issue o 173 weekly ewsletter from the headmaster www ...€¦ · course if you do not want this...

Weekly Newsletter from the Headmaster www.shebbearcollege.co.uk

6th July 2018Issue No 173

Dear Parents,

The school campus is quiet today. Hardly a person in sight.

This has been a hectic week. It began with the First XI achieving a notable victory on Monday against the MCC - the Year Six pupils v parents match was a much closer affair.

On Tuesday the Sixth Form put on their finery and enjoyed the Rounsefell Dinner at Hallsannery in Bideford. After a few tense moments watching the penalty shoot out everyone was able to dance the night away to Mr Oxenham’s band Rushwood.

On Wednesday we held our first bespoke prizegiving for the Prep School and this was followed by a celebration of Mrs Goode’s thirty four years at Shebbear and yesterday, of course, was Speech Day.

A superb week to finish the year. We will see everyone in September when no doubt England will hold the World Cup at Football, Brexit will be sorted out and we will have enjoyed the hottest summer in living memory. Enjoy the holidays.

Simon Weale

Our First XI achieved a notable victory against the MCC this week.



Prep School NewsThese last few days of the school year have afforded us the opportunity to say our congratulations to the children, for all of their hard work throughout the year. Pre-School enjoyed a trip to Launceston railway, Years 1 and 2 to The Milky Way and Year 6 received a good soaking at Crealy, courtesy of Mrs Kirby and Mr Allen.



The Year 6 leavers’ picnic and cricket match took place on Monday evening. These children have been an outstanding group of role models for the Prep School and will be greatly missed. They enjoyed a very luxurious picnic and then followed this up by defeating the parents and staff combined team, by three runs.

Our first Prep School Speech Day was held on Wednesday afternoon, and we enjoyed some outstanding singing, from Years 3-6, with a song from the recent production ‘What a Knight’, from Years 1 and 2, the choir and a solo performance from Savanah. Sebastian played a piece on the piano, showing how he has recently achieved his Grade 4 award, and Willow recited her winning poem from the Year 6 competition earlier in the year. Fin and Demelza spoke with great confidence and a special mention must also go to our Pre-School Reception children, who sat beautifully throughout, before collected their prizes.

This was also an opportunity to celebrate Mrs Goode’s wonderful contribution to Shebbear life, and the children’s comments song ‘Thank you for the Music’, seemed so appropriate. The celebration party afterwards was a great success, not least due to the hard work and organisation by Mrs Laura Twomey - our thanks. We have also said goodbye to Mr Allen this week, as he has completed the final elements of his teacher training with us this term. He has secured a teaching post in Somerset for September, and he surely has an exciting career ahead.

I hope you enjoy a very good break over the summer with your families - and all the luck in the world to our Prep leavers. Don’t forget to come back and visit.

Matthew Foale

A Thank You from Mrs GoodeMy last few days at Shebbear College have been truly amazing and overwhelming. It was a privilege to be invited to the Roundsfell Dinner on Tuesday evening where I sat with pupils who had been in my class ten years ago, and to see how they had blossomed into such clever and beautiful young people.

At the Prep School Speech day on Wednesday I was presented with lovely gifts, flowers and a leavers book from the pupils. The gifts were two gorgeous china miniature dachshunds, just like the four real ones I have at home, and the book contained a picture and writing from every pupil, something that I will read and re-read for a long time to come - their comments and observations are astonishingly accurate!

Following this a Drinks Party and Leaving Presentation was held to which many past and present colleagues, parents and pupils were invited, some of whom hadn’t been back to the College since they left 20 years ago - it was absolutely wonderful to see so many friends from my years at the College.

Some extremely kind words were said in speeches - were they really talking about me? - and I was then presented with a lovely wooden garden bench complete with plaque saying, ‘Thank you for everything! From the children and parents of Shebbear College’, a lovely patio rose bush in an attractive tub from the Friends of Shebbear College, as well as numerous other gifts and cards from those present. Some of the money I’ve been given is going to be spent on a pamper day, something which I’ve never had! Any remaining monies will be donated to a couple who are personally known to me, who are working with the street children in Guatemala (www.streetkidsdirect.org.uk). These children constantly find themselves in life-threatening situations and are exploited by ruthless gangs.

Thank you so much for all the cards, gifts and kind words - I’m totally



the marking stations using given maps. This was electronically timed and the majority of the teams entered into the competitive spirit to try to be the fastest for each challenge set. Special mention should be given to James and Emily who completed the three butterfly courses and then completed the ‘Grand Challenge’ in a very fast time; alas they didn’t quite match the time achieved by the staff team led by Mr Steele (Some might say that some members of the staff team had the advantage of having completed the course in previous years).

The weather was incredible throughout our stay, but it did mean that the students were very keen to spend time in the centre’s pools and on the waterslides. Splitting into groups over the next few days we took part in many activities.

The high ropes and zip wires activity sessions were very popular. Many of the students (and some staff!) were out of their comfort zone as they tried the different high rope courses, which involved walking on wobbly bridges, ‘skating’, climbing up ropes and ‘swinging’ from one tree to the next. Many yells of delight could be heard as people conquered parts of the course that they had previously thought they could not conquer.

Many of our intrepid team then went onto the zip-wire course. As one of the first members of staff to finish the high ropes with my group I automatically ‘qualified’ to go ahead on the zip wire course (lesson learnt – go at the back of your group on the high ropes course if you do not want this honour!) so I led the group around the course. It was great to see how much the groups encouraged one another and me as we ‘flew through the sky’ from one tree to the next. Zipwire number 17 is 370m long, the longest in Brittany. It was an exhilarating experience, although I will be the first to admit I did

overwhelmed by what people have said and given me. Thank you to Mrs Laura Twomey who organised the party and presentations with her band of helpers, and thank you to everyone, colleagues, parents, pupils and friends who have contributed to make my 34 years at Shebbear College so memorable.

Fiona Goode

Emily’s Swimming SuccessIn recent months Emily has yet again achieved some great results an made superb progress in the pool.

Over two weekends in May she competed at the South West Regional Championships in Bristol and Millfield against swimmers from the six counties that make up the region. She qualified to compete in 9 events (significantly more than she has ever previously done). In her strongest events, she qualified for the 50m butterfly final and finished in 6th place. In both the 100m and 200m butterfly events she finished in 9th place, just missing out on a final placing. Two years ago her positions in these events were in the mid-twenties, last year in the mid-teens so consistent progress is being made.

Furthermore, because of her strong performances this year, she has been invited for the first time to take part in the Welsh National Championships during the first week of August. In most of the events she is ranked in the top ten in the country. However, in her butterfly events she is raked 4th in 200m, 3rd in 100m and 2nd in 50m - just 0.01s behind the fastest ranked swimmer.

Well done Emily and good luck at the Welsh National Championships.Kate Burges

Form 2 Activities Week in France41 excited form 2 students and 10 staff departed to the Brittany shores on the evening of Sunday 25th June. We were fortunate enough to travel to Plymouth in the comfort of a coach; some of our form 2 students (who shall remain nameless) had travel bags bigger than themselves!

Having cabins made the overnight crossing of the Channel more comfortable, but a few of the staff had very early wake up calls because some of the boys in a neighbouring cabin got confused over the time changes and set alarms for 4 a.m. The coach journey from Roscoff to our activity site, Ty-Nadan, was similarly straight forward and we were straight into orienteering on the Monday afternoon. This started with an initial simple exercise to explain the necessary skills required and then teams of 3 or 4 disappeared around the site trying to find



not look particularly graceful as I hurtled towards the next platform.We also enjoyed kayaking along the local river. The distance, if you kayaked in a straight line, we needed to cover was 4km but some groups easily did double that as they zigzagged the river’s course for the entire journey. Some pairs definitely learnt the importance of communicating (especially the need to correctly identify which was their left and right hands) as they headed towards sand banks, rocks and trees on the river banks, which seemed to contain a lot of little spiders and bugs.

The centre’s segway machines were very popular, some people took very naturally to the challenge to move forwards and backwards, accelerate and decelerate and then manoeuvre the machines around trees, corners and along the camp’s paths. Our group was judged to have coped with the basic instructions so we were allowed to have ‘the turtles’ switched off, this meant our segways could go faster, so with a few screams of delight we sped around behind Jan.

On Wednesday afternoon the whole group was halved and each half was split into two teams to do battle in the paintball arena within the woods. Once the gauntlet had been laid, battle commenced with paintballs flying everywhere. Once again, all the students entered into the spirit of the game with all being splattered and a few bruises occurring along the way. Some teams had clear tactics and charged towards their opponents.

During the evenings, competitions were organised by the adults in table-tennis and badminton. Although some people did very well, such as Luke in the table-tennis, Mr Trask remained undefeated in both competitions. On one evening some of the form 2’s got involved in a bit of karaoke fun. With much encouragement from the audience some of the boys and girls sang well known songs such as ‘Let it go’. Despite struggling with a sore throat Mitzi definitely lifted the bar very high when she sang a solo, leaving the organiser saying ‘wow’ at her performance.

On Thursday we packed, cleaned up and departed to Roscoff. Another smooth crossing, some students enjoyed a movie, whilst others shopped, ate or slept the time away. However, we all made it home safely, all exhausted but satisfied with a very successful trip. Thank you to all of form 2 this year. They were a credit to the College and made the trip enjoyable for all, adults included. A thank you also to the trip organiser Mr Trask and the other supervising adults, Mr Steel, MrBarlow, Miss Little, Mrs Burghes, Mrs McCormack, Miss Tregier, Miss Cormack, Mr Johnston and Mr Tasker-Hughes.

Lindsay Douglas

Ronin Taijutsu Grading Congratulations to all the Perp School students who participated in the Ronin Taijutsu grading on Monday. Everyone did really well and passed, some even with distinction. Achieving their Yellow Belt was Elizabeth, Elsie, Jack, James, Jonah and Willow, achieving their Orange Belt was Bella, Finlay and Thomas, and finally achieving their Red Belts were James, Jemima, Oliver and Sebastian.

Sensei Paul and Sensei Clare look forward to seeing you all again next term, your belts and certificates will be there for the first week back at training in the Michaelmas term, when there will be a little ceremony to collect them. If you have a Gi (White Suit) please do bring it along in the hope that we can take a photograph of you all for the next newsletter.

For those of you who would like a Gi please do either visit our website shop at http://ronintaijutsu.co.uk/Shop.php or email Sensei Clare directly at [email protected] if you need any help with this.

For those that are moving into the Senior School you are still more than welcome to come along on a Monday at activity time. All Senior Students are always welcome and everyone gets a first free trial session.

Clare Gunning

Christmas Ball Theme Announced!Saturday 8th December is the date that has been announced for the Friends of Shebbear College Christmas Ball. We are also delighted to tell you that the theme is ‘Sparkly and Black Tie’. More details will follow as soon as possible.

CricketThe 1st XI had mixed fortunes in their final two games of the season. On Sunday after the rain stopped, they batted first against the OSA and on a difficult pitch could manage only 115 all out with Romario R(24) and Jack (18) too scoring.

Then despite tight opening spells from Jabez (1-16) and Romario (1-24), followed by some excellent spin bowling by man of the match, Eddie (3-13) the OSA, through Russell Bryan (33) and Olly Wickett (22), just managed to get over the finishing line with just one wicket in hand.

On Monday, it was a very different story when the MCC chose to bat first. Once again a fired up Romario (6-20) ripped through the visitors batting and saw them dismissed for just 99 runs. Mention should be made of two superb slip catches by skipper Jabez and another by Freddie in the deep, but the fielding throughout the innings was of the highest standard.

Then, in reply, Siya (33) and Eddie (39) made it look like a very different pitch, putting on 77 before Siya was trapped lbw. Eddie went soon after but Romario R hit the winning runs in the 25th overA fitting end for the coach and the first time Shebbear has beaten an MCC side.

Well done to all the boys who have represented the 1st XI this year. Andy Bryan



Picture this ... Rounsefell Dinner 2018 lots more on our social media pages



Picture this ... Speech Day lots more on our social media pages

issue o 173 weekly ewsletter from the headmaster www ...€¦ · course if you do not want this...

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