St Hugh's Highlights Autumn 18

St Hugh's Highlights AUTUMN 2018

Welcome to the first edition of St Hugh’s Highlights giving you an overview of this term’s activities.

Inspection

Although some may not consider the Inspection a highlight, the result certainly was. We were thrilled to achieve the highest possible grading of ‘excellent’ in all areas and are proud that particular areas of the curriculum were deemed as being exceptional. Thank you to everyone – staff, pupils and parents for your continued support of the school.

Remembrance Service

A real highlight of the term was our very first Remembrance Service at St Peter's Church which involved the entire school. The choir sang beautifully, war poems were recited and Years 1 & 2 had produced a lovely display of potato print poppies.

100% 11+ Success

We are celebrating another year of 100% pass rate in the county 11+ examinations. All of the Year 6 pupils who took the exam achieved great success and reaffirmed the school’s extraordinary pass rate in recent years.

Mindfulness Day

During the term we held our very first Mindfulness Day. Yoga Teacher, Sheena Rayner, spent the day in School and all pupils took part in at least one lesson which involved breathing exercises, learning how to control thoughts and to stop your mind from wandering.

TRIPS

There have been 15 trips this term with all the children from Nursery to Year 8 going on at least one of them. Highlights have included:

Our Year 8 artists visited Burghley House Sculpture Park. They started the morning with a wire sculpture workshop where they produced some stunning dragonflies. Then they explored the sculpture park itself and loved discovering and discussing the different sculptures scattered around the grounds.

Year 7 pupils spent five busy days in Paris during September. During their trip they visited the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, had a boat trip on the Seine, walked up the Champs Elysées and the Stade de France.

Year 5 pupils visited Southwell Workhouse as part of their topic on Victorians. Pupils dressed in paupers' clothes and were showed us all aspects of workhouse life. They then looked at the lives of actual child inmates of the Workhouse through census records and discussed the relative merits and demerits of the workhouse system led by the knowledgeable guides.

Year 4 had a wonderful time visiting Gainsborough Old Hall. They were amazed to find out they were standing in the room where King Henry the VIII stayed and enjoyed learning about what life was like in Tudor times. They had the opportunity to work in a Tudor kitchen and experience what a Tudor Banquet was like.

BOARDING

It’s been a busy term in the boarding house. Highlights have included a trip to the Aqua Park in the first week of term and the perennially popular Christmas Decoration evening.

SPORT

Our athletes have had a full and active term on the sports pitches, in the pool and over cross country courses. There have been over 85 fixtures and tournaments against a wide variety of schools and every pupil from Years 3-8 has represented the school this term in a major sport. As a new initiative we have linked up with Horncastle Hockey Club and now run a bus on a Thursday evening to training.

Highlights have included:

The cross country runners excelled themselves at the Witham and Brooke Priory meets

The girls’ U11 hockey team were crowned County Champions

The U13 hockey girls were runners up at the S. Anselm’s tournament

During the term we invited six schools to take part in two swimming galas and it was lovely to see the poolside so busy with spectators. St Hugh’s demonstrated great strength across all age groups and we were delighted to win both galas.

Despite the weather our Year 7 and 8’s rugby and hockey teams had an action packed tour to Edinburgh at the start of half-term. Alongside matches against Longridge Towers and Cargilfield School they also had tours of the Royal Yacht Britannia, Edinburgh Castle, the Scottish Parliament, Holyrood House, Royal Mile, National Museum of Scotland, The Elephant House, Princess Street Gardens and ……discovered the secrets of Edinburgh’s underground city.

A huge thank you to our Parents’ Association for all their efforts during the term. They provided a delicious Tapas night, organised a Christmas Bake-off for the pupils, held a wonderful Christmas Shopping Fair and culminated with the pupils’ Christmas parties at the end of term.

Christmas at St Hugh's

Our Pre Prep parents had a double helping of nativity concerts.

Reception and Nursery performed “ A Wriggly Nativity” which is for children who just can't sit still! Then it was the turn of Years 1 and 2 who performed the humorous A King is Born. Many thanks to all the children and staff involved for their huge effort in producing such marvellous nativities.

As tradition dictates on the penultimate day of term we held our Christmas jumper day, devoured a Christmas fabulous lunch and ended the term with a wonderful Carol Service.

See you in 2019

Appreciate