new via ferrata now in use and more suitable for gaining confidence, we began with the Via Ferrata d’Ailefroide, a set of pitches and rope bridges that worked their way up a thundering river gorge. After lunch and a couple of hours of rock climbing and abseiling (sometimes upside down!), we managed to squeeze in the more disturbing Via Ferrata de L’horloge.

Although shorter, it’s more exposed and the drop below your feet more concerning. Year Eight coped admirably. In fact, those who had expressed a reservation or two about these forms of travel, and the health and safety policy on working at height, found themselves enthralled

7

War Horse

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

by the adrenalin and launched themselves with enthusiasm at each new challenge. Anna, whilst hanging off a rung with one hand and trying to clip on to the next cable with the other, still found an appropriate moment to remind me how many euros I still owed her. Others also refused to give in to any sense of foreboding and emerged the other side with a real sense of accomplishment and reward. I was impressed.

And finally to the mountain hut. Starting our ascent at a height that is comfortably over that of Snowdon, we scaled another thousand meters, with the aid of more lanyards and karabiners. A digitally-challenged Mr Leakey had inadvertently booked the wrong mountain hut but fortunately there were beds and meals awaiting the hungry mountaineers, once they had explored their rather cramped but nonetheless exciting quarters for the night — joined-up bunk beds and blankets! Our descent proved to be the most exhilarating experience of all, due to a steep slope of impacted snow and ice that lay below the rocky escarpment and that needed to be negotiated carefully. Everyone was roped up and let down cautiously, one at a time, with a mountain leader at either end of the rope. As this was deemed to be insufficient in terms of a scare-factor, thick mist was laid on to provide a near white-out.

Once down with the same number of children as went up, we treated ourselves to a dip in a warmer lake at Roche de Rames, with rope swings, pedalos and trees from which to either attack each other, plunge into the water, or both. An abiding memory will be of Peter, in full union jack swimming shorts regalia, marshalling his troops at full stretch as the group tried to defend their ships from an ‘invasion’ of just two inquisitive French boys. Quelle horreur! The sense of outrage was palpable from the shore.

We left the most exciting via ferrata to the end, le Sentier de la Combe, a three-hour extravaganza up another thundering river gorge, that ended with much hanging upside down from rope bridges, even the odd occasion of a teacher fulfilling his wildest dream of swinging a child underneath one of these bridges. Alas, Charlie was still clipped on and, worse still, he actually enjoyed the experience and was hoping for more!

None of these energetic endeavours could have been accomplished without the culinary wizardry of Alanna in the cook tent, complicated only slightly by four sets of birthday cakes, candles, cards and prezzies for the thirteen to fifty year-olds! Never fazed by a preponderance of interest from the children in melting marshmallows or by any lack of fridge—and therefore milk—she glided through the experience, to make the children feel that this was perfectly normal, forever full of encouragement towards them, be it in their attempts at cooking or on the energy-sapping mountainside. Nor without the experience and skill of European mountain leaders Gerry Lynch and Dave Saye, both well-versed in this trip, and thanks also go to the evercheerful and helpful parent, Stuart Clarke, who took every new experience in his stride.

8

As ever, the Alps trip provides a memorable adventure where the students go out from Dolphin as children but return as young adults. In an age where this type of experience is increasingly uncommon outside Dolphin, it provides real opportunities to gain and reinforce self-belief and selfconfidence, valuable life skills for the challenges ahead at senior school and beyond.

Chris Leakey

The Alps trip is a life-changing experience for all Dolphins. I hope it will always be possible for future Year Eights to go.

Spencer I especially liked the via ferratas and getting to hang upside down over a river.

Tommy I enjoyed sliding head-first down the snowy slope!

I had the best time of my life. I now love marmots

Henry Daisy

The most memorable moment came when the French people tried to hijack our boat!

Paris

Last night we were lucky enough to be taken to watch War Horse—an adaptation of the book of the same name by Michael Morpurgo. It was an amazing experience and I would highly recommend it for anyone aged twelve and above.

The theatrical interpretation of Michael Morpurgo’s masterpiece, War Horse, is beautifully performed by the National Theatre, with puppets amazingly crafted by the Handspring Puppet Company, at the New London Theatre.

The story is about a family, the Narracotts, and their horse, Joey. One day, the father, an alcoholic, bids for his horse against his brother and ends up spending all their rent money on Joey. Albert Narracott, the son, trains Joey and a strong bond is formed between them. Then war strikes and Joey is sold into the army. Imagine this happening to you, being separated from your most important friend in the world!

Distraught with this decision, Albert runs away to join the army to search for his horse.

It is a simple open stage with a line of fabric suspended above the actors as a projection screen. At the beginning, the play shows the emotions that go through Albert when training the horse. Later it captures the raw eagerness of the men going to war and the dread of being in it. The play even uses different languages such as German and French. The play perfectly transitions between the stories of Albert and Joey. The play is filled with emotions and moments of anger and comedy, but it really captures the emotions that a soldier would have had during WW1.

This is one of the best plays I have seen with Dolphin School and I strongly recommend that you go and watch it. The physicality of the puppet horses was so lifelike it was extraordinary. My favourite character was the goose puppet because she was terribly funny.

I wonder which character will be your favourite? We watched War Horse in London but there are many productions all over the world so that wherever you are, you can probably catch this truly special gem of a show.

Henry Best

The main attraction, however, are the puppet horses. They are operated by three people: two for the rear and front legs and one to control the neck and head, who even make the noises of the horses themselves. The actors move with such fluidity that the movement of the animals is very realistic.

All facts considered, the play doesn’t just interpret Morpurgo’s story, but truly captures the essence of WW1 thanks to the hard work of the cast and crew.

Gabriel Kasinski

Do you want to see the performance of the century? Is theatre something that interests you? Come and see War Horse, a truly gripping performance and a wonderful thing to behold. Everyone in the theatre is in tears as Joey the horse goes on an amazing journey that shows you the reality of war.

Joey is a character that you fall in love with at first sight. Played by a life size puppet, this horse looks real but skillful puppeteers control him capturing the movement and the breath of a living horse. They must have had hours of rehearsal in order to capture the emotions of a horse. War Horse tackles harsh issues; it explores how war can change people and still keep some things the same but above all, it shows how love can ultimately win against war.

Why don’t you go and see War Horse for yourself to experience this high quality drama? I especially liked the moving stage, which suggested to me that the world is constantly changing. Why would you want to miss out on this amazing experience?

War Horse is definitely the best production we have ever seen and I am in no doubt that it will be the best you see too!

Daisy Rodgers

9

Finding out what it’s like inside the womb

Wonderful Poets at the Hexagon

London Theatre Visit

Natural History Museum

The Woman in Black

Discovering the make-up of a cell

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Roche Court

What does this lever do?

Year Eight spent the day listening to a variety of poets, including our current Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, the National Poet for Wales Gillian Clarke and Simon Armitage.

Although this day is aimed at students three years older than our Dolphin students, the unseen poem comprehension in the Common Entrance exam is of the same standard as GCSE exam questions. The poets read and discussed some of their own poetry and their favourite poems written many years earlier. Poems may be separated by years, or decades, or even centuries, but they are still dealing with timeless things: who we are, whom we love, where we come from, the battles we face. The American poet Robert Frost wrote that poems should be read in the light of every other poem ever written.

Year Eight visited

The British Library

Some students were very excited as they were selected to work and hand out programmes to the hundreds of students attending this day. They even got paid!

Science Visit to the Natural History Museum

10

We walked and talked about several objects which were outside in the grounds of the house. We saw a white plaster horse by Mark Wallinger, a row of stones by Richard Long and an inside-out cement cast of a shed by Rachel Whiteread. We offered our ideas about the sculptures as talking together about our points of view were very valid in being able to understand what we were looking at.

Daisy Rodgers

Year Eight visited the Natural History Museum to bring to life a number of human biology topics. The children enjoyed learning about human development from the unfertilized egg to an adult.

They also studied how the nerves, muscles and skeletal systems interact to sense and react to the surrounding environment.

11

In the steps of The Bard...

During the last part of the summer term Year Eight enjoy a range of activities which enrich their usual curriculum and help to prepare them for the future.

Besides preparing their entertainment for Dolphin Night, captaining their teams for sports days, visiting the Natural History Museum as well as spending three days in Stratford and enjoying the challenge of the vias ferratas in the French Alps they participate in workshops about narcotics, parenthood, self-esteem and alcohol abuse, a safety talk from a policeman and an evening social event with speakers.

Here are photos from a few of them.

Three Days in Stratford

Narconon drugs workshop

First Aid course

Babies workshop

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight

Annus Mirabilis — Year Eight 12

Year Eight Leavers’ Activities

13

Our Programme Day 1:

Mountain biking.

Slate Quarry Exploring

Day 2:

Canoeing/Kayaking in Padarn Lake and Rock Climbing above the lake.

Boulder Hopping

Day 3:

Ascent of Tryfan’s North Face Raft Building

Day 4:

Gorge Walking Indoor Rock Climbing

Day 5:

Abseiling into Mine shafts

Mountain Biking On Adventure Week we did many activities and one of them was mountain biking. We did mountain biking on the day we arrived in North Wales. It was very fun especially at the speed we were travelling. Since we all had different strengths we split into two groups. There were many different terrains and they varied from concrete to mud to very loose rock that I actually fell over but I was ok and continued along the route. We went up a lot and it burnt your calves out but if you stopped it was near to impossible to start again on such a gradient. We reached speeds of up to 40 km/h going down the mountain and the air would push against you forcing you to sit on the seat of your bike. When we arrived back there were only two injuries; Henry fell off his bike and cut his elbow and Rian had a faulty chain and also fell off her bike and badly cut her arm and knee but managed to finish the mountain biking. In the end the mountain biking was extremely fun as was the entire trip and I look forward to going on it again this year.

Noam de Frettes

Kayaking On the second day we went kayaking across a beautiful lake. We all got soaked but we had lots of fun! We got Stuart to capsize and played lots of enjoyable games on the water. In one game we had to try and soak everyone which was hilarious because nearly everyone got soaked in the first minute. Stuart also had a water pistol so no one was left dry by the end. Stuart was really fast on his kayak and lapped us all and anyone who was being especially slow, he pulled them along for a while.

About half way along the lake, we went under a few low stone bridges which seemed to glow and underneath the bridge it was cold, dark and dank. We then came to a small area of water where there were no waves and it seemed rather tranquil until nearly everyone jumped out of their kayaks. As we went back over the lake we saw a boat. It created gentle waves rippling over the water; we waved to them frantically and they waved frantically back.

14

Years Seven and Eight

YEARS SEVEN AND EIGHT

Adventure Week

This was one of the most fun parts on Adventure Week although we all got super wet! I really enjoyed the kayaking and Stuart was a really great, fun leader. The view from the lake was amazing as everything around seemed unrealistic. People seemed like ants on the shore line and it felt like we were in a world of our own. Although we were cold and tired at the end, it was a great experience especially doing it with my friends!

Daisy Rodgers

Rock Climbing

Boulder Hopping On our second night in North Wales we went boulder hopping. This experience was great as you got wet and you had huge adrenaline rushes. Considering the water is freezing I enjoyed it .The aim of this activity to jump from boulder to boulder without falling. We also got the opportunity to climb under a road in a pipe. One part of the course was called ‘The Pool of Doom’. It had very slippery rocks and a very deep cold pit of water; surprisingly I was

the only one that fell in and it took me a very long time for me to get out. After all the misery I did finally escape with help of about five others. I thoroughly enjoyed the boulder hopping and the whole of Adventure Week. I was very disappointed to leave.

Archie Griffiths

Tryfan

Raft Building

Tryfan was the mountain we climbed on Adventure Week and it is the only mountain that you cannot climb without your hands. It was one of the most fun mountains we have climbed because we had to use our hands. We climbed the North Face which is the most difficult route except for the ones used by actual climbers!

As the day grew to an end and the sun started to settle down we arrived at the edge of the stream. The water glinted in the setting sun. Our mission was set and as we lugged the equipment to the bay; we set about the task of designing the rafts. Throughout what seemed to be the long gruelling hours (though actually less than a minute) we had brought together all of our ideas and had invented such a genius idea Einstein would have bowed down to us and presented us with all of his gratitude. We had created a raft that was designed and built to break the ice of the Antarctic and command the treacherous seas of the world. As the scientists, archaeologists and adventurers climbed aboard the beautiful vessel we ventured out into the glinting lake.

The bottom of the mountain wasn’t steep so we made good progress. As we neared mid-way the mountain got harder to climb, as if challenging us, daring us to climb its rocky face.

Out of the mist a rocky shape appeared. It was the Cannon. It looked dangerous so naturally we climbed out onto the end of it. My body was shaking and a bead of sweat dripped down my face. Reaching the tip I felt elated. The views could have been awesome; I couldn’t see much due to a carpet of cloud that covered the earth below us.

Moving on we began our final ascent of Tryfan and the iconic Adam and Eve. When at last we reached the top there was an amazing sense of achievement, and we all felt proud of ourselves.

Peter de Carvalho

Connor Brown

15

Indoor Rock Climbing

During our exciting adventure we had the great opportunity to go on an expedition up a gorge, we had great fun doing activities such as rope swinging, climbing up the elephant’s bottom, scrambling and crawling up wet rocks, showering under waterfalls and finally jumping into a pool of water at the end of our expedition. Personally my favourite section of this amazing trip was the jumping of the overhang into the deep pool of water, as we plummeted from the overhang you hear the cheers of the others next in line, awaiting when it is their turn. I feel what was important about this journey was that we stuck together or the fearsome water could drift us away and separate us. normally no school could get such an opportunity to climb up a freezing cold gorge, with the encouragement of your team-mates, and this is why I love Dolphin School.

On our last night on Adventure Week we went to an indoor rock climbing centre after Gorge Walking. When we sorted out the harnesses and clips we went to a special area called the Crazy Climb. There were lots of strange climbing walls like a drain pipe or two zigzags either side of you. One of them was a normal wall but it had a big red button at the bottom and the top so when you pressed the first one a timer would start and the other button stopped it. Paris went up the strange wall with the zigzags but when he came down he didn’t stop himself so he fell flat on the ground. After doing most of the crazy climbs Iwent onto one of the big walls. This was really fun because it was very tall and it was more challenging. At the end of the session we went to the bouldering area which was quite easy as the walls were really small.

Archie Notley

Years Seven and Eight

Years Seven and Eight

Gorge Walking

Henry Best On the second to last day we went gorge walking; we were spilt into two groups, one group got Gerry and one group got Stewart. I went with Stewart. It was a good group and Stewart made it really great and really fun. At the start Gerry’s group was set a challenge to not step in the water. If they did this challenge they got a mars bar. But we did not care about the challenge so we go extremely wet; I think that is more fun than not getting wet. There was a lot of water and the slopes were slippery. You got to use the rope to help you and you had to swim a bit of the way. Then I went down a water slide. Near the end we got to jump into a small water hole which was great and even some of the teachers jumped in.

Afterwards you were soaking . I hope I get to do the gorge walking again. It was probably the funnest day in all of adventure week.

Cai Evans I loved all the activities we did on Adventure Week but my favourite was the gorge walking. It was one of the nicest days of the trip regarding the weather.

The sun was beating down on our tired but excited faces. We were raring to go.

Everyone had a different understanding on what we were doing that day. So we were looking forward to the busy day ahead of us.

I enjoyed the gorge walking because I liked the exciting activities such as climbing up the waterfalls at the gorge. We did many thrilling activities at the gorge ranging from climbing through the Elephant’s Bottom, a rock formation with water cascading between it, and jumping into the freezing cold lakes. Gerry set up many courses for us to follow, most of them including a little swim. We also went down many rock slides and climbed up waterfalls.

The Mine Walk On one of the last days, Stewart and Gerry took us to an abandoned slate mine, which we made our way down. We abseiled down the sheer faces of slate, and walked the path that the old miners would have walked. Throughout our walk, there were streams running through the cave directing us. The rocks glistened with droplets careering down the walls. The precipitation caused all of the walls that we abseiled down to be slippery, and even more exciting to descend. Gerry and Stewart held the ropes, and at the same time held our fate in their hands!

We also walked around the mines, surrounded by stunning scenery and beautiful plants. After about one hour of walking, we kitted up and descended into the dark tunnels. Luckily, we all had head torches, so we could see our way as we slowly progressed.

Although the mine had paths, we decided to go off the beaten track. Occasionally, we would reach a point where the path became a sheer drop and one of the instructors would have to warn us away. The echoes of our voices bounced throughout the cave, and everyone could be heard repeatedly.

As we dove further into the blackness, a stream joined our path. We followed the stream, because we knew that it would lead us to the end. The journey took a few more hours, and mainly consisted of us climbing down mountains of loose scree and rock.

Eventually, we passed between two large prominent rocks and emerged out of the tunnel into the warm summer air. The rest of the group followed behind and we gathered outside to take our equipment off and give it to the instructors, happy to be back above ground and under a blue sky.

Tommy

By the end of the day we were all exhausted but we were ready for one more activity. We were all cold and our damp clothes were clinging to our icy bodies.

As we reached the end of the walk Gerry said that we could jump off the rock that looked a bit like a diving board into the freezing cold lake. Everyone was up for the challenge. As we all trooped back to the warm buses and a welcoming rest we recapped on the many activities we had done that day. We had done so much that no wonder we were tired.

Emily Batchelor

16

17

Years Seven and Eight

Years Seven and Eight

Six Days in Northumbria

Years Seven and Eight travelled to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, which once stretched from north of Edinburgh (named for King Edwin) to south of The Humber. We studied the Roman expansion into the north and in particular the engineering feat of Hadrian’s wall and its use of the geological features of the site. We then learned about the Golden Age of Northumbria and visited Jarrow and Lindisfarne as well as studying the development of architecture at Escomb, Durham and Fountains Abbey as well as Jarrow. Finally we also studied both the geology and geography of the area including topics such as bridges, shipbuilding and coal mining and made two beach studies.

The Venerable Bede

Jarrow Monks Building willow fencing

18

When I was seven I was entrusted to the care of Benedict Biscop but before that I lived in Monkton, Durham. My parents have been lost in time. While I was under the care of Benedict Biscop I was staying at the new monastery in Wearmouth but later I was sent to Jarrow when it was built. Every day the bell would ring to signal that it was time to pray. This would happen six times a day. The monks would know when to pray because we had a sundial. The sun would shine at certain points. If it was dark or there was no sun, than a candle would be burnt. The candle had markings on it so you could tell when you had to ring the bell when it had burnt down to one of the markings. We would pray at Matins (Midnight), Compline (three hours before midnight) and we would pray other times in the morning and afternoon. The day would also include study, where you would learn to read and write Latin, because Latin is the language of books. During the day you would also do manual labour, where you would look after the animals on the farm or tend the herb garden. There were [Dexter] cows and [Berkshire] pigs.

The monks used the skin of calves to make vellum for the books we wrote. The cows were mainly brown and hairy with flies swarming around them in the field.

The pigs were large and black like boars, and liked to wallow in the mud. As well as chickens we had geese and sheep whose wool made our habits. We also had a mill made out of wattle and daub but the buildings for the animals were of willow. We were self-sufficient.

The food at the monastery was better than what most people had. I had fish, eggs, all the vegetables we could get from the farm, chicken, milk, water, bread and all kinds of other fowls but we were not allowed to eat red meat. At the monastery we were always silent when eating while we listened to books being read to

us so we had to make signs so we could get things for each other.

The dormitory was quite big. Everyone had his own bed. We slept in our habits which were the colour of sheep’s wool, various shades of light and dark brown.

It had a hood so you could not be distracted during praying. We had a rope tied around our waists and during services we had to cross our hands inside our sleeves. The services were in Latin.

When I was still young the plague came and everyone died except me and our Abbot. But we still sang the services, just the two of us, six times a day. It was a very sad and scary time.

When I was nineteen I became a deacon. I had been at the monastery for twelve years by now, but I was still not a proper monk. I spent most of my spare time in the library or scriptorium, reading or writing. I still had to do all the daily chores, though, and pray. As I got older I started to write books, one of them was about the lives of Anglo-Saxon saints. I also wrote poetry and music and lots of books about nature and other things. I wrote about the tides and how to tell time and the birds’ migration. People came from all over the world to meet me and share their knowledge and they brought me books as presents. But what I hope will be my most helpful book to scholars of the future is Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. It is the first book ever to use the BC and AD system of dating.

Escomb Church

Bede

Sketching at Escomb

My name is Bede. I am a Benedictine monk. I was the first to use the AD-BC system…I am an Anglian scholar. I have written twenty seven books but am aiming to write forty. I went to the monastery of Wearmouth at seven years old.

I wrote about the miracles of Oswald, Aidan and Cuthbert. I am 55 now; when I wake up I have to go to prayer in the morning with stiff joints and aching bones.

It is tiring having to work the animals, especially at my age. … I was the first man to come up with the theory that the tide was affected by the moon. I was also the man who came up with the fact that the planet was round…

Henry Best Holy Island

Fountains Abbey

When I was thirty I finally became a monk, a proper monk, after being at the monastery for twenty three years.

Georgina Eden-Hasler

Escomb Church

Durham Cathedral

19

Pippa

Noam

Walking along Hadrian’s Wall

Housestaeds’ famous latrine

I am trying not to cry. I don’t want to be there. I am a surveyor attached to Legio VI Victrix. I have been chosen to decide the location of the massive wall that the Emperor Hadrian wants built through this hostile land of the Brigantes.

My brown eyes are blazing with fear and anxiety. But I think I’ve done well. I’ve found a natural escarpment, rising up out of the countryside.

Good, hard igneous rock. Perfect for a wall like this. The wall will stretch across the narrow neck of Britannia.

Spencer

But I am still scared.

Archie N

Isabella

Vindalanda Corbridge

Years Seven and Eight

Years Seven and Eight

Jazz

In the consulship of Manius Acilius Aviola

Relaxing at Housesteads

On the wall

The soldiers of the three legions stationed in Britannia must come north to build the wall during the summer months. But they don’t want to build the wall themselves even though that is part of the life of a legionary.

They scare me; I’m weak. They are strong.

We’ve started to quarry the local stone. It’s cheaper and less work. But the men are still giving me dirty looks.

Harry N I can see the late summer sun rising up over the horizon. I’m feeling more confident in myself. The men are kinder now.

Legate Maximus salutes Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus

We’ve been working on the actual building for the foundations for two months now; there have been a few attacks further west, where Legio XX Valeria Victrix is working—nothing that the working parties can’t handle.

We have built a wooden, temporary wall but soon we will rebuild it in stone on the foundations.

Laura

Atro

Emily B

We are back again for the second summer. We have built much of the wall westward from Pons Aelius (Newcastle) the settlement named after our emperor who is coming soon to inspect his great wall. The wall is wide and tall here. We have made a deep ditch to the north of it as well for extra protection. Hadrian is coming soon.

He is astounded. We have been working much faster than the other legions. Legio XX VV have really got bogged down on the escarpment and so they are building the wall much narrower and the foundations stick out from the wall.

I am not needed any more.

Charlotte Daisy R

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Vive valeque Millie Dean-Lewis and Rian Rosine

Examining the Hadrian’s Wall

The Great Whinsill

We have begun work on the wall and have nearly finished the first mile of each section, assigned to our three legions. We predict that the wall will be about IV passus with crenellations. Along the wall we will have a small castle every mile and signal towers in between as well. There is a small ditch to the north of the wall. To the south roads connect the castles to the forts on the Stanegate and a military road runs along just behind the wall from Arbeia, the supply fort near the mouth of the Tyne, all the way to the Cumbrian Coast where we will build more forts. The wall itself is being built of local stone which costs very little and is easy to transport. It is, of course, as usual being built by the legions and will be manned by auxiliaries. It will cut the territory of the rebellious Brigantes right in two.

Vale, vige, vire, flore Maximus tuus Datum Vindolandae

help if we are under attack. We have had to cut down a lot of trees for wood for shelters and scaffolding. There are a lot of farms nearby and the farmers are willing to supply us with the food we need. We have been visited by your governor, Nepos, who has applauded the work greatly.

Vive valeque Data Arbeiae

The original plans have changed. Originally we were going to build the wall on sedimentary rock from the valley but we realised that is would be a good defence method to build it on volcanic igneous rock which is much harder. We have built small camps for the generals and used scaffolding to make the wall higher. From the scaffolds we can see a large river which provides transportation for the stone. We have yet to start the first signal station between the castles. We think building them is important in case we need

Cura ut optime valeas

We have followed your new orders to build a vallum south of the wall to create a military zone. It will have to be lined with stone in the marshy places and cut out of bedrock further to the west so it will take some time. And we are also beginning to plan the forts right on the wall itself instead of just on the Stanegate under your orders and to block up the gates in the castles. We applaud this plan as the customs charges to pass through the wall will make you and the Roman Empire very rich as well as making us impregnable.

Ventilation louvre in Corbridge Granary

Mile Castle

Will Richards and Lawrence

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Pippa

Gabriel

Daisy

Vindolanda

Recreating the Wall at Bamburgh beach

Cold and damp, lonely and wee, that’s how I feel when I get night watch duty. Milecastle XLVI is never involved in any fighting. The Picts we hear so much about just don’t materialise. That’s why I’m the only one up on the wall. I’m one of the ones that’s used a lot by the commander as I am a Syrian archer. We can hit the enemy before they get near the wall.

But tonight, like every other night, no attack in sight. Behind me I see light from the taverns and bath houses in the distance. It is a nice feeling coming off night watch and going to the tavern to have a drink and maybe even gamble or meet a woman.

Noam de Frettes

Pride

Anna S

Reconstruction of Mile Castle at Vindolanda

Georgie

Years Seven and Eight

Years Seven and Eight

Sam

Nightwatch

Stunning, the wall looked grand. It loomed over me like a king. The rolling hills looked daunted by the effect that the wall had on it. This is one of the Romans’ greatest builds and I am here to protect it and prove my family’s right to become Roman citizens. As the path disappeared down the hill I had a perfect view of the Stanegate that leads to Corbridge. I was breathless.

Serena

Anna Millie

As the first snowflake of Saturnalia falls I am stuck on night duty. Nothing ever happens, no one ever attacks and I don’t know why they make us do this. Right now I am an auxillary but my dream is to become a citizen.

Practice was hard today; the ground was frosty but it did not stop us from training. One of the men that’s in my barrack got hit in the leg by a spear. He had to go to the hospital and suffer the pain of having stiches. Apparently they gave him pure alcohol to try and numb the pain.

Sometimes men try to steal the alcohol; they get whipped until they cannot walk but they still are made to train.

Jude Ruby

Emily B

Henry

Poppy

Year Eight girls preparing for war

Tonight is pay night so my barrack are planning to go to the local fort Vindolanda. They are building a new barrack house. It is looking grand already and it’s not even finished yet….

Corbridge Fort

Emily B Emily S

Louis 22

Anya

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Snowdonia The Quack on the Lake

Year Seven

YEAR SEVEN

Year Seven

The damp Welsh rain blurs the scene A single ray lights the lake That pierces the sullen clouds And makes golden the end of the day And on the lake a solitary bird Swims for home in the evening light Across the water, a quack is heard Guiding him home at the fall of night This lake for the ducks is their only home The cove they nest in paradise And when this year’s ducklings are full grown They’ll fly away till the melting of the ice.

Emily Spratley

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Snowdonia was such an amazing trip. My favourite part of Snowdonia was climbing the mountains Snowdon and Moel Siabod. I also enjoyed the evening activities; playing on the football pitch after walking each day and relaxing with my friends as we talked about our day.

We climbed Snowdon via the Pyg Track on the second day after a tiring walk on the first day. As we started our ascent up Snowdon, we stopped on a ledge looking out over a tarn which was glistening in the sun and in the distance we also saw a small forest. That’s where we had our first snack, eating homemade cookies looking out at the world below us as we sat on the rocks. We thought we could see the top of Snowdon but as so often, we were deceived by the false summit. We still had a long way to go!

We were in two groups; the FAST group sped ahead and were almost at the top before we knew it. Adam told us a story of a man who sang at the top of Snowdon with a piano which was delivered by the train that went up Snowdon. He was the opera singer Bryn Terfel and met a previous Dolphin group a few years back.

After an energising drink we started the hardest bit of the climb ‘the zigzag’. We looked back and couldn’t even begin to think where the other group had gone. As we ‘zigzagged’ up the final few hundred meters of Snowdon we took heart knowing we had almost achieved our objective. We had the summit in our sights, so it was heads down and, digging deep into our energy reserves, we crested the final ridge. That ridge seemed small in comparison to what we had already done that day. At the top the wind started to blow. It was refreshingly welcome on our tired faces. We found untapped reserves of energy and raced to the top to place our hands on the metallic summit marker of Snowdon.

It was a good and satisfying feeling to view what seemed like the whole world at our feet. We had a moment to reflect on our achievement before we encouraged and congratulated the other group as they too reached the top.

On the fourth day we climbed Moel Siabod, known as ‘Scrappy Mountain’. I liked this mountain because there was lots of scrambling over rocks and climbing to different levels. The first bit of scrambling came soon after we had started. We had to wedge our feet in between the rocks and pull ourselves up. As I was about to pull myself up a massive gust of wind came and my foot slipped. I had a feeling of impending doom and I silently cursed and hoped no one had seen. After what seemed like an eternity of walking and scrambling and walking and scrambling we finally reached the top. We ate lunch in a little shelter built out of stones and descended through a forest which was very relaxing. I still, however, had some energy left for a friendly game of football with some of the local children.

Year Seven

Year Seven

Walking in Snowdonia

I had an amazing time in Snowdonia, experiencing so many new and challenging walks as well as strengthening friendships, dipping my head into the freezing tarn water and playing football. Sadly, as all good things do, the end arrived all too quickly and we found ourselves back at school in the early evening sunlight looking for our families.

William Richards

Day Three Because of the awful weather the group were kept off the peaks, but we had an enjoyable and educational day above Betws-y-coed on a somewhat dilapidated orienteering course.

Later, as we climbed down on the long track to Llanberis, my feet started to ache from walking on the uneven ground and jagged stones, but I had been promised a treat! Reaching the village at the bottom, we walked for a well-deserved ice-cream. It seemed the best ice-cream I had ever tasted. Continued on next page.

Day One 26

After an uneventful drive on a hot, sunny day we lunched in Betws-y-coed before driving further into the mountains. A short afternoon walk on the Glyders was ideal to stretch our legs and also the weather proved perfect for a paddle in Cwm Idwal.

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Regatta

Day Five We decided to try a new walk on the last day which was the walk from Llangollen to the spectacular Pontcysyllte aqueduct some four miles outside the town. It was a pleasant walk along the canal before we were able to walk across the 126 foot high aqueduct completed in 1805 and a real wonder of Georgian engineering. It was certainly a great way to end what had been a very successful trip.

Underneath their light straw boaters In their pink Leander ties On their backs, reclined like floaters Waiting rowers watch the skies Lining up eager eights hold their line Bodies tense, ready their mighty oars The starter waits to give the sign Crowds are anxious at the pause At last they’re off, spectators gasp Race after race, they wave and cheer Proudly, the victors their trophies clasp Losers drown their hopes in beer At last night falls and fireworks start It’s not the winning, it’s the taking part.

Georgie Watkins

World War One Once in the land they now call Germany Were two great armies at war They marched through the dead streets quickly and quietly Knocking on every door They raided every house they found And killed the rich and the poor They searched and searched through all the mounds Which lay scattered across the floor The people hid when they saw The soldiers’ trail of dust And when they saw the armies approaching They knew that leave they must For as all the villagers had come to know, If they wanted their lives, they must go.

No Label

Dolphin

The giant glass doors The raisins and the shreddies The soft and scary claws Of dinosaurs and teddies The plastic farmyard creatures, The dead and broken cart The sharing, caring teachers Who helped with letters, numbers, art My pink and sparkly slippers Waiting underneath my peg To walk me to the answers And find a chocolate egg And though I truly loved to run and jump and play My favourite thing was storytime, which happened every day.

The clothes lay shapeless on the cloakroom floor No name, no label, no individual feature Untouched except by Madame Moore The fumes rose up from this deep-sea creature.

‘No label,’ echoed round the hall We shifted, waited, silent.

Madame Moore went through them all Finally, ‘Louis,’ Madame Moore rang, ‘we need your talent.’

My talent was my fabulous nose.

Smells, stinks, perfumes and aromas all in identity No secrets could escape as my nose knows The culprit was named and shamed, confidently.

Louis sniffs and smells everybody His favourite smells? Peppermint and Dove deodorant - a bit dodgy!

Swimming, splashing, dancing by Twisting, soaring through the sky Diving down into the ocean Causing a mighty commotion Elegantly waving their long tails Racing a boat as it sails Calves sing noisily, squeak, click, squeak Playing a game of hide and seek Tuna swim along Listening to their song But when hungry fishermen haul in their net And inside is a dolphin, they don’t fret They kill it, along with the rest After, they say it was for the best.

Millie Dean Lewis

Louis Renouf

Year Seven

Year Seven

Sonnets

Nursery

Laura Rudman

Globe Theatre Visit Year Seven visited Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and were very impressed with Sam Wanamaker’s achievement. They toured the theatre, had a workshop on Macbeth and visited the exhibition. Next year it is hoped that Year Seven might get a sneak peek at the brand new indoor Sam Wanamaker playhouse.

Harry Notley

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Science Museum

The highlight of the day was the tour of the Big Pit Coal Mines. With our hard hats and head torches on we descended the 90m to the coalface in the same cage used by the miners. On our tour we learnt about life in the mine. In particular we heard about Tommy (aged six) whose job was to open and close big doors; James who worked with his dad at the coal face in the nineteenth century; Dai who operated a ‘melon maker’ coal cutter in the 1970’s and Edmund the pit pony.

We looked at paintings about the Life of Christ by Breughel, Velasquez and Carravaggio. We made sketches using different drawing techniques like tone, directional and continuous line.

Outside Mr Renouf recognised an actor who plays Christ who agreed to be photographed with us.

Tommy: It was a lovely summer’s day, until my father took me down to the dark, drowning mines. My job was to sit in silence for twelve hours listening for the miners. I have to open the doors for the workers, so I have to listen very carefully. If I don’t open it at the right time, I get beaten. There are women with sacks of coal’ they look very nice, but they definitely have a dark and scary side to them when you don’t open the door at the right time. I forgot to mention my name. It’s Tommy. I also forgot to mention that they tie my wrist to the door with a piece of wire. This is my life six days a week.

Year Seven

Year Seven

National Gallery Visit

Charlotte Essex Every single day just the same, in the pitch black dark on my own. Always opening doors for wagons and other people who don’t have manners. I’m only used to provide ventilation. I’m only six years old and I have been doing this for nearly a year now but many of my old friends are privileged not to do this job. I inhale the dust which has become normal air to me. I know it’s not going to be like this forever. One day I will have a bearable life. The part that makes life unbearable is the silence, no comfort from a parent and the subtle sound of a group of rats edging nearer and nearer to to me.

The day began with a great time in the ‘Hands on’ Launchpad exhibition where we could generate electricity by pedal power and a range of other activities. Following a great live Supercool show we went to learn about some of the inventions that changed medicine through history with a particular focus on the 20th century. This included X-Ray and NMR machines, the Iron Lung and a kidney machine.

Ruby Ackerman James who Helps his Dad: It is too early to get up. Dad and I have to go to work in the Big Pit. The good thing is that the mine isn’t very far away. It is hardly light and I have to go straight back into darkness. We arrive at the mine and are greeted by the other miners. This is our last chance at sunlight and breathing fresh air. We go down the mine shaft with our small little lamps and our mining kit and as I’m young I have to shovel the coal into the mine carts while my dad mines the coal. It’s damp, dark and dreary.

There is no light but at least the tunnels are well ventilated and it’s always cool in them.

Georgina Eden-Hasler Dai: Everyday is the same; I’m not even allowed to go to Albert’s funeral. ‘Lung disease’, the doctor said. He died doing my job alongside me. Now I’m alone. My girl says I’m the next one to go, says I’m coughing all night long. The ghastly ‘widow maker’, called that, cos it gives off lots of dust, gets into the lungs, you see. It’ll make a widow of my wife soon, too. I only see daylight once a week, cos I get up so early, and only get to go late. Only on Sundays do I greet the sun, to go to church.

Shakespeare Exhibition

Laura Rudman

Year Seven produced some exhibits of a very high standard inspired by the two Shakespeare plays: Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. As always the students display wonderful creativity; this year William reconstructed a police incident room board for the murder of King Duncan.

Edward the Horse: My name is Edward and I’m a horse. I live in a stable with no grass or light. My sore, shaking back is in agony. I pull coal from the coalface to the bottom of the shaft. There are many other horses accompanying me. My wish is to see grass. The strong smell of coal is overwhelming. I wish I could return to the open and run free like the luckier horses. I’m not happy how I live. I want to leave.

Jude Green

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Year Seven visits The Big Pit

Every day I can remember has been in a deep, dark and damp mine pulling a heavy wagon filled with coal that has been mined by miners. The men that work with me always make sure that I am in good health so that I can pull their coal up to the surface. I am only working here because it is now prohibited for women and boys under the age of ten. To stop explosions happening in the mines there is a man who holds a bucket behind me in case I do a poo. They collect it in a bucket because poo releases a gas called methane which can cause an explosion.

Pippa Venning

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Year Seven

Year Seven

Ruby Ackerman Coke Bottle Pop Art

Harry Notley Grafitti Names Georgina Eden-Hasler Grafitti Art

Pulling Drams

Will Richards Life Drawing of Orchid Georgina Eden-Hasler Coke Bottle

Georgina Eden-Hasler Pop Art Archie Notley Pop Art

Georgina Eden-Hasler Sprite Pop Art

Georgina Eden-Hasler Grafitti Art

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‘It’s science teaching, Jim, but not as we know it.’

A journey of amazement, curiosity and reward. Boldly going where others have gone before…to destinations known or unknown. Yes, we could be talking about space travel, but equally, it could describe a Dolphin’s journey through scientific discovery during their time with us.

It all begins at an early age, probably before their parents realise. Our two brave travellers, Sara and Ravi, are barely three, but even though they can’t reach the top pegs, their eyes are on the stars, fuelled by a curiosity and fearlessness. They are encouraged to try things out and to discuss what they discover. They even carry out investigations to learn more. This is the launchpad Dolphin wants to give its students; a love of scientific learning which will help them put their world in context—as if viewed from above, so that they can make their contribution to it when they are ready.

We start, as Sherlock Holmes almost said, elementarily. In Nursery the three states of matter, solid, liquid and gas, are studied. The children carry out investigations involving the melting of ice. This leads to the design and ultimately melting of ice sculptures, with encased materials such as moss, leaves and flowers. Nursery also have their own garden where they grow vegetables such as potatoes and onions, which are then cooked and eaten in the Nursery. (It’s also handy to know how to grow your own food, if you want to survive in space.)

Our epic journey of exploration and investigation continues through Reception and Year One. By the end of the Reception year Ravi is a keen observer of the quality of his packed lunch for, by visiting a farm, a supermarket and taking part in a workshop at RHS Wisley he and Sara have come to understand healthy eating, even designing their own balanced and healthy meals on the computer and making a range of healthy dishes such as vegetable soup and fruit smoothies in class. (And of course, computer technology training begins early for astronauts.)

Astronauts will have to be independent investigators and Sara particularly loves exploring electricity, magnetism and materials with the individual discovery packs and sometimes has to be torn away at home time. Ravi is a ceaseless talker and insists that his mother fully understands the principles he has discovered by recreating experiments at home, for instance studying the factors that affect the rate of dissolving and investigating and predicting the floating and sinking qualities of fruits and vegetables. Fortunately his mother is supportive and, like a good astronaut, Ravi is learning the essential astronaut skills of being careful and tidy so the kitchen and bathroom are not flooded.

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Features

FEATURES

Science

Dolphin Scientists - Defying Gravity!

At school both children enjoy designing themselves an experiment to test the conditions required for healthy plant growth and Ravi enthusiastically repeats it with modifications and various plants in his back garden. Sara liked to muse on the journey to school about reversible and irreversible changes, for instance flour to bread compared with water to ice, which had been discussed

in school; she and her father baked bread together to test the theory and enjoyed eating the result.

All good explorers know that real discovery doesn’t just happen when you’re focussed tightly on your subject. Real depth of understanding only comes when you’re allowed to take your eye off the ball and pursue other avenues to get to your goal. That’s where Dolphin’s school’s defining cross-curricular programme comes in.

Following a study of the key features of light, budding scientist Ravi displays his talents as an actor and artist by creating shadow puppets in a drama workshop, producing a play for them and finally writing a story in English lessons. Sara is increasingly keen on ecology after the Year One study of rivers and ponds, supported by pond dipping at Rushall Farm and looking for aquatic and flying insects in the school pond and meadow with her older friends from Year Five. Both Ravi and Sara enjoy the ‘Forest School’ activities in the school copse and other nearby woodlands. Their study of the human body and the concept of hygiene was brought home to them in Year Two at a living museum during the term they studied the Victorians in Integrated Studies lessons. Dressing up in costume made the experience of pre-antibiotic days very real. They also realised how far we had soared in all aspects of science, if not necessarily in quality of life, since then.

These may seem like simplistic missions, but to our young explorers they are instilling core ideas: that, by and large, things follow rules, and that if we set up an experiment the same way, we will get the same results. These ideas and principles will sustain them through education and beyond. Our next giant leap, is to take these ideas from the classroom out into the world.

Do they sink or swim?

Does this conduct electricity?

Creating a skeleton in Nursery

By Years Three and Four our future astronauts (and yes, we’ve even had a few cosmonauts) are really starting to be ready to hurtle through space. But despite the acceleration Sara and Ravi experience, our philosophy doesn’t change. We still aim to teach through lively discussion, challenge and stimulating our children’s minds and developing their scientific skills through practical investigation.

As Ravi and Sara move through Years Three and Four they are becoming more independent and undertaking investigations with minimal support from basecamp. Sara most enjoyed making candles with bases and she learnt that sometimes you can reverse the changes you have made but sometimes there is no way back. Ravi liked developing his electronic communications systems which resulted in his flashing Q and A boards.

Outside trips continue in Years Three and Four with the children’s interest in space exploration whetted by a visit to the Brooklands Transport Museum.

On a visit to Greenwich in Year Four Ravi realises the difficulties, perhaps not dissimilar to his own as a potential astronaut, when he learns about the travails of early explorers who, without accurate clocks, have no way of measuring longitude.

Changing materials Bread making

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OK, enough analogy—here’s the science bit!

Friction experiment

Dolphin students in their final three years get a weekly 110 minute period for their own experiments. This is in addition to their normal length lessons.

We also engage in student-led free-flowing discussion on scientific subjects, often based on what is currently in the news, trips we have been on or discussions round their dinner tables. We feel that this flexibility, combined with the breadth we get from cross-curricular support, provides Dolphin scientists with a foundation that they don’t get anywhere else. The results later in their education speak for themselves, as of course, characteristically, can our Dolphins. Here’s a sample from this year’s school leavers.

In Years Five and Six our explorers began to fix their eyes on the stars and realise the complexity of the universe. Sara, for instance, is insistent that she wants to be an astronomer after the visit to Hertsmonceaux and enjoys carrying out an extended project on light, in particular thinking about its relevance to astronomy. Needless to say, by the time they leave for our friendly orbit, Dolphins are very familiar with the Science Museum.

Features

Features

Throughout their middle years at Dolphin our two young explorers particularly love the cross-curricular days based on inventors and inventions, the science competitions and a whole science week. These also give them the opportunity to work alongside older travellers and learn from them.

By David, Ophelia, Matt and Jon

Year Five culminates in the cross-curricular residential trip to Ironbridge where, being in our friendly orbit, they look down upon our beautiful Earth and further understand the applied science underpinning the Industrial Revolution and the consequent social problems.

By Year Six they are almost ready to go into space. But we ARE deploying the afterburners keeping them in orbit, challenging them even further with greater emphasis on predictions, the use of more complex equipment and the generation of more precise and accurate data. They are confident and independent scientists, able skilfully to conduct independent investigations which last more than a fortnight. These skills will be vital as our astronauts move into space. They may have to make decisions affecting their own life and death or even the fate of mankind, and it’s all based upon their own calculations. (Had the first astronauts on the moon with their primitive technology not had these skills, they would have perished.) But we don’t tell them that unless they ask. It’s perhaps a bit too much to handle at ten years old. They have also honed important biological space survival skills on several trips to the Natural History Museum Investigative Centre while increasing their knowledge of some of the practical skills at the Science Museum over these years.

They now fully understand the forces that they and their spacecraft will need to withstand as they move from orbit into space. They have also developed important biological space survival skills on several trips to the Natural History Museum Investigative Centre while increasing their knowledge of some of the practical skills at the Science Museum over these years.

A homemade Newton Meter

How waterproof are different materials?

Strength of strawberry laces

Helping Reception Class test for dissolving of different substances

Seed growing

Helping Reception Class test for dissolving of different substances

Pinhole Cameras

Pond project Pond dipping

Separation Experiment (and see back cover)

Engineering with straws

As they return from the stars and re-enter their familiar orbit, travelling through the atmosphere they experience the frictional forces studied in their investigations. On this fulfilling and amazing trip they will also utilise and test a range of techniques to investigate and separate the new materials they have discovered. And finally, during their landing they will feel the full force of the Earth’s gravity pulling them home. Talk about coming down to earth with a bump!

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By Years Seven and Eight Ravi and Sara are still flying high. They have full control of their future voyages, able to ask searching questions and instigate their own missions. Dolphin’s top-to-bottom community means that they share their experiences with wide audiences including the young explorers who are standing where they once were—in nursery, staring at the stars.

Placing Jupiter the right distance away from school - Year Five

Aerodynamics Forces project

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Forest Schools Activities

Inventors and Inventions

Features

Features

Cross-Curricular Day

during the School Year

The Nursery children have continued to benefit from the Forest Schools trips to Ashley Hill Woods during the past year. They particularly enjoy building with sticks where they are very creative with their ideas. In the autumn term hunting for the wide variety of fungi was very exciting as it was a particularly good year, finding it growing on fallen trees and tree trunks. Building dens is always popular particularly when it involves drama. Going on a Bear Hunt and The Gruffalo are often inspirational for the children.

Reception children made maps and hid teddy bears so that the Nursery children could find them using the maps was a challenge for both year groups!

Autumn term also saw the first opportunity to use the new copse at the far end of the playing field when we had a Pre Prep Forest Schools day. Approximately fifty children participated with a range of activities including tree art, carving pumpkins, building dens, sitting around the campfire and eating the soup that was made on the fire. Nursery children have also planted thirty tree saplings in this area which appear to be growing well.

In the Spring term the children explored the woods, taking it in turns to lead the way. They had a competition to build stick towers and went on an egg hunt.

The summer term was a wonderful opportunity to hunt for mini beasts. The children were particularly fascinated with an ant nest as the ants were carrying food bigger than themselves. We also found a frog and a toad!

During the summer term we have seen the wood transform into a vast area of bracken and ferns. We were able to use the copse frequently during the term, building mini gardens, dens, and watching the fire in the log circle and observing the lovely wild flowers growing there. We also matched colours in the environment then made pictures from the various leaves and petals we found by using double sided tape.

I have had the opportunity to introduce Forest Schools to children in older year groups during the past year. In the Autumn Term I was able to take Year Four children to the woods with Julian Renouf. We were keen to give the children the opportunity to be creative in the woods. Julian led the art activities using natural materials available. I gave the children blindfolds to lead each other in the woods and feel the various surfaces and attempting to find a particular tree. They also built stick towers, dens and bows and arrows.

With Year Three we made fires, thinking about how to make a spark without using matches.

During the summer term I have had a Forest Schools club with some Year Three and Four children. They have enjoyed whittling sticks, building dens, creating using tape, gathering around a campfire and making hot chocolate by heating the water in a Kelly Kettle.

It has been a great year to be in a natural environment with the children where I hope that they will build a love of the outside and nature. I hope that I will be able to continue to introduce Forest Schools to more children next year.

Rita Robinson

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Years Four and Five made photographs using pin hole cameras (Henry Fox Talbot). They were also challenged by trying to get their boats across the swimming pool using straws. Impromptu orchestral groups were arranged from Years Four and Five and the musicians followed the score from the Dambusters film as a nod to Barnes Wallace. In separate sessions Tim Dean Lewis inspired all the children to make musical instruments from just about anything from a tomato tin can to

a bendy cane and threw in the scientific principles for free!!

The younger children produced a dance that created tableaux of mechanical monsters and robots. The Reception class created a frieze depicting a goods train (Trevithick). Biscuits were baked in the shape of rockets and each child iced one. They were eaten as dessert after lunch whilst watching the early black and white films of Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops.

The children were asked to write about their ‘light bulb’ moment (Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan) — either their thoughts about the day itself or how life has changed or will be by a particular invention.

The invention of the television (John Logie Baird ) gave rise to more than a few entries!

Downstairs in the Meadow Building’s never before used dark room with its dramatic red light the children could see the photos from the pin hole camera developing right in front of their eyes and in the course of the day, as improvements were made to developer concentrations and exposure times, the results became amazing.

Can you see the twin pictures of the photographer with his subjects and the resulting photo? This was one that everyone expected to fail as it required all the subjects to keep absolutely still. A remarkable achievement!

Many thanks to the staff, parents, children and the weather for making it a very productive and enjoyable day.

Remembering Caxton — printing with potatoes

Tim Dean-Lewis teaches us how to make music out of anything!

The children add carriages to their train.

An Interview with

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Cross curricular day was an homage to the inventors whose names were given to this year’s teaching groups. Years Two and Three embarked on making telephones (Alexander Graham Bell), printing sequences with potatoes and paint (William Caxton) and creating solar prints which were turned into stamps (Rowland Hill).

Judy

The Sealls are one of the very few three-generational Dolphin families.

They span over forty unbroken years. In the very, very early days of the school a strong-minded and energetic lady named Colleen appeared at the gate and informed us that we simply MUST have a piano teacher; she had a method of teaching which would make it affordable for a school which only charged £29 a term with music lessons included. When Colleen retired thirty years later she had already became the first Old Delphinian coordinator and still maintains contact with a large number of former Dolphins. She has also been a staunch supporter of the school at home and abroad and often is the only person who remembers our anniversary on 5th December.

Shortly after Colleen’s arrival, Dolphin had its first school overseas ‘trip’, a ski trip, and she sent her, somewhat unwilling, twelve year old daughter, Judy, with us to Austria.

Completed rocket biscuit Displaying his cyanogram Children give their light-bytes (sound bytes!) of the day

Preparing to ice the rocket biscuits

Launching his boat

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Even Judy is surprised that these cyanograms are going to work!

I have always been a passionate believer in the many varied trips that Dolphin runs. On-site learning is invaluable and should be encouraged at every opportunity for every child in the world. My introduction to Dolphin trips was a very long time ago when risk assessments, trip meetings and clear itineraries were not mandatory. It was a skiing trip to Rauris in Austria and I celebrated my thirteenth birthday out there. We travelled by train; my friend Deb broke her arm, Oliver, all of five years old, trudged through the snow in his slippers to the local restaurant, and, eventually, I learnt how to snow plough. Never did I think at the time that I would be going on any more trips with Dolphin School! Since that tender age of thirteen, I have ended up leading a vast number of day and field trips, ranging from Year Four in Dorset to Year Eight in Stratford, as well as accompanying the Spanish class to Barcelona, Year Eight to Ireland (with the legendary Joel) and to Italy in my last year. Another fabulous trip moment was when a very small deputy head turned our very large school bus a little too sharply into a Welsh car park and took the car park attendant’s wooden box—with him in it—with the bus. But the all time favourite must be taking the acting company to perform at the Edinburgh Festival, and standing on the Royal Mile watching our children talking to people from all over the world.

As a friend of Colleen, I watched Judy’s progression through life. My daughter Morgane grew up very fond of Judy, who often baby sat her.

Little did Morgane, or Judy, realise that Judy would be the spark of many years of Morgane’s participation in dramatic productions at Dolphin,

Reading Youth Theatre, university, and directing the school play as a teacher in Spain. Nor did any of us guess at that time that there would be hundreds more who would take their first tottering Thespian steps with Judy; many of these would go on to be actors, film and TV stars, producers, journalists, directors, presenters, Oscar winners and all because of their start with Judy.

Many times have I sat opposite slightly twitchy parents as they tell me that their child has decided she wants to perform and could I possibly dissuade her. If an individual has found her passion then it does not matter what anyone says, that is the path she has chosen. Rosy Roberts, in fact the entire Roberts family—cousins and all, were born to perform, so I was genuinely

confused to learn that she suddenly decided to study medicine. However, several years into the course, she ran away and joined Circomedia (a leading circus school in Bristol). And I breathed a sigh of relief! It is always such a treat for me when I watch ex-students performing on stages all over the country: whether it’s Matthew Romain as Edgar in King Lear in the Globe Theatre’s production or Anne-Marie Piazza as the Red Queen in Covent Garden. Or the many, many senior school productions I watch, often with ex-Dolphins taking leading roles. It is also very rewarding when old students kindly return to Dolphin and run workshops with the current students, sharing their expertise. Recently, Blake Ritson, one of my very first students, returned to tell the film club members about his life as an actor, and Ross Montgomery, shortlisted for the Costa Prize 2014

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dusty generator to ensure that the show would go on no matter what.

It makes me smile as I remember Simon Crawford-Phillips playing, as the concert pianist he would later become, in candle light as Ernie wheeled the generator into position. Shades of Morecambe and Wise at Dolphin School!

To learn more about Judy’s philosophy of directing, go to: http://www.dolphinschool.bugs3.com/Judy/

lesson, he sniffed a piece of tin foil so vigorously up his nose, that it had to be surgically removed later in hospital!

I also loved the fabulous cross curricular-days at Dolphin where we team taught and Chris Taylor taught me how aeroplanes fly. An extraordinary achievement, although I still wish I could simply spread my wings and take off...

January 1994, she landed in Bogotá, Colombia, intending to spend three weeks then continue her world tour. After a chance meeting in the British Council library, she changed her mind and found herself delivering drama workshops to street children.

It was also with Chris that Judy developed the Media Studies programme which they team taught for about five years to Year Five.

And then with friends I developed funny mystery projects to inspire children to write. They had names such as Bizewell C and Desperately seeking Fanning, and they encouraged a range of skills in the children before they could crack the mystery. There were recorded telephone messages, carefully staged black and white photos, torn letters, even bits of security film—all laden with vital clues, and often quite hilarious!

Friends were persuaded to visit the lesson and take on roles such as Mrs Sticknose, the nosy neighbour, or Stig Deadwood, a leading music producer, and even the real local community police officer took the children’s fingerprints as possible evidence. Learning was a lot of fun and their writing skills came on in leaps and bounds. An exciting moment for me, as a direct result of these projects, was when I was invited to Dhani Harrison’s Halloween party as I had become his favourite teacher.

Hanging out with George and Olivia in their underground caves at Friar Park drinking champagne was quite surreal!’

Blake Ritson (Right) and Judy (Centre) at a Dolphin Reunion with Jonathan Frewin In 1985 there was a sudden vacancy in the Nursery. Colleen suggested that Judy fill in for a week or two while we searched for a replacement.

Judy had just obtained her PGCE in secondary English and had no idea who Maria Montessori was. She arrived in Nursery the next day.

The projects subsequently developed into Judy’s very popular creative writing workshops and clubs. Then, in the last ten years or so, there has been the Year Seven film-making project which concludes with a Dolphin Oscar Night during which TV presenter Matt Allwright comments on each film and awards Oscars for various categories.

I felt completely out of my depth, never having worked with such tiny children for any length of time! Wiping noses, tears and even bottoms was not really my strength. Quickly, I realised what a special, special place Dolphin Nursery was and I learnt for the first time how important it is for children to take charge of their learning. Working alongside Julia led to a close friendship, which continues to be important to me so many years on.

Soon Judy also began teaching English in the Upper School. The Head of English had foolishly been persuaded by the Maths department to vacate their lovely, very large teaching space, the pavilion (now seriously subdivided by Modern Languages), and move into the newish Hall where they could do drama as well as English. Two English teachers, the history teacher and the classics teacher each had a bay as a classroom, while sport invaded the centre section on rainy days.

Teaching in the hall was possibly one of the biggest challenges at Dolphin. When I reflect back, it is a wonder how any of the children learnt anything in this noisy hall with too many distractions. But they did! I do remember enjoying spilling out into the large expanse of space with exciting displays, such as A Police Incident Investigation Board, and, one Halloween, creating a mini witches’ supermarket!

Judy’s first Dolphin production was How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

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I remember it vividly because there was a power cut. Ophelia saved the ‘night’, as only Ophelia could, by organising Ernie to fetch her rather

However the most important contribution Judy made early was introducing timetabled drama lessons into the curriculum for all the children.

Each student should have the opportunity to study Drama at school.

Unfortunately, this government will not recognise it as having equal status with the other Arts subjects. Drama lessons enable young people to use their imagination and creativity as a stepping stone to reality. What could be more important than that?

Some of the strongest memories I have of the Drama lessons include the moment Max decided he wasn’t going to be a ‘stone’ again in the story drama, but wanted to lead the group of adventurers through the Valley of Danger... then there was Emily, who left her Maths teacher completely speechless as she watched her perform the role of the librarian with a professionalism way beyond her years... and finally, Callum, who cared so deeply about his Drama that, whilst pleading with me to continue the

Getting involved in the Shakespeare in Schools Project was a new challenge and an exciting adventure, and meant that we could finally take our productions out to the general public. We performed in a wide variety of theatres and spaces—one of the most memorable experiences was being invited up to present our Tempest at the public opening of Lincoln’s Inn. In preparation for this, I felt incredibly lucky to spend a day co-directing with Ken Branagh at Dolphin School. What a lovely man!

Three years ago, having had a taste of performing for the public and subsequently going on tour into schools, I realised that it was time to take a group to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe. There is no other festival in the world that has that level of excitement, energy and creativity—so we went. Twice! I loved it, and I hope the children did too! ‘ Judy hopes to take the Dolphin Theatre Company up to Edinburgh next summer for the third year. An article she wrote about this year’s experience was featured in NATE Magazine.

Reunion in Columbia with the street children several years later

Issue 6:

NATE Autumn 2014 Feature:

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This Issue: Teaching First World War Literature

Primary

New A Levels and GCSEs

Working with the children in Colombia was one of the most demanding and rewarding years of my life. It also gave me the opportunity to reflect on what I was doing back in Berkshire from afar. Perhaps I realised for the first time that there are so many different types of intelligence; the children I was working with may not have been able to read or write, but they knew how to survive underground in the complex networks of the Bogotá sewer system. Those children were tough yet extraordinarily engaging and deeply respectful towards me, despite telling me I was quite mad being a pacifist! And I believe that it was there in Colombia that I started out on my path that would eventually lead me to Anna in Guatemala.

A year later, after much deliberation, Judy returned and threw herself into the production of a series of outstanding drama productions. At this point she wrote an article about her experiences in South America which was published alongside of one by Margaret Atwood by The Rough Guide in a special edition featuring women travellers.

An early Judy production of Midsummer Night’s Dream Summer 1989: Blake Ritson as Puck

She also worked one day a week as a volunteer for UNICEF and also for a spell for Children of the Andes. Somewhere along the line Judy did an MA in Children’s Literature while still working at Reading Youth Theatre.

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“Text and context reinforce and interrogate each other – as they always should.”

Re-thinking War Poetry NATE

The Magazine of the National Association for the Teaching of English

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But enly could re-wr hours apartperfo his landmSudd and almo we – creatty shopsg talen to fall d at the s were until l, an that r unwi ame War. ipate Pippa up chari teerin tened show e, book rathe so olin, Cai overc scene of schoo antic and al right out d out itten, trip centrall- volun threa mand and cut, whole ly huge ly venu unwr atical which the ever, the s and carrie the the se, in were dram ning scene as yet, friend to playtime in ed tion relea Plan d the was being t the, a child first cly. Lines moda entryPress above g chang Behin tion y moune. Find for the publi stagin and, d be e accom ine us opera ssfull Fring ay and deadl write or ren shoul succe urgh inexpensivthe amme, spons er holid child g to Edinb vely l, hite progr summng. their relati hosteFring their -endi le willin ts thats of peop youth rtant paren week felt never impo e lovely the two list e nce the sourc convi devot ct... all, ed to proje allow huge to this 6 Issue sh | Engli hing Teac E| | NAT 50 the

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Judy walking in the Pyrenees Teaching Thomas Hardy to eight and nine year olds may seem challenging but it is all in the approach. Careful selection of his funny short stories and accessible poems followed up by visits to his cottage and the wonderful writing workshops run by the custodian in Max Gate were all that was needed.

Over the years, many of Dolphin children’s poems were read out to delegates attending the international Hardy conference, and they never ceased to be amazed when they realised the age of the writers. Teaching Hardy gave me the confidence to find new ways to introduce some of our most famous writers, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens.

More recently, our Dickens club, with children aged nine to eleven, won a national competition organised by the English Association and The Dickens Fellowship.

Features

Features

with his first published children’s book, ran a workshop encouraging the children to let their imaginations run wild!

Judy’s career took an unexpected turn when she became ‘a slightly reluctant Acting Head of English’.

As nobody else especially wanted the job, I went for it and, once in position, like a fish on a hook, I couldn’t quite let go. As a teacher, I believe it is my responsibility to nurture a questioning spirit in all my students, ignite passions and make each one of them realise that they are in possession of their own unique combination of gifts, talents and competencies. I was delighted when Dolphin introduced the idea of teaching growth mindset throughout the curriculum as I do not believe in such terms as ‘bright’ or ‘clever’—our current education system allows too many magical children to fall through the cracks because they do not tick certain boxes at a specific age. This is a disgrace.

In 2001 Judy’s life changed forever.

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Although Judy organised field trips to many parts of Britain she managed to avoid all walking trips stating that she was the ‘most unfit person in the world’. She most often led the Dorset trip with Year Four.

Adopting Anna was the single most important event in my life to date.

Being a parent has definitely made me a more compassionate teacher. I now understand and empathise more readily when a student’s homework is unfinished or forgotten. Being a parent at Dolphin has proved to be exciting, educational and exhausting; and I never cease to be amazed at the generosity and resourcefulness of Dolphin parents.

Now Anna, third generation of those strong Seall women, none of whom think anything is impossible, has left Dolphin to become a founding Year Nine student at the brand new Holyport College—where she will be dancing before the Queen of England in November.

And Judy. Judy is taking a break. But Judy’s breaks have a habit of turning into new and exciting challenges that awe, dazzle and inspire the rest of us.

A decade into her career at Dolphin, Judy decided she needed a break. In

43 Interview by Ophelia

The Cast Fiona Christie as Alice.

Sam Gordon as The Mad Hatter Daniel Diskin as Tweedle Dum

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Features

Features

Judy’s 1990 Summer Production of Alice

Fiona Christie as Alice.

Blake Ritson as Gnat.

Fiona Christie Alice The White Rabbit Lucy Bowman Christie An Indignant Mouse Alison

Alexi Martin-Bates A Talking Table Alex Taylor Another Mouse Deena Ragavan A Rat Simon Fisher A Lory Kathryn Pugsley A Duck Ashley Cox A Slow Eaglet Dhani Harrison A Dobo Hester Brough A Magpie Jenny Willows A Canary Susan Moon Tiger Lily Emma Lawrence Rose Eloise Blanden Daisy Alex Edmans Begonia Morgane Follett Marigold Rebecca Collings Violet Rebecca Moody Larkspur Anna West Red Queen Jennyh Cleary Caterpillar Adam Simpson A Guard A Crazy Passenger Celina Gio-Batta Blake Ritson Gnat Ben Beattie Tweedle Dee Danny Diskin Tweedle Dum Julian Ratcliffe Red King William Thorne Walrus Olivier Lavecot The Sun Paul Templeton Fish Footman Joel Meyer Frog Footman Julia Bysshe Cheshire Cat Joanna Bushill Helen Davidson Claudia Hennebury Duchess Naomi Simpson Cook Harriet Lloyd White Queen Sam Gordon Mad Hatter Mad March Heiress Sophie Tatham Naomi Latto Dormouse Jonathan Frewin Humpty Dumpty Pauline Peenaert A King’s Chef Lawrence Cheers Gardener 5 Mark Teeton Gardener 7 Tom Rose Gardener 2 Gemma Bradley Queen of Hearts Alex Haworth King of Hearts Gethin Huckle Executioner Aaron Tanner Mock Turtle

f o n o cti am u d Pro t’s Dre t s r ’s fi r Nigh y d Ju me 89 m u 19 Mids

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The Edinburgh Festival

These Fragments opened on the anniversary of the start of WW1.

Professional Reviews British Theatre Guide

The leading independent web site on British theatre These Fragments

Judy Seall Dolphin School Greenside at Nicholson Square From 04 August 2014 to 09 August 2014 Rating: **** Review by Robin Strapp Dolphin Theatre Company is amongst the youngest groups performing at the Fringe. It returns for a second year with a brand new show, These Fragments, at the delightful new venue that Greenside has in Nicholson Square.

Written and inventively directed by Judy Seall, it opens on the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. This accomplished young company traces the journey of a tea tin that is passed down the generations through WWI to WWII and the present day conflicts.

The play opens in 1914 where Dan, a factory worker from Blackpool, meets Kate, a librarian, and an unusual romance develops between them. The accents are spot on.

The action then moves to 1940 where we meet a group of kids who have been evacuated but are so desperately unhappy that they run back to London to live in the bombed out houses, where they form the Garden Gang. The company uses a variety of suitcases to good effect, as they become furniture, part of the trenches and various props.

This is very much an ensemble piece with strong use of physical theatre, beautifully formed tableaux and some powerful individual performances.

There is great playfulness from the Garden Gang as well as some sensitive emotive moments, especially when the action moves to a country resembling Syria.

Here a young injured girl waits with her nurse in an empty hospital in the hope of getting medical help.

There is also good use of humour, such as the lad who writes to God asking him, ‘to give Hitler a really bad toothache.’

This is an excellent, moving show with the young company performing with passion and a total commitment and the singing of the war songs adds poignancy to the piece.

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Playing at 9:45 in the morning it is certainly worth getting up early to see these youngsters, whose age belies their talent.

Fringe Review These Fragments Genre: Drama Highly Recommended show Venue: Greenside @ Nicolson Square

Low Down This very young company bely their age in a wonderful hour of group dynamics and woven narrative that shows us the horrors and terrible effects of conflict. They show how new drama is not outwith the abilities of their tender years.

Review This is the story of a tea tin that starts as a tentative present from young Dan to young Kate. The tin then gets passed into the other 2 conflicts as a metaphor. Dan is off to the War to end all Wars but does return by Christmas – he just forgot to say which one. From there we follow the Garden Gang of London in the war torn 1940’s London. Here we see the cast survive through theft and guile before we find ourselves in Syria. Here a well meaning Brit makes promises that are lost once he returns. Meanwhile the young girl he promised to help and bring to his home awaits medical attention that may never arrive.

This was very well conceived and incredibly well written. Despite being a very young company – they are the youngest I have seen – they demonstrate a mature understanding of the emotions underneath the text.

As a group they move as one and the beginning, which starts with us all outside before drawing us into the theatre ensures we are aware of what this performance will entail. It comes as a package that is collective and of a quality that is highly impressive. It is almost as impressive as the moustache sported on one young chap in the middle of the stage as we arrive! (It could spawn its own production). Of course there are a few areas that were not as slick as others but the patchiness allowed you to feel that this was a labour of love rather than the pursuit of perfection.

The clever use of suitcases meant that we were always in the middle of something. These became a visual metaphor and also the physical basis on which people sat and performed. The music that accompanied the performance and also the lighting were pitched very well. The songs of war and of the time evocative of the hope dashed by the reality of conflict. It is indeed heart warming that any school chooses to throw off the shackles of a standard school play and goes all original. I was delighted that not only was this the case for this young company but they also took the risk to bring it here. It is not just to be applauded but encouraged mightily. They may not be pioneers but they are bucking a trend. The voices of these young actors deserve to be heard and when you listen this Theatre Company have plenty of value to say – both in terms of content and theatrically. Of course I loved this piece and at a quarter to ten in the morning it is a tremendous start to any day. Unfortunately it has a short run but it left me with a spring in the step as I gaily marched onward.

Reviewed by Donald C Stewart Thursday 7th August 2014 - Fringe Review

Audience reviews Michael Freeman Congratulations to everyone for this excellent show. The children not only appeared confident, but reflected the characters of the various roles they played very well. I heard every word; the whole, large space was used to great effect, and the choreography of the suitcases, used in so many ingenious ways, was apparently without fault. The message was disturbing, especially one at the end when a well-meaning wealthy relative put his own desires before the needs of those suffering in a modern war. The fact that the story was based on original research rather than assumptions and generalisations made it all the more poignant.

Features

Features

Dolphin’s Triumphant Return to Edinburgh Fringe

Craig Winward I saw this piece on Weds 6th August. I was not quite sure what to expect as working with young people myself I know just how broad the standards of performance can be. The students of Dolphin School Theatre Co were excellent, initially battling the rain outside to commence their performance while the audience entered the venue. Once on stage, the cast treated us to several scenes of well written, directed and presented theatre, travelling through a range of settings. This is a large space to fill with sound and I heard every word of the script even though the children were not mic’ed up. Their use of the props on stage was both imaginative and slick. A very professional performance throughout, and there were several performers I would hope to see again on stage in the industry should they choose to pursue the performing arts in the future. I’d also like to mention the programme here, which was beautifully presented. Well done to everyone involved with this production.

Peter This is well worth seeing, professionally performed and thought provoking.

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Our subject was war. It was a very important centenary, being 100 years since World War I broke out. Dolphin students had already been introduced to various war poems, stories and old diaries through English lessons but knowing Judy we still had sooo much more to explore within the subject. As Judy says, her ideas for plays can drift in from anywhere, at any time and often unannounced.

Sometimes I wake up at one o clock in the morning to hear my mother muttering and her fingers tapping out her latest inventive ideas on her laptop.

The auditions took place in the school hall. It felt exposed with teachers taking shortcuts to make a cup of coffee and younger children scuttling to their next lesson. My heart pounded in my chest when Louis, Sam and I were picked to do our improvisation.

Sweat lingered in the air as we waited for Judy to comment on our audition. Child after child went up and performed; every one gave their all but knowing our director, she would still expect more and push us towards perfection. Eventually, fourteen lucky children were selected and the real hard work began. We rehearsed for five long days at the beginning of the Summer holiday, did one preview performance for invited family and then we packed the bus.

Sitting in a bus for around seven hours is always going to be a parent or a teacher’s worst nightmare. Girls singing their latest boy band songs, while boys shout and jeer at those who, unfortunately, are asleep and unaware of the many photos being taken of them.

Just as the bus driver thought it couldn’t get any worse, a big game of truth and dare begins, and laughter erupts in the bus when the group finds out who has the latest crush on someone in the year!

It is important that you know a few things about the Edinburgh Festival. This year alone there were 3192 shows being performed and Dolphin School, so it would be hard persuading an audience to come and watch us. Secondly, Edinburgh is a very long way from Hurst so nobody knew that Dolphin’s Drama department is pretty good. And finally, tourists from all over the world love visiting Edinburgh, especially in the Summer so one of us was bound to get lost. Could this be a recipe for a disaster? Quite possibly.

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But even though we had to get up incredibly early and do a tech rehearsal at seven am, our first performance was a success. Back stage, the adrenalin pumped through our veins as we changed quickly into different costumes and grabbed props. The audience clapped enthusiastically, all eleven of them, which gave us a boost

of confidence. Everyone was buzzing with joy. By Wednesday’s performance we felt super confident and knew we would shine in front of the critics. And we did. Over lunch, parents, teachers and children held their breaths waiting for his review. Anxious.

The clock ticked slowly on the wall in the restaurant. Finally the text came through, we had done it! These Fragments had got four amazing STARS!!!!

Features

Features

It’s official! Dolphin School’s drama teacher, otherwise known as my mother is crazy! Why you ask? Why, because for the second time she took a group of twelve to thirteen year olds up to perform at the Edinburgh Festival, the largest performing arts festival in the world. WOW!

Every day after our performance we walked to the Royal Mile to market our show along with thousands of other performers. There were so many people willing to stop and listen to us singing and telling them about These Fragments. This year we were lucky enough to perform for twenty minutes on one of the pop-up stages.

Once we had finished marketing, we went off to watch some shows; two of my favourites were Huff and #My Way. I loved Huff because it was an installation piece and we explored the world of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. #My Way was performed by Young Pleasance Theatre Company and was cleverly written and very funny; we all loved the performance of MC Max. After watching other productions our brains were whirling out of control deciding how to make our show better.

My personal highlights from the trip include the following: realising that a Gentleman of the Road had fallen asleep halfway through our show and was snoring very loudly, having the opportunity to perform in a beautiful new venue on a thrust stage, getting four stars, being filmed for a mini documentary, watching so many other shows and playing with my friends in the park. I could go on...

Finally it was our last performance! The music began. Emotions tangled together like ribbons. Putting every thing we had in to this performance our characters took over our bodies. Eyes followed our every move. Time passed by in seconds, an hour’s show went by in a flash and suddenly it was all over. Relief and sadness washed over us like tidal waves crashing on the rocks. We had the whole summer ahead of us.

Judy’s eyes glow with desire and passion when she talks about Edinburgh and her heart thuds with pride for each one of us. These Fragments became a sensational hit of the Festival 2014. It will be one of my most treasured moments I will take away with me to my next school.

Is this the end of my performing at the Edinburgh Festival or just the beginning?!

Anna Seall Year Eight

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Features

2014

Along with receiving outstanding reviews, Dolphin’s These Fragments also featured in a magazine. This included a three page spread AND the front cover!

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Funds Raised for Médecins Sans Frontières Lewis from Médecins sans Frontières came in and talked to us about his own many experiences over the years working for MSF and also talked to us about the organisation in general.

The cast of this year’s senior play, These Fragments by Judy Seall, chose to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). According to Lewis, our visiting speaker from MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières is an ‘international humanitarian aid organisation’.

The cast selected MSF because These Fragments is a play which addresses how people were affected by different wars. They also believed that the work MSF do is very admirable and brave. The MSF workers put their lives on the line for people they don’t know, people who are in very difficult situations. MSF brings medical aid to those in need. This is very important in less economically developed countries (LEDCs).

Julian who is an actor and director with the theatre company Rhum and Clay came to Dolphin and spent the day with Years Seven and Eight to help us develop our physicality for the two different productions (at school and at Edinburgh) of These Fragments. These sketches of us were made by Olga, a Mexican artist and Dolphin mother.

MSF is a truly fantastic organisation, working in over sixty countries all around the world. They are not funded by the British government, as people in places such as Syria might be less liable to accept help. No-one from MSF is allowed to be armed, as this could pose a threat and instead of making things better, could make things worse. Lewis said that when he signed up for MSF, was told that he could be killed, and had to fill in a form to say where he wanted his money to go, quite a peculiar feeling came over him.

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From the two performances of These Fragments at Dolphin, we are very glad to have raised £660.77 for Médecins Sans Frontières, which will be used for their work in Syria. Thank you very much to all of the audience members who contributed to this wonderful sum! Another £75 was raised at the Edinburgh Festival for MSF. Millie Dean-Lewis Year Seven

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Judy Seall’s latest production for Dolphin, possibly her last while on the staff, is also quite probably the most ambitious. Total theatre arrived at Dolphin: happenings, installations and events spread throughout the school buildings welcomed the audience to the premiere of These Fragments.

The powerfully atmospheric installations by Olga Howard, consisted of various representations of the experiences of war—propaganda, rationing, evacuations—and began to explain the enigmatic title, even before we had arrived in our seats.

In a breathtakingly imaginative sweep, there were displays of war-time food, and posters; one room was converted to simulate the quarters of a Syrian family under bombardment, another area was turned into a wartime café, where off-duty service personnel entertained their ladies; some members of the audience and all the ushers and foyer staff—with one exception, for which I apologise—wore costumes appropriate to the subject, land-girls, police and servicemen. It was total immersion.

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And the play itself, crafted to provide parts for every one of the huge number of people in the cast, swept up and down the theatre, on the battlefield, neighbours gossiping across the street from doorways, feral children playing in ruined buildings, girl-friends meeting for a chat in the café, families at home at the end of a long day’s work, all against the background of total war.

They all enter in sad procession, like refugees, and then split up to tell different stories of different wars,

the First and Second World Wars, and the conflict in Syria.

In the first ‘fragment’ we watch as young Dan pursues the love of his life, Kate., played winningly by Anna Seall. Tommy is optimistically engaging as the young apprentice who needs to get ‘literate’ in order to attract Kate’s attention in the face of the amused teasing of his pal, Jack, a good-naturedly scoffing Paris Ferguson, and the caring inquisitiveness of his Mam and Dad, played with warm-hearted cockney grit by Charlie Teague and Isabella Marino.

Kate’s side of the romance is traced in her meetings with her girlfriends, Maud and Ellen. Emily Batchelor is wonderfully debonair as Ellen, the well-off young socialite who treats her less workaday friends to tea, and eventually joins up as well to play her part. Daisy Rogers is an excellent foil as Maud, always on hand with a kindly ironic quip. Dan invites Kate to a tea-dance, and makes a present of some tea in a caddy to mark the occasion. The caddy, a delightful icon of British domesticity becomes a leitmotif linking one era with another.

Judy Seall recreates those innocent times with great insight, the fruit of much pains-taking research, and the solid core of real experience that informs these fragments is one of the most striking things about it, particularly coming from such a young cast. Dan joins up, and we watch as families from all walks of life and social strata confront the change wrought by the declaration of war, the call up, the disruption to a settled way of life. After all the intricately choreographed theatrics, cutting between

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

These Fragments Year Seven and Eight Play

dance hall and cameos of family life, the stillness that greeted Charlotte Essex singing the old favourite, Goodbye, was heart-stopping.

Music becomes more integral to the scenario of Lickety-split, the second Fragment. We follow the adventures of a group of street-children who have escaped from evacuation, and returned to live wild in the city. A wide range of characters are forced to rub shoulders, each bringing an image of what the Second World War did to civilians such as: Jude Green’s aeroplane-crazy Luke, roaring around in an imaginary fighter, Ellie Cleveland’s coarse-spoken, kind-hearted Flecs, Serena Sahota’s mysterious nearmute, inseparable from her tea-caddy, silently concealing her inner torment, and Peter de Carvalho’s street-wise escapee, Tim. The third ‘fragment’, A Fragile Revolution, takes us to a small household in Syria. Millie-Dean Lewis plays a nurse, touching as she tries to maintain her dignity and care for her patient, Roshana, played by Poppy Feldwick. They are visited by Sam, a long-awaited old friend who has emigrated, and married an English woman. Louis Renouf plays Sam with immense subtlety, and cavalier panache, one minute showing deep care and empathy, determined to get them to safety, while at another back home being easily distracted from his apparently not-so all-embracing concerns by the demands of his comfortable English wife, Abigail played with mature grittiness by Laura Rudman. The moral? It’s easy in our cushy surroundings to forget the suffering even of friends in distant wars. When it comes, Sam’s unthinking betrayal is sickening.

Judy Seall weaves a wonderful web with these three fragmentary lines, with scenes at the front, and back home, and a resolution that is as swift as it is effective, as the servicemen return, survivors are reunited, and others condemned to life-long loss, an image made unforgettable by the speechless Amy, standing rooted to the spot, her eyes riveted to the distant burning of the library, where Kate (her mother) had worked all those year’s ago. The cycle of destruction goes on.

The epic evening calls on news reports, and recordings the wartime broadcasts, and visuals expertly spliced in by Connor Brown, Chris Leakey, Sam Blake and Nathan Saunders, and evocative costumes and props masterminded by Anne Laleman, Mary-Ann Spratley and Naomi Griffiths. There was very effective live music, too, incidental in the best sense, some composed by Tim Dean-Lewis, with Paul Forster on oboe, and Atro Autio and Henry Best (who both acted in the scenes, as well) on clarinet and piano.

These Fragments is a deeply moving pageant of pity, and a profound prayer for peace propelled with a sure-footed dramatic instinct and breath-taking theatrical virtuosity.

Chris de Souza 53

Dolphin Players produce Romeo and Juliet for the Shakespeare in Schools Festival Dolphin wins national marketing competition again!

Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 16:47:22 +0000 Subject: Re: Shakespeare Schools Festival 2014 Bracknell To: judyseall@hotmail.com Hi Judy, Wow what amazing timing, we are announcing it to the schools today, and then as soon as we have done that we are announcing it via social media either this evening or on Monday, and there will be a news item on our website too, which I will send you the link to when it is up.

I am delighted to say that the Dolphin School have won the Primary age category! The below message is from our judges. Congratulations!

Best, Jasmine Thank you for your submission to our marketing competition. It was a really tough picking winners but we thought you did exceptionally well.

The portfolio was very professionally presented. You brainstormed so many great ideas. Creating a theme for your play was hugely successful - it gave people a way to relate and really got the message of love across.

Your promotional poster was very well thought out and in keeping with your chosen theme. We have no doubt that your promotional board was an integral part of your marketing and encouraged people to by tickets - it was also very creative!

I loved the way we were all on stage the whole time doing ensemble work so I really tried my best and gave it all I had.

Laura Rudman I loved it! The experience was amazing and I would go for it again. In fact, I wish I could do it all again!

Anya Donnelly Being in the Shakespeare in Schools has made me more confident with my acting.

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

Shakespeare in Schools

Dolphin School once again performed in the Shakespeare in Schools Festival with their latest production, Romeo and Juliet. After our dress rehearsal, the professional director brought in to work with the four school companies on the day, was delighted with our performance and had no suggestions for improving it! Below are some comments from members of the company:

Charlotte Essex It was an amazing experience to perform in a professional theatre with a professional stage crew.

Harry Notley Shakespeare in Schools was one of the best things I have ever done. I loved it all—from biking around at the start to praying for Romeo at the end. It was one of the best performances I have ever been in or seen, and I am now a huge Shakespeare fan.

Jude Green

We were blown away by your flier — how cool was that? It had the cast list, photos and all the necessary information - it was like a programme and not only did you invite people to the performance but to the dress rehearsal as well! You also produced a website, a video, biscuits, lollipops, sweets - We at the SSF office cant wait to try out your biscuit recipe! You did everything possible to draw attention to your show and there was no stone left unturned.

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You were an extremely dedicated team and you pulled out all the stops to make sure your performance was a huge success. We have the great pleasure in awarding you 1st place for the Student Marketing Project as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival 2013, the UK’s largest youth drama festival. Congratulations!

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Year One, Two and Three Play Prickly Hay was a heart-warming musical with a fun hoedown flavour performed by Years One and Two and supported by a chorus of cowboys and cowgirls from Year Three singing catchy tunes.

The story followed Sam, a hardworking stable boy who feels unappreciated and insignificant and his ever-faithful friend Shrew. While Sam is looking after the stable animals, Joseph, Mary and Donkey arrive in Bethlehem for the census. After exhausting all other possibilities, an Inn-Keeper offers them Sam’s stable for the night, whereupon the miraculous events of the night unfold and Sam starts to realise his worth.

On the arrival of baby Jesus, the dazzling Star marks the way for the humble shepherds to pay their respects while the regal kings deliver their special gifts, watched over by the beatific Gabriel and his throng of beautiful angels.

The singing and dancing had a modern twist which the children clearly loved and made a fun (and typically Dolphin) alternative to the usual Christmas play.

A good time was had by all!

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Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

Prickly Hay

Francis Lawrence (Year One Parent)

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Year Five Play

For those that didn’t see it, it’s almost impossible to overstate the ambition—and achievement—of the Year Five play this year,The Clock That Rocked. Opening, as it did, with a shipwreck, before moving just as deftly on to the House of Commons and a visit by the Queen (the ever-regal Katherine Sayers), it soon became clear that this was going to be a full-blooded exploration of the events that surrounded John Harrison’s lifelong quest to build a clock that allowed the accurate measurement of longitude at sea.

As the play’s author, director and driving force, Janet Lawson, explained to us before the performance, the British government were so sick of losing ships at sea that they offered a prize of £20,000 in 1707 to anyone who could solve the ‘problem’ of longitude (in other words, could help sailors work out how far ‘east’ or ‘west’ around the world they were).

The greatest minds of the day were flummoxed, and here we saw them all: from the wonderfully pompous Astronomer Royal (Matthew Donovan) to the exasperated Edmund Halley (Sam McCarthy).

No one seemed to know the answer. But they weren’t counting on a humble clockmaker from Yorkshire, John Harrison (Max Branet, playing by far the largest part of the evening and doing so with authority and aplomb). Because, in Janet Lawson’s telling, this wasn’t just the story of a man pursuing his dream— sometimes at the expense of his wife (the stoic Sophie Manttan) and son (played winningly first by William Taylor and then by Charlie Thorogood), it was also about how those in power are always reluctant to relinquish it, especially to a self-educated carpenter from the wrong side of the tracks (which is to say, Yorkshire).

And pirates. The play was also about pirates. Because Janet brilliantly (and hilariously) decided to counterpoint the seriousness of the quest for longitude with the travails of an all-female Pirate Horde (the wonderfully zesty Cecily, Gracie, Zinnia, Charlotte, Francesca, Roisin, Thea; and the twinkling Pirate Chief, Bella).

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Via lunatic inventors (Robert Rudman and Hector Suter), noble Ship Captains (Philippos Makridakis and Thomas Young); a brief sojourn in the West Indies (where the excellent Stanley Hagen led a team of comically inept astronomers), and a brief interlude for an anti-Establishment dream sequence, this was high adventure throughout. When pirates finally attacked Harrison’s ship, we were offered up a fitting finale to the play, and a reminder that most historical dramas would be improved by making some of the main characters walk the plank.

It was a wonderful evening from start to finish and an extraordinary testament to the talents of everyone involved. The sets were phenomenal — and a special mention has to go to Peter Fry, because not only did he and Olga Howard design and build an incredible ship with unfurling sail, but he also singlehandedly built an amazing clock that not only rocked but quite rightly elicited a spontaneous round of applause.

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

The Clock that Rocked

And I found myself realising, as I watched this mechanical clock tick tock in front of my eyes how the whole year group—from children—to parents—to teachers—had pulled together so incredibly to make this show. Everyone was involved. Everyone’s contribution counted. From the fantastic original songs and underscoring of the action by David Cooper and his band to the lighting design (on the school’s new lighting board) courtesy of Connor Brown; from the stunning 18th century costumes to the fabulous scenery painting and props. And, always to return to, the sheer ambition of the project in the first place, and the enthusiasm with which Year Five embraced their task. They were a credit to the school and an even greater credit to themselves.

Robert Thorogood

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“BIG BAD WOLF” 60

Scary Wolves!

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

Dolphin School Reception Presents

Three Little Pigs

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What an array of talent at the Junior Summer Music concert this year!

The programme was very broad, bringing together displays across a wide range of disciplines, including solos on musical instruments, songs, dance routines and narrated folk songs.

The afternoon opened with Three Caribbean Songs, performed by the whole of the lower school. Bold percussion instruments accompanied strong voices, and promised an afternoon of fun and frolics.

The audience was fortunate to be treated to a number of piano solos throughout the performance. Jack Cleveland was the first to brave the spotlight, playing My Robot with drama and panache. Anna Merritt entertained us with a beautiful lyrical piece, Indian Dance.

Nursery then sang Three Animal Songs, including a personal favourite, Wiggly Woo, with confidence and perfect enunciation.

Next we heard an upbeat Boogie Woogie Goose on the piano from Sophie Freudenburg, followed by a note of warning from Christopher Kami Hawkings who played Money Can’t Buy Everything.

One of the most impressive performances of the afternoon was that by the youngest children, who were led in a song in many languages by Madame Moore. The crowd gasped as tiny hands from Reception performed the words and actions to Two Little Dicky Birds not only in English, but also in French and Spanish. Year One did a song called Numbers Rap in which they counted with perfect accents in a number of languages.

(I’m afraid I lost count!)

Next came the first dance piece of the afternoon: Spider Man, presented by Years One and Two. Mrs Osborne’s group twisted and turned around the room spinning their webs as they jumped from building to building. Charlie Hagen caught the eye with his very superhero-like facial expressions.

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Year Three have been learning the recorder this year, and already they are able to show off the fruits of their labours.

We were treated to six pieces during the concert, which they played smoothly and with real definition. Their breath control was very impressive for such early starters, and their fingers found the notes neatly and quickly during the more difficult moments.

John Barleycorn: A tale for then and now This year’s Junior School music concert ended with a thrilling performance of an old English folk song, John Barleycorn.

Dillan Patel on piano played Growing Up very confidently indeed, while Caitlin Lewis-Enright had the audience tapping their feet with her very jazzy swinging rhythms in Creepy-Crawly.

Miss Maltese’s singing pupils presented La Cucuracha.

Esmé Arche Fisher stood out for her self-assurance and commitment, leading the group from the back row.

Then came the first of two narrated folk songs. David Cooper, Head of Music, explains elsewhere in The Oracle about how he values the role of old folk songs when teaching music, especially to young children. The Lambton Worm is a song from the north east of England, written about a devastating tax imposed by Lord Lambton on his subjects, which brought them close to famine. The song was performed by Year Three, with the other years joining in for the rousing chorus of ‘Hush lads, and tie those tongues, I’ll tell you all an awful story; hush lads and listen well, I’ll tell you ‘bout the worm’.

Three solos followed: Ulyana Roberts on violin gave a lyrical performance of The Road to Inverie followed by a stirring rendition of Gopak that made you want to get up and dance. The final piano solo of the afternoon came from Daisy Harwood, a born performer, who played two pieces: My First Waltz followed by Rainbow. And finally, James Thorogood, on cello, played a very stylish and gutsy Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which you could hear the crack of Indiana Jones’s whip as bow hit string.

The Reception children — all dressed in stripey nautical tops — performed a cheeky Sailors’ Hornpipe, before the very final performance of the day: a rousing mediaeval folk song, John Barleycorn. This was first performed at Dolphin nearly forty years ago, and Gleb Shvartser, who played John, wore the same mask as that worn in the original production. The children of Years Two and three told the allegorical story of John, cut down in his prime and buried in the ground. More on this stirring rendition elsewhere in The Oracle.

All in all, a thoroughly splendid performance by all the children involved. Special mention must go once again to David Cooper for co-ordinating such an impressive display of talent involving such young children, while also managing to maintain a very relaxed and encouraging atmosphere in the room at all times. Roll on next year!

Katie Breathwick

It’s a pretty violent tale: poor old John is cut off at the knee with ‘scythes so sharp’, and tied by the waist ‘most barbarously’. And it doesn’t end there. He’s ‘pricked to the heart’, ‘bound to a cart’ and wheeled around a field, before being taken to a barn.

Men with sticks then come and cut him ‘skin from bone’ before, finally, the miller grinds him between two stones.

John, of course, is mercifully not a real person, but the personification of a barley crop.

The song is an allegorical tale, describing the rhythms of an agricultural community in late mediaeval times, and has survived, with few changes along the way. John Barleycorn eventually ends being turned into beer and whiskey.

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

Junior Concert, Summer 2014

But it isn’t the first time the song’s been performed at Dolphin.

‘We first performed it here in the summer of 1975,’ says David Cooper, Dolphin’s Head of Music, who has been here since joining the school as a violin teacher in 1974. ‘The school was much smaller then, with just a few children. I’d discovered some really good old folk song books and got quite interested in some of the early stuff. In 1975 we had a medieval fair in Ophelia’s garden, and decided to peform it there. There was a drummer, another teacher played the flute, I was on viola, with everyone dressed up in mediaeval costumes.’

Miraculously, one very important element of those costumes has survived till now, and was worn by Year Three’s Gleb Shvartser for this year’s peformance.

‘John Barleycorn’s mask is original. I painted it in acrylic paint for the first performance, so it’s lasted all this time. The mask had been on a shelf for years, and I found it a few years back. It’s been hanging on the wall of my music room ever since. So the mask which was worn by Lucinda Rand in the original production in 1975 was worn by Gleb in this one.’

David believes old English music should play a key part in a child’s education.

‘It’s really important to teach them folk songs. It’s part of their culture, and it helps children to understand how much things have changed. The children just see combine harvesters and think that’s the end of it. They eat their food, without making any connections. So the song’s a great dropping-off point for talking about the history of agriculture. There are all sorts of references in the song which we like to talk about: the scythes and how they were used; the idea of ‘beating’ with crabtree sticks; even ‘tying him round the waist’ into stukes of corn. Nowadays, you don’t really see those sorts of shapes in the fields any more, except in one or two very rare cases in Wiltshire where I live.’

But this is Dolphin, and while being educational, learning John Barleycorn was also great fun for the children.

‘They really loved singing it. I chose John Barleycorn because it’s an easy song to act out, but the music is also really interesting in itself. The tune doesn’t have a chorus or a refrain, and it has quite jazzy rhythms, the sort of thing you were getting back in late mediaeval times. If you go back far enough in English music, it’s extremely syncopated. The children picked it up very quickly, just as they did back in 1975.’

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House Music

Senior Concert next week. Mr Cooper gets very cross if we do not have our instruments in school every day. There could be a rehearsal any time. Much too busy for lunch!

I am hiding from Mr Cooper, in case he asks me to learn the flute part for any more pieces. Though I am not sure how he can, as I think I am already playing in most of the pieces in the concert. I am practising and practising, so much to learn before the Big Night!

Time for the concert to start. I’m so nervous. How will I remember all my pieces? I will muck everything up and ruin it for everyone else. The hall is slowly starting to fill up. I wish they would sit down and be quiet so we can start. Or maybe they could all just go home.

The songs in canon have begun. It is difficult accompanying Year Six, when Atro is playing the Year Five part on his clarinet on one side of me and James the Year Four part on his cello on my other side. But we manage! The singing sounds great.

The biannual House Music Competition was held in February and was adjudicated by Chris de Souza, Lucy Head and David Cooper. Each house performed three solos, a large ensemble piece and a house song. All the children performed with great commitment and impressed the judges. Individual bonus points were awarded for exceptional effort, and the overall winner was TUDOR.

Lancaster When I’m Sixty-Four’

Performance at Dolphin

Performance at Dolphin

Senior Concert

Plantagenet With a Little Help from their Friends

Playing the piano for Lancaster

Tudor take a trip down Penny Lane

Let it Be York

Tudor ensemble Toccata & March very difficult, very well played

A little rest while Harry (saxophone) and Ralph (piano) play their solos. Beautiful.

Clocks is fun, with the Year Eight percussion really getting into the spirit, together with the Year Four recorders, and, of course, the band including yours truly.

Some of the House Ensembles are a bit odd, as Mr Cooper wrote the music specifically for the instruments in each house, which means some unusual combinations. There are little solos for each instrument (but your part got written out if you missed a rehearsal without a very good reason). The Toccata Mr Cooper wrote for Tudor is exciting, very quick and complicated. Mr Cooper says House Music is not about competing, but about cooperating and working together to make something beautiful, but I still wish he had written that piece for York!

All hands to the keys Plantagenet ensemble Chason & Dance Playing the flute for York

Making it sound easy Playing trumpet for Lancaster for Lancaster

Concentrating hard on the clarinet for Tudor

Lots more percussion, with Year Seven this time, and some more lovely solos. Brandon is playing the James Bond theme on his trumpet, everyone is smiling, I think they like it.

Almost time for the final pieces with the band and percussion—will we manage the pentatonic scales? A suggestion of China with Pagodas, then straight into the last piece. Faster, faster still, it is turning into a complicated whirl...but, somehow, we make it.

Henry’s piano solo sounds fantastic.

The concert finishes with the Beatles songs we learned for House Music. Everyone sings these together (well, except for Tom and me, who are accompanying, again, on trumpet and flute), and even the parents join in, so the choruses are very loud. It sounds like everyone is enjoying themselves. I am.

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Alice Constance Chonavel Year Six

Plantagenet With a Little Help from their Friends

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This year our fundraising for charities increased dramatically and it is a tribute to all parents, children and staff, who have given so generously, not only of their money but also of their time. Thank you!

As usual in September we asked our new Year Eight children to go and find out about a worthy cause to support as the school’s main charity for the year. They presented four charities in an assembly, The Link, Unicef, Cancer research and St John’s Ambulance, and we asked the school to vote for their favourite.

The chosen charity was Cancer Research, presented by Charlie, Paris and Henry. The main fundraising events held in support of this were the children’s Charity Fair in December and the FunRaisers’ Hot Lunch in January. Together £963.66 was raised.

Occasionally there is a terrible disaster somewhere in the world that comes to our attention through moving pictures on the news and more money is raised to help with relief. FunRaisers kindly organized an appeal in the Autumn to aid the victims of the Philippines’ typhoon disaster, with a Bring and Buy sale and a Hot Lunch. They raised a staggering £1,110.

In addition to this £161.77 was also raised in the Autumn by staff and children wearing a Festive Jumper in support of the Save the Children UK charity.

Our World Book Day’s Alice in Wonderland involved dressing up in Lewis Carroll’s characters, recitals of poetry and conversation, all for donations which came to £86 for The Book Bus charity (www.thebookbus.org). We also ran around the playing field in red costumes of various descriptions for Sport Relief raising £207.10. Nursery raised an impressive £270 in sponsorships for their Safari Day and also £125 for Children in Need.

Charities

CHARITIES

Charities 2014

A staggering £660.77 was raised in just two evenings, during the performances of These Fragments, the Senior Play, in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières. Millie in Year Seven wrote: ‘Médecins Sans Frontières is an international humanitarian aid organisation. The cast selected MSF because These Fragments is a play which addresses how people were affected by different wars. They also believed that the work MSF do is very admirable and brave. The MSF workers put their lives on the line for people they don’t know, people who are in very difficult situations. MSF brings medical aid to those in need.

This is very important in less economically developed countries.

MSF is a truly fantastic organisation, working in over sixty countries all around the world. They are not funded by the British government, as people in places such as Syria might be less liable to accept help. No-one from MSF is allowed to be armed, as this could pose a threat and, instead of making things better, could make things worse. Lewis, who works for MSF, came in to speak to us about his work. He said that when he signed up he was told that he could be killed, so he had to fill in a form to say where he wanted his money to go; quite a peculiar feeling came over him!

The money we raised will be used for their work in Syria. Thank you very much to all of the audience members who contributed to this wonderful sum!

The presenters for Cancer Research

Year Five also hosted a coffee morning for The Link, a local charity, and a number of them were delighted to be able to take up the invitation to watch the senior play, These Fragments.

The cast of a new version of These Fragments took the play to the Edinburgh Fringe where they requested donations from the audience for MSF and raised an additional £75.

And finally Year Seven made Christmas boxes that were sent to an orphanage in Nepal.

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Thank you to parents, children and staff, as well as relations and friends of Dolphin, who have all contributed to provide what has been a remarkable fundraising year.

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Welcome Back BBQ The Funraiser year began, as usual, in September with the Welcome Back BBQ. It is now a well-established event serving to get everyone into the swing of things at the beginning of the school year and to welcome new parents and children to the school. We were really challenged this year by the weather which promised to be awful and progressed from gloomy skies during set up to proper, lashing rain during the BBQ. It did dampen—thoroughly—the grills, making cooking slower than normal but it did not dampen the atmosphere, with people chatting happily beneath umbrellas in the long burger queue and in the sanctuary of the Hall. Thanks to everyone who came along for showing such spirit against adversity, making it a successful start to the year.

Movies and Munchies Night

Friday afternoon dancing in the Hall was a great way to finish off the first half of the Spring Term!

Ceilidh

Big Sleepover

Another brilliant new event, expertly planned by ceilidh pros, Chris and Donald. There was a good turnout despite the really shocking January weather. The band, supplemented by musical parents and staff, played marvellously all night, while we danced, twirled, span off in the wrong direction, tried not to crash into each other and had a lot of fun. Haggis, neeps and tatties, comme il faut, revived us.

The children love this rather wacky event, arriving in the early evening with their sleeping accoutrements and a lot of energy. They jumped straight into some energy-burning activities such as tennis, swimming or games on the field, before settling down to a film with a hot chocolate. Lights out coincided with the thrill of a very loud Summer storm which provided unexpected additional entertainment! Huge thanks to the staff who gave up their time to enable this event to happen.

FunRaisers

FUNRAISERS

FunRaisers

Valentines Disco

In addition to these events were the usual termly/bi-termly Hot Lunches, intended as light-hearted, fun, occasional alternatives to packed lunches and much loved by the children as always.

We are always looking for new faces and helpers to join the Funraiser team, whether in an official capacity as a Clipper (Class Liaison Person), or simply to come to the occasional meeting to add your thoughts or just see what’s going on. Meetings are usually bi-termly and dates and times are on the Weekly Update. Please feel free to come along or get in touch with your year group Clipper for any more information.

Friday 13th of June was the Sixth Big Sleepover. Fifty eight children, assorted teachers, and a few brave parents spent the night in the hall. I am not sure it would be quite true to use the word ‘slept’. We had a great time swimming and playing tennis, before setting up our sleeping stuff, getting ready for bed, then watching a film. There was a massive storm in the night, which was exciting. Mme Moore put screens in front of the big glass doors. Spending the night at school made me see the school from a different dimension. I had great fun, but I think in Year Eight it will make me a little sad, reminding me of everything I will be leaving behind.

Alice Constance Chonavel Year Six

This was a completely new event for this year arranged especially for the younger children, a film in the hall with popcorn and a drink. The children really enjoyed it! We are looking forward to repeating it next year.

Christmas Wreath Making

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Beautiful festive creations were fashioned at this event, using natural materials, leaves, branches, twigs, juxtaposed with baubles, glitter and tinsel. It was a gentle introduction to the festive season with mulled wine and carols providing some time out from the business of early December.

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Twelfth Night (Festival of Kings) King and Queen with their galette

With the kings display and her gift Eating their galette

In our French lesson we got to eat la galette. The cake was really nice .

Will Taylor Year Five We learnt about the French Fête des Rois and as I was the youngest I got to choose the order of who got the cake. I think it is important to learn about other traditions because if you learn a language you should know about their culture.

Sam McCarthy Year Five It was really exciting in French today because nobody knew if they had the figure in their piece!

Finding the fève

Individual Cups

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Girls Tennis Laura Autio

Junior Judo Barnaby Grandin

House Captains for 2014-2015

Dolphin Scholars for 2014-2015

Boys Tennis Atro Autio

Senior Judo Brandon Gee

Lancaster Isabella Marino and Louis Renouf

Open Tennis Atro Autio

Junior Chess Robert Winsor

Plantagenet Millie Dean-Lewis and Noam de Frettes

Will Richards Creative Writing Christopher Fry Technology Millie Dean-Lewis Creative Writing

Deans Family Cup (for contributions to swimming) Poppy Feldwick

Ophelia Cup for Senior Chess David Winsor

Tudor Charlotter Essex and Jude Green

Junior Swimming Charlotte Richards

Senior Swimming William Richards

York Anya Donnelly and William Richards

Awards Will Richards Sport

Adam Freeman-Shor Year Three On 6th January, the twelfth day of Christmas, it is a tradition in France to eat a flat cake called a galette with a fève in it. The word fève comes from the word for a bean which is what was traditionally used.

Arun Sahota Year Five

School Council

Whole School

WHOLE SCHOOL

Awards and Scholarships

This year School Council has taken on a new form.

We have decided to embrace Athenian ideas and this means that everyone will be expected to serve at least one term between Year Four and Year Eight. It is hoped that this will give all of the children a greater feeling of ownership of the decisions taken.

A new dynamism does seem to have taken over School Council and three new projects have been undertaken this year. In the Autumn term School Council entered in discussions with Mrs Gibbs to make the ‘Walking Zone’ more obvious for all. In the Spring term the Playground Ambassadors scheme took hold and culminated in the Year Seven and Eight representatives making a bid for funds from FunRaisers. Their bid was so well received that they were awarded £200 and new playground equipment was bought and has been well used by all.

Finally in the Summer term the representatives set to work on the Welcome Handbooks for new children.

Each year group produced pages for their respective years and the handbooks will be sent out before September.

It’s been a busy year but there are lots of new projects awaiting ideas next year!

Siân Moore

On a mangé une galette et on a appris des choses sur la Fête des Rois. Vive le roi !

Max Branet Year Five My opinion is that it is important to learn about how other countries celebrate because then you can celebrate with them.

Charlie Thorogood Year Five

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Upper School Chinese NewYear Assembly

Pre-Prep Chinese New Year

As it was National Astronomy week, Mrs Lawson, who is very enthusiastic about astronomy and thinks everyone else should be too, talked to Robert Charron’s dad, who is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. On Thursday night, Marc Charron brought some of his astronomer friends to Dolphin with their huge telescopes.

It was odd, but fun, coming to school at night time. We got together in the hall, where Mrs Lawson and Marc quizzed us on astronomy. The Year Five’s had just been to Herstmonceux so they knew almost all the answers! Whilst we were talking, the telescopes were being set up outside on the field. We rushed out to the field

Writing their Chinese Wishes

Reading Astronomical Society telescope

to get the first look through the telescopes. Lots of people had brought their own telescopes as well, so there were plenty of choices. Looking through one particularly large telescope, focussed on the moon, it looked as if the moon had a face, wearing sunglasses. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, even if some of us needed quite a lot of help from the astronomers. I hope Mrs Lawson and Marc will organise something like this again.

Lunar image taken through the telescope

Jupiter

Whole School

Whole School

Chinese New Year

Stargazing

Seeing the Stars evening

Alice Constance Chonavel Year Six

The European Day of languages Year Six Boys Year Five Girls

On Wednesday 25th September all of the children came to school with a coloured head on which they had written the word for friend in a language other than English together with a picture of a friend and the name of the language. We then all met in the hall for assembly and all the children laid their heads on the floor as if they were talking to another head in the centre. We had nearly 200 heads representing 49 languages.

Assembly - watching the presentation

Our display of the Talking Heads

Year Eight help Receptiom to place their heads

Making new friends Year Five Boys

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Making salt dough snakes

Chinese Dragons Chinese New Year Assembly

More heads are added to our display

Year Eight help Receptiom to place their heads

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Gardening Club

Programming with Scratch The Quiet Garden becomes a Sensory Garden Having been asked to run Gardening Club this year I felt that we needed a project to give a real sense of purpose to our activities. This coincided with the school becoming involved in a number of Mindfulness activities and so it seemed a good idea to turn the Quiet Garden into a garden where all of the Dolphin Community could take some time out and be peaceful and aware of their surroundings. A plan was drawn up and donations requested.

The biggest job and one that needed to be done first was painting the fence a shade of ‘Dolphin blue’. A team of staff attacked the fence one weekend and some large plants were removed. The fountain was resurrected and provided something for the ears. During the May half term a herb garden was created with different boxes for different herbs.

This was to be our taste sensation area and the children loved touching and smelling the plants and learning their names. The easiest area to create was our ‘sight’ area and a number of pretty plants were planted and carefully tended by the children. They also enjoyed scattering seeds to help create a mini wild flower meadow; the grasses have already taken but we will have to wait for next year for the wild flowers.

Whole School

Whole School

Clubs

New Clubs:

Stitchcraft and Jewellery

The youngest children have also really appreciated the giant shoe stepping stones that link the benches and love jumping from one to another.

We then had a huge donation of raised beds and fruit plants from Ms Dietsche and so a fruit cage and vegetable garden were built which had to be regularly watered, but the children loved the rewards. Fruit that one has grown and tended tastes so much sweeter! Perhaps we have more than one ‘taste centre’! Ophelia also kindly offered some raised bed space in her garden where potatoes and peas have been planted. We await our autumn harvest with great anticipation.

Sugar Flowers

There then followed the huge job of weeding the big bed ready for the fragrant planting and the Gardening Club children beavered away for several weeks. They did also helped plant the mini camomile lawn and the ‘touchy-feely’ bed with its exotic ferns, corrugated hostas and dead nettles.

Hanging baskets, another generous donation, and metal wall art from Year Eight have helped to complete the visual aspect of the garden and over the summer the path will be relaid with a variety of different materials to add to the sensory aspects of the garden. Wind chimes will also be added soon to complement the signs that help the children to identify the bird song that they can hear in the garden.

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We very much hope that the garden will be completed by September and that next year children, parents and staff will all be able to spend a little quiet time appreciating the garden with all of their senses.

Siân Moore

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Art

Art

Luke Year Five Totem Pole Year Two

Xavier Year Four Ruth Year Six

Honor Year Two

Louis Year Seven

Atro Year Eight

Jack Year Six

Design Techn ology and Art

Totem Pole Year Two

Daniel Year Six

Emily Year Seven

Robert Year Four

Katherine Year Five Pippa Year Seven

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Kushal Year Six

Cecily Year Five

Mural Painting

Christopher Year Six

Board Game Jaz, Anya, Laura, Charlotte Year Seven

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SPORT

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Sport at Dolphin

SPORT AT DOLPHIN

Under 9’s

Girls’ Football

Despite being a small squad the Under 9’s played some good football and improved throughout the season. Some narrow losses against Holme Grange (5-4), St Piran’s (4-3) and Barfield (5-4) could easily have gone the other way.

There were though excellent wins against St Mary’s (5-3) and (7-2) and St Edward’s (5-3) Atro Year Eight The star of the team was undoubtedly Patrick Droney, who demonstrated a full set of skills and a particularly powerful shot which brought a number of goals. He was ably supported by Harrison Boultwood and Jake Morris in midfield while Robert Winsor in goal also made some valuable saves.

The B team found matches hard going, but a 2-2 draw with Holme Grange towards the end of the season was a good reward for their determination.

Josh Kennedy, Xavier Aue and Adam Freeman-Shor all tried hard throughout.

1st XI

Colts A

Colts B

Colts C

Squad: Harry Batchelor, Taran Beavon, Max Branet, Oliver Deacon, Matthew Donovan, Harry Edwards, Stanley Hagen, Jackson Hatfield, Dylan Hillier, Byron Leigh-Davies, Philippos Makridakis, Sam McCarthy, Luke Parker, Joe Porter, Fabian Reisser-Weston, Andrei Roberts, Robert Rudman, Arun Sahota, Hector Suter,William Taylor, Charlie Thorogood, Joe Warren, Sam Warren, David Winsor, Finn Wyatt, Thomas Young.

Under 8’s

The Under 8’s are certainly still somewhat of a work in progress, but their enthusiasm and effort couldn’t be faulted. Many boys started with quite a low base in skills, but made a steady improvement throughout the term. More of them playing football outside school for local clubs would certainly help in this respect though. In a season where victories were rare, a comprehensive 4-0 victory against St Edward’s A and a 2-0 victory against their B’s were very pleasing, as was a narrow 2-1 loss to St Piran’s.

Colts D

1st XI

This year’s First XI were a young side, primarily made up of Year Seven boys. Whilst they lacked the individual skill perhaps of last year’s team, they gelled together well as the season progressed and put in some creditable performances.

Solid wins were achieved over Leighton Park B (1-0) Barfield (4-1) St Neot’s (10) and Pangbourne College (5-1) However, the team were probably at their best in two gritty hard fought draws against Bishopsgate (4-4) and Daneshill (1-1) Standout performers were Atro Autio and Charlie Teague in defence, who read the game maturely and were always there to make well timed challenges, Peter de Carvalho in midfield who provided the much needed grit and determination and William Richards up front who proved an able goal scorer. Archie Griffiths also showed improvement throughout the season in goal.

Squad: Peter de Carvalho, Charlie Teague, Henry Best, Connor Brown, Spencer Clarke, Jude Green, Sam Gething, Louis Renouf, Noam de Frettes, Archie Griffiths, Atro Autio.

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Sport at Dolphin

Sport at Dolphin

Football

Colts E

U9 A

Colts

With more boys than ever before in Years Five and Six, Dolphin was for the first time ever able to field five sides on several occasions. This involved over forty boys playing in fixtures on Wednesday afternoons, which was great to see and a real endorsement of our principles of ‘sport for all.’

Whilst the quality of play was not always of the highest calibre in the lower teams, the boys could not be faulted on their commitment and enthusiasm.

The E team, for example, gained a terrific 5-1 victory over Daneshill. The highlight for the D’s was a win over Daneshill (4-0) and a competitive 1-1 draw against St Neot’s. For the C’s the best performances came in a crushing 13-0 win away at Sherfield and a creditable 1-1 draw with a strong Bishopsgate team. Although lots of boys swapped about between teams, several players deserve a particular mention for their endeavours. These would be Archie McArthur who went from the E’s to the C’s and would have carried on to the B’s if the season had lasted longer, Arty Homewood who showed real skill on the ball and Dylan Hillier who improved markedly on last year.

The B team were certainly a good deal stronger than average and many of the boys would normally have represented the A’s in another year. The standard of football was high, with all players capable of holding the ball and keeping possession. Excellent wins were achieved over Sherfield (12-0) Lyndhurst (12-0) and Bishopsgate (1-0) Solid draws against Daneshill (1-1)and St Mary’s A (1-1) and several narrow losses against St Neot’s (1-0) and

U8 A/B Bishopsgate (1-0) all showed the strength of the squad. Ralph Philips on the left side of midfield was very influential as was Oliver Deacon in defence.

The A team squad was almost entirely made up of Year Five boys, so most will be available next year. The team was packed with skilful footballers, all capable of one touch passing and retaining possession. This made them a joy to watch at times. As they were usually playing boys a year older, they were occasionally out-muscled however. They were also unfortunate to lose a number of games by a single goal (St Neot’s 2-1 and Daneshill 3-2) They did though gain excellent wins against Sherfield (3-1) Hawley Place (5-1) Lyndhurst (4-0) and St Mary’s (3-0). I am sure with the high level of coaching many of the boys receive out of school at various academies and the team’s enthusiasm to improve, an even more successful season can be had next year.

The outstanding players were Joe and Sam Warren in midfield, whose passing and movement were exemplary and also Sam McCarthy who, despite his size, was very physical and always totally committed.

Squads: Kushal Tandon, Brandon Gee, Chris Fry, Lorcan Friel, Robert Charron, Daniel de Mounteney, Tom Craven, Archie McArthur, James Robinson, Ralph Philips, Charlie Beauchamp, Arty Homewood, Jack Torres

Players to catch the eye were Finn Suter and Christopher Kami Hawkings.

The former showed good dribbling skills and the latter was somewhat of a rock in defence.

In the B’s, Oscar Cullum tackled with brave abandon and Dillan Patel played well before being moved up to the A’s.

Squad: Oscar Cullum, Max Dhanda, Oliver Edwards, Christopher Kami Hawkings, Aadi Korla, Dillan Patel, Ayden Sidique, Finn Suter, Max Taylor, James Thorogood, Hari Zubairy-Moore.

U13

U11

Under 13’s

A squad of mostly Year Seven girls competed at the ISFA Under 13 6-a-side tournament in Cobham. With a young team and a lot of major public schools in attendance the competition was always going to be a tough one. The first three games seemed to bear this out, as the girls lost all three games, even if narrowly. However, in the remaining three games the team turned things round and won all of them, showing excellent skills and better team work.

Considering most of the team can play next year, this was a very creditable performance.

Georgina Eden-Hasler was among the best players on view at the tournament and scored several stunning goals from distance. Anya Donnelly also showed great control and Millie Dean-Lewis used her natural pace to good effect.

Well done to all the girls involved.

Squad: Georgina Eden-Hasler, Millie Dean-Lewis, Georgina Watkins, Anya Donnelly, Anna Seall, Emily Batchelor, Daisy Rodgers, Laura Rudman, Isabella Marino.

Girls Football Tournament at Holme Grange

Under 11’s

The Under 11’s competed in the Holme Grange tournament of which we were holders. However, due to Year Six being on another day trip the Dolphin team were entirely comprised of Year Five girls. As such they did extremely well to finish 3rd and offered real hope for winning the tournament next year.

Strong performances from Charlotte Richards and Laura Donnelly both of whom play football outside school for local clubs were very much to the fore and Cecily did brilliantly in goal.

Squad: Roisin Houchen, Cecily, Bella Aue, Gracie Gething, Sophie Manttan, Zinia Mettawa, Charlotte Richards, Thea Rolls

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Hockey U11 Hockey

Colts C The Colts C team played one game, winning comfortably against Daneshill 45-5. The standout player was Byron Leigh-Davies, another boy new to the game. Many of these boys got further opportunities in B team fixtures.

There were many close matches for this age group this year and the team benefitted from some good goal keeping by Melanie, Alice and Ruth Mills who took it in turns to play this brave position. Laura was again outstanding in her play in all matches and she was invaluable in a defensive position.

Nathalie showed good fitness as centre forward and she was helped by Caitlin and Chanté on the wings. Seren enjoyed playing centre half and Chardonnay was beginning to be more match aware by the end of the Easter term. Matches were played against St Neot’s, St Piran’s, Daneshill, St Andrew’s and The Abbey.

A Squad: Harry Edwards, Max Branet, Hector Suter, Sam Warren, Thomas Young, Daniel de Mounteney, Lorcan Friel, Brandon Gee, Archie McArthur, Ralph Philips, James Robinson, Hugo Wade.

U8

U9 A

Colts B/C

B Squad: Robert Charron, Chris Fry, Kushal Tandon, Harry Batchelor, Oliver Deacon, Matthew Donovan, Byron Leigh-Davies, Sam McCarthy, Fabian ReisserWeston, Charlie Thorogood, Jo Warren, David Winsor, Finn Wyatt, Philippos Makridakis.

U11

U10

U9

Colts A

1st XII

First XII

The 1st XII had a good season, winning four games and losing five. However, this record does not show the progression of the team. After a dispiriting loss to Daneshill where the team underperformed, they picked themselves up and played with much more energy and commitment thereafter. With a smaller forward pack than in previous years, the team always struggled for enough ball to feed their promising backs. Spencer Clarke and Connor Brown though played with real tenacity upfront and managed to gain parity in most matches. Comfortable wins were gained over Barfield (41-27) ,St Edward’s (60-5), Leighton Park (33-0) and Bishopsgate (62-5) But it was in losing encounters with St Andrew’s (5-25) and Pangbourne College (48-31) that the team really played their best rugby, tackling and rucking with gusto and also scoring some lovely tries out wide.

Peter de Carvalho at scrum half was always very physical and acted almost as an extra forward. He also scored a spectacular try against Pangbourne College, breaking numerous tackles and running the length of the field.

Louis Renouf also ran with real flair from fly half and unlike last year began to distribute the ball better as well. Atro Autio was also very dependable in the centre.

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Squad: Peter de Carvalho, Spencer Clarke, Charlie Teague, Henry Best, Connor Brown, Tommy A, Atro Autio, Jude Green, Sam Gething, Will Richards, Louis Renouf, Noam de Frettes.

Wasp’s Coaching Clinic

Colts

Many of the boys attended the Wasps pre-season training which certainly enhanced their skills. They did come up against some very strong opposition though and lost several games very narrowly. Their first game being a case in point, a hard fought 30-20 loss to St Edward’s. They also lost narrowly to a Daneshill side who remained unbeaten for the rest of their season 30-20 and could have easily reversed the score if injuries had not forced key players off.

Upfront the Colts were strong, with Archie McArthur and Brandon Gee very much to the fore. Behind the pack, Lorcan Friel, Ralph Philips and James Robinson, all of whom had never played rugby before, played with real promise and an improving technique as the season progressed. Excellent wins were gained against St Andrew’s (21-14) and Hawley Place (22-5) and a very entertaining loss against Papplewick 41-31. Other players who deserve a mention are Harry Edwards whose tackling was immense at times, even if his positional sense was rather frustrating and Daniel de Mounteney who never gave less than 100%.

Colts B The Colts B also played several games, reversing a 30-15 loss to St Edward’s at the start of the season with a 20-5 victory against the same opposition at the end. This clearly showed improvement as did a narrow 40-35 loss to St Neot’s. Notable performers were Joe and Sam Warren, the latter forcing his way into the A team by the end of the season. David Winsor also tackled enthusiastically.

The best match was a win against Rupert House which was made more difficult because it was on grass which was a first for us.

C Squad: Dylan Hillier, Adam Howard, Luke Parker, Joe Porter, Andrei Roberts, Arun Sahota, Tom Craven, Arty Homewood, Jack Torres.

Squad: Laura Autio, Ruth Donovan, Seren Suter, Ruth Mills, Caitlin Brown, Melanie Stewart, Alice Chonavel, Nathalie Luff, Chanté King, Chardonnay Brewster.

Under 9’s

U10 Hockey

With a small squad the under 9’s found the going tough at times. However, their understanding of the game came on in leaps and bounds throughout the season and they could not be faulted for their effort.

A narrow 55-45 loss to Holme Grange was probably the highlight, with the game in the balance till the final few minutes. The B team also gained a great 35-30 victory away to Barfield when bolstered by a few of the speedy boys from Year Three.

Patrick Droney was always a threat with ball in hand, as was Harrison Boultwood who developed into a very good scrum half by the end of the season. Robert Winsor and Barnaby Grandin and Jake Morris should also be commended for their low tackling.

Squad: Xavier Aue, Harrison Boultwood, Patrick Droney, Adam Freeman-Shor, Barnaby Grandin, Soubaan Haq, Josh Kennedy, Jake Morris, Robert Winsor.

Under 8’s

The under 8’s all enjoyed their rugby and it was good to see several of them joining local clubs. Their running and handling all improved throughout the year and they never gave up in the matches they played. The A’s had several close matches, losing narrowly to Daneshill 65-50 and Holme Grange 40-35.

Finn Suter showed what an elusive runner he was with some great tries as did Jack Cleveland and Max Dhanda. Chris Kami Hawkings also ran nicely and straight and looks a real prospect when the team play full contact next year.

Squad: Jack Cleveland, Oscar Cullum, Max Dhanda, Oliver Edwards, Chris Kami Hawkings, Aadi Korla, Dillan Patel, Gleb Shvartser, Ayden Sidique, Finn Suter, Max Taylor, James Thorogood, Hari Zubairy-Moore.

U8

U13

Senior Hockey

The numbers in Year Seven and Eight meant that we could field two teams and they both had a full season of matches. Georgie Watkins deserves a special mention because she got ‘girl of the game’ in four different matches and was top goal scorer. She played well on the left wing in most games because of her good reverse stick skills. She was supported by Millie in the centre and Georgina in mid defence and these three really were the backbone of the Senior A team. Jaz and Daisy played an important role too and Anya was always able to show good pace on the right wing. The forwards were Isabella and Millie who were consistent in their attacking play.

Georgina also played in goal in many matches and her sharp reflex actions made the difference in the final score especially when playing Eagle House, Holme Grange and Daneshill.

In the B team there was lots of evidence of improvement by Serena, Poppy and Laura. Charlotte, Ruby and Hannah also showed a consistently high level of effort.

Senior A: Georgie Watkins, Georgina Eden-Hasler, Millie Dean-Lewis, Daisy Rodgers, Anya Donnelly, Jaz Harding-Laleman, Isabella Marino, Ellie Cleveland, Anna Seall.

Senior B: Poppy Feldwick, Serena Sahota, Ruby Ackerman, Anna Seall, Emily Spratley, Pippa Venning, Emily Batchelor, Hannah Warren, Charlotte Essex.

Sport at Dolphin

Sport at Dolphin

Rugby

The Year Five girls enjoy their hockey and showed good fitness throughout the season especially when we played on bigger pitches at other schools.

There were two tournaments for this age group at The Abbey and St Andrew’s and this gave the girls lots of experience with playing on astro pitches. Zinnia was voted ‘girl of the game’ many times and this was because she played with such determination even when we were losing. Charlotte and Bella showed good running fitness as centre forward and centre half and together with Fran they made a good attacking partnership in the circle.

Cecily played in goal a few times as did Roisin and Katherine. Laura, Sophie and Gracie improved hugely over the two winter terms especially with their accuracy of passing and stickwork.

Squad: Charlotte Richards, Zinnia Mettawa, Katherine Sayers, Roisin Houchen, Bella Aue, Thea Rolls, Laura Donnelly, Gracie Gething, Cecily, Francesca Blackwell.

U8 and U9 Hockey

The younger girls coped very well with new mouth guards, shin pads and long blue socks and their enthusiasm was proved by the number of hockey sticks that were bought for Xmas and birthdays this year! The girls worked hard at their skills and fitness and they enjoyed a number of matches against Holme Grange, St Neot’s, Daneshill and St Andrew’s. Ulyana showed that she has potential as a keen hockey centre forward and some good defending was shown by Esmé, Anna and Sophie. The Year Four girls had Darcy who played well on the wing and Olivia showed good tackling skills. Isabella put in good effort with some nifty stickwork. Amelia enjoyed scoring some goals especially against St Andrew’s.

U8 Squad: Millie Homewood, Hattie Cowley, Daisy Harwood, Esmé Arche Fisher, Anna Merritt, Ulyana Roberts, Caitlin Lewis-Enright, Millie Charlesworth, Sophie Freudenberg, Isabelle Kelly, Annabelle Smith.

U9 Squad: Amelia Essex, Olivia Roberts, Darcy Clarke, Isabella de la Mora, Sophie Quay-Clarke, Anna Beauchamp.

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Senior Netball

Athletics U9 Netball

Athletics at St George’s.

A tough draw in the U12 IAPS competition meant the girls had to dig deep and keep cool heads. We had good wins against Bilton Grange (6-1) and Lambrook ( 8-6). A long but enjoyable day for the girls.

This is a small year group so all the girls played in every match helped out

by Year Three or Year Five. Amelia Essex was always the most enthusiastic and ready to play in any position depending on the opposition and she was supported by Olivia and Darcy who were also versatile players. Isabella and Anna improved hugely during the season and were both playing more confidently by the end of the Easter term. Sophie Quay-Clarke also found that she could play with determination especially in defence. The team played matches and tournaments and are to be congratulated on their good spirit throughout the two winter terms. Next season with a larger group the girls will have more support.

We are invited every year to a big athletics meet at St George’s in Windsor just before half term. This means we have a short amount of time to find our best athletes and practise for all the different field and track events. The weather for this year was beautifully sunny and so we expected some good performances. This happened fairly quickly because Nathalie won the 80 metres sprint for Year Five and Six and Patrick won the 50 metres for Year Three and Four and the ball throw. There was a fine high jump performance

by Kushal Tandon who came first and Chanté won the 200 metres for Years Five and Six. Georgina Eden-Hasler won the shot put and Millie Dean-Lewis won the sprint for the senior girls.

Thank you to the Senior girls for their hard work and commitment this year and also to the parents for their help with transport and cheerleading.

Squad: Amelia Essex, Olivia Roberts, Darcy Clarke, Isabella de la Mora, Sophie Quay-Clarke, Anna Beauchamp.

District Sports 2014 for Under Elevens

Senior squad: Daisy Rodgers, Anya Donnelly, Charlotte Essex, Anna Seall, Jaz Harding-Laleman, Millie Dean-Lewis, Georgina Eden-Hasler, Ellie Cleveland, Georgie Watkins, Emily Batchelor, Serena Sahota, Hannah Warren, Pippa Venning, Laura Rudman, Isabella Marino, Poppy Feldwick, Ruby Ackerman, Emily Spratley

U8 Netball

The senior girls, despite all their hard work in training, have had a mixed season of results. We have been met with tough opposition all year long.

Notable wins were recorded against Sherfield School (U13 11-7 and U12 9-6), St Neot’s ( U12 9-0), Holme Grange ( U 13 28-13 and U12 5-3). Next season brings new challenges and a push towards working on both our attacking and defending play, all inspired by the netball in the Commonwealth Games.

U11 Netball

This squad was one of the most successful this year and had some good victories against Sherfield, Daneshill, St Neot’s and St George’s. The squad has been together for four years and play well together. However there was the very welcome addition of Chanté in the autumn term and Chardonnay in the spring term. Laura was always reliable and outstanding as goal defence and she was helped by Melanie and Alice. Nathalie was a lively and quick centre ad she helped to get the ball to the attacking end by Ruth Donovan and Caitlin. Ruth Mills practised hard to be goal shooter and Seren scored many good goals. The team entered the IAPS tournament this year and also the Bradfield tournament which gave them lots of competitive play.

Squad: Laura Autio, Ruth Donovan, Seren Suter, Ruth Mills, Caitlin Brown, Melanie Stewart, Alice Chonavel, Nathalie Luff, Chanté King, Chardonnay Brewster.

U10 Netball

The U8 team are always enthusiastic because it is their first season of playing proper matches and this year was no exception. The girls had lots of coaching in lessons and after school clubs and they had matches on most Friday afternoons.

Sport at Dolphin

Sport at Dolphin

Netball

This was another sunny event at Palmer Park and was held the day before our Sports Day so many Dolphins were having an energetic week. The best performances came from Kushal Tandon who came second in the high jump and the mixed relay team (Christopher Fry, Laura Autio, Ruth Donovan, Lorcan Friel, Hugo Wade and Charlotte Richards) who came third in the finals.

This was against other young athletes from twenty local schools. Overall we came 13th out of 20.

The standard of opposition seemed high this year and we often struggled to score goals although the passing and catching down the court improved greatly. Millie Homewood played well as centre and she was helped in mid court by Daisy and Isabelle. The shooters varied but Hattie enjoyed this position as well as Anna. In defence Ulyana was quick to spot opportunities to intercept and Millie Charlesworth found that she quickly learnt the duties of a goal keeper. Sophie and Esmé both found that they were good at ‘snatching’ the ball and Caitlin and Annabelle began to move more around the court in order to get free. The team drew a match with St George’s and lost to other local schools such as Holme Grange, St Piran’s, St Neot’s and Daneshill.

Squad: Millie Homewood, Hattie Cowley, Daisy Harwood, Esmé Arche Fisher, Anna Merritt, Ulyana Roberts, Caitlin Lewis-Enright, Millie Charlesworth, Sophie Freudenberg, Isabelle Kelly, Annabelle Smith.

The U10 team had a good season and reported wins against Hawley Place, St Joseph’s, Daneshill and St Neot’s. The matches against The Abbey and Yateley Manor were close and they also played St George’s and Sherfield.

The girls trained hard all season with many of them receiving coaching from Woodley Netball Club outside school. This meant the quality of play was high and the defence players of Zinnia and Cecily worked very hard in each match. Charlotte played enthusiastically in the centre or goal attack and she was ably assisted by Bella, Laura and Gracie. Sophie, Thea and Roisin were most improved players of the year and Katherine was a consistent shooter who deserves a lot of praise because she is always practising!

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Squad: Laura Donnelly, Charlotte Richards, Zinnia Mettawa, Katherine Sayers, Roisin Houchen, Bella Aue, Thea Rolls, Gracie Gething, Cecily A, Francesca Blackwell.

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We went to an interschool match with Thorngrove School. There was a mix of ages from Year Three upwards. DOLPHIN WON BY FOUR FIGHTS. It was quite a close fought match throughout but the last few fights put us in a winning position!

Girls’ Tennis

Congratulations to all the swimmers.

The Year Seven and Eight girls were entered for the Aegon friendly league this year and they had three matches to play in their section. The matches were all fairly competitive in singles and doubles and all girls learnt a lot about game tactics along the way. Laura Autio from Year Six did very well to play in number one position against girls who were two years older than she and she was ably assisted by Anna Seall from Year Eight and Georgina Eden-Hasler, Isabella Marino, Millie Dean-Lewis and Georgie Watkins from Year Seven. The girls lost to Queen Anne’s, Lambrook Haileybury and St Mary’s, Ascot.

All the girls and boys enjoy their rounders and there was noticeable improvement made by all teams this year especially in fielding skills. Now we need to work on batting and hitting the ball consistently.

The U8 and U9 teams had some close matches against St George’s, Daneshill and The Oratory and the U9 team came third in a tournament at St Neot’s.

U8 Squad: Millie Homewood, Hattie Cowley, Daisy Harwood, Esmé Arche Fisher, Anna Merritt, Ulyana Roberts, Caitlin Lewis-Enright, Millie Charlesworth, Sophie Freudenberg, Isabelle Kelly, Annabelle Smith.

U9 Squad: Amelia Essex, Olivia Roberts, Darcy Clarke, Isabella de la Mora, Sophie Quay-Clarke, Anna Beauchamp.

The U10 team beat St Joseph’s, Daneshill and drew with St Piran’s. They lost to Thorngrove, Yateley Manor, The Oratory and St George’s. Zinnia must be mentioned for her consistent fielding skills and Charlotte improved hugely over the term to become an efficient second post. Bella was an excellent backstop too. The boys also had a game against St Joseph’s which they won.

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U10 girls squad: Zinnia Mettawa, Katherine Sayers, Charlotte Richards, Roisin Houchen, Bella Aue, Thea Rolls, Laura Donnelly, Gracie Gething, Cecily A. U10 boys squad: Taran Beavon, Stanley Hagen, Joe Porter, Finn Wyatt, David

Winsor, Byron Leigh-Davies, Robert Rudman, Dylan Hillier, William Taylor, Philippos Makridakis, Adam Howard, Charlie Thorogood.

The U11 team had Laura as the best hitter of the term and she scored in every game. Seren bowled well and Nathalie was a quick thinking backstop.

Squad: Laura Autio, Ruth Donovan, Seren Suter, Ruth Mills, Caitlin Brown, Melanie Stewart, Alice Chonavel, Nathalie Luff, Chanté King, Chardonnay Brewster.

The seniors had matches most weeks and lost several games by only a rounder or two. The team beat Leighton Park and St George’s and lost to Crosfields and Daneshill. The batting became stronger as the season progressed and Millie and Georgina were most consistent in this part of the game. There was some good fielding from Millie as backstop and Georgie and Daisy as second post. The bowling was mostly carried out by Charlotte who has become very consistent in this role. Several players must be mentioned for all round improvement over the term; these include Laura, Jaz, Isabella, Serena and Daisy.

Squad: Grace Gething, Sophie Manttan, Bella Aue, Zinnia Mettawa, Charlotte Richards

Swimming v Daneshill

On Thursday 19th June 2014, Daneshill brought over a team of Year Tthree and Four swimmers for a friendly swimming match. All the boys and girls swam really well. It was a very closely contested gala, with Dolphin winning by only one point! There were notable swims from both the U10 boys’ and U10 girls’ teams.

The girls also had two friendly games against Daneshill and The Abbey.

Tommy A., Gabriel Kasinski and Spencer Clarke played in the Daneshill match as well.

Squad: Amelia Essex, Charlotte Richards, Olivia Roberts, Zinnia Mettawa, Darcy Clark, Bella Aue, Isabella de la Mora Gracie Gething, Harrison Boultwood, Laura Donnelly, Adam Freeman-Shor, Cecily A, Patrick Droney, Sophie Manttan, Robert Winsor, Katherine Sayers, Harry Edwards, Dylan Hillier, Luke Parker, Andrei Roberts, Ollie Deacon, David Winsor, Hector Suter, Robert Rudman

Squad: Laura Autio, Anna Seall, Isabella Marino, Georgina Eden-Hasler, Georgie Watkins, Millie Dean-Lewis.

Boys’ Tennis

The boys were entered into the U13 Aegon A league this year and they played well to beat Charters and Edgbarrow and they lost to a very strong team from Blue Coat. Atro played in number one spot and had some excellent games of singles which were exciting to watch not least for the level of skill demonstrated. Peter played as number two and partnered Atro in the doubles. Both boys learnt to communicate in their doubles matches and they won some good sets. Louis and Jude played number three and four respectively and we luckily have their experience for next year too.

Swimming Gala at Queen Anne’s School

On Saturday 7th June 2014, five Year Five girls represented the school at Queen Anne’s Annual Swimming Gala. There were teams there from Highfield, Maltmans Green, The Manor, St Piran’s, Glendower and The King’s, Ely. All the races were very competitive and the girls all swam their best. Charlotte came 4th in her Individual butterfly and Individual Medley. Zinnia came 5th in her individual Backstroke. Fast swimming in the Freestyle relay meant the team came 4th.

Tennis

U9 rounders tournament St Neot’s

Swimming

Sport at Dolphin

Sport at Dolphin

Judo

Rounders

Gymnastics

Year Three and Four

Squad: Atro Autio, Peter de Carvalho, Jude Green, Louis Renouf.

Senior A team squad: Georgina Eden-Hasler, Charlotte Essex, Millie Dean-Lewis, Jaz Harding-Laleman, Anya Donnelly, Isabella Marino, Laura Rudman, Serena Sahota.

Senior B team squad: Serena Sahota, Laura Rudman, Poppy Feldwick, Pippa Venning, Ruby Ackerman, Hannah Warren, Emily Spratley.

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The 1st XI were unbeaten in all five matches this year and played some excellent cricket throughout. Ably captained by Charlie Teague from behind the stumps, whose glove work was exceptionally neat and tidy, the team were a particularly strong batting line up. The spearhead was the aggressive batting of Peter de Carvalho who scored 234 runs in five matches and was only dismissed twice. Jude Green also chipped in with several 40’s and played some delightful shots on the offside. Good cameos from Archie Griffiths and Atro Autio also ensured tough targets were always set. On the bowling front, Will Richards bowled increasingly accurately and Connor Brown chipped in with wickets on occasions. Jude Green and Peter de Carvalho also contributed with the ball in hand. In addition there were some superb catches and run outs, most notably from Peter again and Atro.

Sport at Dolphin

Sport at Dolphin

Cricket

1st XI

Well done to all the boys for an excellent season.

Squad: Peter de Carvalho, Jude Green, Charlie Teague, Henry Best, Archie Griffiths, Will Richards, Atro Autio, Noam de Frettes, Spencer Clarke, Sam Gething, Connor Brown.

Colts

There were some keen cricketers in Years Five and Six and competition for places was high. In all over twenty boys represented the school. Although results were mixed, solid wins were gained over St Mary’s and Waverley.

On the batting front the team were led by Kushal Tandon who had several good innings as did Hugo Wade. Sam Warren improved as a wicketkeeper throughout the season and with his brother Joe showed good technique with the bat. However, there were rather too many boys who were apt to play one or two good shots and then get out cheaply trying to slog. Among these was Ralph Philips who looked excellent in the nets but tended to get out cheaply in matches.

With the ball most boys showed they had improved their accuracy from last year, but there were still too many wide balls and not enough wicket taking balls. Notable improvers were Luke Parker and Hugo Wade who both bowled pretty straight as did Ralph Philips. Fabian Reisser-Weston also bowled some encouraging leg spin.

Squad: Robert Charron, Daniel de Mounteney, Christopher Fry, Brandon Gee, Ralph Philips, James Robinson, Kushal Tandon, Hugo Wade, Harry Batchelor, Oliver Deacon, Matthew Donovan, Harry Edwards, Sam McCarthy, Luke Parker, Fabian Reisser-Weston, Hector Suter, Joe Warren, Sam Warren, Thomas Young, Joe Porter.

Under 9’s

The Under 9’s were unlucky that heavy rain tended to fall on a Friday and several matches were cancelled. In the end they were only able to play St Piran’s who they managed to beat in a hard fought match. Pick of the bowlers were Patrick Droney and Harrison Boultwood, although Jake Morris also bowled well. The batting was also dominated by the same three boys. In the house matches at the end of the year, Robert Winsor also showed some promise with the bat.

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Squad: Patrick Droney, Harrison Boultwood, Jake Morris, Josh Kennedy, Robert Winsor, Xavier Aue, Adam Freeman-Shor, Edward Tate, Soubaan Haq.

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Sport at Dolphin

Sport at Dolphin

Junior Sports Day

Reception, Year One, and Nursery Sports Days

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Nursery is a child's first experience of school, and for many it is their first sustained experience of interacting with their peers and coping without a parent. The children have been welcomed into Nursery for all these years by Elaine, always kind, loving and calm, and blessed with an amazing smile and twinkling eyes.

NURSERY

Sport at Dolphin

Elaine

Dolphins look back on their nursery years with great fondness and for anyone who was in nursery from 1992 onwards the first word which springs to his or her lips is ‘Elaine’.

The nursery staff need to be both reassuring and encouraging as they nurture the children's enthusiasm for learning. Elaine is a superb example of this as she both supports and inspires, while gently modelling appropriate behaviour.

The present Directress of Nursery, Jane Robinson, writes, ‘Elaine is a true ‘Montessorian’ and through her I learnt the importance of creating an inspiring environment for the children to work within and the value of developing their independence and love of learning.’

Elaine avoids the limelight, but her behind-the-scenes organisation and gentle direction created the marvelous ambiance which the children remember so clearly.

Elaine is creative in a practical way and believes school must be fun and interesting. Children, staff and parents all have vivid memories of nursery transformed into a rainforest, the copse as a safari park, or the playground as a transport network, to mention but a few of Elaine's multitude of ideas for making learning a kinetic, all-encompassing experience.

An incredibly hard worker, Elaine often had to be forced to go home at the end of the day. Her priorities have always been the future of Nursery and the children within it.

Senior Sports Day

For a number of years Elaine was the Directress of Nursery, playing the key role in communicating with and reassuring parents, as well as helping them to understand what Dolphin School is all about. Parents as well as their children have been welcomed into the Dolphin community by Elaine, and launched on a decade or more of involvement in a vast range of school activities and trips. Taking this a step further, Elaine devised the popular Toddler Mornings to share our philosophy. She has also been a highly successful Nursery SENCO coordinator.

Elaine loves the outdoors and helped secure the addition of the cabin at the top of the field. Even in retirement she has returned to support the Foundation children plant bulbs and herbs and help them understand the beauty of nature.

Not surprisingly, Elaine has been an extremely keen staff member on the walking trips, usually on the most demanding walks such as Snowdonia, the Lakes and even Scotland on one occasion. For her it is a delight to share her love of walking in mountainous regions with the children she nurtured as three year olds. She has also relished the opportunity to indulge her own love of history and geography on the field trips, particularly the demanding six day Northumbria trip where her group usually produced the most erudite written contributions for The Oracle.

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For twenty two years Dolphin children, parents and staff have been befriended and supported by Elaine and wish her all the best in her retirement.

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Charities

Gallery Day

Nursery

Nursery

Julian Renouf visits nursery

Children In Need

Adding lots of sprinkles!

Busy making and decorating cakes..

The Nursery children talked about those who are less fortunate than themselves and decided to ‘make and bake’ cakes to sell to help make these children’s lives a little easier. They set up a stall in the Nursery for three days and ensured lots of very appealing fairy cakes were available to buy each day. Decorating and (eventually!) eating the cakes was definitely the children’s favourite part. On Children in Need Day the Nursery children excitedly sold cakes to the children and parents of Reception, Year One and Year Two. Reception and Nursery also each contributed £1 for wearing yellow on the day, with Reception and Year One making a wonderful Pudsey collage. A magnificent £125 was raised thanks to everyone’s support and enthusiasm. See also page 96 where £270 was raised for the World Wildlife Fund!

Reception class collages

Kenton Theatre Nine children from Nursery followed in the footsteps of many famous actors and entertainers when they performed on the stage of the Kenton Theatre last week. The children, parents and teachers had the privilege of being given a fascinating tour of this 200 year old theatre by Wendy Bowsher, the Managing Director.

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The highlight of our trip was undoubtedly the chance to dress up in the dressing room and make their way to the stage where they sang to a small, but appreciative audience. With this valuable experience behind them we’re expecting our ‘nursery theatre’ and box office to be very popular for role play and look forward to future performances.

Making sand angels.

AN ARTIST VISITS NURSERY Julian Renouf inspired the children when he came into Nursery and talked about colours and Matisse’s snail. By looking at a huge colour wheel on display the children were able to work out the result of mixing two primary colours together. Each child had the opportunity to make his or her own colourful spiral by tearing paper and deciding the colour sequence. Julian was very ‘hands on’ and the children really enjoyed his encouragement and skill.

South Hill Park visit On Tuesday, 19 November 2013 Nursery visited South Hill Park in Bracknell. We enjoyed a leisurely walk around the grounds admiring a variety of sculptures—metal animals, wooden athletes and an abstract pirate ship. The children began by exploring the maze, an opportunity to run and hide which provided much excitement. We then continued on our journey by walking to the outdoor amphitheatre where we listened to a story about animals of the forest—some we may have the opportunity to see, some we were less likely to see (bears!). After a much-needed refreshments break in the cafe we headed to the play area where lots of interesting equipment gave us a chance to use up our final shreds of energy before we returned to Nursery, hungry for the hot lunch that awaited us.

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Waltham Place

Nursery

Nursery

Forest Schools Visit

We arrived at Waltham Place on a gloriously sunny spring morning where our guide Niki greeted us and took us to the educational centre. She talked to the children about creating a spring story stick as we made our way around the estate by collecting, for example, leaves, flowers, catkins and feathers.

Gathering the sticks for our terrific tower Who has built the highest tower?

We started our tour by feeding the apparently ravenous hens while the calves looked across at us over a low gate. Niki showed the children how to put out the back of the hand towards the calves which the children loved doing and the calves loved licking! We walked around the vegetable garden smelling herbs and, as the children showed interest in the compost bins, Niki explained the system of bin rotation to them. We continued our walk around the grounds and found catkins, periwinkles, and glorious banks of daffodils and snowdrops. The children immensely enjoyed dropping sticks into the lake and watching the ripples disperse.

Easter egg hunt Building and measuring a stick tower

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We returned to the education centre and Niki showed us some grain collected from local wheat. Each child helped to grind the grain and unlike the animals in the story of the Little Red Hen they all worked diligently! It was an exciting morning.

Visit to Bucklebury Farm We arrived to sunshine at Bucklebury Farm Park and started our day by exploring the wooden activity zone. After lots of balancing, climbing up and jumping, we were collected by Dee, our guide, who took us to the farmyard.

The children fed some very woolly sheep (who were due to be sheared the next day!) and also a llama.

Next came the donkeys, sweet guinea pigs and rabbits—the children loved their floppy ears. All the children were able to stroke the guinea pigs and rabbits who settled sweetly on their laps. Pigs wallowed in the mud, and Dee held a grunting piglet while the children laughed at the sound it was making.

Before lunch there were stationary tractors to explore and we all settled down to a magnificent picnic brought

by Kirsty just after midday. The highlight of the day was most definitely the tractor ride which followed when we bumped over the mud while fawns rested in the grass. Mick the driver stopped the tractor and at least ten deer ran after us to be fed. Some had huge antlers with lots of fur covering them and others were still very young. When we set off again, the deer started following.

Hugging a tree

We finished the day with a shady woodland walk, during which we had a silence and listened to the wind in the trees and birds overhead. On the way home most of the children fell asleep after a happy yet very busy day.

Nursery visit to Dinton Pastures At the beginning of the Summer Term we visited Dinton Pastures, always a firm favourite with the Nursery. We were lucky to have chosen a sunny day and with clipboards in our hands we embarked upon a minibeast hunt. In small groups we hunted for a selection of bugs, worms and spiders (to name but a few), walking around the lakes, looking under logs and wading through the undergrowth, luckily we all wore our wellies. As we spotted the creatures they were ticked off our lists and by the end of our trail we were all very pleased, comparing notes. Having walked for quite a while we headed back over the wooden bridge and played ‘pooh sticks’ to see in which direction the stream was flowing and to watch our sticks float by. We decided to visit the café, all this minibeast hunting was thirsty work. The children enjoyed a drink and biscuit (or two) and the adults were treated to a coffee. As we returned to Nursery the heavens opened and we all felt lucky to return as dry as when we had left, if not quite as clean.

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Cliveden Autumn Visit

Having made binoculars, packed our rucksacks and created Safari vehicles we set off up onto the field. The children had come in dressed as wild animals, tourists, rangers, hunters and even scientists. At the top of the field we enjoyed a wonderful variety of activities. Thanks to Elaine the copse became a fantastic safari park. The children had great fun spotting many different species hidden in the trees....zebra, lions, giraffe, elephant, gazelle, rhino, leopard, hyena and warthog. A crocodile lazed at the waterhole and a snake slithered high up in a tree – the children were very excited to see them all. We also identified animal sounds and footprints, made dens and played music in the log circle. Kirsty supplied a delicious picnic lunch and lots of water which we certainly needed—it was a hot sunny day.

We visited Cliveden in the Autumn to explore the changing leaves. We went on a conker treasure hunt and created leaf storms

RECEPTION

Nursery

Nursery Safari Day

Planting mustard seeds We investigated the vegetables

After lunch Rita lit a camp fire and some of the children helped to collect dry firewood. The children all discussed their favourite part of the day whilst holding the ‘talking stick’ in the log circle. We had a final walk around the safari park to say good bye to the animals and returned to the nursery.

Looking through one of the bridges

We had an exciting finale to the day. Parents came in and listened to the children sing ten animal songs for charity.

We collected the very generous sum of £270 for the World Wildlife Fund. They were also shown a slideshow which captured special moments of the day.

Looking for fish by the waterfall Exploring the gardens

Looking for brussel sprouts

Exploring the vegetable plots

Wisley Visit

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On Monday 14th October the Reception class spent the day at RHS Wisley. The children took part in a workshop run by the staff at Wisley entitled, ‘Ready, Steady, Grow!’ They planted mustard seeds and learned about what plants need for growth. The children also investigated the vegetable plot at Wisley and found out which of the vegetables grew under and above the ground. The staff also took the children around the fruit gardens and the children designed their own fruit salads from the selection of fruits grown at Wisley. Finally the children tasted an Audrey apple — one of over 700 varieties of apples grown at Wisley. The children also had some free time to investigate, in small groups, the wide variety of plants growing as Wisley. The children were particularly fascinated by some of the large leafed plants and one of the children said, ‘I must bring my Mummy here as I think she would find it very interesting.’ This was a fantastic start to the Reception class trip programme and one which the children will remember for a long time to come.

Investigating the wildlife Outside the Wisley Greenhouse

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Giant Chess

Reception

Reception

Waitrose Visit

Outside the palace

Year Eights Reading

Looking at the fish counter

Blenheim Palace The Reception class had an interesting day visiting Blenheim Palace. They learnt about the construction of the Palace and the family who lived there, visited a World War I exhibition and enjoyed a train ride through the park.

Choosing some cake!

Forest Schools

Investigating the cake counter

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Investigating the ranger area

Reception

Reception

Cliveden Summer Nature Visit

Dinton Pastures Mrs Alderson explaining about leaf types

Enjoying the new playground

Bournemouth Oceanarium Looking for minibeasts

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Using our spotter booklets

On Friday 4th July the Reception class visited the Oceanarium in Bournemouth. The children had a guided tour of the Oceanarium and the guide commented on how attentive and knowledgeable the children were throughout the tour. This was followed by a picnic lunch on the beach and an ice cream. Great fun was had by the children and adults alike.

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Blenheim Palace Prize Giving

Years One and Two French Lunch

On Friday 9th May 2014 three representatives from Year One along with two members of staff were invited to Blenheim Palace to receive a prize in the Annual Heritage Education Awards 2014. This was a fantastic treat for all concerned with a guided tour of the palace on arrival followed by the awards ceremony where the children spoke to and shook hands with the Duke. The children were delighted to be photographed with the Duke before having formal tea in the Orangery. This was an unexpected treat as the school had also won a prize in 2013.

Year One

YEAR ONE

Chiltern Open Air Museum

Quotes from the children: Back in time to an Iron Age Round House

Outside a barn looking at the building materials

I really liked meeting the Duke.

Alexander

At the entrance

I really enjoyed the food. There were lots of cakes for us to eat.

Sophie I enjoyed it when we were having the lovely tea party and I really liked looking around the Palace again. I got lots of questions that the tour guide asked us all right!

Ethan

All the fun of the fair

Artists at work

Making bricks for Humpty Dumpty

Our finished rag rug

Enjoying the playground

Forest Schools

The work which was sent to Blenheim and is on display in their education room is stained glass windows which were made by laminating their own tissue paper art.

Visiting the shops

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The Year One children received the award for the work which they did following their trip to Blenheim in Reception last year. During the trip in 2013 they visited the Butterfly House where they demonstrated an extensive knowledge of the life cycle of the butterfly. They also had a short tour of a section of the palace, enjoyed the grounds and playground and rode on the miniature train.

A house for a Gruffalo

Building a home to keep us dry

Creating a wove grass ring

Dolphin School Heritage Education Award Winner 2012 & 2013

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Dinton Pastures

Year One

Year One

Mapledurham Watermill

Natural History Museum - Oxford

Tunnel exploring

Exploring the new playground

Huge fish caught by the fisherman

Testing our waterproof boats in the lake Bird watching

Bird watching

Climbing to the rafters

French ‘April Fish’ 106

The French version of April Fools’ is known as Poisson d’Avril, so on the first of April each year children creep up to adults and stick a fish on them, hoping that they won’t notice and thereby becoming a Poisson d’Avril. Year One enjoyed playing Poisson d’Avril on Mr de Souza.

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Den building

Finding honey in the bee hive

Proudly driving the combine harvester

Marwell Zoo

Year One

Year One

Rushall Farm

Constructing our dens

Sweep netting Food chain game: we are bluetits collecting caterpillars.

Not quite as big as a bird

Sharing our dens Secret agents at work

Pond dipping

Getting up close with the snakes

In the Fur, Feathers and Scales workshop Dolphin’s own little monkeys

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There were some unusual animals at the zoo.

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Windsor Castle

Little Wittenham visit

Year Two

YEAR TWO

A Victorian Christmas

Milestones Museum

Acting in a Victorian Christmas pantomime Fun getting around Milestones

Drying your washing Victorian transport

Wooden hiding house History Time Line

Writing about our visit to Windsor Castle

Exploring methods of transport

Imagining Victorian Christmas food—yum, yum!

Woodwork Dolphin

Wattling Climbing up the Iron Age Hill Enjoying a wonderful Noah’s Ark

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Year Two also went to the Reading Museum during the autumn term.

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Year Two

Year Two

Henley River and Rowing Museum

Verulamium

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Living Rainforest

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Trip to The British Museum I learnt about high-relief and low-relief. The Greeks lived 2,000 years ago. My favourite pot was the one that looked like a pig.

Ayden Sidique I loved looking at the all the animals and instruments. It sent a shiver down my spine when I looked at the things they used in sports 2,000 years ago. I loved the amazing and imaginative stories on the pots. Athena, I think, was my favourite goddess even though they were all special.

Annabelle Smith My favourite artifact was the beautiful statue of Athena in the Parthenon and we imagined the gold and huge amounts of ivory which had covered her.

Years Three and Four watched Pinocchio at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury In the 1960’s David Gollins and his mother, Judy, decided to turn a derelict watermill into a theatre. It started life as a theatre in which local amateur groups could perform but has since become a professional theatre and companies attached to the theatre have performed in twenty-one countries.

Hattie Cowley

Year Three

YEAR THREE

Pinocchio at The Watermill Theatre

When we looked at the frieze from the Bassae Temple we learnt about the centaurs at the wedding. They drank too much wine so they were silly and took all the ladies away.

When athletes won a race they took home lots of lovely black figured pots full of olive oil from the original tree Athena gave to Athens. Each one had a picture of sport that the athelete had won on it.

Daisy Harwood

Entrance to Avebury Stone Circle

Inside West Kennet Long Barrow

We saw how the Greeks used to make pots and put everyday scenes on them and how they inspired us so much with their ideas.

Millie Charlesworth We learnt the story of Polyphemus and Odysseus.

Dillan Patel

I can remember that they kept the statues in the pediment so that everyone could see them and they even carved their backs perfectly although no one could see them.

West Kennet Long Barrow

Avebury and West Kennet Long Barrow

Ollie Edwards

In Coventry, Theatre Absolute has set up home in a disused fish and chip shop, and they are now performing regularly both inside and outside.

Year Four thought about which derelict building they might like to turn into a theatre:

West Kennet Long Barrow

A secondary school with a gigantic hall. The plays would be performed in the hall because you could fit lots of audience in there.

Isabella I think an old castle would be good because you could have a car park on top. The stage could be on the second storey and a bar, restaurant and some shops on the first storey.

Jake

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I will use an old cruise ship because the ballroom will be very big and the balconies will be good for looking down on the show.

Barnaby

Practising the Long Jump Olympics style

Year Three went to Avebury. We went to see the stone circle. It had a big ditch round the outside. After we saw that we went to the inner stone circle which Stone circle was small. Fat stones meant that it was a girl stone and tall and skinny meant it was a boy. The stones looked grey, big and some were small. The hunters and gatherers had parties and meetings in the Stone Circle. The stones were damp and wet, so was the grass. After, on the way back, we went up a big hill and saw a long barrow called West Kennet Long Barrow where they kept bones of dead people; most of them died of arthritis. One part of the long barrow was kept for men another part for babies and children. They used a deer’s antler as a pick axe and they sharpened it with a flint.

On our trip to Avebury Stone Circle we saw Silbury Hill, a huge man-made hill.

When we got to Avebury we had our snack; it was a long journey but it was worth it. After the journey we had a little play by a circle of wood poles called The Sanctuary. When we got to the Avebury Museum a man taught us about the Stone Age and there was a GINORMOUS time line. They showed us around a big stone circle called a stone henge. They told us about the Barber Stone; a barber got crushed under a stone and was found many years later. People first thought he was a prehistoric man but now they know he isn’t.

Max

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Art Visit to Compton Verney We used the collections at Compton Verney to investigate the ideas of pattern, shape and design. We toured the galleries to search for shapes and identified how they work together to make patterns. In the Marx-Lambert Collection we were introduced to textiles and wallpapers designed by Enid Marx, one of Britain’s foremost twentieth century designers. We discovered what inspired Marx’s work and explored the collections to find shapes they could use to inspire their own designs. The children recorded their observations through sketching.

Year Three

Year Three

Brooklands

Rocket propulsion

We then worked in larger groups using their sketches from the morning to design a textile banner on fabric with a border. It involved the children screen printing images as well as working with other media.

An example of a piece of textile that we saw in the gallery. We looked particularly at compound patterns and repeating patterns.

Supersonic on Concorde Enid Marx, Pair of linen curtains, about 1930

At the controls of the Concorde With a Norton Building a racing car

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How a wing of a biplane is made

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YEAR FOUR

Year Three

Three Days in East Sussex Seven Sisters Country Park Study formation and changes that have occurred to river valley over time. In particular the formation of meanders, effects of coastal erosion and longshore drift and if time some beach combing.

Hastings Castle 1066 experience

Smugglers Cove Discover the scope and variety of smuggling on the south coast

Battle Abbey Tour around the Abbey and battle field Drama /re-enact the battle Sketching Visit Discovery Centre Batemans (Kipling’s Home) Insight into Kipling’s family life and home Artefacts relating to his books

Ashmolean

Years Four visited the Asmolean Museum in Oxford to study the Ancient Egyptians. We had a private workshop where we actually got to handle some artefacts which were thousands of years old. We saw a real life mummy in a sarcophagus and we saw the biggest Egyptian tomb outside of Egypt (which had been rebuilt inside the museum) We saw some of the objects from Howard Carter’s excavation of Tutankhamun’s burial site and we did some free-drawing of our favourite artefacts. It was a great day and a great way to reinforce the learning we’ve done this year in History. As a sideline we posed in front of Myron’s Discus Thrower.

Smugglers

When I was at the smuggler’s cave I was really scared. When we started it was very dark and there was little light. I saw a creepy video and there were words carved in the walls.

Ayden Sidique

Battle of Hastings

At Hastings Castle we saw a video about the battle. I learnt that William made a wooden castle called a motte and bailey. Harold lost because his army were tired from fighting a Viking army in the north. He had sent some of his peasant army home as well.

Max Taylor When we went to Battle Abbey we had a fake war. None of us won the war but it was fun.

Ollie Edwards The smugglers got stolen goods like tobacco, brandy, human hair and lace.

These goods were taxed and were very expensive. Smuggling was very dangerous. In the picture a man is being bribed by a smuggler.

Esme Arche Fisher

Seven Sisters Country Park

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I really enjoyed my first day in East Sussex. We arrived at the Seven Sisters and started to climb the first ‘sister’. There are seven of them, all very close together. We saw lots of amazing flowers. My favourite was the cowslip, which is now quite rare. At the top we made a circle and lay down in the grass. Ronnie told us a story about a village called Exceat which was very popular four hundred years ago but it had to be taken down because of the plague.

James Thorogood

Forest Schools

Pitt Rivers Museum

We went to look at masks. The types were head masks, helmet masks and hip masks for deaths and other performances. We made drawings and wore some models which we will make in art lessons at school.

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Andover and Danebury Hill Fort

Year Four

Year Four

A Visit to the Allotment

Some of the animal bones found in pits at Danebury were wolves, pike, fowl, dog, salmon, cat, red kite, voles, jay and raven.

The Romans showed respect and honour to the Ancient Britons by including pictures of them in their mosaics.

The Iron Age warriors kept the heads of their defeated enemies because they wanted their wisdom and courage.

Jake Morris

My Iron Age name was ‘Garvey’ which means ‘peace’. We played a game at Danebury hill fort which was fun.

At Mr. Martin’s allotment

Adam Freeman-Shor

I had a great time in the museum and I loved seeing the Roman coins.

When we got to Danebury I had some facepaint put on as ‘woad’. We got given names. Mine was ‘Adis’ which means ‘kindness’.

Next we went to the hill fort and we walked around it. We went into the woods and it was wonderful.

We did a battle. First I was a defender then an attacker.

Anna Beauchamp

In the beginning at the museum we saw a life size model of an Iron Age warrior and a Roman mosaic. We also saw a picture of a chariot going into battle.

Upstairs we learnt about the plough which had an ard at the point. The Britons invented this to improve their ploughing. They were very good farmers.

An interesting leaf

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Isabella de la Mora

It was fun running up the ramparts of Danebury Hill Fort and we played a game where we attacked each other by throwing bean bags.

We listened to the sounds in the woods. We saw the sites where the residents had built their round houses. We saw an ox skeleton at the museum which was very big and we learned how and why modern animals are bigger than those in Roman and Ancient British times.

At the allotment

Olivia Roberts and Amelia Essex

Four days in Dorset We extended what we had learnt in Andover and at Danebury with a day living as Ancient Britons at Hooke Court and the exploration of the Ancient Land of the Durotriges with a visit to its centre at Maiden Castle, a World Heritage site. A highlight of the trip was a geology day at Stair Hole, Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, another World Heritage site.

We also visited Maumbury Rings, a very ancient site later used by the Romans as an amphitheatre, the Roman aqueduct, a Roman townhouse, and the Dorset County Museum with its Maiden Castle artifacts and Thomas Hardy displays. Activities at Leeson House included a geology workshop, orienteering, archery and pebble painting.

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Chedworth Roman Villa

Puppet workshop

Year Four

Year Four

Classical Studies trip to

South Downs Walking Trip

Year Four went on the South Downs trip and we walked over the Seven Sisters. We could see the sheer cliffs in front of us. The teachers and parents had to walk beside us so that we didn’t fall off the cliff edge. When we got to the end we were really tired but the teachers said we could get an ice cream when we finished the walk so we went lots faster when they said that.

Darcy Clarke We got on the bus and drove away from Dolphin on a beautiful, early Saturday morning in June. We walked up to the Seven Sisters, and the top of the hill was a brow, whilst the bottom was the bottom! I remember one particularly funny name of Rough Bottom. At lunchtime it was five miles down and three to go. We had lunch on a stony beach, and then walked up again, and carried on the walk. We got the bus after another three miles, but before that we had an ice cream. I had a Mr Whippy Double. Finally we got home after a long day of walking. It was fun, though.

Jake Morris On the South Downs Walking trip, we went across the Seven Sisters and they were all quite steep but I think the fourth one was the steepest. Once we had got over the last one, we were all tired and sweaty so we went down to the beach and had lunch. I asked, ‘How many miles did we go?’, and they replied, ‘Five miles’. After we had our lunch, we walked on a path that went for three miles to the nearest car park and then we all had an ice cream and then went on a bus back to Dolphin. Once we got off we were all tired and knackered!

Xavier Aue

On June 14th, Year Four went on a trip to the South Downs. It was a nice sunny day and we walked up a humongous hill and we were told it was the first Sister. When my friends and I got to the top we saw the most astonishing view; it was beautiful. But then we looked down and saw a straight down drop right in front of us., I held on to my friends and slowly walked down the hill, down and down and up again, down, up, down, up, down, up, down and on the sixth and seventh there was another beautiful view and an ice cream van and so we ended the day with a delicious ice cream each.

Olivia Roberts We walked on the fields first and we checked our rucksacks to see if we had everything with us. When we were finished, we started to walk up the first Sister. At the top of that we got out the map and we had to see where we were on the map. In five miles, we had lunch and then in three miles we finished the walk so the whole walk was eight miles.

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Soubaan Haq

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Greenwich

French Department Residential Trip to Boulogne

YEAR FIVE

Year Four 124

The Royal Observatory

We visited the beach at Wissant for lunch on arrival in France and then went on to the World War II museum at Ambleteuse before admiring Napoleon atop his column at Wimille. Once at the Youth Hostel we had dinner followed by a French disco style party complete with Pass the Parcel. On the Friday we got up very early to visit the chocolaterie and the boulangerie before lunch and then after a lovely meal in the restaurant we went bowling and made lollies in the sweet shop. A break in the weather allowed a run on the beach and then it was back to the Youth Hostel for snails, a French film and popcorn. Unfortunately the rain returned on Saturday and so we had to abandon the outdoor market for the hypermarket but lots of French was still spoken with many admiring comments from the shop staff! Lunch was an excitable affair with everyone keen to taste his or hers purchases. However, it was then back to the buses for the return to school. What a busy three days.

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Hampton Court Showing off their lolly making skills

Freetime on the beach at Berck Picnic at Wissant

Taran Beavon

Admiring the confiserie’s window display

At the chocolaterie At the bowling alley

I have worked in the Boulangerie Maillard for forty years now. My friends and I work from 11pm to 4am to make viennoiseries for the town’s breakfast. It gets incredibly hot in here, especially in the summer with all the ovens on. We sell up to 10 000 pains au chocolat a year.

Sometimes it’s so crowded I feel faint.

Discovering routes at Dinton Pastures

My hands get very sticky, almost like glue, touching all that dough. I plop the ingredients into a gargantuan mixer, wiping sweat from my brow. Next I shape the dough, ready for the oven. Croissants are different, I need to make my dough before slapping it in the stretcher.

After sixteen laps through the machine the dough is cut into triangles and rectangles for croissants and pains au chocolat. For the pain au chocolat you need two chocolate sticks, one goes at the top and one goes in the middle as you roll it up. I could almost do it my sleep now!

Watching the baker Fascinated by the at work WWII displays

Sweet making at the confiserie

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The children shout and scream as they run into the shiny, clean hypermarket. Inside you can hear the trolleys banging together like bumper cars, except they don’t crash as often! You can see all the people looking at the products and the odd thing dropping from the shelves.

The people can barely hear each other because everyone is talking. It’s like a real market with a roof on it to keep you dry and warm. There’s even a small newsagent, alongside the fish, meat, fruit, vegetables and chocolate.

The lights make it look as if the sun is shining. Children ask for video games, footballs and toys. The wind blows through little holes in the roof. People are bringing mud in on their shoes. There’s mud on the potatoes of all shapes and there are all the colours of the fruit. The lights look like decorations with the reflections of the colours.

The café gets busy really quickly as everyone needs a coffee after their shopping. Here they speak quietly with big smiles on their faces after a visit to the wonderful hypermarket.

Fabian Reisser-Weston

Le chocolat, c’est delicieux!

Bon appetit! Lunch at the restaurant in Berck Pass the parcel at the disco

Snail eating

Compass Work Orienteering

Tudor drawing workshop

Croissant making is easy!

The excitement mounts on board the shuttle

Exploring Dinton Pastures

Dinton Pastures

Escargots for tea

Laura Donnelly

Year Five

Year Five

I work in a sweet shop every day. Hundreds of children eager for sweets; berlingots and bonbons being sold every day. The smell of sugar is in my face. The mix is boiling in a hot, iron pot. It turns translucent to opaque as I oxidise the gooey, hot sweets. I take a short break as the mix boils, bubbling hot. I pour the mix out to make a sticky slab. OUCH! I think I touched it too early. The darkest chocolate, the softest marshmallows – you name it, I’ve got it! After a hard day’s work I rest my body, it’s time to slumber.

Making pain au chocolat The museum at at the boulangerie Ambleteuse

The snails are a big hit!

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Outside The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford

Herstmonceux

A day you will never forget

By the Tinkerbell fairy lights

Year Five was lucky enough to be taken to watch Peter and Wendy at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford in February. They loved the show, especially the flying parts and the very large pirate’s ship. We all had a think where we might like Peter Pan to take us to if he appeared at our bedroom window one evening.

Have you ever wanted to spend a day and a night getting to know the galaxy? If so, Herstmonceux Science Museum is a place you don’t want to miss, with exhibits ranging from a machine making a tornado to placing constellations on a map of the stars with your bare hands. Some other things you can do there include:

Inside the theatre

I would like to visit the future and see all the new inventions and I would like to play in the World Cup final at Wembley and WIN!

- Figure out how a variety of machines work - Experiment with centrifugal force as you see a ball spin down a vertical tube - Touch your first ever space rock and see a slab of rock older than 99% of everything else in this Universe.

Sam McCarthy I would like Peter Pan to take me to Everything Land where you think of something and it will appear!

Will Taylor To a different galaxy so that I can interact with aliens because I would like to see their civilisation, see what they look like and how they speak.

A brush with modern art

Philippos Madridakis

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I would like Peter to take me to Dream World because when you dream of something good your dream comes true.

Laura Donnelly

And lots, lots more. It’s the chance of a lifetime and it will take you on a ride you won’t want to get off. The whole time you’re there, you will be lost in a world 13.7 billion years old. Why would you want to miss it?

Swindon

We had a great time watching Peter and Wendy

Andrei Roberts I would like him to take me to the past so that I can experience the good memories again. I could also meet my relatives that have gone.

Year Five

Year Five

Tate Modern Visit

Theatre Trip to Stratford to watch the RSC’s Peter and Wendy

We saw how some artists use everyday materials like foam and comic strips to make big objects and we sketched some surrealist paintings by Picasso, Miro and Dali.

Oliver Deacon

We went to Swindon Steam Museum dressed as evacuees to learn all about the Blitz and how people had to Make Do and Mend. We also learnt about the rationing and how much food you would get per week. We went on an old train and learnt about the transport used for evacuation and about the Battle of Britain. We went in a fake air raid shelter and we were told about gas masks, bombing and the air raids. We went because we were all making World War II projects and we wanted to make it seem more lifelike. We wanted to learn all about World War II. Katherine Sayers

Herstmonceux Science Museum is set in a beautiful forest of tightly packed trees surrounding the perimeter of the clearing the museum is based on. The museum also has seven telescopes, labelled from A to G. Telescope E is one of the largest telescopes in Europe and has a floor that can mechanically levitate over two metres! You haven’t lived until you’ve visited Herstmonceux Science Museum.

Charlie 129 Cecily

On the second day we were given a compass and some maps. I was mapreading with Bella and Charlotte and we nearly walked ourselves off a cliff!!!

Later we came across a river that was wide but we could jump across it.

Everyone jumped across but unfortunately Mrs. Lawson fell in.

Zinnia Mettawa

Year Five

Year Five

Brecon Beacons

On the first day, as I got off the bus, I felt a cool mountain breeze brush past my face. The mountains were looking very daunting and I was hungry because we had been in the bus for two hours. We gobbled all our lunch up outside the Mountain Centre. Inside there was a massive map of all the mountains in the Brecon Beacons and it was then that it struck me, this was not going to be a walk in the park.

Cecily

The first waterfall

Steep ascent to Bannau Sir Gaer

Summit of Pen-y-Fan

Paddling at Bannau Sir Gaer

Crossing a stile on Bryn

Practising with the group shelter

Leap of doom on Bannau Sir Gaer Behind the waterfall at Ystafelite

Looking on the Lake of shadows on Bannau Sir Gaer

The waterfall

ITINERARY FOR THE BRECON BEACONS WALKING TRIP 2014 Sunday 25 May

Monday 26 May

Packed lunch from home

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Breakfast

Packed lunch from hostel

Bannau Sir Gaer Walk Horseshoe ridge with a lake Stone skimming and tower building

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Breakfast

Packed lunch from hostel

Pen Y Fan Walk.

Highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons 886m.

Steep descent to a lake with paddling and stone skimming.

Breakfast

Packed lunch from hostel

Ystrafellte Waterfall Walk Two waterfalls Wooded valley.

Walking behind a waterfall.

Tuesday 27 May

Wednesday th

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28 May

Visit the Brecon Beacon’s National Park Mountain Centre Model of the mountains in the area.

Video explaining how the National Parks work and the important industries in the area farming/tourism Pen-y-Bryn Walk Walked up Pen y Bryn using known feature to navigate using our maps

Arrive at Dolphin at 7.15 am.

Depart at 7.30 am.

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Half day moderate walk of 3 miles.

Supper in Youth Hostel.

Story of the Lady of the lake.

Full day’s walk of 5 miles with a steep climb to the summit

Supper in Youth Hostel.

Map work

Full day’s walk of 5 miles with uphill climbs.

Supper in Youth Hostel.

Games evening

Half day waterfall walk of 3 miles.

Motorway tea Home at 8.00 pm

We went into another grassy plain, with more sheep grazing; there are a lot of sheep in Wales. In that grassy plain was the source of the River Severn.

After this we walked on and began to climb the mountain. It was very steep.

Andrei, my friend, and I picked up a stone each on the way. They were rough stones and mine is still on my bookshelf at home to this day. We walked on.

I could see a beautiful view up ahead of me. There were a lot of trees…and you guessed it… more sheep. From our point we could see the Mountain we would climb on day Three. It started to rain, very lightly, but I think sheep like the rain.

Luke Parker I was in Mrs Alderson’s walking group. We were all given maps, like the ones we use in Geography. At the beginning we had to find our location and then we had to follow a footpath. It went into a field with lots of sheep in. We went over a small hill and then started climbing up and up the mountain.

We could see the other group catching us up. We had our energy food and carried on up the mountain. When we reached the peak it began to hail and so we quickly started walking back down the other side. On the way up Tom had invented this story game where the other walking group were in fact Zombies. They were always behind us but never catching us up.

Dylan Hillier

Summit to Bannau Sir Gaer

At the first waterfall

Descent to the lake on Pen-y-Fan

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Classical Studies trip to

Silchester

Silchester is a Roman town. Its original name was Calleva Atrebatum. Only the walls remain standing. It was abandoned around 400 AD and we don’t know why.

Taran Beavon As we walked around Calleva Atrebatum, sunlight hugged the ground embracing us warmly. Tall trees towered above us majestically. Birdsong filled the air. To our right, flint walls could be seen every now and then. It was amazing imagining what it was like with insulae, a forum, a basilica and hundreds of content, happy citizens.

Year Five

Year Five

Year Five share their books with Reception

Charlie Thorogood Silchester is a Roman town and it was occupied for 400 years, two millennia ago. But all that is left is the walls and the amphitheatre. The amphitheatre is big. The walls were sixteen foot high and five feet thick. The amphitheatre is big enough to hold the whole town! But after 400 AD people just left and they stole all the stone for their own houses and the earth covered it up. They have dug up the foundations, and tools like axe heads, spades and daggers, and all the stuff was taken to the Reading museum.

Joe Porter We got out of the bus in Silchester, Roman town. The Romans invaded in about 44 AD and were welcomed into Calleva Atrebatum. Two hundred years after the Romans entered Calleva Atrebatum, they built huge walls which were sixteen feet high and twelve feet wide. The walls have layers of light and dark stone. Undressed stone, then rubble, then undressed stone then rubble…until it got fifteen feet high. Then they got dressed stone and covered the top and sides of the wall with it so that no attackers could climb into the town. The only reason we know there was a big town there is because of the walls. After the Romans deserted Calleva four hundred years later, the buildings crumbled down and wooden structures were burnt down till nothing remained standing and all the treasure had been buried by wind, rain and storms. The streets were straight in blocks called insulae. In Calleva Atrebatum there were lots of buildings including a basilica where people on digs found a silver eagle which would have been decoration on the roof of the basilica, a forum which is a general chatting place, the baths in which you could dive into a lovely cold bath pool called the frigidarium, a temple in which they worshipped their gods and the amphitheatre.

We went to the amphitheatre and when we got there. I was surprised to see that it was outside the walls of the main town.

Katherine Sayers Silchester was a Roman town called Calleva Atrebatum. The town was called Calleva Atrebatum because the Atrebates lived there. The walls were sixteen feet high. The Romans came in 43 AD. The walls were made of stone and the stones were smooth on the outside and rubble on the inside. But two hundred years after the Romans came they built the walls. We also went to the amphitheatre. It was very big and we stood in the place where the Emperor used to sit. The amphitheatre was for entertainment. Lots of people died there.

Zinnia Mettawa

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Sue Martin and I shared a lesson between my Year Five English class and her Reception children. My class had interviewed the students of Reception six weeks before and had spoken to them about their life and, in particular, their interests in picture books. Sue took some wonderful images of some Reception children captivated whilst the Year Five students read their self-written and self-illustrated stories This moment captures so much of what Dolphin is about and it also showcases the collaborative learning approach the school has.

Sam Blake

Silchester is a Roman town and was called Calleva Atrebatum. We visited it on Thursday. We saw all the old walls. The walls were made by having dressed stone on the sides and rough stones in the middle. They had lines of slate to press the stones down. They had dressed stones on the side so people couldn’t climb the walls.

The walls were built 200 years after the Romans came because the tribes came and attacked the town. We went to the amphitheatre and saw the walls that were surrounding the centre. When we got back to the car park we had lunch, and started driving to Reading Museum. When we got there, with a lady called Katie we did lots of activities. Activity number One was looking at a map of Silchester but with the buildings that they thought were there. Katie showed us a bum sponge and a strigil for scraping sweat after you’ve got really sweaty.

Activity Two was when we got Latin words and we had to find them around the museum. Activity Three was dressing up. I dressed up as a blacksmith Cecily

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The Ironbridge I am the Ironbridge, strong, unique and clever. I am pieced together like one massive puzzle, no nuts and bolts were used in my making. I am made by carpenters’ methods.

Soon after I was built, a toll house was erected and a toll keeper was charging people to come over me. I stand here still and rigid, watching the boats glide under me, hearing people plodding over me. I have seen bad storms but, stayed strong all year round.

Many people disagreed with me being built and questioned, ‘How will it work?’ But others wanted me, so I could help with their everyday lives. Before I was placed in Coalbrookdale, if people wanted to get to the other side of the river Severn they either had to be ferried across (which was very hard and dangerous because there was a strong current) or walk a very long way round.

Abraham Darby decided to make me here because there were all the ingredients he required locally. Abraham needed coke which is made of burned coal, iron ore and limestone. I was not made out of wrought iron (banged into shape) because you have to stoke the fire with lots of wood to get a high enough temperature. At that time there was a wood shortage so Abraham used coke instead. I am made of cast iron which is made by pouring molten iron into a mold. Abraham’s furnace had to be expanded because the amount of iron that was used. The furnace was quite far away from the river so the iron pieces used to build me had to be transported some distance. I was built in a period of three months and was opened on New Year’s day 1781.

Iron came out as a boiling hot liquid and was poured into a mold like jelly. It took a long time to set. Workers poured the hot iron into the casts; it burned then cooled to create individual molded parts of this massive puzzle. Using skills like a master carpenter I was carefully put together piece by piece. I was finally finished and ready for people to come over my back now and for many years to come. Today, I have been standing here for over 200 years and this is where I wish to stay forever.

Cecily

It was me. Of all people why did it have to be me? My father works in the coal mines and now he says I have to work there too.

I live in Hunter’s cottage on the edge of the mines. It often gets cloudy at lunchtime, morning, dinnertime… well, all of the time really. I live with father, stepmother (mother died giving birth to me), my sister Lily, and little baby Steven. Grandma and Grampy live two towns away and April (our cart horse) doesn’t go very fast so it takes us 20 minutes minimum to get to Grampy’s house. Daddy doesn’t change jobs because he likes working down in the mines and he gets paid a bit as well. He is the guy who sends up the coal in a big bucket. I think he likes it because at the end of the day he gets to go up in the bucket himself! Today I start my new job as the gate boy, and Lily gets to go to school (lucky thing). Daddy said that all we need to do is walk down the road and round the corner, then we would be there. So after breakfast father and I walked down the road and round the corner and there they were: the mines. I was glad that daddy had packed me a nice first ‘work’ lunch. We walked into a house, turned right and then we went into a room that said ‘THE BOSS’. As we walked into the room we felt the fire burning on our faces and the boss was sitting right in front of me and father. The boss looked at me, then decided that I was alright and shook my hand. Then he turned to face my father and smiled widely.

‘How are you doing Johnny?’ it asked. It was Father.

‘Daddy!’ I cried, so pleased to see a friendly face. CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK: another cart was trundling along. I opened the gate, which seemed stiff.

Daddy helped me pull the rusty handle and the cart came through the confined space and out of sight of the candle. As soon as the cart was out of earshot daddy said: ‘I’ve been thinking Johnny that, well, you might not want to and I wouldn’t want you to either but, well, I’ve been thinking that if you would like to go to school then you can, but if you want to keep up the family tradition and work in the mines like me then you are more than welcome.’

‘So is this my new miner?’ asked the boss, happily.

‘No,’ I said, slightly untruthfully. ‘I like it here and I’m happy.’

‘Yes’ said father, equally as happily. When the Boss was finished asking questions about me, he turned to me and said:

‘Good. Well, I’ll be off then. If you are settled in and are happy at the moment then I shall return to the baskets.’ Daddy walked away, stooping slightly, and quickly disappeared into the depth of the mines. I began to feel a little lonely and started to wonder what it would be like to go to school, to learn new and interesting things like how to read and write and how to add up sums in my head. Now I kind of regret saying that I didn’t want to go to school and that I was happy down in these dark and dingy mines of coal. I heard more carts trundling along the small, enclosed passage way. I left the gate open again. The wind blew really hard and my candle flickered silently and went out. I was suddenly plunged into darkness. I felt for the rusty metal leaver: my hand closed on a small and cold metal object. I pulled the leaver and the gate slid open to let a rumbling cart through. I closed the gate by heaving the leaver back. Ten minutes passed and another two carts came along the also rusty, metal track which ran round the entire mine for the carts full of mined coal. Rumble, Rumble. Ahhh, another cart. I felt for the leaver but it wasn’t where it was last. The cart was getting closer to the closed gate. Oh no! Ah! I found it next to my little rag which must have moved to the other side of the wall. I don’t know how either. Another cart came along a few moments later. Ahh, where is the leaver? This time it wasn’t by my rag, which I had conveniently moved to the other side of the wall. Where on this black earth could it be?

‘You, young man, shall be the gate boy. You will carry this candle so that you can see and if you blow it out or if it goes out then… tough!’ he finished, impressively. The boss gave me a helmet, which I put on, and we followed him into the low ceilinged entrance of the mine. We plunged into sudden darkness as we entered. Daddy suddenly grabbed my arm and I jumped violently: so much so that I almost dropped my little piece of cloth which held my lunch. Father held my hand as he led me to the gate that I was expected to open and close. He told me: ‘When you hear the boss it’s time for lunch, but don’t start before he comes to you or you’ll get into trouble on your first day. You don’t want that now, do you?’

My candle was lit and I was sitting on the floor in the most comfortable way possible and 15 minutes had passed since I had first come down into the mines. I was starting to wonder whether I would do anything at all today. 3 hours later: CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK. The footsteps were coming closer. The boss was here. ‘Alright, young man? You’ll have more carts this afternoon now, don’t you worry.’ He spoke cheerfully. I heaved my rag from under me (since I was sitting on a corner of it) and took out a little lump of cheese.

I started to nibble on it in the candle light. Meanwhile in my brain things were whirring. Is this a good idea? I thought to myself. Yes… well … maybe.

Would I get paid like father? I hope so.

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cart came through the narrow gate way. I pushed the lever back into the wall and the gate closed obediently. Barely ten minutes had passed when another cart came rumbling and squeaking past me and through the gateway which I had just opened for it, then another and another. I resorted to leaving the gateway open for a while as three more carts came through, until the wind blew so hard that my candle flickered dangerously and I closed the gateway by pushing the leaver backwards. Twelve minutes later a dark figure loomed out of the shadows…

‘Lunch over!’ yelled someone through the darkness, then all of a sudden there was a scramble of feet for people to get back to their work stations.

After that all was silent once more. A few minutes later there was a loud crash and then rumble, rumble, rumble: a cart was coming. I pulled a leaver that was mounted into the wall in front of me and a rusty, blackened

‘FOUND IT!’ I shouted and pushed the leaver and the gate moved back into the other wall. The cart came into through the gate then out of earshot.

I never realized how much I had relied on my little candle and the feeble light that it produced. Another rumble. I felt for the leaver and pulled. The rumbling got louder and a big gush of wind roared through the open gate.

‘A STORM IS COMING! HURRY AND FIND SHELTER!’ shrieked someone.

‘We are in shelter, you idiot. We are in the mines where we mine COAL’ came another voice, much sterner than the one that I had heard before. I

pulled the leaver with great force and the wind subsided to just a gentle breeze blowing into the mines. I strained my ears to hear the pitter patter of the rain drops on the puddles but it never came because I was underground. If I was in school I would hear it and I would daydream and I would be… but I had no time to daydream because another cart was coming. At least, something was rumbling along towards me. I pulled the leaver and the gate sprung open. Then I closed it again once the cart had passed. Oh I wish that I could be at school right now in a warm and dry school room instead of this dark and dingy coal mine. Oh, I would be making new friends and learning times tables by repeating them from a blackboard and then writing down the alphabet in the posh sort of writing that posh people use when the send letters to each other. I would write everything on my personal blackboard with chalk and I would have a little board rubber, with which I would rub the slate clean. I would have a packed lunch like I have today with nice cheese sandwiches and …. rumble. I heard the rumbling and crashing of the cart, pulled the leaver and a heavy metal cart came past quickly so that it ruffled my hair. I pushed the leaver and the gate closed. Another rumble sounded but it had come from my stomach. I was probably just still hungry. CRASH! Eek! I banged my shoulder on the leaver then fell on the cold, hard floor full of bumpy, lumpy pieces of coal. Another rumble. I jumped to my feet, completely forgetting that there were exceedingly low ceilings down a mineshaft (especially a coal mineshaft). I heard another rumble and groped around in the shadowy, sooty mine for the leaver and pulled on a thing near the corner. The gate opened and a cart came trundling through. Then I pushed the leaver and a blast of chilly air came rushing through. Honestly, what could be more boring, I thought as I rubbed my injured shoulder. Oh, if I had only gone to school then it would probably have ended it about an hour ago. The dreams of school engulfed me once more.

Year Five

Year Five

Ironbridge

My new job

‘MR JOHNSON! MR JOHNSON!’ shouted the headmaster furiously. ‘Mister Johnson, will you please listen to me!’ I stood up and walked to his desk under all the accusing stares of my class mates. ‘You have been caught smuggling an apple out of Mary Mcmillan’s lunch box!’ It felt like I was sinking into the floor as everyone glared at me. ‘Do you deny it?’ enquired the headmaster sharply.

‘Yes I do!’ I said defiantly. ‘I didn’t do it!’ BANG!!! I was thrown backwards. For a brief moment I thought that the angry headmaster had thrown me into the wall at the end of the classroom but what had really happened was that a cart had been rolling along and I didn’t hear it so it crashed into the gate and dented the gate. I was thrown backwards in the process. I landed with a deafening crunch onto the pebbled floor of the dusty coal mine. I moaned loudly but I didn’t suppose that anyone had heard it. Then I heard running footsteps. A gentle hand touched my shoulder and suddenly lit a candle right in front of my eyes. Daddy had come to take me home. I stood up from my kneeling position and banged my shoulder again on the lever. It was just as painful as before. Ten minutes later, father and I had crawled out of the pitch black mines and into the putrid smells of smoke and pollution in the unhealthy air. I took off my helmet and rubbed a sore lump that was starting to form on my shoulder from where I had banged it.

I gave my helmet to daddy to hold. Then I stopped and turned to face him and said: ‘Daddy, I love my new job down the mines!’ We tottered down the street, turned the corner and headed for home.

THE END

Katherine Sayers

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Bridge Making

YEAR SIX

Year Five

Victorian Day

Victorian Day Jackfield Tiles

Victorian Day

Bridge Making

Coalport China

Bridge Making Victorian Day

Five Days in North Wales The historical strand of the North Wales trip is to study the impact of Edward’s I invasion on North Wales and the consequent castle building programme. This theme of invasion and conquest links in with Year Six’s investigation of the Norman Conquest which they study at the start of the year.

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Jackfield Tiles

Jackfield Tiles

Bridge Making

There is also a Geography component (river study and study of hanging valleys at Nant Francon) as well as science (pump storage power station) and art components. All of these are linked to this particular geographic area.

Conwy Castle Dolwyddelan castle Harlech Castle Caernarfon Castle Beaumaris Castle The Electric Mountain Llanberis Slate Mine Museum River studies Nant Francon

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Dolwyddelan Castle

Sketching at Conwy

A Peasant’s Life

Bore da, my name is Eleanor. I am a Welsh peasant’s daughter. I live in a small house with my mum Gwenda, my dad Dafydd, my brother Rhys and my granddad Edward. We lived a happy live until one day my dad tried to take over Conwy Castle with a group of men from the village. They nearly won, but the English soldiers and archers shot the leader of the peasants in the arm and he soon died. The other peasants ran out of the castle grounds thinking they wouldn’t win. But when my dad was making his escape for it one of the English archers hit him in the leg and it has left him with a limp for the rest of his life. That’s why I have to do the farming with my brother and granddad.

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Year Six

Year Six

Conwy Castle

The Battle

Hello, my name is Rhys. It was just a normal day; my friend Daffy and I were going up the Dolwiddelann Castle to do a bit of trading. We started up the hill and looked up at the towering grey walls. We went up a small flight of stairs, arrived in at the grand oak door and gave the loud clear knocks. A rough soldier opened a slit in the door and asked, ‘who is it?’ I replied ‘It is Daffy, the stone mason and Rhys, the carpenter. We have come to trade with you’. ‘You may come in’ said the soldier. The door opened and we went in. The soldier, who we now discovered was our close friend Gareth, said, ‘Sorry about that, we were on high alert, an English army is attacking.’ A spearman was soaring down the stairs and whispered something to the castillion Brin. Brin started shouting orders to his men.

From being a peaceful trading centre on a hot summer’s day the castle had suddenly turned in to a noisy commotion of running soldiers and shouting men.

Many other men were just like us. They had come up to trade and had now been trapped. A soldier was shouting for all traders and non-soldiers to come so me and Daffy jostled our way through the crowd. The soldier thrust a bow and some arrows into our hand and gave us a debrief on how to use them. Before we could ask any questions he told us to go up to the battlements and he rushed off.

So we did as we were told and went up to the battlements and started firing at the English. I had to ask myself what is the point? Their army must have been at least twice if not three times our size I knew this was a lost cause so I shouted to daffy that there was no point as the battle was lost and I was not a soldier and I could not use these so called weapons. So me and Daffy headed down and into the courtyard. It felt very exposed. They were still shutting the gates so we slipped through the gate and we ran as fast as we could back home.

We were quite lucky with our land. We got three strips of land, one near the river (not so good because in the winter the river floods) and one up the hill (this I guess is ok, but we have to carry all of our farming tools up hill.) But we have one very good strip of flat land, not near the river, or up a hill. It’s hard when winter comes. Last year Rhys very nearly died with a very bad cough. We have to get lots of things. We have to take our corn to the mill so they can grind it, we have to get our wool spun for clothes, and we have to trade wood for nails. We also have to kill some of our sheep for food otherwise we would starve. But when the winter season is over and the sun starts to shine, we start to plant the crops again sprinkling seeds on the soil, watering them everyday until they grow up tall and a peasant’s life goes on.

You could not see the attack from our homes nor could you hear it. We told our families what was going on. The news spread around the town like wildfire (which is what was going to happen to our houses). The whole village grabbed the necessities and ran to the hills. In the hills we found an entire army of Welsh rebels.

They had got wind of the English attack and they were here to ambush them. They were happy to find us because until now they had suspected trickery. I said if they wanted to stop it before it was too late they had to move now.

Seren Suter

Daniel de Mounteney

The rebels launched down from the hills executing the ambush perfectly. The English were taken by surprise and dropped like flies before the rebel army. We, victorious drunk, and sang that night like never before. With a victory under our belts we felt very jolly. And that was my story, the story of how Dolwyddelan castle was saved.

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Harlech Castle and Beach

Year Six

Year Six

Beaumaris Castle

Caernarfon castle The workers gazed up at me, admiring my turrets that reached up to the sky and my brickwork, each brick laid lovingly in place. I was so very nearly finished. Finally, after being started in 1283, here I stood in (nearly) all my glory in 1293, overlooking Anglesey. I was unaware of the exciting times to come.

Edward was coming again. I could finally show him all my glory. His rooms were prepared in my finest quarters. My water gates were finally put into use. The days passed in a blur.

All I can remember is Edward and his son Edward (born here in 1284) examining me with wonder. It felt very good.

They left. But soon disaster struck. I was attacked by Welsh rebels, only a year after I was built. My portcullises were drawn and my murder holes were put into action. The days, the months, the centuries passed in a slow, steady pace. People left me to rot. I slowly started to fall apart. I got patched up a bit, but I was never in mint condition ever again.

Then, in 1969, something happened. Prince Charles was named Prince of Wales within my walls. I swelled up with pride as he walked down my long, winding corridors, still admiring what was left of me. I finally felt happy after centuries of being abandoned. Now, in the year 2013, school children are counting my worn steps in Eagle tower (my highest tower with 142 steps.) Tourists take pictures of themselves in my turrets or in my corridors.

There is also a gift shop, where people buy souvenirs, reminding themselves of their visit to Caernarfon castle. My favourite is a giant Caernarfon castle rubber. I can finally rest in peace.

Sketching at Harlech

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Laura Autio

Eagle Tower

The Rebel Lion It was the worst decision I made in my life. I decided to join the team that were rebelling against the English. It was my best friend Rhys that persuaded me. He came up to me and said, ’Hey Daffyd, this is your last chance to join up, just think of it, never being able to kill an Englishman in your whole life.’

I gave in. Now I know that you’re thinking why did he give in so quickly but it’s really because he’d been pestering me for the last two months.

I decided to be a spearman. At the moment Rhys is a blacksmith, but he’s going to become an archer.

I have another friend called Gareth; he’s going to become a crossbow-man.

Rhys is making all the weapons for the battle on Sunday. (Today is Friday).

We got up early this morning; well it was a big day ahead.

‘The time has come men’, shouted Rhys, as manly as he could. ‘The English–men are our prey and we shall use the terrain to our advantage. This will be a tricky battle but we must fight hard with a colossal power.’

Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! We were banging our swords against our shields just like the Roman army.

The first arrow was fired. PHOOSH! Right into an Englishman’s heart!

We roared into battle making a hell of a racket. We were attacking a castle called Beaumaris. We chose it because it was in the middle of being constructed.

‘Argh!!!’ Screamed Gareth. He had been slain. Rhys and I were extremely disheartened. We thought we had to get over it and make revenge on the English.

Ping!!! I shot an arrow. I missed. And again, I missed. Over and over again I missed, as did Rhys. We decided that it was no use trying to overcome the English. We had lost the battle, and a friend.

Ow! Ow! Ow! Rhys was in agony. He was being whipped and he had his farm taken away from him. He was only being whipped because it was found out by the English that he was the leader of the group. I had my farm taken away from me as well. I decided to live a normal life, in a normal town in a very weird country!

Hugo Wade

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Llanberis Slate Mine Museum

Stanley Spencer Gallery

Michelle Paver On Wednesday 26th February, 2014 the whole of Year Six, with some teachers and kindly parents to drive the mini-buses, left Dolphin School and headed to Emmbrook School in Wokingham on invitation from the Wokingham Borough Libraries. Our quest—to listen to the inspired writer Michelle Paver who is best known for her series, The Ancient Chronicles of Darkness, set in the Stone Age about a boy and a wolf. We were there however to hear about her new series Gods and Warriors, set in Ancient Greece in the Bronze Age. As Michelle explained, she much prefers to experience her ‘research’ first hand rather than sitting in front of a computer surfing the internet for information. To that end, she has travelled widely and had many adventures to tell us about such as swimming with wild dolphins, studying wolves first hand and her very close encounter with a very angry mother black bear and her young cubs. She also told us about the strange and sometimes rather disgusting foods and customs she tried along the way. With Judy’s usual accuracy of time, we were the second school to arrive so got good seats and were able to purchase copies of Michelle’s new book, The Burning Shadow, the second of the Gods and Warriors series and get them signed. Alice Chonavel and Daniel de Montenay were invited up by the local newspaper to have their photo taken with Michelle Paver. Both series are currently in the Dolphin Library and make a wonderful reading adventure.

Inside the Chapel Gallery

Year Six

Year Six

River Studies

The Children on Michelle Paver

The Surprise Attack My life was mundane. Every day would start with the same sloppy, inedible porridge.

I was highly ranked in the West Tower, and occasionally I would gaze at the stunning, picturesque scene with a myriad of colours painted across the sky. Frequently I was commmended for my courageous work, but life not being perfect, you could often be severely rebuked by the Castillion. The invasion occurred when I was peacefully peering over the rocky moors when some tiny figures appeared from the horizon.

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I began to alert West Tower’s soldiers. We gathered, and in formation crouched behind the merlons. Infrequently, I would peek around the stones and stare as our foes stamped up the coarse moors. It seemed as though the whole castle had javelins and bows and arrows at the ready, like a lion waiting to pounce. Suddenly, the hail of arrows started. Some arrows floated harmlessly past me, rustling my thick, brown hair. I started working like a machine, firing arrows after arrows. I could already see corpses scattered haphazardly across the misty moors.

After that, I started hurling huge boulders down the hard, impenetrable stone knocking down anyone who stood in its path. The sight was ghastly, there seemed to be a carpet of corpses filling the scene, which, one hour ago had been a stunning view. We virtually slaughtered the English with comfortable ease.

Ralph Philips

The Miner The explosion rang through my ears. Rock tumbled down the sides of the cliff. I climbed down the side of the mountain to knock down more lumps of rock. It was a nerve-racking experience. My hands trembled as I went down on the rope. I always wondered if I would come up again. After I had smashed down some more rocks I climbed up the sheerer cliff. I felt so relieved that I had survived another day. As night was drawing in I climbed onto the incline plane and wobbled down the mountain side.

I loved the engineering of the incline plane, the way one goes up one goes down. It fascinated me. It was Friday night so we had to trudge all the way to Anglesey, where we lived. We walked all night until we reached our homes. On Sunday night at about two in the morning we got up and set off for Llanberis. It was a long journey… A hard life.

Tom Craven

What I enjoyed most was listening to Michelle Paver’s adventurous research that took her to Florida to meet tame dolphins in an aquarium and then to the Atlantic to have the privilege of swimming with wild dolphins. I also liked examining and touching her artifacts and having my book signed.

Drawing from a mural

Outside Stanley Spencer’s house Observational drawing

Christopher Fry I really liked meeting Michelle Paver as I had read one of her books. She explained how she wrote them and told us about her experiences. I liked feeling her objects.

Alice Constance Chonavel I found it amazing - talking about her experiences while she was doing research such as when she met the lion and the mother charged at her. I found it really nice how she would go to all these great lengths to create her books. I’d always wondered how she got so much detail in her books.

Daniel de Mounteney I liked how Michelle Paver explained how she got up close to animals. I also enjoyed listening to what you would use different parts of the animals for.

Our guide talking to us about one of Stanley Spencer’s paintings My favourite part of visiting the gallery was seeing all the places where Stanley got his inspiration for his Art. My favourite picture was the ‘mechanisms,’ because there were lots of different things happening in it. I found it funny that Stanley had a pram in which he carried all his canvasses and brushes and also a little sign saying ‘DO NOT DISTURB’. Overall I found the gallery amazing.

Daniel de Mounteney

Chardonnay Brewster What I enjoyed most was listening to the stories she told.

Archie McArthur

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NEW TRIP

Year Six visited the Seven Sisters in the summer to consolidate their learning on coasts. They have studied coastal processes, coastal landform and coastal management.

The document on the right was written by Laura Autio wrote during our study of coasts. It is a piece of persuasive writing on coastal management on the Holderness coastline.

The Natural History Museum

A letter of complaint...

Dear Council, I am writing this letter for one reason and one reason only. My home. As you know, the Holderness coast erodes very quickly. When I bought the house, I thought that I could pass the house onto my children and then their children. But that is not possible. I am about to lose my home to the sea.

The focus of our trip to the Natural History Museum was to study the adaptation and classification of living organisms. In the ‘Creepy Crawly’ gallery we learnt how Arthropods are split into a number of sub phyla such as insects, arachnids and crustaceans depending on the number of legs, bodyparts and antennae. We also looked at how the huge blue whale and other cetaceans have adapted to their marine environment.

A Trip to the Lakes

Year Six

Year Six

Seven Sisters Coastal Study

Ever since you put the hard engineering at the nearby town of Withernsea, the groynes, the sea wall and the rock armour, my land has been eroding MUCH more quickly. I will tell you why. The groynes are one reason. Yes, I know that they prevent longshore drift and build up beaches, but the groynes starve the beach that was once my land farmland of sediment and longshore drift occurs more quickly. So basically the sand on my beach is moved to another beach.

Another reason is the sea wall. I know that it protects the area behind the wall and stops flooding but the waves gather power and hit my land with more force.

The last problem is the rock armour. The waves can undermine the rocks and the waves carry them to my land and the rocks smash the soft boulder clay. It is a form of erosion called abrasion. Hard engineering has advantages. But they have disadvantages as well.

I have a solution. Why don’t you just nourish the beaches? Yes they don’t last long but if you do it two times a year or something, it would be cheaper than the hard engineering and more people’s homes would be protected.

I understand that more people live at Withernsea than where I live but please, I want to keep my home.

The Lake District

Yours sincerely I feel small compared to the huge mountains and ridges.

You get a feeling of calm and peace.

A strange sense of desolation is felt When you climb the mountains alone in the misty moonlight.

Laura Autio

The air feels clean and fresh Compared to the noisy city where the air is filled with fumes.

The hills seem to stretch on forever, like the age of time.

Each hill is a different individual, with its mountainous ridges and peaks.

As the sun sets, I look at them, The grass on their slopes dancing in the breeze.

The moon appears, a sliver of silver, Against the reddening sky.

A picture of the hard engineering at Withernsea, the sea wall, the groynes and the rock armour

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I feel a sense of calm.

Sitting on an ancient stone.

Placed lovingly by my ancestors, At the dawn of time.

Laura Autio

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Having had lunch on the shores of Lake Windermere we set off from Grasmere village for our first walk. We stopped by Dove Cottage where William Wordsworth lived and then had the chance to stretch our legs with a lovely walk up to Alcock Tarn. The warm weather made the paddling in the tarn particularly refreshing.

Day Three

Day Four

A long day’s walk in perfect weather conditions started with a steep climb up Cat Bells which gave us fine views over Derwent Water and Skiddaw beyond. The broad ridge walk along to Dale Head gave us breath taking views of large parts of the Lake District. The descent into the valley below Cat Bells was long and hot but we were rewarded with a lovely ice cream in a farmhouse café.

Castlerigg was a fantastically beautiful place to visit at the end of the day. The evening sun made for stunning views of the mountains and gave us a chance to relax and reflect.

The challenge of Striding Edge lay ahead of us. An easy walk took us to Red Tarn below Helvellyn from where we scrambled up the hillside to the beginning of Striding Edge before we had a lunch break. There was no wind and clear skies so we could climb and scramble along the very top of the sharp ridge. This highly technical challenge made everyone walk with a quiet determination especially when we had to jump the ‘leap of faith’! The final ascent took us up a loose scree slope but the rewards were many and there were great views from the summit of Helvelyn. The descent down Swirral Edge and then back to the busses seemed short in comparison.

The pleasant sail across Ullswater was a welcome relief for our weary limbs. We then followed the lakeside path for a while before finding a lovely beach to relax, paddle and skim stones. Some of us went swimming in the icy water.

By the time we got back to the Steamer and return to Glenridding we were ready for an ice cream before the long journey home.

Seren Suter

In the Eyes of a Stone in Castlerigg Looking out from my space crouching in Castlerigg, I gaze at the mountains and dream of being a human. How nice it would be to walk up the hills and feel the grass bending under my feet, and to touch the wild things with long thin fingers. How nice it would be to lie down and sleep but all I can do is sit here all day and night allowing the birds with their melancholy bird song to rest on me for however long they want and then fly off to wherever they want to. I was placed here millennia ago, set to rest and be an icon, although now those ancient meanings have now deceased and with them ancient man, so now men come with phones and cameras taking photos of history stuck in time.

Year Six

Year Six

Day One

Day Two

Christopher Fry

Sheep On The Mountainside

Striding Edge We had walked deep into the hills from Ullswater and then had begun our climb. It was steep and soon had plenty of us wanting to stop and rest. However, we all soon perked up when the adults told us that the next break was a cake break!

After walking for what seemed hours we realised that we were to stop at the top. We finally reached the top panting and out of breath. We looked down on Red Tarn. We ate all the cake that the adults had carried all the way up and only then did we realise that we had not reached the top. But the best was yet to come!

We had a great time as the rest of the ascent up Helvellyn was a rocky ridge with big drops on each side. We climbed scrambling from rock to rock like mountain goats and sometimes we jumped from rock to rock! At last we reached the wide summit.

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I gazed down at the beautiful view. The grassy slopes littered with rocks, the bright blue sky and the pretty lake glittering down below. There, nestled in craggy peaks, lay a lonely patch of snow. Then we finally descended on Swirral Edge, another rocky scramble back to Red Tarn. This was my favourite day in the Lakes.

Alice Constance Chonavel

Sheep are free to jump and run Like flowers in a breeze To leap and play even in mighty gales On the mountain side Bounding around is easy for them For they can do as they please Charging through the hilltop meadows Jumping in eternal joy Playing catch Or pacing around On the mountain side The feeling must be great To launch themselves around The wind or rain does not affect them Roaming in the haze To follow each other In the deepest friendship And live happily forever more On the mountainside.

Tom Craven Inspired by the Lake District Walking Trip

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Classics Trip to Fishbourne Palace

The Unicorn touring company performs 1001 Arabian Nights at Norden Farm.

Year Six

Year Six

Norden Farm Visit Science Day at The Oratory Twelve students from Year Six were invited to join children from other schools for a science day at Oratory School. They carried out a range of science activities including isolating and bottling their own DNA!

1001 Arabian Nights This play was a very interesting adaption and modernisation of an old tale. In the play there is a girl called Shaharazade but she lives in the modern world. She loves reading and especially the stories of the Arabian Nights. But her parents worry about her because all she ever does is read, constantly. They attempt to take her books away but she always sees them coming.

On the 13th of March the whole of Year Six went on school trip to Fishbourne Roman Palace . My favourite thing was the mosaics. Some of them were really amazing, one of the mosaics had 360,000 little tesserae. It was one of a dolphin. Lots of mosaics had one or two thousand pieces only, but some were full or almost full. My favourite mosaic was this one.

She is forced by war to move to England; however her mother cannot come as she does not have a passport. Shaharazade is torn between her old life in the east and her new life in England with her father. She makes friends with a girl who does not speak her language so she acts out her the stories from her books using the items around her. She also acts out the story of her life. The girls have lots of fun together and begin to understand each other better. They exchange books of fairy tales from their own cultures. Soon they learn to understand each other’s language. I really liked the way the actors merged the stories from the books with their stories of their own lives.

While we were at the mosaics a lady offered us Roman food. We had spiced wine which was not actually wine and non-alcoholic, dates and bread with either olives or apricots and if you wanted both you could go twice. Over all I think the trip was really good and a great success.

Alice Constance Chonavel

Charlie Beauchamp

Kushal Tandon

When I went to Fishbourne there were these two columns. They were recovered from under ground and they looked really old, but awesome because the craftsmanship was perfect. There were stone paths to mark out each and every room of the palace. There was a lady who that gave us artifacts and we needed to explain them to each other. She then showed us replicas of the complete object. Then we had lunch. And Mr Brewin organised a race.

Then we went to look at the mosaics. All of them were broken except for my favourite, Cupid Riding a Dolphin. We got to look in the museum, and I saw a skeleton and I named him Bob the Builder Jr. Then we went home.

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herb area and they used all of the plants for something different; they used marigolds to dye their objects.

Then we went to the outdoor triclinium and took a photo of us all pretending to be eating at the table as the Romans used to do. The slaves would help them by getting the food ready.

Then we went to a workshop and did some archaeology; I looked at a piece of stone that they must have used on their walls.

Then we dressed up as Roman people. The ladies would wear a dress with a long sash, some jewellery and a flower wreath, and they did not show their ankles or elbows. However men slaves wore long tops down to their knees, a sash, a pouch showing his freedom and a wreath. We also went to look in the museum and we saw a picture of the footings being laid and I spotted that on a picture that the Palace was right next to the sea and now it isn’t. This is because somewhere else had been eroded and the rock had been transported to the Palace coast and created a spit. The spit eventually turned into marshland and then into land, which made the Palace really far away from the coast.

Finally, we looked at the mosaics that they had on the floor and we walked around trying to find the mosaics on our sheets. It was very difficult but I found most of the.

Ruth Donovan

I really enjoyed the trip but my favourite part was when we went to the herb and plant gardens and the outdoor triclinium because I could imagine the Romans lying and eating in the triclinium.

On Thursday we went to Fishbourne Roman palace. First we went to the gardens and I was surprised because nearly three quarters of the palace was underground and people had built their houses over it. We went to the

I walked down the smooth mosaic floor smelling the lush herbs in the roast beef I was carrying. I had no intention of eating any of these delicacies myself; that would lead to a severe punishment.

The mightiest of people of the southern province were gathered for a banquet to celebrate the Emperor’s birthday. Alongside me were my fellow slaves who were also doing their duties by carrying mountains of food back and forth from the culina. Taking in the huge quantity of food, I was puzzled to know how long this feast would last.

My friend, Marcus Plutonium and I were exchanging humorous comments comparing our daily diet to the menu of the feast.

On my second round of serving, I tore a large chunk of the beautifully cooked beef and hid it under my rags. Now, my plan was to hide it somewhere in the palace so as not to be found with it.

Once the feast was over I crept into the wooden-floored culina looking for the loose floorboard I knew was there. I lifted up the plank and manoeuvred myself into the gap. Now, I was crawling along a narrow passage which lead to the main section of the underfloor heating where there were small stacks of square shaped tiles, placed in regular formation.

One thing became immediately obvious: this was a common place to hide food. There I saw pig-trotters, fish, oysters, wine, bread and venison. My eyes were widening at the sight of the wide variety of food. I fainted with surprise and excitement.

Not long after, I was woken by the shouts and cries of men and women. I could smell thick smoke. I steadily crawled the way I came but to my horror, the blazing fire was blocking my exit. As seconds passed, the fire rapidly gained on me so I decided to rest in peace…

Ralph Phillips

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Year Six

Year Six

Year Six Party

Dolphin School Year Six Leavers July 2014 Laura Autio Kendrick Girls Grammar (Also offered Academic Scholarship at The Abbey) Caitlin Brown Queen Anne’s Brandon Gee Reading Blue Coat Nathalie Luff The Holt Archie McArthur Moulsford Ruth Mills Leighton Park Ralph Philips Reading Grammar James Robinson The Piggott Hugo Wade Abingdon School (Scholarship) 150

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