News list
For their production this year, Form 3 presented Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a dramatic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s unique take on the classic fairy-tale. ​The children had no trouble engaging and maintaining the audience’s attention throughout the performance, immediately establishing a light-hearted and fun atmosphere with some spirited ensemble singing. Comic scenes were counterbalanced with decidedly more intense and moodier moments, with the children’s creation of the ‘Forest Wild’ through carefully choreographed mime and gesture a particular highlight.
Children throughout Â鶹Դ´ have raised a tremendous £5,733.02 for local charity, Blue Smile since the Easter holidays and the total is still rising. Blue Smile is a Cambridgeshire children’s charity that provides counselling and therapy for pupils in schools between the ages of 3 and 13 during a critical window of opportunity for change. The donation was raised by the ‘Grow Your Money’ initiative.
To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong (Joseph Chilton Pearce)
The Welding Institute, based in Cambridge, visited Â鶹Դ´ as part of Form 3’s ‘Wonder Afternoon’. The children discovered that welding with chocolate is an innovative and fun way of demonstrating welding and engineering principles. Bridges are made of all kinds of materials; stone, steel, concrete, wood and, in this workshop, chocolate!
The Thinking Skills initiative has been developed in Byron House to enhance the children’s ability to be logical, critical and creative thinkers. A wide range of transferable skills are taught through lessons across the curriculum and discrete thinking-skills lessons offer a further opportunity to practise decision-making, lateral thinking and mindmapping. The children are encouraged to gain a deeper understanding of their own preferred learning styles and to gain familiarity with a range of study and revision strategies. Lessons continue to focus on encouraging those habits of mind,
The Fifth Form’s thespian offering this year, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was a triumph from start to finish. When the young Alice’s attention is caught by the sudden presence of a curious White Rabbit, she follows it and inadvertently tumbles down the rabbit hole. Thus begin her bizarre and often psychedelic experiences in Wonderland: altercations with talking animals, both extinct and mythological; a tea party with a Mad Hatter and an even madder March Hare; and a game of croquet with a pack of cards, with flamingos for mallets, to name but a few.
The Form 5 children spent an exciting day absorbed in the wonder of words, when acclaimed young poet, Mr Luke Wright, came to visit Senior House. Mr Wright, who has appeared regularly on Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’ and tours the globe with his refreshingly irreverent words, injected real life and excitement into the day, demonstrating that poetry is very much alive and kicking in Britain today.
BBC News Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and his production team spent the morning at Â鶹Դ´ filming a computer programming lesson with a group of Form 4 children. The workshop was aired throughout the day on 8th October on BBC News to celebrate the manufacture of the millionth Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive pocket-sized stand-alone computer to which a screen, keyboard and mouse can be connected.
The Eco Committee’s highly successful new allotment has given the children hands-on experience of the plant life-cycle and is helping to instil a love of gardening at an early age. Lettuces and carrots were harvested at the end of the summer term and potatoes and turnips have grown in abundance over the holidays, ready to be harvested at the start of the Michaelmas term. The Headmaster, Mr Kevin Jones, and other members of staff were the lucky recipients of samples of the allotment’s produce and the committee members were also able to take the vegetables home to share with their
Two recent STEM ‘Wonder’ Afternoons saw all the children in Form 2 working collaboratively on an engineering challenge to design and construct wind turbines to lift an object at the same time. The children worked in groups, modifying their turbines as they tested the efficiency of their designs.