The week ahead
Saturday 19th May until Sunday 27th May
General Events
The Lower Sixth will be out of school after lessons on Saturday 19th May and return to teaching on Monday 11th June whilst they sit their AS levels. The Fifth Form will be out of school after lessons on Friday 25th May attending Speech Day the day thereafter and will be on study leave for the rest of this term. The Upper Sixth will be on study leave after lessons on Saturday 9th June. For all year groups, pupils are expected to remain at Wellington for study leave as their teachers and the full academic facilities will be available for them to take advantage of during their final stages of revision and preparation for these important exams.
On Sunday 20th May, there is a full school Service of the Word at which the preacher is the Master. Parents of the Apsley are warmly invited.
On the evening of Thursday 24th May, all are warmly invited to a Preview Opening between 7:00 p.m. and 9.00pm in the Driver Committee Room to celebrate the work of our Textiles Artist-in-residence Carly Gledhill.
On the Eve of Speech Day on Friday 25th May, you can preview the Art School Exhibition, Textiles, and Driver Rooms Exhibitions from 6.00 p.m. - 8.00 p.m. The Art School is showing a selection of GCSE, LVI and VI Formers' paintings, prints and sculpture. VI Form highlights include Archie Wardlaw's figurative drawings, Tess Redburn's constellations, Giles Welford's striped variations, ChristianTaylor and Duncan Smith's media installations, HugoTait's photorealism - just to name a few from the huge diversity of the pupils' works. The Textiles Exhibition includes everything from fashion to soft sculpture and wall pieces. In the Driver Conference Room Rupert Froud, has a 'Wellington retrospective' Exhibition of his abstract and colour field paintings. Adjacent, Carly Gledhill has filled the Driver Committee Room with samples, exhibition pieces - all the things that have been such an inspiration to students this year.
Also on the Eve of Speech Day there is a Product Design Exhibition. The work of the A2, AS and GCSE Design Technology Students will be exhibited in the Design and Technology department. Students have to identify a marketable product that fulfils a need, they must research, develop ideas against a specification and plan the manufacture of a working prototype before realising their design. The exhibition demonstrates the full range of the pupils ability, imagination and innovation. both of these exhibitions will also be open on Speech Day.
Why not start off your Speech Day celebrations on Friday 25th May at the Eve of Speech Day Jazz Event beginning at 7.30 p.m. in the Combermere Quad. Fingers crossed for fine weather to enjoy the Wellington Big Band, the www.blues (Wellington Wednesday Workshop Blues) and soloists under the direction of Michael L Roberts, our Head of Jazz Studies. There will be a bar - and excellent fish and chips will be on sale in the Dining Hall. If we are unlucky with the weather, the whole event will take place in Dining Hall. You may wish to bring a folding chair.
Speech Day is on Saturday, 26th May and a copy of the programme can be found here. The prize-giving, presided over by the Duke of Kent and attended by the Duke of Wellington, is a popular event in the school calendar and as expected is over-subscribed. Tickets for the prize-giving will be sent out with the students via HMs in the run up to Speech Day. We will endeavour to fit as many people in as possible. We apologize that the tickets cannot be distributed earlier but we have to wait until all the prize-winners are known and also apologize to those who may be disappointed and not get tickets. Obviously we'd be grateful for any tickets you are not going to use to be returned via HMs. PLEASE NOTE THAT OTHER THAN CURRENT PUPILS OF WELLINGTON COLLEGE AND THOSE PARENTS WHO HAVE THEMSELVES BEEN ALLOCATED TICKETS, ADMISSION IS BY TICKET ONLY. Prize Giving will start at 10.30 a.m. and end at 12:10 p.m. Guests and pupils are requested to be seated by 10.15 a.m. Blue ticket holders should enter by the Foyer entrance. Red ticket holders should enter by the North Entrance of Newsome Sports Hall. Please see reverse of tickets. Parents who have been issued tickets for the gallery should enter by the foyer. For those parents who are new to Wellington, please note that the dress code for prize giving is jacket and tie for gentlemen.Drinks in Houses will follow the prize giving after which there will be the opportunity to enjoy a picnic lunch around the Turf cricket pitch. The day ends with the Master's Callover at 4:00 p.m. and this marks the start of the Exeat. If you have any queries, please contact Tarla Woolhouse.
After Speech Day there will be a lot of recyclable material (aka litter) around. May we ask parents and pupils to take home with them everything that is recyclable and not simply leave it at College. We are trying to go beyond the longstanding 'Keep Britain Tidy' catchphrase, and return to the vital value of 'Waste Not, Want Not'. Pupils have made terrific improvements in recycling in-House, and it would be first rate to make Speech Day a big success in this respect as well.
In trying to improve communication between home and school, you can now access the school intranet from outside school. Its address is https://intranet.wellingtoncollege.org.uk. Note the S in https ! This is a SECURE website, because you may be logging on or filling in forms. To begin with, you will only see 'public' pages. You should see a LOGIN link near the top of the screen. By clicking it, the computer will check who you are and will try to give you access to more pages - ones which are password protected. Because you are at home, the computer cannot check who you are, therefore it will ask you for your details. Staff and pupils at Wellington should use their own college username and password. We have supplied a username and password for parents. The username is Victoria and the password is the name of the person on the plaque outside the RITS. You have to type this name in CAPITALS. Your son or daughter will be able to find out this name if they don't know but if we gave it out in this newsletter, then it would not be secure! When you click on the login button, you will be challenged for a username and password. If you see two boxes, please type COLLEGE and a back slash prior to your user name. If you see three boxes, please type COLLEGE into the third (Domain) box instead. This information will go on the intranet as a reminder, on this page.
Sport
On Saturday 19th May, the cricketers play Cranleigh, the athletics team compete in the Duke's Trophy Triathlon, the girls' tennis teams play Sevenoaks whilst the boys' tennis teams play a variety of schools, the swimming team swim against Cranleigh, the shooters take part in the Sawyer Cup and the sailing team compete in the Southern Regatta. The match teas are in the Lodge. The laburnum walk on the college side of the Lodge garden is particularly impressive at the present and the Master recommends all who can on Saturday to walk it!
On Tuesday 22nd May, our golf team travel to Charterhouse whilst onThursday 24th May, our sailing team take on Charterhouse and Winchester, the swimming team take on Bradfield, the golf team compete with Marlborough and the polo team play Harrow.
This link will take you to the Wellington intranet where details of cricket sports' fixtures (team lists, pitch details, etc) can be found. For other sports click here and select sports from the menu at the top of the page. This then offers you the choice of sports available. To keep overall track on how the teams are doing click here for cricket.
Further Ahead
On Sunday June 10th, we are organising a "London Walk". The route will start at Waterloo Station at 10:30 a.m. and will go along the South Bank to Tower Bridge and then cut up into the city past the Tower. We then work westwards, past Covent Garden to Apsley House, finishing by walking through the parliament area back to Waterloo. The routes is almost 12 miles long and should take four hours of actual walking. We will use the 9:17 a.m train from Martin's Heron to go up to and return from London. Any London based parents who want to take part can meet up along the way. Hopefully it will provide an occasion to get to know some other parents as well as seeing some of the corners of London that have perhaps passed us by. A proforma can be found here and anyone who is interested in joining the walk should fill it in and return it to me.
The Wellington College Summer Proms (formerly know as the Summer Music and Fireworks Spectacular) will take place in college on Saturday 16th June. A flyer with details of the evening was sent to all parents at the end of last term - tickets are now on sale. Please support this as we hope to raise a large sum of money for both local and national charities. Further details available by phoning 01344 751751, visiting www.wellingtoncollege.org.uk/events or directly from Eddy Heddon.
On Friday 29th June, for the Upper Sixth form parents and pupils, we are holding a Graduation event that comprises a service, a graduation ceremony, a champagne reception with HMs,a dinner and a ball. The event will start at 2:00 p.m. and will end at midnight. All Upper Sixth Form parents have received full details; if you want another copy, click here for the file. The deadline for buying tickets for the champagne reception, dinner and ball is today - Friday 18th May! If you have not yet done so, please make your booking as soon as possible to guarantee a ticket. Some clarification - you will need to buy a ticket for the champagne reception, dinner and ball for your son or daughter and there is a maximum of three tickets per family. Also I would remind you that a nominated adult has to accompany any leaver who wishes to attend the dinner and ball should parents or guardians not be able to attend..