News list
Form 4 took part in a Thursday Afternoon Enrichment session that combined a talk about Buddhism, as part of their Religious Studies work, as well as an insight into Buddhist art with sand mandala creations. Director of Studies, Mr Tristan Igglesden, gave an insightful presentation about his recent trip to Sri Lanka and his visit to the World Heritage site at the Dambulla Buddhist caves. The cave monastery is a well-preserved cave temple complex of five caves, each with beautiful and extensive Buddhist mural paintings on the walls and ceilings. Besides the ancient
Three SJCS Science Quiz teams competed in the Semi-Finals of the Quiz Club National Inter-School Science Championships. As always, the questions were beyond the knowledge of the National Curriculum but the children took the challenge in their stride and battled it out for 5th place (Team 1), 8th place (Team 2) and 9th place (Team 3).
At the beginning of February Form 1 performed The Bumblesnouts Save the World by Debbie Campbell, a musical comedy that has now become a firm favourite amongst Å·ÃÀ×ÔÅÄ’s children and parents. As well as being infiltrated with humour, this play also had a strong moral and environmental message that our Earth is an amazing place and every living thing on it has a right to survive and thrive.
Form 6 pupils were eager to get their hands dirty and wade into the river, when they visited FSC Epping Forest, a Special Area of Conservation. Head of Geography, Miss Grant explained “this field work experience is very important as it allows our pupils to practise their collaborative skills, appreciate that they are all part of a team with a specific task to complete and to enjoy and saviour the fluvial landscape around them. It gives them the opportunity to test their understanding of the theoretical aspects of fluvial environments with reference to an actual example."
Following the success of last year’s Third Form Greek Myths, expectations were high when, as the Fourth Form, the children took to the stage again. The BFG posed a different kind of challenge to the year group; there were no songs or dancing, and the focus was instead on telling the story, with comedic moments peppering the performance. The cast stepped up and produced a performance which was highly amusing and entertaining for all of the audience.
Our festive ‘Services in Preparation for Christmas’, held over two days in the magnificent Chapel of Å·ÃÀ×ÔÅÄ’s College, once again heralded the start of the season with a range of carols, poems and readings all presented by the children. The carols and readings were interspersed with 5 congregational hymns. The Services provided a sense of calm from the busy nature of this time of the year and created up a contemplative mood to help prepare for Christmas. Due to current restrictions, Sixth Form parents were invited to attend in person and it was live streamed and recorded so that all could
Kindergarten’s rendition of their nativity production, Whoops-a-Daisy Angel, was broadcast live to the school community this year so everyone could share the children’s production and all their hard work leading up to the performance. We were fortunate to be able to invite parents to watch in person. This delightful nativity play tells the story of a disorganised but loveable angel who is chosen to show the way to Bethlehem.
Parents and children alike were enchanted by T1’s rendition of their Russian Christmas story, Babushka. Babushka lived in the countryside and opened her door, one snowy night, to find three men standing before her. She wanted to join them in giving gifts to the King of Kings but had too much cleaning to do. T1 parents were invited to watch in person and the rest of Byron House enjoyed the Nativity being live-streamed to their own classrooms.
Parents and friends of the School were treated to a Christmas musical feast at our annual ‘Piazza Brass’ event at Senior House. Our brass players were also joined this year by many of our other talented young musicians to get the crowd into the festive spirit, including Form 5 and 6 Pop Choir, Big Band and Rednotes.
Children throughout Å·ÃÀ×ÔÅÄ’s have worked hard to produce individual Christmas card designs during their lessons as part of our annual Festive art project. Any profits from the cards go to the Parents’ Association’s chosen charity Castle School which is a Special school in the centre of Cambridge which caters for pupils with a range of learning needs from aged 2-19 years.