christmas term 2012 – issue 67 dreams come...

N e w s l e t t e rChristmas Term 2012 – Issue 67

FARNBOROUGH HILLE D U C A T I N G T H E W H O L E P E R S O N

Dreams come true!There was a real air of excitement at school when we welcomed back Old Girl, Alex Danson, a member of the Team GB hockey squad that won Bronze medals at the London Olympics. Alex left Farnborough Hill after her A level studies in 2003 and has been a frequent visitor since then, presenting the prizes at last year’s Prize Giving and visiting in July before her Olympic campaign, when she promised to return if she won a medal! Alex gave an inspirational talk in which she appealed to the girls to work hard to achieve their dreams and described her experience of the Olympics as ‘the most incredible time’. We saw lots of pictures of the Farnborough Hill teddy which had gone everywhere with her as a good luck mascot. Alex’s proudest moment was winning the bronze medal which she describes as ‘the most beautiful thing I own.’

Alex with members of the Sixth Form radio team after her interview on F’Hill radio

Prize Giving is always eagerly anticipated and celebrates not only our outstanding academic results, but also our many other successes. In her report, Mrs Buckle thanked everyone involved with the school for making it such a very special place. Our Guest of Honour, leading Catholic writer and journalist, Cristina Odone, gave a very interesting and relevant address which challenged the girls to think about careerism, tokenism and look-ism (see website). Anna McManus (Deputy Head Girl) helped her to distribute the prizes. entertainment was provided by the senior Choir with beautiful and enthusiastic renditions of ‘Hallelujah’ by leonard Cohen and ‘Gonna rise Up singin’ by Don Besig. Head Girl, Darcy Young, concluded the presentations with courtesy as she gave an engaging, and humorous, vote of thanks. this was followed by an impressive organ solo from Rebecca Tyler before everyone retired for refreshments and reunions.

Alex’s ambition in the 2001 Yearbook

Nina Perkins and Freya Kennedy decorating our beautiful Christmas tree in the Grand Salon.


Engineers from BAE Systems, a global engineering company, talked to students from Years 11 – 13 about careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects. This inspirational session gave the students an overview of the technologies being developed by BAE Systems and an insight into future technology.

The humble ukulele, a member of the guitar family with only four strings, has become a celebrity thanks to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain playing recent hits such as ‘Hey Soul Sister’. A Year 9 music workshop gave the girls an introduction to the instrument. Their performance in assembly then inspired many more to try our multi-coloured ‘Ukes’ (kindly donated by FOFH) at lunchtime sessions led by guitar teacher Richard Veitch.

We were very lucky to secure a visit from celebrated children’s author, Caroline Lawrence, who wrote the popular ‘Roman Mysteries’ series. The Junior Book Club held a hot chocolate and cookies discussion session at break time, before girls in Year 8 were treated to workshops. During lunchtime everyone had the opportunity to attend Caroline’s enthralling talk on the theme of ‘The Hunger Games’. The girls agreed that meeting one of their favourite authors was an amazing opportunity.

The view that Science is ‘just for boys’ was definitely undermined when Dr Ranjan Baker presented her talk, ‘Tipping Green: growing cars and things...’. Dr Baker gave an interesting and illuminating talk to students from Year 10 upwards about society’s addiction to energy and addressed what might happen when our supplies run out.

Think Tank talks... challenging and fun!

Sixth Form and Year 11 linguists welcomed a visitor from GCHQ, who outlined the work of the Intelligence Services (MI5, MI6 and GCHQ) stressing the importance of studying both modern and classical languages at a high level. There followed a Russian workshop (pictured above). This event left the girls in no doubt that a career as a GCHQ linguist is both challenging and extremely fulfilling.

Freelance Journalist, Rachel Carlyle, gave a well-attended and illustrated talk giving an insight into the profession.She followed this with a journalistic writing workshop for the Sixth Form.

L to R: Catherine Clifton, Mrs Macey, Dr Baker, Miss Turner, Aila Patidar and Chloe Sargent.

Christmas Term 2012 – Issue 67N e w s l e t t e r

The 2013 Farnborough Hill Calendar has proved to be very popular, featuring unusual shots of our photogenic school along with some stunning pieces of our girls’ art work. The Calendar costs £10 with £5 going to Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice in Farnham and can still be ordered into the New Year via the school website.

Community Feast Day was a lovely celebration of the sisters’ dedication to their vocation. the girls made cards for the sisters (pictured below) who gave everyone chocolates! we had the privilege of witnessing the sisters renew their vows during Mass. the lower sixth shared in the celebrations by entertaining the sisters and enjoying tea with them at lafosse.

Gold Award for Groundswe are all very proud of the magnificent school grounds, which very much enhance the educational provision enjoyed by the girls; therefore, it seemed a just reward when Farnborough Hill was awarded Gold and Category winner for the Best Commercial Display / landscaping in 2012. rushmoor Borough Council judges admired the impressive Millennium lawn, where the borders and beds were transformed into a colourful display to represent the five Olympic rings, the patriotic ‘Jubilee Border’ and the peaceful oriental planting in the new st Joseph’s Courtyard.

Community Feast Day

Sister Hawkins with (l to r) Mrs Nelson, Mrs Buckle and Miss Ferguson

In September staff raised a record £500 for their annual contribution to MacMillan’s

World’s Biggest Coffee Morning.

For Remembrance Day, students and staff went into Chapel at lunchtime to pray, light a candle for a loved one, place a poppy or write in the Book of Remembrance. The beautiful new altar cloth was designed by art teacher, Mrs Bond, with input from the whole school community.

remembrance Day

Sixth Form physicists

take a trip to CERN, the

European Organisation

for Nuclear Research, to

learn about the explosive

world of particle

physics and the Large

Hadron Collider.

Mrs Buckle with t

he

Sixth For

m Scholars..

.

many more s

cholarshi

ps

were awarded th

is year

following t

he fantast

ic

A* achiev

ements at

GCSE.

Our Expedition to Tanzania: • climbed the highest freestanding mountain in the world – Mount Kilimanjaro

• helped young Maasai women via volunteer work

• raised over £3000 for the ‘Heshima’ nursery project for Maasai children.

Farnborough Hill bucks

the trend – girls do

study physics! Well

over 50% of the Sixth

Form follow at least

one of the three

sciences.

Children from

St Bernadette’s Primary

School were awarded

runner up prizes in the

international Minimus

Mythology Competition

after being taught by Fran

Pipkin and Lucy Chisnall

in the Minumus Latin Club.

What an achievement!

Excellent conference called the ‘Big Think’ with keynote speakers Matthew Syed, Nina Ramirez and Professor Susan Greenfield. Stimulating and thought provoking – excellent university preparation. ‘Sixth form on the

hill’ students’ team-building day. Fun and laughter in the sunshine!

Eagle Radio course• met and interviewed

presenters

• sat in during a live show

• learnt to ‘drive the desk’

• received training from a voice-over professional

Keeping the politician

s

in order! Football

referee, Paloma Vince,

ran the line alongsid

e

Jeremy Hunt MP, when

Conservative Party MPs

played the House of

Commons Press Lobby

in Birmingham.

Many of us worked with mentally and physically disabled children at Parkside in Aldershot. Rebecca Tyler said, ‘It’s a brilliant feeling to know that you’ve made a child smile and laugh and forget everything just for a while.’


Lucky Year 8 student, Catherine Evans-Wiggins, received a birthday surprise when Eagle Radio presenter, Sky, arrived at the family home in her colourful Eagle Radio Crew Ride car to present a live Breakfast Show broadcast and to chauffeur Catherine and two friends, Emily Shead and Elizabeth Squibbs, to school.

the Fisher House Quiz, run by Mrs winch-Johnson and her House Captains, Laura Thrower and Grace Phelan, was a brilliant way to start half term. students from Years 7–10 loved the observation round film based on the tV series, ‘Friends’, starring Farnborough Hill’s fun-loving teachers. Another highlight was Mr waymark disguised as ‘Mr toothpaste’! Congratulations to Fisher House for organising the event and for being worthy winners.

Male members of staff showed their support for the Movember initiative in Assembly as Mrs Buckle talked to the girls to raise awareness of men’s health issues.

New Staff

Welcome to new teachers (pictured l to r): Miss Woodruff (Classics, History), Miss White (French and Spanish), Miss Ferguson (RE, English), Mr Haddock (Psychology), Miss Ellender (PE), Miss Turner (Biology and Chemistry) and Mrs Barker (Maths).

Girls dressed up in all sorts of national costumes on the European Day of Languages.

Surprise from Eagle Radio


Farnborough Hill was pleased to share the beautiful school grounds with the local

community by hosting the Junior Schools’ Cross-Country League, an annual competition

for girls and boys in Years 5 & 6.

Undeterred by a rain drenched practice expedition earlier in the term, 55 enthusiastic and well prepared Year 10 girls assembled on a sunny morning in the beautiful Surrey Hills to take part in their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze assessed expedition. Each group completed the final challenging climb and returned to base tired, relieved and justly proud of their achievement!

Providence Cowdrill has made great strides in two rather less well known girls’ sports: cricket and ultimate frisbee. Providence was selected to represent Hampshire in both the U13 and U15 girls’ cricket teams and the national U17 and U20 ultimate frisbee teams – an outstanding achievement!

Musical soirée

EXCITING NEW BUILD

Farnborough Hill sportswomen, Madeleine Herbert and Natasha Stevens, made the news recently with outstanding performances in

judo, leading to selection for national judo squads.

the Grand salon was filled to capacity as friends and family supported a talented and versatile group of musicians at this term’s Musical soirée. the audience was treated to an Italian operaratic aria sung by Anna Jones; a piano composition ‘the Ballerina’, written and performed by Suzannah Moss; and a salon piece by Offenbach, performed by Rebecca Tyler, Lauren Enright and Saskia Tyler (to name but a few). It was a great evening!

The Music Suite gets under way in February. We will have to be patient until it is completed in all its glory in December!

PARENTS’ DIARY 2013E A S T E R T E R M4 Jan entrance examination

7 Jan Full school Day for all

10 Jan Year 10 students’ and Parents’ evening – 10A & 10B

17 Jan Year 10 students’ and Parents’ evening - 10α & 10ω

21 Jan Year 11 retreat





7 Feb Year 8 Parents’ evening 8A & 8B

8 Feb Open Afternoon for Prospective Parents

Friends of Farnborough Hill Valentine Disco for Year 7 & Year 8

11 Feb Year 8 Parents’ evening 8α & 8ω

13 Feb Fundraising Concert for senior Choir tour

14 Feb Introduction to GCse evening for Year 9 Parents

15 Feb House Music and Dance Competition

Half term begins

25 Feb Half term ends

28 Feb Year 9 Parents’ evening – 9A & 9B

4 Mar Year 9 Parents’ evening - 9α & 9ω

11 Mar evening Performance of ‘Canterbury riders’



18 Mar Higher education evening for lVI students and Parents

19 Mar House Fashion show

Gym and Dance Display

20 – 21 Upper sixth retreat (followed by Mar sleepover in school for all sixth Form)

22 Mar Progress reports – lower sixth and Upper sixth

easter service

term ends


S P O R T S R O U N D U P

Cross Country

Winning Streak!The U15 and U17 teams both finished 1st in the District Schools Cross-Country Championships. A number of our runners will now represent Aldershot District Schools Athletics Association at the Hampshire Championships in January. Good luck girls!

Hockey

Year 8 & 9 hockey players finished the U14 Hampshire Hockey trophy as tournament runners-up. the Farnborough Hill team played seven matches and lost only once to the eventual winners. this was an excellent team performance with Farnborough Hill achieving the best goal difference and scoring more goals than any other team.

Netball

Year 8 and 9 netball players travelled to shrewsbury for the first ever GSA Netball Tournament. twenty-four GsA schools attended and both our Year 8 and 9 teams qualified for the ‘Cup tournament’, with Year 9 winning the final. special congratulations to Connie wemyss who also won the prestigious ‘sonia Mkloma Player of the tournament’ award. the girls are pictured (below left) with former england netball players, sonia Mkloma and Amanda Newton.

In the District Netball Tournament, the Year 11 team (pictured below) won all their matches and held on to their title of District Champions. well done, girls!

christmas term 2012 – issue 67 dreams come...

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