The week ahead
Friday 4th May until Sunday 13th May
General Events
First of all apologies to those parents who tried to e-mail Wellington on Wednesday of this week as the e-mail was out of action. We hope you were not greatly inconvenienced.
The service at St Paul's is on Friday 4th May. For those of you with tickets - all tickets have now gone - we look forward to seeing you there. Details can be found on the website or here. Please be seated in the Cathedral by 2:15 p.m. at the very latest. There will not be an opportunity for you to catch up with your son or daughter before the service. After the service those of you who are meeting your son or daughter should do so outside the North Transept door. For those parents who are not going to St Paul's and are collecting their son or daughter from Wellington, we advise that you can expect to meet up at 6:30 p.m., London Bank Holiday Friday traffic permitting! There will be some light refreshments available in Great School if you have to wait.
For obvious logistical reasons we are recommending that pupils only take bags to St Paul's if absolutely necessary. Could you please liaise with your son or daughter to ensure that unnecessary bags are not taken to St Paul's? If bags are being taken to St Paul's it is essential that Housemasters or Housemistresses are made aware in each individual case. The weekend itself is a weekend leave although boardingpupils are expected back on the evening of Sunday 6th May as Monday 7th May is a normal school day - even though it is a Bank Holiday.
On Tuesday8th May there will be an Economics and Business Studies Society Meeting in Great School at 6:00 p.m. The theme of the evening is 'Working in the City' and a number of O.W.'s will be addressing the meeting on their experiences of work and life in the city. The meeting is open to everyonewith 5th formers intending to study Business Studies or Economics especially encouraged to attend.
Wednesday 9th May sees the C.C.F. Biennial Inspection parade at 2:00 p.m. on South Front. - the review of the parade is by the Inspecting Officer (Capt. N. Dedman R.N.) and will last for approximately 25 minutes. Later the Field Gun team and Drum Corps display on Armoury Field at 4:15 p.m. and at 5:00 p.m. the Red Devils Parachute display team will drop onto the golf course. Parents of cadets are welcome to visitany of these events but are asked to contact the C.O., Eddy Heddon, if they wish to do so.
Please come along to the play 'Confusions' by Alan Ayckbourn (I confess to the confusion in the title in the calendar....) It's being performed on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th May at 8:00 p.m. The play is based in the Theatre but some of it will be performed outdoors sothose attending areadvised to bring warm clothes. Seats are very limitedso booking a seat will be essential - this can be done through Rob White.
Six finalists will compete for the prestigious Montgomery Recital Prize in the Old Gym on Friday 11th May commencing at 8:00 p.m. adjudicated by Peter Hewitt from the Royal College of Music. Amy Tress, Claire Sledd and Katie Jillings will present their solo recital programmes on violin, Dongsu Kim and Diana von Feury on piano and Toby Ranger will present a recital of songs. The Montgomery, one of the highlights of the musical year at Wellington, always produces music of the highest standard and the atmosphere is highly charged - please try to come along.
On Sunday 13th May, there is a full schoolService of the Wordat which the preacher is the Master. Parents of the Talbot are warmly invited.
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. Youshould 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.
As many of you will know Sam Gutteridge, the Head of Year of the Third Form, is serving in Iraq with the Territorial Army at present. John Arton-Powell has now taken over this role in Sam's absence andJohn should becontacted about issues relating to the Third Form.
Afteralmost tenyears at Wellington as Bursar, Martin Sherwin isleavingfor his well-earned retirement this week. His replacement is Susan Meikle, whose last post was Bursar at King's Canterbury, and she can be e-mailed onbursar@wellingtoncollege.org.uk or phoned on 01344 444020.
Sport
On Tuesday 8th May, the girls' cricket team play St. Mary's as do the junior rounders team and the clay pigeon shooting teamcompete against Marlborough at Barbury.
Thursday 10th May sees our tennis teams play Harrow, the swimming team take on Eton, the golf team travel to Kent and the sailing team sail against Bradfield.
On Saturday 12th May, the cricket sides play Harrow, the athletics teams compete at Eton, the senior tennis team play in the Public Schools league whilst the other tennis teams take onWinchester as do the swimmers. Finally the sailing team take on the might of the O.W.s and the C.C.F. competes at the Windsor Horse Show Jumping competition.
This link will take you to the Wellington intranet where details ofcricket sports' fixtures (team lists, pitch details, etc) can be found. Forother 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 herefor cricket.
Further Ahead
On Wednesday 16th May, the Schools' Liaison Officer for the Army is visiting Wellington. Further details can be foundhere and anyone who is interested in their son or daughter meeting himis asked to e-mail Eddy Heddon.
Friday 25th May sees the "Eve of Speech Day" jazzconcert in the Combermere Quad at 7:30 p.m. The Big Band and jazz ensembles play under Michael Roberts' directionas does the Concert Band under Jeff Oakes. Fish and chips are available as is a bar.
There is also the Summer Ball on Friday 25th May. There are still a few available.Details can be found here and a booking form is here. For further details contact Reena Priceor phone 01628 622355.
Speech Day is on Saturday 26th May and tickets are now over subscribed. Those people who have already applied and have not yet heard back will be notified of the allocation by the middle of next week.
On Sunday June 10th, we are organising a "London Walk". The precise route is still to be finalised ( I am walking one of the routes this weekend to see how it works!) but will involve a walk of about twelve to fifteen miles either on the Thames path or in central London. We will use the train to go up to and return from London and any London based parents can meet up along the way.We will almost certainly use the 9:17 a.m. train from Martin's Heron that takes just over an hour to get into town. 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. Some parents have already expressed interest and if there are any others, could they please e-mail 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 planninga Graduation event that comprises a service, a graduation ceremony, drinks with HMs,a dinner and a ball. The event is likely to start at 2:00 p.m. and will end at midnight. All Upper Sixth Form parents should now have received full details. If you want another copy, click here for the file. Some clarification - you will need to buy a ticket for the 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 parent or guardian has to accompany any leaver who wishes to attend the dinner and ball.
Towards the end of the term, the GCSE candidates finish their exams before the end of term. We then offer them a range of options. You will be getting a paper copy of the details in the post but there is an electronic copy availablehere. We ask for your reply by the end of the first Leave Out - i.e. now!