NEWSFLASH
Fortnightly Newsletter of Woodhouse Grove School
Chess Competition report written by Cameron, Year 8, our Junior Chess Captain
Last week, the second stage of St Bede’s and St Joseph’s chess tournament took place. This was a monumental occasion for chess at the Grove since it was the first for at least 15 years! The U13 team played bravely when opposed by mainly experienced older students with many standout results, including beating Bradford Grammar School ‘A’ without a loss, and beating St Bede’s and St Joseph’s without a loss.
Overall, we placed 14th; seven places up in this second leg. A great result given our experience compared to most of our competitors. Our team consisted of George H, Cameron W, Sheen VDH and Jacob W.
The A team consisting of Rakelmi W-C, Charlie W, Zac N and Samuel P, also had an incredible tournament. They placed 2nd after the first part of the tournament with zero losses, but at an unlucky run of matches later meant they finished 12th.
Our Teacher’s A Troll
Rehearsals are underway for the Junior Production, 'Our Teacher's a Troll' by Dennis Kelly which takes place on 19th and 20th June. Each fortnight you can peek behind the scenes through our 'Backstage @ Troll' blog!
Our Year 7 and 8s are so enthusiastic that we are expecting great things. Book your tickets here
Year 13 Leavers’ Soiree
What a lovely evening earlier this week, celebrating the talents of our Year 13 leavers as they go on to their next steps. Performances covered Faure, Delibes, Einaudi, The Cranberries, White Stripes amongst others.
Year 13 Leavers
Online Safety
Internet Matters has some great advice for parents/carers about staying on top of their kids smartphone use along with advice on setting up smartphones, etc. You can find the resource HERE.
As part of their leaving week, the Year 13 netballers took on the Year 13 rugby squad at netball coming away with a convincing for leavers’ weekend. Woodhouse Grove School event tickets from TicketSource.
Grove Awards
Congratulations to the following students who were presented with their Grove Awards this week:
Year 7 Rebecca C, Millie R, Jack C
Year 8 Cindy G, Lucy W, Sam D, Mya P
Year 9 Alex D, Charlotte P-W, Luca N, Josiah S
Each one completed 5 challenges covering at least 3 different disciplines; including textiles club, litter picking, gymnastics, passing a
Old Grovian and political author, Dr Tom McMeeking, came in to talk with our Year 12 Politics and History classes. He spoke about the 1832 Reform Act and its influence in History and then the upcoming council and mayoral elections with Politics. An excellent focus on democracy in both sessions and always good to hear from past students.
University of Bradford STEM
14 of our Year 9 pupils attended a science competition at the University of Bradford. They designed islands that were NetZero for carbon emissions and had to convince the Dragons that their islands are good places to live and operates as net zero across all contributing factors.
D of E Bronze Practice Weekends
Over the last two weekends, 14 groups of Year 10 students have been out on their practice weekends. This is in preparation for the actual expedition in June. Between them, they experienced both sunny and damp conditions!
Cricket News
This term started with a tough outing for the U17 boys against York St Peters and a brilliant block fixture against BGS with wins for our 1st XI and our U13s. Thanks to our ground staff for working tirelessly to get the pitches ready in testing weather conditions.
Last week, both our boys' and girls' 1st teams progressed in their national cup fixtures with huge wins over Huddersfield New College and St Peters, York.
The U15 girls also progressed in the cup with a victory over Queen Ethelburga's.
The U12 & U15 boys had comfortable victories in their 2nd round Yorkshire Cup fixtures and both move to the next round.
Tennis Results
At the end of April our Senior Girls attended a Tennis Festival at St Peters, York finishing 4th overall with a mixture of wins and losses against some tough schools.
Our U13 boys came away with an outstanding last ball victory against Manchester Grammar School with Josh Neale the star of the show hitting a
In a fixture against Bradford Grammar our U12 to U16 age group girls won 8, drew 2 and lost 12 and the boys results were; U12 = LOST 1 - 3; U13 = WON 4 - 0; U14 = LOST 3.5 - 0.5; U15 = LOST 2.5 - 1.5
Yorkshire Golf
At the end of April, Matty, Oliver and Jude represented the school in the Yorkshire Schools’ Golf Team Final. This was after qualifying as winners of the West Yorkshire round.
The team put in a very good performance in tough and windy conditions and were very unlucky to miss out on qualification for the National School's Final, later this summer, by only 1 Stableford point.
However, there was individual success with Matty H winning the Stableford competition with an impressive 41 points. We look forward to trying to develop golf further at WGS.
Sports Presentation Evenings
The past two weeks have given us the opportunity to celebrate numerous sporting achievements with our Rugby, Football and Cross Country Awards evenings.
The achievements of our pupils both individually and collectively as a team when you reflect on them in these evenings have been outstanding, but the stand out parts to me are when the pupils speak publicly to review the season. They speak so warmly and with such pride of their achievements for their school.
Triathlon Success
There have now been 2 races in the Yorkshire Triathlon Series.
At the Harrogate Aquathlon, a 2nd place for Charley C-T in the female U17 race, 7th place for Charlotte M in the female U13 race and Will T was placed 9th in the male U17.
Well done, not only to all award winners, but to all who have represented their school in these sports over the course of the season, and I look forward to the Netball awards evening in June. Tickets are available for this event
At the Brooksbank Duathlon, Charley CT won the female U15 race and Simeon Tedd finished 7th male in the U15. Congratulations to all athletes.
We wish Mr Eaglestone, Mrs Fisher, Mrs Spencer and Mrs Watmough the very best of luck this Sunday as they run the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon for various charities.
