The Week Ahead

Saturday 14th November until Sunday 22nd November

As I said last week, Remembrance is an important time at Wellington. Below are some images from both the Ceremony on Sunday and the two minutes' silence on Wednesday. More images can be found here - this is part of the password protected area of the site so you will need to log on using the victoria username.

The week from Monday 16th November until Friday 20th November is National Anti-bullying week. This year it is focused on cyberbullying. The anti-bullying alliance have put together some useful information to support the week, which includes some advice for parents. It can be found at www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk. During the week pupils will be looking at the College anti-bullying policy and suggesting amendments and useful ideas that can be added to the intranet support available. If you have any suggestions or concerns please contact Liz Worthington, the Senior Mistress.

A nerdy point - some are struggling to see some of the documents that are linked through to the Week Ahead or off the intranet. It is quite conceivable that my incompetence causes problems but some issues are caused by the different set-up of machines - particularly macs. One trick that does seem to work in some case is when you try to pen the file, you normally get a dialogue box with the option of opening the file or saving it. If opening does not work, try saving it somewhere on your computer and then opening it from your computer. This has met with some success.

The Master's Voice

Remembrance and public spaces at Wellington.  The Remembrance Service in Chapel and the ceremony in Front Quad that followed it (do please look at the photographs), the series of five music and readings by candlelight in front of the house rolls of honour in Great School, and the ceremony at 11am on 11th November, were deeply and profoundly moving.  I know that many parents do want to come on Remembrance Sunday, so from next year we will be having two services, one at 9.15am and one at 10.10am (details to follow next Michaelmas Term).  This should allow spaces for up to 600 parents to attend.  I am sure you will all find the Chapel service and readings, which included this year "In Flanders Fields", read by Daniela Dennahy, and "The White Cliffs of Dover", sung hauntingly by Emma Buckley, profoundly moving.  Needless to say, the behaviour of our 950 boys and girls throughout all these events was exemplary, and I find it hard to believe that there is a better behaved or more polite school in general anywhere than Wellington College.  It is what visitors to the College constantly say, most recently this week our friends Tyler and Marcia Tingley, until recently the headmaster of Phillips Exeter in New England, which is reckoned by many to be the greatest school in the world.  Ty commented on the incredible helpfulness and lack of arrogance amongst our pupil body.  They were hugely impressed.

The splitting of the Remembrance Service from next year follows the pattern of having two Carol Services in December, and also two Speech Day sittings in late May.  I have been told that to create 150 more seats in the West End of the Chapel would cost £8m, which clearly we cannot justify, but two-thirds of that sum will allow us to establish a performing arts centre with 1100 seats to accommodate the whole school in a new building down by the lakes, which will have wonderful vistas.  Seeing this building erected is a major objective of mine in the years ahead, and I'd love to hear from any parent at all who would like to help me see this happen.

PS The online auction in aid of our 150th anniversary charity Hope & Homes for Children went live this week. Thank you to those who have donated the wonderful prizes, and also to those who have started the bidding.  The auction  has already raised more than £4,000 but there is a still long way to go between now and the 1st December.  Do check out the auction website www.wellington150auction.org.uk.  There is a large and growing selection of  auction lots to suit every taste and pocket; the diverse range of work experience on offer will be of particular interest to 5th, L6th and U6th pupils. If you don't see everything you like, there is also a 'pledge' facility - no amount is too small and every donation makes a difference.

General Events

On Saturday 14th November, at 7:00 pm there is a  'Sing & Swing' gospel concert in the Chapel - tickets are available through Reception.

The WCA Master's London Walk takes place this Sunday 15th November.  We will meet opposite platform 19 at Waterloo Station at 10:00 am  for a walk through the London of Shakespeare and Dickens stopping for lunch at the River Lounge, St Katherine's Dock.  If you would like to join but have not yet booked, please email Denise Cook.  If you have booked but have not returned your lunch selection, please contact the restaurant directly on 020 7702 4588, quoting Wellington College Association. A copy of the itinerary can be found here.

Sunday 15th November sees a Full School Service of the Word in the Chapel at 8:00 pm to which the parents of the Benson are cordially invited - not the Hill as I wrongly stated last week.. The preacher is Mrs Ruth Bealing form Operation Child Rescue, Goa.

Tickets are now on sale for The Ragged Child, to be performed in the Wellington Theatre on the Tuesday 17th, Wedneday 18th, Thursday 19th,  Friday 20th and Saturday 21st November. The first musical production of this academic year, this show is directed and written by Jeremy James Taylor of the National Youth Music Theatre.  Tickets are priced at £7.50 for adults and £5.00 for students and can be ordered from boxoffice@wellingtoncollege.org.uk  Seating is allocated so please state clearly your name the date of the performance required.

There is a meeting of the Parents' Forum on Thursday 19th November. Information on the forum can be found here.

Apologies but the calendared event of  Thursday 19th November  "An Evening with Iain Duncan Smith, MP"  has been postponed. We will put up details when we have them of the new date.

On Friday 20th November between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm we are hosting  a conference on What do universities want from schools? This wide-ranging conference will bring leading figures from higher education together to discuss what universities really want from schools. Speakers will include senior admissions tutors from the universities of Cambridge, York, Bristol, and Southampton. There will also be presentations from the Fulbright Commission on why students should apply to US universities, as well Piers Dudgeon, the author of the Virgin Guide to British Universities, and Ralph Lucas, author of The Good Schools Guide; Nick Lee, the IB's university liaison officer will talk about how the IB Diploma is perceived by UK universities, and Tony Charlton, from UCAS, will discuss the changing curricula and the process of application. Programme and booking form on website.  Parents are welcome to attend at a 50% discounted rate of £50 each.  If you would like to attend please contact Tarla Woolhouse on 01344 444085 or email: tw@wellingtoncollege.org.uk

Also on Friday 20th of November, Guildhall School of Music & Drama will visit Wellington College for a brass masterclass; a concert will follow at 7.30pm in Old Gym. Tickets are £5 and are available on the night.

Sunday 22nd November sees our Confirmation Service to which friends and family of the confirmands are invited. The officiating bishop and preacher is the Reverend Bill Down, formerly Bishop of Bermuda.

Within the next few days all parents should receive correspondence from the College's Finance Office about the introduction of a facility to pay school fees by monthly Direct Debit. There is quite a tight deadline to achieve if you would like to start this for the Lent Term 2010 fees. Please complete and return the mandate form to Sally Clark, Fees Supervisor, to whom any queries should also be directed.

Within the next few days all parents should receive correspondence from the College's Finance Office about the introduction of a facility to pay school fees by monthly/termly Direct Debit. There is quite a tight deadline to achieve - return date Friday 27th November. If you would like to start this for the Lent Term 2010 fees, please complete and return the mandate form in the pre-paid envelope provided. Should you not receive this information by Thursday 19th November or have any queries regarding the Direct Debit Scheme, please contact Sally Clark, Fees Supervisor.

Mitchell Bursaries are Sixth Form Bursaries offered by the Mitchell City of London Charity and Educational Foundation. Every applicant must have a definite connection with the City of London, that is the applicant, or one of his or her parents, must have lived in the City of London for at least 5 years, or one of his or her parents must have worked in the City for at least 5 years. The London Postal Districts EC3 and EC4 lie almost entirely within the City. The southern portion of the EC2 district, the south-eastern corner of EC1 district, a very small part of the E1 district and a small part of Chancery Lane and Bell Yard WC2 are also in the City. All other postal districts are entirely outside the City. A Mitchell Bursary is for two years of Sixth Form study at any fee paying secondary school. Applicants must be recommended as suitable for a bursary and be expected by the school to do well in their GCSE examinations; parents of applicants are asked by the Clerk to the Foundation for particulars of their financial circumstances. All applications for a bursary require recommendation by the applicant's Headteacher.  Trustees have fixed the maximum value of the bursary for 2010/11 at £1,620 pa and will take into account any assistance received towards tuition fees. The bursary does not increase for the second year of the 6th Form. Application forms are available from the Bursar ( sm@wellingtoncollege.org.uk /  Tel:  01344 444020) and will need to be completed and returned to the school by Friday 11th December.

During the summer the Old Wellingtonian Cricket Club commissioned the internationally renowned cricketing artist Jocelyn Galsworthy to paint the scene of the 2009 Speech Day on Turf in order to commemorate the 150th anniversary of College. Indeed those of you who strolled around Turf on Speech Day may well have seen her at work. Her outstanding work is now complete and the original painting is now hanging in the Monro Sports Pavilion. n electronic copy can be seen to the right of this paragraph. The OWCC has commissioned a limited edition of 250 prints of the painting, each of which has been signed by the artist. These signed prints are on sale for £100. All profits from the sale of these prints will go towards the funding of cricket equipment at the new Wellington Academy. Jocelyn's presence on Speech Day resulted in a substantial amount of interest and the majority of the prints were sold before the painting was finished. However there are signed prints still available - if you would like to order one please e-mail Mark Milliken-Smith, Chairman of OWCC, as soon as possible at milli@haslemere.com.

Commissioned in Wellington's 150th year to celebrate the opening of the new Sports Pavilion, and to help raise funds for further Wellington developments, "Bigside" is available as a limited edition fine art print of 350. Playing downhill, Wellington are poised to score. In the distance, College proudly looks on, surrounded by glorious golden colours of autumn.  The artist Sophie Collier OW says "My aim was to paint something that Wellingtononian's everywhere could instantly connect to: a bright, cold November afternoon on Bigside seemed the perfect emblem I was looking for. " The prints are fine art quality, A1 in size and available unframed (£195) and framed (£450). 50% of any profits made will go to Wellington College Foundation. The original oil painting is available to view in the new Pavilion, where it was recently unveiled, and an example of the framed print can be seen in the College Shop. Sophie was a member of the Apsley from '96-'98, and it was during this time that her love of painting took hold. Upon leaving the school she studied Fine Art at Oxford University (St. Catherine's College), and after graduating immediately took up a post teaching in the Wellington Art Schools. Pretty soon afterwards she married Beresford Housemaster and English teacher Tim Head.  Subsequent success in her art business has meant that Sophie no longer teaches, but works full time from a studio on the College campus. Prints are available for immediate collection or postal dispatch. To purchase, please send a cheque made payable to "Wellington College" for £195 (unframed) or £450 (framed) to Sophie Head, Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire, RG45 7PU. Please also include contact details. If you'd like your print to be posted please add £5 for P&P. Prints are also available from the College Shop, and from the College website .

Duncan Christie-Miller, the Director of Christie-Miller Management Consultancy has offered to deliver a series of six workshops based on his company's very successful "Fifth Dynamic" Programme to enhance our 5th and 6th form pupils' leadership skills and employability. They will take place from 4.30 until 6.00 pm every Friday from Friday 22nd January until Friday 5th March. This course is free of charge, but future courses will cost £150. Pupils have been asked to apply for places. If you'd like more information on Christie-Miller, please visit the website.

A whole school photograph and the house photographs that were taken at the start of term are now available to view and order on line  To  view and order your own copy of these  pictures, go to the web address www.tspc-shop.co.uk/groups and then you need the following usernames and passwords - for the whole school photograph the username is welling and the password is 2009school and for the house photographs the user name is welling and the password is house2009.  After you log-in to the whole school photograph, click the 'add photographs' button on the left of the screen to enter the username and password that you have also been given for your House photographs. This makes it easier for you to see all of your pictures on one screen. You can zoom-in to see a close up of your pictures and click on various frame styles to see how they look. All prices include free delivery to a UK address (overseas delivery is also available). If there is a problem viewing the site please contact the company and not me!

We are still looking for the best solution for sending out the Week Ahead. This week again it has gone out the "old"way - I hope it has arrived with everyone safely. There have been several expressions of preference for this method. One thing you can do is to ensure that my address, rca@wellingtoncollege.org.uk is in your list of contacts if it is not already.

A polite request: could parents keep their dogs on leads and under control, throughout the College campus?  Many schools have banned dogs from games areas and we do not want to have to go this far and hope that we will not have to.

The Head of Educational Support is available for consultations on Saturdays from 12:00 pm until 4:00 pm.  Please contact Carole Blunden-Lee cjbl@wellingtoncollege.org.uk by e-mail if you would like to see her then.

Letters Home

To try and cut down on the amount of paper we send out and to try and not bombard parents with large numbers of posting, e-mails and information generally, we plan to use this section of the Week Ahead to include letters we would normally send out - either electronically or by post. If there are parents who would still rather receive everything on paper, please e-mail the College Secretary. We still anticipate sending out paper copies  of reports, bills and the Master's letters. To open some of these letters you will need to log on to the intranet as the page they are saved on is only viewable to those in the Wellington community. Do contact me if you need the password - details are further up  in this Week Ahead. All letters home of this sort are stored here . If for any reason you want to see a back copy of the Week Ahead they are all available on the internet.

Sport

Here are some images from our house Rugby competition of last weekend - won by the Hardinge. If you do have any good images relevant to Wellington, do please e-mail them to me if you are happy to share them.

Saturday 14th November sees more netball action at St. Georgre's Ascot, a block rugby fixture with Bedford (and other games against Lord Wandsworth) and a block hockey fixture against Canford. In addition the golf team take on Oxford University.

On Tuesday 17th November one of our hockey teams travel to Sevenoaks whilst on Thursday 19th November the shooting team welcome Marlborough, the rackets team travel to Radley, the squash team welocme Winchester and the badminton team welcome Abingdon.

Saturday 21st November sees a hockey fixture with Hurstpierpoint, a rugby fixture with Epsom (with additional games against Berkhamstead and Brighton College) lacrosse against Marlborough and the shooting team take on AWRE - hopefully with rifles.

Details of the matches can be found on the intranet.

Further Ahead

In the coming weeks, the following events are scheduled by the Music Department:
Wednesday 25th November, 8:00pm: Concert for the Duke of Kent in Old Hall
Thursday 26th November, 8:00 pm: Songwriters' concert in the V&A
Saturday 28th November, 7:30 pm: Crowthorne Choral Society concert in the Chapel
Sunday 6th December, 8:00 pm: Advent Procession With Carols in the Chapel
Sunday13th December, 8:00 pm: Community Carols in the Chapel
Tuesday 15th December, 7:30 pm: Christmas Jazz Concert in the V&A

The Remus Azoitei violin masterclass scheduled on Tuesday 24th November has, unfortunately, been cancelled,

There will be a concert in Old Hall on Wednesday 25th November when the Duke of Kent visits Wellington College. A limited number of tickets are available through the Music Office.

For further information about the Music Department or music events, please make contact with Katrina Butt (Music Administrator) via phone (01344 444201) or email.

The Lower Sixth Parents' Conference is Friday 27th November. A copy of the letter with details about it can be found here. This is a pdf file and on some computers - particularly macs - you might be better to save it and then open it rather than try to open it directly.

If you are attending the Shaken and Stirred Ball  to mark the grand finale of the 150th Anniversary celebrations on Friday 27th November, you might like to stay at the Hilton St Anne's Manor in Wokingham, a short taxi ride away.  For preferential B&B rates please contact Daniel Luk on 01256 316950, quoting St Anne's Manor/AWELA.  If you are a Lower Sixth Parent and you would like to use our changing facilities after the parents' conference, please contact Steve Blosse.  .

On Saturday 28 November in the Wellington College Chapel at 7.30pm, Crowthorne Choral Society is to perform Haydn's Great Organ Mass, Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer,Finzi's Lo the Full final Sacrifice and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus for BBC Children in Need. Tickets are £10 for adults and £2 for students and can be purchsed in advance from 01344 778185.

Wellington Squared is a new partnership between Wellington College and Intelligence Squared, the world's leading forum for debate. We'll be bringing the greatest authorities to Wellington to battle it out over the crucial issues of the day and you'll get the chance to cast your vote at the end of the evening. Our first debate is 'Atheism is the new fundamentalism' on Sunday 29th November.  Doors open at 6:00 pm and the debate will start at 7:00 pm. Does God exist? Has atheism replaced religion as the faith of the secular age? Are the new atheists as blinkered and dogmatic as they claim religious believers to be? Speakers for the motion are Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford (and OW!), and Charles Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator. Speakers against the motion are Richard Dawkins, Professor Emeritus at Oxford University and best-selling author of 'The God Delusion' and A C Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at the University of London. The debate will be chaired by the Master.

You will have read that Hope and Homes for Children is the charity we are supporting for our 150th celebrations. They host a Carol Conceert annually and this year have written the following "Our Carol Concert is a very important annual event as it gives us great pleasure to be able to thank you personally for your support and look back on all that we have achieved together over the last year. Without you, our work to transform the lives of vulnerable children simply would not be possible. Each year we try to give the concert a slightly different flavour, but we know how difficult it is to please everyone. However, we are confident that this year we will! You will be greeted on arrival by a brass ensemble from The Royal College of Music and twenty young children from the famous London Suzuki group will be performing during the concert. Dame Eileen Atkins gave a hilarious reading last year and we are thrilled that she has agreed to read again this year. Wellington College was founded by Queen Victoria for orphans of war 150 years ago. As a truly remarkable act of celebration the College is seeking to raise £150,000 for our work with orphans of war today. Dr Anthony Seldon, the Master, has kindly agreed to talk during the concert and the College choir will lead us in singing some traditional carols.This year an enthusiastic volunteer committee has worked hard to assist us make the 2009 concert even more special." The event is on Wednesday 2nd December at 7:00 pm in St. Mary Abbots Church, Kensington. If you are interested in attending, an application form can be found here. The image shows the steeple of St Mary's with a statue of Queen Victoria in the foreground - an apt juxtaposition in this our 150th year!

Building on the support and success of the Macmillan Coffee Mornings, we will be holding a Christmas Fair in the V & A on Saturday  5th December.  Doors open from 10:00 am to 5;00 pm, we have a variety of stalls that promise to deliver unique and different gifts for those special Christmas presents. All welcome, family and friends, please come and support the event and we hope, purchase a few gifts. There will be something for everyone and it is a wonderful way to meet other members of the College community in comfortable surroundings.  Perhaps this could be linked into having a pre-match lunch in school?  Proceeds will be divided between Hope & Homes  and The Angels Charity. If you want any more information, please contact Steve Blosse.

Contact us

This newsletter and past editions are on the Wellington College website as is a version of the school calendar with details of all activities going on at Wellington for the rest of this term.
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