The Week Ahead
Sunday 11th February until Sunday 25th February
General Events
Saturday 10th February sees the start of the Exeat at 10:45 a.m except for those involved in the Lower Sixth Conference. Details of that conference can be found here.
This is a reminder to parents that many have not yet responded to the invitation to the St. Paul's event on Friday 4th May and that to be sure of tickets the deadline is FRIDAY 16TH FEBRUARY. Either way we still need a response as to travel arrangements after the service for your son/daughter. If there is no response we will take it that the pupils concerned will return back to the College on the coach. A copy of the form can be found here. Can we also stress that parents who have already responded DO NOT NEED TO REPLY AGAIN. No responses by email or phone please. Thanks in anticipation for your help with this.
There will be a talk by Francis Pott in the Concert Room at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday 20 February on Composing. Francis Pott is an internationally known composer of sacred choral works, organ music and chamber music. He will discuss how to start composing and techniques for development of ideas. This will be aimed at all students studying composition, whether at GCSE level or above, but anyone wishing to attend will be very welcome.
On Tuesday 20 February, Sir Bernard Ingham is giving a lecture to the W.C.A., and indeed the whole college community, entitled "My time as Chief Secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher" in the Theatre. Sir Bernard Ingham is most famous for being bagman to Margaret Thatcher. Officially he was the Chief Press Secretary to the Prime Minister; she is on record as saying he was "the best press secretary in the world". He will give you an inside picture on what it was like working for the most powerful and influential Prime Minister (after Churchill) of the last century.
Chapel Choir will be singing Evensong at Salisbury Cathedral on Thursday 22 February at 5:30 p.m. It is always greatly appreciated by the choir if parents can support them in their visits to cathedrals, so an invitation is extended to any within striking distance of Salisbury to attend.
On Thursday 22nd February the Economics and Business Studies Society is hosting a number of O.W.'s who are working in the City in various capacities. The evening is entitled 'Working in the City' and is partly as a result to the inevitable attention that City workers have received following the extraordinary bonus payments over the Christmas period. The evening will take the form of a panel discussion with questions taken from the floor. All Economics and Business Studies pupils are expected to attend although any pupils in the 5th or 6th form or any parents are also welcome. The session begins at 6:00 p.m. in the Driver Lecture Room.
The Apsley host a music night on Friday 23rd February to which all Apsley parents have already been invited at 7:30 p.m. for nibbles and wine for an 8:00 p.m. start in Old Hall. There will be a multitude of talent on display and any parents are welcome to attend but are asked to contact Rosie Fielder first if they are not Apsley parents.
The Out of Africa Ball W.C.A. event is on Saturday 24th February. The tickets are £50 each. Please contact Reena Price or phone 07778 205 112 (Mob) or 01628 622355 (H). This will be a fun night!
Sunday 25th February sees a full school service of the word at 8;00 p.m. at which the preacher is the Revd. Lisa Cornwell, the vicar of St. John's Crowthorne. Parents of boys in the Hopetoun are warmly invited to attend.
Pupils in all years other than the fifth form will have received a set of grades this last week. We hope you will be able to take the time over the Exeat to review these with your son or daughter. The Master is in general pleased with most pupils but is concerned with thoseon white grades orworse and withthosewho appearto bestuck onbronze. He is expecting pupils to return after the Exeat prepared to work very hard for the remaining five weeks of this term. Only seven term-time weeks to the first public exams for the fifth form - and exams for the other older year groups follow shortly afterwards!
Please could any more requests for the 3rd Form French Trip come in? We have spaces for nearly all the year in a youth hostel in St Malo in Brittany from Sunday 24th June to late Thursday 28th June. Activities will include town tours, coastal walks, beach games and mountain biking. We will also visit the Normandy beaches and possibly Mont St Michel. If you need more information please contact Sam Gutteridge.
We are pleased to be able to offer parents a great new way of encouraging their children to read. Some parents will have received the Junior School reading list last holidays. All the recommended books have now been uploaded to a new book website Lovereading4schools.co.uk - a site set up by an Old Wellingtonian. Here parents and pupils will find opening extracts of the books and will be able to purchase their selection - all from one convenient place. All books are sold at a 25% discount and, on top of this, for every £100 spent in total by all Wellington parents, the College will receive a £5 book voucher to go towards the Library. Click here to go to our online book list or type in the url http://www.lovereading4schools.co.uk/viewschool/982/favourite. You will then need to register with an email address and personal password. For subsequent visits to the site, you will find the booklists are password protected - the password is "grubbies". We are sure your child will find nothing better to do at Half Term than read a book!
Sport
Thursday 22nd February sees our lacrosse team in action against Bradfield, our rackets team play Haileybury, our squash teams take on Harrow, our basketball teams compete with Marlborough, our golf team compete at Radley and the fencing team fence R.G.S.High Wycombe.
On Saturday 24th February, the hockey players compete with Tonbridge, the netball teams take on Cranleigh, the runners travel to Charterhouse, the shooters visit R.G.S. Guildford and the badminton teams compete with Marlborough.
This link will take you to the Wellington intranet where details of hockey sports' fixtures (team lists, pitch details, etc) can be found. For netball click here. for basketball click here and for football click here. To keep overall track on how the teams are doing click here for hockey, here for football and here for girls' netball.
Further Ahead
On Wednesday 28th February, the army school's liason officer is visiting Wellington. If any parent wants their son or daughter to see him, please read this letter.
Parents, and particularly those with pupils playing in the jazz orchestra or ensembles, or Concert Wind Band, are urged to order their tickets in good time for the concert on Friday 2 March at 8:00 p.m. in the Old Gym. The concert is an annual event to raise funds for the Crowthorne Community Minibus and is always well attended by the local community. Tickets are £7.50 each and can be obtained from Ros Dunmore in the Music School - cheques payable to "Wellington College". This is the first opportunity to hear the WJO this year under their new director, Michael L Roberts, who is Head of Jazz Studies.
A group of parents have become involved in setting up a charity to help a school in Kaduna, Nigeria. They are holding an Irish Night on Saturday 3rd March (with an Irish band and caller) in aid of the Angels Choir which is a children's choir from Kaduna, Nigeria whom we hope to bring over to sing for us in a Gala Evening to be held here in October. We are also holding a Dinner Dance on Friday 1st June. For anyone interested in attending either event please contact either Sara Blosse or Clare Walters for further details.
On Sunday 4th March from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the Sports Hall, Wellington hosts its annual Gap Fair (organised by ISCO). Over 50% of Wellington leavers take a Gap Year and this free event is an ideal way to see what sorts of things are on offer and talk to representatives from Gap organisations. This event is open to all, but is aimed mainly at the Sixth Form pupils. Parents, we strongly encourage you to come along with your children as you return them from the Weekend Leave.
On Wednesday 14th March at 7.45 p.m. the Round Square Committee will be hosting a World Café discussion event: 'Towards A Green Wellington'. This will be an opportunity for all interested members of the Wellington community to join in a structured sequence of discussion groups whose purpose is to pool ideas for an environmentally friendly school. You can learn more about the 'World Café' format here. Places in the Café will be allocated on a 'first come first served' basis so if you have expertise, ideas, or are just plain interested please email Ant Peter, our 'Green Czar' .
Further ahead on a weekend late next term, Saturday 17th March, we plan to take all the Fifth Form to the Theatre in London. We did this with the Fourth Form this term and the event worked well. Therefore we would ask that you do not arrange anything for your sons in the Fifth Form for that Saturday night. The cost of the evening will be of the order of £40. If there are any problems with this trip on either issue, please contact John Arton-Powell as soon as possible as we need to get on and book tickets.
The orchestra of Westminster School, South Australia will be touring in the UK in April this year and will be visiting Wellington from Wednesday 25 April to Saturday 28 April. These school trips of course can only take place if the pupils are accommodated by host schools and whilst we have been able to find some places on site for the 33 pupils concerned, we are still short of beds. The Music School would be very grateful if any parents living close to College, and in particular parents of Wellington musicians, could offer accommodation for the 3 nights. The group will arrive at about 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday 25th and will depart after breakfast on Saturday 28th. Most meals could be taken in College so the demands would not be too great. The pupils would need to be delivered to College in the mornings and picked up from College on the Thursday and Friday evenings after their concerts (approximately 9:45 p.m.). Please contact Ros Dunmore (01344 444201) if you are able to help in any way - all offers gratefully received.
From the 11th May to the 13th May the W.C.A. are running a trenches trip. We've had a great response to this and it is nearly three quarters full. We need to confirm exact numbers of rooms with the hotels very soon so if you're thinking of coming please apply quickly as the list will shortly close. An application form went out with the Master's beginning of term letter or you can e-mail Bill Price for one.
Further ahead there is the Summer Ball on Friday 25th May. The sale of tickets are going very well. We have already sold over half the tables for this event. Please send in your forms and cheques to avoid disappointment. PLEASE, PLEASE, COMPLETE THE BOOKING FORM IN BLOCK CAPITALS WITH THE FULL NAMES OF GUESTS, THE HOUSE NAME, AND PLEASE SEND AN S.A.E. SO WE CAN SEND YOU YOUR TICKETS. This event, like any others take up a lot of time and effort in terms of organisation and doing the above would be very much appreciated and help us hugely. Tickets are £90 each. For further details contact Reena Price or phone 01628 622355.