Month: November 2014
On our recent trip to China in October 2014 to Taicang Senior High School, we were surprised at the huge differences in culture. For the students, being thrown into everyday life staying with a family, gave them an interesting and individual perspective. Even within the Chinese families there were many differences, such as their level of understanding and speaking of English and their daily routines. All the families have, however, welcomed their guests with warm hospitality and a genuine interest in them as individuals.
Our mornings gave the teachers and students time to share their experiences of the night before and time to observe and participate in lessons. We had the opportunity to learn a Chinese folk song and practise our skills of calligraphy. Lessons began at 6.45am with the whole class reading aloud an English novel, and many classes have over fifty students yet appear to concentrate throughout, and when asked, will stand to recite their answer without hesitation! To aid their concentration all pupils (and form teachers) have to run around the grounds for 15 minutes twice a day, but also have a nap on their desks after lunch! Possibly a practice Woodbridge could adopt? They also have dance music (that is ballroom not rave) in between lessons and compulsory eye exercises. All students do at least four hours homework every evening and our students said this has inspired them to work even harder than they do already.
All parents at Taicang School have very high expectations of their children to achieve academically, which makes us appreciate just how lucky we are at Woodbridge; that we also nurture and value the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of our students.
After a gentle start, the week gathered pace with a visit to the beautiful oriental gardens of Suzhou, formally owned by ‘The Humble Administrator’. The ancient buildings such as ‘The Hall of Distant Fragrance’ and ‘The Floating Green Tower’ were surrounded by lotus and azalea blossoms which were abundant at this time. The first week culminated in a whole day in Shanghai with everything from the incense infused spirituality of the Dao Temple, to the intensity of bartering in the manic shopping markets. Shopping for snacks can be hilarious also, when you realise that mixed in with your individually wrapped sweets, you have chicken feet and candy floss meat!
The high point of the second week was a visit to Yu Mountain. Overlooking the city and vast countryside, breathing in the fresh mountain air and listening to the old people playing music and singing gave everyone an empathetic, spiritual feeling towards the Buddhist monastery only metres away.
We all agree that what we gained from this trip was more than just a holiday; not only did we see another country we gained real insight into another culture.
The sun was shining yesterday at our Remembrance Day service held in the grounds of the school.
In memory of all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Lest we forget.
A good solid performance was put in by the U14s over the weekend versus a team that they will meet on Thursday at the regionals. We started well and although the possession was about 50/50 we took the opportunity just before half time to convert a short corner from Mia King.
In the second half Eleanor Berridge, Flo Jackson, Zara Lye, and Harriet Spence kept the defence tidy and Issy Cory made some good saves. Georgia Harrold put some great balls through to Maddie Felton up front and made their goal keeper stay on their toes. Mia King played well and drove into the circle on a number of occasions but we couldn’t convert the pressure unfortunately. Flora Johnston played very well, distributing the ball all over the pitch. Well done, good omens for Thursday as Norwich are in our group!
ask.fm has been in the news for some less than wholesome reasons over the past year. My observation is that ask.fm has waned in popularity with teenagers over the year, but here is a useful guide for parents from ask.fm in case you are interested/concerned: Ask+fm+-+Guide+for+Parents
Vine is a video-sharing service and app that allows users to make 6 second videos and share them online with their friends and the rest of the world. Vine videos are often funny, heart-warming, exciting, cute etc. BUT parents do be aware that the Vine app has a 17+ rating on the app stores (Apple and Android) and so is not appropriate for younger school-age children, despite its popularity with year 8 and 9!
As with Instagram, SnapChat is incredibly popular with school age children. It is a service that allows users to take a picture or short video and send it to another user. The recipient has up to 10 seconds to view the image, after which it is deleted. This instant-gratification-with-no-long-term-consequences nature of SnapChat has been its most appealing feature, but this does have downsides that have been widely publicised – particularly to do with young people sending sometimes inappropriate images of themselves to people they know. That it is easily possible for the recipient to capture and store the images they’ve received has been less widely known until recently. This raises the possibility of images that the sender thought would be instantly deleted being shared and getting much wider distribution – with the inevitable embarrassment and reputational damage that may result.
Here’s a useful guide for parents all about SnapChat from the folks at SnapChat themselves. Students might like to read it too.
http://www.connectsafely.org/wp-content/uploads/snapchat_parents_guide.pdf
A recent article I posted on Fronter for the pupils to read:
SnapChat is in the news – thousands of pictures leaked online – with more to come.
As we’ve been pointing out for some time now, SnapChat isn’t anywhere near as safe and anonymous as its users think it is. On Sunday 12th October 100 000 images from SnapChat apps were leaked online via a forum, with many more pictures to be released over the coming months. Hackers say that they’ve got 13 GB of users’ data to give away – is it yours? If you must use SnapChat, stick to the OFFICIAL APP – do NOT use clones or 3rd party apps with SnapChat.
Instagram is an incredibly popular app and service amongst smartphone users in general and school-age children in particular. It does need to be used with some care, however. The advice I’ve given students via Fronter is as follows:
Check your privacy settings: MOST USERS should keep their posts private. Remember that this affects other users – if your posts are not private, their pictures can become public when you like them. This upsets people.
DON’T put your snapchat/kik/BBM usernames on your public Instagram profile. This is asking for trouble.
How do I make my account private? Follow this link to find out: http://help.instagram.com/116024195217477
Advice for parents: http://help.instagram.com/154475974694511/
Safety tips from Instagram: http://help.instagram.com/369001149843369
Welcome to the first of an on-going series of posts by the School’s Head of E-Safety, Jim Hillman.
There are a number of useful sites providing guidance for parents and pupils about staying safe online.
For parents I recommend: Get Safe Online
For parents and their children: Thinkuknow
After the one minute silence, the scene was set for a great game of open rugby on a very wide pitch. Woodbridge were on the back foot after early pressure from the Colchester 9 with a searing break. Only a great tackle by a George Williams saved the day. Woodbridge cleared their lines but were caught off side. 3-0 to Colchester.
Further pressure and another penalty but it was pushed wide. Unfortunately from a missed touch, Colchester put Woodbridge under pressure.
Woodbridge then started to string some good phases together; Will Farthing bulldozed through, and through slick backline passing Matt Sutton wriggled over, giving Woodbridge a 3-5 lead. Unfortunately, Colchester responded with a catch and drive, but the secondary drive punched a hole from close range giving them a try (8-5).
Unfortunately Woodbridge lost Ben Morgan with an elbow injury and George Cory came on. Colchester scored another well worked try, starting out wide and then winning the race for a clever in-field kick, giving a 13-5 score line. A further Colchester penalty followed by half time with the score poised at 16 -5.
Woodbridge started the second half well, but their early pressure unfortunately came to no reward.
Woodbridge were penalised for crossing in back line, and were subsequently pinned back into their own 22. This resulted in a soft try from fumble and regain under posts. 23-5. A further score from a 5m lineout and catch and drive put Colchester in a commanding 28-5 lead. A further counter attack into the Woodbridge 22 allowed Colchester to power over for a try under posts 35-5. As ever Woodbridge did not give up heart, and from the kick off the ball was stolen by Cherryman and he scored near posts and Robert Smith converted for 35-12. Smith soon was in the fray again with a great jackal, and Sam Stowe won the race for ball to score. At 35-19 Woodbridge, continued to pressure but lost the ball in the Colchester 22 and with that the chance to reduce the deficit any further.
