Weeky ewsetter from the Headmaster · Weeky ewsetter from the Headmaster th Juy 1 ssue o 11 Dear...

Weekly Newsletter from the Headmaster www.shebbearcollege.co.uk

7th July 2017Issue No 141

Dear Parents,

Having spoken for thirty two minutes and twenty eight seconds (as recorded by the official staff timekeeper) at Speech Day there is not much left for me to say about this term.

The Sixth Form celebrated the end of the year with a magnificent Rounsfell Dinner at Hallsannery House in Bideford. The sun shone, the pupils all scrubbed up well and Mr Burnett spoke eloquently.

Yesterday the school looked wonderful as the weather gods kept up their support. I was particularly pleased that guest speaker Paul Lockyer, former Head Prefect and President of the OSA, chose to explain, as the main focus of his speech, why he loves this school. To sit and listen to the achievements of our pupils was to understand why he feels this way.

I wish everyone a relaxing and reinvigorating summer holiday. See you in September.

Simon Weale

Speech Day was a wonderful celebration of achievements throughout our school community



Other events this week have included our Year 6 children and their families having their leavers’ barbeque on Monday evening and Years 3, 4 and 5 enjoyed their day out at The Milky Way on Wednesday. Our Final Assembly took place on Tuesday morning and it was an opportunity to congratulate and reward many of our children for their achievements throughout the year, as well as for this term. It was also an opportunity to welcome our Pre-School children into assembly and present them with their certificates or prizes for doing so well this year. Among the awards presented, we congratulated our Players of the Season for our sports teams throughout the year.

Players of the Season 2016-17

Hockey Under 9 Isobel Under 11 Millie Netball Under 9 Bethan M Under 11 Gabby Rounders Under 9 Ella Under 11 Jesse-Mae Rugby Under 9 Alfie Under 11 Jack Football Under 9 Billy Under 11 Hunter and Henry Cricket Under 9 Ben Under 11 Harry

News from the Prep SchoolDear Parents,As term draws to an end, the Prep has enjoyed a busy final few days. Years 3-6 took part in a Forest School day on Monday, building dens and taking on challenges for their Houses. It was an extremely successful day and my thanks to Mrs Partridge for all of her work organising the day. Pre-School and Years 1 and 2 enjoyed a very well-deserved day at The Big Sheep.

Sports Day took place on Tuesday afternoon and after a morning of drizzle, the sun came out just at the right time. Competition was fierce in both the track and the field events and it was very impressive to see the support and sportsmanship the children showed each other, from Pre-School to Year 6. Many congratulations to all of the children for taking part so well and the winning House was Thorne, ahead of Way and then Ruddle.



All of the House Points awarded since September were added together and this year’s House Team Shield Winners is Ruddle. Many congratulations to all of these children on their achievements, and to all those who won awards at yesterday’s Speech Day.

During the last few days, we have had a number of opportunities to say our farewells to Mrs Partridge, as she retires from the Prep after seventeen years. She has been an enormous asset to the School and has contributed a great deal to the all-round education of so many children in that time. The warmth of the applause that she has received over the last week speaks volumes. Thank you for everything Mrs Partridge and we wish you all the very best for the future. As we finish the school year, my thanks to all of our staff for their continual hard work throughout the term, supporting the children in all aspects of school life.

May I wish you all a very happy summer break. To our Year 6 children (above) and their families leaving the Prep this term, we wish you every success and happiness as you move on to new exciting challenges in the Senior School. My thanks to Hunter and Jesse-Mae, our departing Head Boy and Head Girl, for their excellent work and contributions to Prep life. We also say farewell to Anna, Vera, Anna, Mariia and Anna, our Summer School pupils in the Prep. They have tried to immerse themselves in school life and have enjoyed their combination of lessons in the Prep and excursions with the Summer School. We wish them all the best as they return to Russia, Hungary and Ukraine. To all those children returning to their new classes in September, I hope you have a well-deserved rest and that you recharge your batteries before we see you again on Wednesday 6th September.

Matthew Foale

Pre-School and Pre-Prep at The Big SheepPre-Prep joined with Pre-School for their end of year fun day out at The Big Sheep this week. The children had a fantastic day enjoying tractor rides, learning all about the breeds of sheep, flying on the carousel chairs and screaming loudly on the rollercoaster. The bouncy pillows were also a huge success. The children returned to school a little weary, but with big smiles on their faces after a wonderful day out.



Spanish Spelling Bee WinnersI am pleased to announce that the winner of the Spanish Spelling Bee 2017 was Adam. This Form 1 competition involves pupils having to learn over 150 Spanish words and then spell as many as they can in one minute. The words are given in English and the contestant has to first say the word in Spanish and then spell it using the Spanish alphabet including accents.

There were three rounds and each round more words were added to the list and some pupils were eliminated. Chloe, Eliza and Lola all made it to the semi-final. The final was between Adam and James. Adam managed to win with an incredibly impressive 13 words. Well done indeed Adam!

Judith Aliberti

Form 2 Activities Week in FranceOur Form 2 students departed to the Brittany shores on the evening of Sunday 25th June. This year we were a party of 34 excited students and 9 cautious adults. Our journey to Plymouth was made more comfortable this year by having one minibus devoted to baggage. So four minibuses set off in convoy to the ferry port.

Having cabins made the overnight crossing of the Channel very comfortable, especially since the waters were calm. The coach journey from Roscoff to our activity site, Ty-Nadan, was similarly straight forward and we were straight into activities on the Monday afternoon.

Splitting into three groups, over the next three days we took part in kayaking along the local river, skilfully controlling the centre’s segway machines and climbing through the tree tops on high ropes and wires. Many of our intrepid team flew through the skies on the zip-wire course. One of these is 370m long, the longest in Brittany.

On Tuesday morning we all took part in the orienteering activity. This started with an initial simple exercise to explain the necessary skills required and then teams of 3 or 4 disappeared around the site trying to find the marking stations using given maps. This was electronically timed and the majority of the teams entered into the competitive spirit to try to be the fastest for each challenge set. After the main challenges there was a further warm down game. If there had been a prize for the most determined individual during this event it would have gone to Alex Ward who performed exceptionally well.

On Wednesday morning the whole group was halved and each half was split into two teams to do battle in the paintball arena within the woods. Once the gauntlet had been laid, battle commenced with paintballs flying everywhere. Once again, all the students entered into the spirit of the game with all being splattered and a few bruises occurring along the way. Older clothes were definitely necessary as yellowy-green slime covered many competitors. The best team in this activity was undoubtedly that led by Mr Steel. With clear tactics, war cries and lack of fear they charged through their opponents. Individually, Alex Vassilaki took great pleasure in shooting his mother as many times as he could.



On Thursday we travelled to a local market town, Hennebont, and made the most of the local delicacies on sale. It seems the “fidget spinner” craze is not restricted to Old Blighty and is as popular in France as it is in Shebbear, with a significant number of these being purchased by our fidgety youngsters. After this visit we moved on to a beach at Port Louis, where we had our picnic lunch. Unfortunately the temperature was a little cool and all agreed to return to the campsite to enjoy their facilities.

Throughout the week, whenever there was a spare hour or two, the site’s pools were often in use by our party. Due to the lack of other guests our team of water babies had the choice of 3 pools, 3 slides and a jacuzzi (although relatively cold) which they made the most of.

During the evenings, competitions were organised by the adults in such sports as table-tennis, badminton and basketball. Other activities throughout the week included frisbee fun, juggling batons, balloon figures and an interesting karaoke evening which identified some budding pop stars of the future. Unfortunately, Simon Cowell was not there to sign anyone up. However, look out for Tiggs MacDougall, Bella Richards and that more mature group, Mr Steel, Miss Little and Mr Burnett. American Pie will never sound so good!

Friday arrived and we packed, cleaned up and departed to Roscoff. Undoubtedly the worst Channel crossing I have experienced made for an uncomfortable few hours for some of the group. However, we all made it home safely (apart from Blythe Hill who took the next ferry back to France with her family), all exhausted but satisfied with a very successful trip.

Thank you to all of Form 2 this year. They were a credit to the College and made the trip enjoyable for all, adults included. A thank you also to the supervising adults, Mr Steel, Mr Burnett, Miss Little, Mrs Vassilaki, Miss Trask, Mrs Welby, Mr Mahoney and Mr Alford.

Steve Trask

Toilet Twinning Grand TotalWith thanks to everyone involved and those who gave generously, we have managed to collect £313.39! We will use £240 to twin one of our toilet blocks with a school toilet block in Uganda. The remaining money would pay for a single toilet, but this would not necessarily be associated with a school, so I think it would be best to keep the remaining money and put it towards raising money for a second school toilet block next term.

Lindsay Douglas

World AIMS at the House of LordsOn Wednesday a group of World AIMS students went to Westminster, London to attend the Syeda Fatima (Inter-Faith) Conference at the House of Lords. Students were selected because of their participation in varied service activities.

The conference is a prestigious event attended by politicians and religious leaders, some from abroad. The emphasis was upon the role of women of faith in the world, and is inspired by the memory of Muhammad’s (pbuh) daughter Fatima.

Barbara Usher

CricketIn their final match of the season at Clayesmore School in Dorset, the 1st XI, after a difficult three and a half hour journey, opted to bat first in an 80 over declaration game.

Openers Eddie Jones (35) and Ethan Solomon (49) had little trouble early on and raced to 65-0 in 11 overs, but Eddie’s dismissal in the 11th over signalled the start of a collapse, which saw the side reduced to 85-8 In the next 10 overs.

Then Jack Joslin joined Ethan and the pair took the score to an almost respectable 110, before the innings was ended. It needed fiery and accurate opening spells from Jabez Weale (0-19) and Thembani Ngcizela (2-26) and they certainly sowed the seeds of doubt in the home team’s batsmen.

However, the score gradually crept closer to our total and mishits weren’t quite going to hand and at 93-2 the game was slipping away.There then followed a quite remarkable passage of play which started with Ethan Solomon taking two wickets in two balls and Jed Foster chipping in with a couple at the other end and suddenly the pressure was on the home side.

An excellent catch in the deep by Thembani and another by Ethan at point saw the score on 99-8 and the chance of victory was a reality. With another wicket for Jed (3-26) 11 runs were still required by the home side with the last pair in the middle, but another superb running catch in the deep by Thembani secured a remarkable 10 run victory for the 1st XI.

Man of the match Ethan finished with figures of 5-17, but it was the spirit of the side that was really impressive and brought a season, which saw five victories in six matches, to a satisfactory conclusion.

Andy Bryan



Picture this ... Rounsefell Dinner see all the photos on our Facebook page



Picture this ... Speech Day see all the photos on our Facebook page

Weeky ewsetter from the Headmaster · Weeky ewsetter from the Headmaster th Juy 1 ssue o 11 Dear...

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