Sutton Views - July 2012 (52)

Edition 52 July 2012

SUTTON VIEWS The Voice of Sutton Valence School

Interschools Showjumping April 2012 Charles Dickens Evening

Tour de l'Angleterre

During the Easter holiday Sutton Valence show jumping teams had a very successful debut against 13 teams at the Inter Schools Competition and scooped a range of prizes. The junior team, made up of William Fowler, Timmy Bentley and Angelique Taylor from Pre prep and Prep, had an exciting first outing and came sixth in the team event. Our senior team was Harriet Fowler SVPS, Victoria Fowler (First Form), and Verity Smith (First Form) who all successfully completed clear rounds and came

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Information A member of the United Westminster Schools’ Foundation Registered Charity No. 309267 Founded in 1576 by William Lambe

Sutton Views July 2012

For information about Sutton Valence School or to request a prospectus, please contact:

• the Admissions Office at Sutton Valence on 01622 845206 or email enquiries@svs.org.uk • Sutton Valence Preparatory School on 01622 842117 or email enquiries@svprep.svs.org.uk

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Continued from front page third in the team competition after an exciting jump off ridden by Verity on Cupcake. Victoria also won the individual competition coming in just six seconds ahead of the King's Canterbury rider. It was a great performance by a very young squad of able riders up against much older competitors.

Foreign Tours, Sixth Form Farewell and Fifth Form Rocks This term has been a showcase of the diversity of musical talent we have in the School. Over the Easter holidays the Jazz Band undertook their first foreign tour! Very early one morning an excited group of musicians and a coach loaded with

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instruments, drum kits and PA systems left School heading for Paris.

Their first performance was at a beautiful bandstand in Le Jardin de Luxembourg, in front of an appreciative audience numbering in excess of three hundred. They performed for an hour which included vocal solos from Zoe Deighton-Smythe and Harry Keep. The following day they were up early as they were performing at Euro Disney. After setting up the equipment there was time for a ride en masse on Space Mountain, before the performance in the modern state of the art Concert Hall. In front of another very enthusiastic audience, they performed such classics as The Chicken and Soul Bossa Nova.

The band, and staff, then made a dash for the rides until 9pm and the day was rounded off with a fantastic light show and fireworks.

The last day gave them a chance to relax and sightsee, taking in a boat ride, a walk to the Eiffel Tower and a tour of Paris with a

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wonderful commentary by Mr Horley, Director of Music, before the long drive home. Imagine their delight when awaiting them at home was an email inviting them to the Eastern European Jazz Festival, after the organiser had heard them in Paris. Well done everybody!

Towards the end of term the School’s chamber groups performed at St Peter’s Church, Boughton Monchelsea in a concert that was seen as a farewell for the Upper Sixth Form musicians. The first half began and ended with the Chamber Orchestra performing Mozart’s 29th Symphony and Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, which, during the final few minutes, see all the musicians get up and leave. The second half was dominated by the String Orchestra playing Handel, Grieg and a superb performance of Elgar’s Serenade for Strings.

Thanks must go to the soloists and to the Sixth Form choirs who performed so commendably. The finale with James Marriott and Hannah Clifton singing Time to say Goodbye resulted in several misty eyes.

Well done to everyone who performed,

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during what turned out to be a very emotional evening.

Earlier in the term, a Fifth Form Rock Band consisting of Richard Cantillon on lead guitar and vocals, Toby Chapman on bass guitar and backing vocals, Will Morris on rhythm guitar and Alex Hollingsworth on drums, held a lunchtime charity concert in aid of Dementia UK. The atmosphere was buzzing with excitement as the band prepared to start performing. As the clock hit 1:30, they struck the first note, setting the atmosphere for the next half an hour of rock. With a variety of rock music ranging from Muse to Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Foo Fighters, Groves Hall was packed with pupils and teachers alike enjoying the music and donating to charity.

They raised a staggering £158.95 in donations.

Richard would like to thank everyone who came and donated, everyone who helped set up the hall and equipment and to the band for the fantastic performance they gave.

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Congratulations to Emily – County Junior Golf Champion Fifth Form pupil Emily Royer has been crowned Kent’s Junior Champion after an impressive win at Wildernesse. It was particularly impressive as she was playing with the holder of the county Ladies title and held a 5 shot lead over her and a 4 shot lead over her nearest rival after 18 holes. The competition was halted after 27 holes because of the atrocious weather making play impossible due to flooded greens. This also comes on the back of Emily recently finishing runner up in the England U16 Fives championship, whilst concentrating on revising for her GCSE exams.

Gold Challenge Towards the end of term, the whole School community took part in as many Olympic sports as we could to cover 2012km. We played handball, volleyball, basketball, swam, walked, rowed, cycled and run. As well as pupils taking part, members of staff wore pedometers whilst carrying on with their normal day and a number of parents also took part. In total, we completed the fantastic distance of 2124km and 325m. Thank you to everyone who helped run and organise the challenge and to everyone that took part, it was a great joint effort whose sponsorship will be welcomed by our four House charities.

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Charles Dickens Evening This year marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of this country’s most famous writers, Charles Dickens. As part of our School’s celebrations, a group of students and staff devised a promenade performance, based on his life and works.

Mrs Luxford, Miss Pena, Miss O'Brien and Mr Brook worked with a core group of First and Second Form pupils to rehearse a number of scenes during their co-curricular activity sessions and other scenes were devised by Third Form LAMDA students. The Lower Sixth drama class wrote a script based on the short story The Signalman, choosing to film their piece so that they could use

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editing techniques to make their performance as atmospheric as possible. A number of teaching and non-teaching staff also gave generously of their time and played cameo roles.

The audience braved the slightly chilly weather and the event began with a picnic on Prefects’ Lawn. The performers then led the audience around the School, stopping to perform scenes in a variety of locations. The evening culminated with a very unsettling scene from Great Expectations, which was performed in the candle-lit chapel.

Mrs K Luxford Director

CCF Activities The Easter holiday was a busy time for the CCF. Two cadets, Thomas Brunger and James Costin were both on Level 2 Sea Kayaking Courses in North Wales. Despite the weather being cold (snow!), they had an enjoyable time and passed the course, which was also contributes towards their Gold D of E Award.

The National Signals Competition took place at DCCIS Blandford. The team, Oliver Bateman, Harry Percival, Guy Thomas, Oliver Aucamp and led by Andy Thomas, gave their best in all areas – voice, line, antennae, march and shoot and The Cube.

Expectations were high at the prize giving; the team was not disappointed and came fourth in the overall competition. The excellent leadership and signals knowledge of Andy Thomas was recognised with him being awarded the Howell Trophy for Best

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Cadet Signaller. An additional bonus for the group was meeting L/Cpl Beharry, the only living holder of the Victoria Cross.

Five members of the Army Section, Alec Kelly-Jones, Edward Bower, Lewis Burnham, Sophie McGannan and Will Kelly-Jones, took part in the advanced leadership course at Nesscliffe. This is the highest leadership course that a CCF cadet can take in the UK. Verbal feedback given to the cadets at the end of the week long course was extremely positive and all five have been promoted to Sergeant.

Thomas Brunger (Head of School) spent three days in Somerset on the Duke of Westminster Award selection event. He was one of 21 cadets selected for the event from over 20,000, a very notable achievement. Unfortunately an injury

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prevented him playing a full and active part in the event, but Guy Horridge, the Executive Director for CVQO commented, “what a tremendous achievement it was for Thomas to reach this far in the competition and he should be immensely proud of this”, which we wholly endorse.

At a dinner at the Weald of Kent Golf Club, James Marriott (Upper Sixth) was presented with an individual award by the British Legion in recognition of the support he has given them at their Remembrance

Parades for the last four years.

The Easter break ended with sixty two cadets travelling to the Lake District for a week of adventurous training. This included mountain biking, kayaking, climbing, ghyll scrambling and expeditions. All cadets tried something new, set personal goals and pushed themselves to achieve what they thought was impossible and the following expeditions were completed: 17 Gold, 15 Silver and 23 Bronze.

Prep School Jubilations!

The whole of the Prep School celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with a traditional street party style lunch outside.

Proudly wearing their own crowns and sitting underneath rows and rows of bunting flags, all individually made by the pupils. It really was a feast fit for a Queen! Afterwards there was some fun country dancing and traditional three-legged races on the Head’s lawn.

In the afternoon over 500 red, white and blue balloons were released into the sky, each with a pupil’s name attached to it.

Almost 20 balloons were returned to the School Office, ranging from various places within Kent and several from France, including a school and a potato farmer. The winning balloon belonged to Rachel Clements, and was discovered in a field near Mulhouse, which is on the French Swiss border! She wins a prize, and the School will be sending one to the family that returned it.

Many of the balloons reached the Pas de Calais region.

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Claire Corkran, Deputy Head said, “We’re all delighted to have received so many balloons tags back and especially from so far afield. Our pupils have really enjoyed plotting all the destinations on the map”.

As part of the national Jubilee celebrations the Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts held Face Britain to create a unique image of HM The Queen. Children were invited to submit a self-portrait which would be used to make the picture of the Queen’s face. This was then projected onto Buckingham Palace. Years 3 to 6 at the Prep

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School submitted portraits and became Guiness World Record holders for the ‘most artists working on the same art installation'.

The portraits can be viewed by going to:

http://www.facebritain.org.uk/ and searching for Sutton Valence Preparatory School.

Tour de l'Angleterre Thirteen Sixth Form boys and two members of staff left School on the last day of term on the second leg of their 460 mile cycle to Land's End. Having completed the first leg from North Foreland Point the day before, they were given a rousing send off by fellow students and staff to make their way south to Blind Veterans UK in Ovingdean. The group cycled in support of the charity and to date their pledges and donations are on course to double their target of £5,000!

As they left, Jamie Walsh, the master in charge who organised the ride said, “This has been a fantastic School community effort with many people giving significant amounts of time and money to support the team and a charity the School has been associated with for a number of years. We would not have been able to do this without their help.

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The boys have all been training and fundraising for almost 3 months and their commitment and enthusiasm has been a real credit to them. I have no doubt this will continue on the ride and that they will achieve something they can rightly feel proud of.” The ride is Mr Walsh's 'swan song’; he is leaving School with his family to teach in Sharjah (UAE).

Five days later, having cycled through summer monsoons and suffered emotional ups and downs they finally reached Lands End, where they were cheered across the line by waiting parents.

As a fund raising event, this ranks as the highest total in memory raised by a group, surpassed only by the whole School event, the Sponsored Walk. Congratulations to the team, they have much to be proud of!

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We declare our Forest School programme officially open!

As an innovative educational approach to outdoor play and learning, the philosophy behind a Forest School is to encourage and inspire individuals of any age through positive outdoor experiences. Mrs Philippa Crampton, Year 1 teacher and a trained Forest School leader welcomed David Hunt, an experienced woodland practitioner to the School to lead a range of exciting woodland sessions, which encouraged problem-solving and group communication. The children took part in a range of activities from wood carving to working a pole lathe, making soap from Horse Chestnut leaves, to mixing and tasting fresh nettle soup!

involved in the activities and games. At the end of each day there was an opportunity for parents to become involved too.

Mrs Crampton explained, “Within the Forest School, children are taught to use fullsized tools, they play and learn the boundaries of behaviour, both physical and social, within the woodland environment.

They establish and grow in confidence, selfesteem and become more self-motivated. It’s a fantastic learning experience and what’s more it’s all within a five minute walk from the classroom!”

During the two day opening in May, children from Reception to Year 2 were all

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Grandparents’ Day Back in May, on, thankfully, two dry days, we welcomed over 200 Grandparents to the Schools; the most that have attended for several years.

At the Prep School they arrived after lunch and then went off round the site with their grandchildren to see their work. After very comprehensive tours they returned to the dining hall for a well-earned cup of tea, sandwiches and cakes.

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The following day at the Senior School they were welcomed by the Headmaster over coffee and biscuits, they toured the School with their grandchildren and then sat down to a delicious lunch in the Music School. We were delighted to hear from letters to Mr Grindlay that they had had a lovely day, how impressed they were by the behaviour of all pupils and the sense of community within the School.

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Olympic Fever At the penultimate Headmaster’s Assembly we were fortunate to have Hugh Robertson as guest speaker. Hugh, Minister for Sport and Olympics, lives in Sutton Valence village and took time out of his busy schedule to speak to the School about the development of the Olympic site and the history of the event. Illustrated by a slide show he gave the pupils an interesting view of the London Olympics culminating in an inspiring video of athlete’s successes over the years.

Sitting in the audience was our own Olympic hopeful, Peter Bannister, Lower Sixth who had met Mr Robertson when he was selected as a Torchbearer by Lloyds TSB, proud Presenting Partner of the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay, because of his commitment and dedication to his sport of

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Canoeing and for inspiring his peers through mentoring fellow colleagues in his community.

Peter, who achieved Bronze in the K4 at the Boulogne International Regatta, is an athlete on the Lloyds TSB Local Heroes programme which supports future stars of Team GB and ParalympicsGB on their journey to London 2012 and beyond. He said, “I am extraordinarily proud to be representing Canoeing and to have been selected to carry the Torch as a possible future Olympic athlete. This is a great honour and an experience I will carry with me all my life.”

Peter carried the torch Harrietsham on 19th July.

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Olympic Hockey Trip On Saturday 6th May, Mrs Allison, Head of Girls Games, took a group of Prep School hockey players to watch the GB Hockey team play Australia in the Olympic test event at the Riverbank Arena.

It was a group of very excited youngsters that went up to London and spent the day looking round the Olympic Park before taking their seats behind the goal to watch the first match, Germany v India. However, the second match was the one they had been waiting for: GB against Australia!

And what an exciting match it proved to be, with our own Ashley Jackson scoring two spectacular penalties. Sadly, GB could only manage a draw, but everyone agreed that the atmosphere and the opportunity to see such fantastic hockey at the Olympic Park was something they’d remember for a long time.

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Annual Poetry Competition The Prep School welcomed the poet Mr James Carter at the end of summer half term, to judge the annual Poetry Competition in the Bates Hall. Parents were invited to watch as pupils from Years 1 - 6 took centre stage to individually recite a poem of their choice. Mr Carter then had the very difficult job of choosing a winner from each class. Kindergarten and Reception recited their poems as individual classes, along with some splendid actions and even painted faces!

Mrs Barr, Head of English and Drama said, “I was as impressed as ever by their confidence and the effort they had gone in to learning their poems. Class winners or not, they all deserve our congratulations”.

‘We are Writers!’

Every child in the Prep School was given the opportunity this term to be a published author in the School’s very own book. Initiated by Mrs Sally Barr, Head of English, the book is a celebration of the children’s imagination and talent and gives a glimpse into their passions and interests.

As Miss Corkran, Deputy Head, says in the foreword, ‘the theme of the book is School’ and contains ’many different pieces of work that incorporates a wide range of nonfiction genres, including recounts, poems, persuasive letters and even advertisements’.

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Olympic Rings

Senior School Prizewinners

Prep School Prizewinners

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Extract from the Headmaster’s Speech The greatest strengths of Sutton Valence are the community and the relationships between staff and pupils. This year we have re-introduced a properly functioning House system supported by vertical tutor groups.

Whilst doing this we have also highlighted the first two years of the School as a separate entity allowing them greater nurturing, increased scrutiny and higher standards and expectations being instilled from a younger age.

Pupils and staff tell me that they enjoy the vertical tutor groups and stronger relationships across the whole school are being forged with excellent examples of role modeling and peer support cropping up in every House. A burgeoning sense of house identity and pride is emerging and the new House competition programme has allowed all sorts of new competitions to be started, different talents recognised and older traditions resurrected.

I believe that the more pockets of small and supportive communities one can create within a community, the greater the overall support and care each individual will receive.

Without question, Sutton Valence is a supportive and tolerant community and one that values the individuals of which it is comprised. Rather than trying to make us all the same, which can only result in diminishing our diversity and compromising the strength of our community, Sutton Valence celebrates differences and delights in individuality.

In recognition of the importance of our House competition, the Chairman of the Governors and Mrs Baughan have presented to the School “The Baughan House Cup” for the winning house across all disciplines that form part of our annual competition. I would like to ask Mr Baughan to present this fine and decidedly-heavy trophy to the winner of this year’s competition.

There is no doubt that sports teams, music ensembles and drama groups create such pockets of support and mini-communities within the whole; as do many academic departments (particularly at A level), the CCF and the co-curricular programme. The addition of Houses and vertical tutor groups adds to the levels of care and support we provide and I am pleased with how many good things have emerged during this initial transition year.

Having added in today’s sports day results, I can announce to you now that in fourth place is Lambe’s, third place is Founder’s, second is Clothworkers’ and therefore the winning house is Holdgate.

Change is never easy and there will always be pros and cons to anything, but the pros of the new system definitely outweigh the cons.

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Compiled and edited by Helen Knott, Development Manager

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