Woodhouse Grove Boarding News Summer Term 1 2022

WOODHOUSE GROVE SCHOOL

Summer Term 1, 2022

BOARDING NEWS Half Termly Boarding Newsletter of Woodhouse Grove School

School News

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Outdoor Cricket Nets Opening

Junior STEM

Last week, Year 7 were lucky enough to be the first students to enjoy the new outdoor cricket nets. This new facility confirms our continued investment in our school and underlines our status as one of the country’s top 100 cricketing schools.

Across all year groups there has been some amazing work this half term in our Science curriculum. We try to get students engaged in science at the earliest opportunity.

Year 7 looked at animal classification, becoming quite familiar with their specimens! Some preferred this task more than others!

Junior STEM club students were presented with their CREST Awards for investigations into the production and evaluation of bath bombs.

Sports Awards Evenings

Post-18 Event

Over this half term we have had a number of sports’ award evenings celebrating the achievements of our students in Rugby, football, netball and cross country.

Woodhouse Grove hosted a Post-18 event giving our Sixth Form pupils and parents the opportunity to speak with a variety of Universities and organisations about their options once they finish Sixth Form. The feedback was very positive and parents were impressed at the different options presented to their child post school, including further education, travel, direct employment, apprenticeships and volunteering.

There were many awards given out including most improved player, squad of the year, most dedicated and most appearances. Well done to all the award winners, showing true dedication to both the school and their sport. Pupils enjoyed hearing from guest speakers including Old Grovian James Whitcombe, who now plays rugby for Leicester Tigers.

Following this event, Year 13 have been putting together presentations for their ‘top tips’ on preparing their Post—18 applications and presenting them to each other in form time.

National Poetry Competition Congratulations to Sixth Former Kadia for winning her regional round and reaching the KS5 National Final of the Poetry By Heart competition.

The finals will take place at The Globe Theatre, London in June.

Year 13 Leavers’ Soiree

Duke of Edinburgh Expedition

A very moving evening for our talented Year 13 leavers’ soiree. We heard some fabulous musical performances from our day and boarding pupils. This was one of the final opportunities for them to perform before they leave us to go to pastures new.

Boarders Tim Eichert, Koya Tsz Tsang and Chloe Petch were involved in the evening.

More photos and videos of these performances, as well as many other events can be found on our school flickr page. https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzQMN9

Some of our Year 10 students recently set off on their practice Duke of Edinburgh weekend expedition. The students walked from Ilkley to Bingley, overnighting at Baildon scout camp. Conditions were glorious and the very cold evening was made a little warmer with a camp fire and plenty of marshmallows to toast. Well done to everyone who took part as part of their Bronze award.

This was a record breaking number of students taking part for Woodhouse Grove and it was great to have so many of our Y10 students signed up to complete their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh awards this year!

Senior Cricket Tour

Fencing Northern Youth Challenge

Our Senior cricket team, including some of our boarders, toured the East Midlands during the Easter break. They enjoyed matches at Oundle, Uppingham and Oakham Schools before attending a training session at Derbyshire Cricket with Alex Hughes. A wonderful opportunity to benefit from some competitive matches and receive expert coaching advice.

Our fencers gained valuable experience at the first leg of the Northern Youth Challenge, Harrogate. Our Grovians, who fenced in the Under 14s and Under 16s categories, had a fantastic day out and fenced fantastically. Thanks to Kira, Year 10 for her coaching support.

Kira herself has been busy competing in the British Youth Championships in Sheffield earlier in the month, coming 21st in the U16 foil event and 24th in the Epee event.

Netball Mini Break A number of our boarders were involved in a mini netball break to Shrewsbury. Players from Years 9 and 10 participated in a netball tournament and took part in some outdoor activities, such as wild swimming, abseiling and a tree top challenge. WGS netballers came out with a win and three 3rd placings.