The Barometer Week 2

BAROMETER THE

WETHERBY SENIOR SCHOOL WEEKLY SEPTEMBER 11th 2017 | WEEK 2

Splendid Theatre Productions visits Wetherby!

HEADMASTER’S NEWSLETTER NEXT WEEK’S DIARY IMPORTANT NOTICES SPORTS NEWS

FROM THE HEADMASTER

Dear Parents, I would like to start by thanking you all for the warm welcome you have shown me this week; the sense of community was one of the things that stood out to me about the School on my visits last year, and the positive relationships I see each day between the pupils and the staff clearly extend to the parent body as well. I have greatly enjoyed meeting all of you, hearing about your experiences of the Wetherby Senior School family and having the chance to share with you, in outline form, some of the exciting new developments ahead. I know that it has not been possible for all of you to attend the coffee mornings and afternoons we have had, but I hope to meet many of you at the parents’ evenings and other events coming up this term.

An active, flourishing PTA will help these relationships to develop further and I am grateful to those of you who have spoken to me about it, or written to Mrs Skinner and Miss Twomey, with ideas or offers of your time. A meeting will be arranged shortly so that

we can discuss ideas about how to move it forward in the coming year.

The drama department has been a key area in the life of the school since its opening and many of you have mentioned the positive impact it has had on your children in recent years. Whilst not all will go on to tread the boards, the transferable skills of leadership, communication, creativity and collaboration that involvement in drama helps develop are invaluable, as is the empathy that can come from putting yourself in someone else’s shoes for a while. The department hit the ground running this term with a visit from the Splendid Theatre Company, the focus of this issue, who challenged the Year 11 students and helped their preparation for the GCSE examination. Miss Twomey is currently teaching in a slightly reduced space as work continues on increasing the size of the drama studio.

This should be completed over the half term break and I am excited about the opportunities the new space will afford the pupils; I hope that lots of the boys will go along to the auditions for the Christmas

Cabaret, which will be held in the coming weeks.

Finally, I would like to flag up the Open Day taking place on 7th October. The WSS boys are our best ambassadors and, as in previous years, we will be asking them to act as tour guides and show prospective parents around the School. The morning is a great opportunity to showcase all that we do and also allows us to reflect on all the excellent work that goes on here each week.

With best wishes,

WEEKLY DIARY MONDAY

18.09.17

Activities for Year 8/9 MIDYIS & LUCID Testing Week Years 7-9

TUESDAY

19.09.17 Activities for Year 7 Football Year 10 WSS vs Kingston Grammar (A) 2:30pm

WEDNESDAY

20.09.17

Rugby U16 WSS A vs Mill Hill (H) 2:30pm Football U12 WSS A/B vs WCCS (A) 2:30pm New Parents Reception 6:00pm

THURSDAY

21.09.17

FRIDAY

22.09.17

HM Assembly at Hinde Street Methodist Church 3:30pm

SATURDAY

23.09.17

SUNDAY

24.09.17

IMPORTANT NOTICES

Calling any new parents interested in joining the PTA: please contact Miss Twomey by Monday 18th September at: abbey.twomey@wetherbysenior.co.uk

Parents are reminded that all information for sports fixtures/events is available on our website: www.wetherbyseniorsport.co.uk – and on the Games Screen outside the Games Office for boys.

MONDAY

MENU

TUESDAY

Soup: Tomato & Vegetable

Soup: Carrot

WEDNESDAY

Main: Spinach Mac & Cheese, Gluten Free 4 Cheese Bake

Main: Thai Chicken Curry

Meat Free: Stuffed Aubergine

Meat Free: Potato, Cauliflower & Chickpea Curry

To Go With: Cajun Spiced Potato Wedges, Baby Carrots, Steamed Broccoli

To Go With: Lemon Rice, Garlic & Coriander Naan, Creamed Spinach

Dessert: Carrot Cake

Dessert: Pineapple Coconut Dream

Soup: Pea and Ham Main: Sliced Roast Beef Meat Free: Mushroom Wellington To Go With: Roasted Potatoes, Cauliflower Cheese, Yorkshire Pudding, Gravy Dessert: Rice Krispie Squares

THURSDAY

To Go With: Oven Baked Vegetables, Curried Fried Potatoes, Roasted Tomatoes With Chimichurri Sauce

Soup: Beetroot

Main: Steamed Fish Fillets Meat Free: Macaroni With Fresh Tomato Sauce & Basil

Freshly Made Bread

Soup: Sweet Potato

Meat Free Veggie Burgers

Main: Beef Burgers With A Choice Of Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onion, Jalapenos & Gherkins

To Go With: Ratatouille, Chips, Steamed Mixed Vegetables Dessert: Raspberry Cranachan

Homemade Salads Vegetable Crudités With Hummus Sandwich & Wrap Selection Meat & Cheese Platters Fresh Fruit Yogurt Pots

EVERY DAY

FRIDAY

Dessert: Strawberry Cream Jelly Bowls

SPLENDID THEATRE WORKSHOP

To help with their upcoming drama examination, this week the GCSE Drama boys attended a very exciting acting workshop with Splendid Theatre Productions, who came to the school to generate ideas, try new acting techniques and devise scenes with our Year 11 Drama Students.

The class has two performance groups; one is creating a play in a style of theatre called ‘Victorian Melodrama’ and the second is devising a Brechtian play, known as ‘Epic Theatre’. Each group had their own two-hour workshop with Kerry, director of Splendid Theatre. The workshops were loud, fun and tricky (just look how complicated the mind maps are!) and covered lots of new information. The boys created fantastic new ideas for their plays and enjoyed their time working with such an energetic director.

Harrison Phillips explained to Miss Twomey afterwards; ‘Kerry is an eccentric and funny person, who showed zero nervousnessshe gave us the confidence to commit to our acting.’

Harrison described working on the Victorian Melodrama workshop: ‘it began with us learning the key poses and movements for our chosen style of theatre- like freeze frames in a story. We covered the various

stock characters and learnt about the strings for each character, meaning the way a character is held up, like an imaginary puppet.

To exaggerate our characters, we had to visualise a bicycle pump and ‘pump up our characters’- making them larger than life. This helped generate ideas and storylines for our characters, as we were able to better understand them.

Kerry taught us that the acting is much more

important than the script.

This means that trying ideas physically is better than saying them.’

The workshop has vastly helped the boys embody their new characters and I’m looking forward to seeing the finalised plays very soon!

MATCH REPORT

Year 8 played The Mall School in their first game of the season at the WSS sports ground. It was a competitive day with all teams performing well. The results are below:

Boys U13 A

4-1

Boys U13 B

5-2

Boys U13 C

3-3

Please visit the school sports website to see goal scorers: http://www.wetherbyseniorsport.co.uk/

http://www.wetherbysenior.co.uk