Inspiring Trips

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” I hope that you don’t think that I have lost my senses over the Easter holidays, starting my Courier article in this fashion! I just couldn’t spurn the opportunity to share one of my favourite quotes from Shakespeare’s ‘As you Like It’, which every pupil in Year 8 was lucky enough to see yesterday at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. One of these years, I am really going to have to wangle a place on that trip!

Whilst on the subject of inspiring trips, some of our Year 7 girls travelled during the Easter Holidays to France, where, as well as representing the school in an international netball tournament, they enjoyed the pleasures of Paris and Disneyland. Both of our teams played at the very top of their game and none of the other competing clubs or schools could prevent us from winning the whole tournament. Congratulations to all of the girls in both teams for their impressive play, but also for being such tremendous friends to each other on the trip. Also in the holidays, pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 had an action-packed PGL holiday at Liddington. They enjoyed a vast array of activities including zip wire, abseiling, raft building and mountain biking and had a wonderful time, despite the weather! Then, just before the Easter weekend, our sports staff ran two days of excellent pre-season cricket training. Many thanks to our fantastic staff who are so ready to give up their holidays to run these events with such commitment and enthusiasm.

Today, Year 3 and 4 children can’t stop talking about their first camping experience, which is taking place tonight in the school grounds. I can’t wait to see all of the tents on Greenham Field and to find out in the morning how much sleep was had! I am looking forward to manning the barbecue with Mr Coleman and I am sure that the children will gain much from the experience.

It has been lovely to see pictures of our Year 5 pupils enjoying their trip to Cornwall so much on our social media pages. For some pupils, it is the first time that they have been away from home with friends and I am sure that there will be many exciting stories to tell upon their return later today.

A number of pupils in Years 7 and 8 took part in the Junior Maths Challenge on Tuesday. This is a prestigious national competition, with pupils answering 25 questions that start fairly simply and get progressively harder. We await the results to see how many Gold, Silver and Bronze awards we receive. Those that do exceptionally well are put into a further Olympiad competition. Good luck everyone!

In sport, I have enjoyed seeing all of the boys and girls out on the games field and it was particularly good to see the girls playing their matches against Wellington on Wednesday, despite the weather! This term, we have even more girls’ cricket fixtures for all of our age groups, which is excellent. In hockey, very well done to our U13 A team which was agonisingly close to a semi-final place in the West of England finals. To lose just one of six group matches and not to make the semis was very tough on the girls!

Finally, a word about the Bank Holiday next Monday (6th May). It is, of course, a normal school day for all our pupils and we are looking forward to welcoming visiting prospective families for this term’s Open Morning. I wish you all a restful and enjoyable weekend.

Mr Andrew Edwards
Headmaster TPS