Month: January 2016

The U18 boys’ team played an exciting and end to end game against Norwich School. Bitterly disappointed, they had to settle for second best after the match was determined by penalty strokes, ending 4-4 after full time.

Woodbridge started nervously and the Norwich centre forward pounced on a moment of hesitation and robbed the ball from our centre back and calmly slotted it into the net. Woodbridge recovered and started to settle into the game. However too much direct play down the middle resulted in many turnovers and counter attacks. Chris Moody made some good saves in goal and the back four, led by Ben Kilburn had to be at their best to stem the tide. 10 minutes from the break Norwich doubled their lead and went into half time 2-0 up. Woodbridge had chances in the first half but Norwich defence, especially at penalty corners were up to the test.

In the second half Woodbridge improved their marking, and defensive positioning, was more patient and also started to change channels more, making use of the full width of the pitch. Forward leads improved to give us more width. 7 minutes into the half some good link play between Will Neall and George Williams from a free hit released Ed Robson to take a clear shot and the keeper had no chance. Ten minutes later Myles King made clever use of tactics at an attacking free hit to win a corner. Ed calmly converted. 2-2.

Woodbridge won another penalty corner. A good move was converted well by Will Neall getting the final touch from a Robson flick. Play continued and minutes later Robson again unleashed and the score was 4-2 to Woodbridge, scoring 3 goals in 6 minutes.

The writing looked on the wall for Norwich. But with key players tiring, and a little inexperience showing, Norwich persisted and forced penalty corners, two of which Woodbridge couldn’t keep out. The final score was 4-4.

Disappointed to not convert their strong position, Woodbridge went into penalty strokes. Now it was a lottery. Chris Moody saved one of Norwich’s strokes and Myles King, Will Neall and Tom Innes scored for Woodbridge, Norwich winning the match 4-3 on strokes.

A very exciting game to start the season.

Player of the match was a close contest between Ed Robson and Ben Kilburn, but ultimately Ben Kilburn’s play in defence, and as distributor won him player of the match.

Monday lunch, 1.10pm till 2.20pm &

Tuesday after school, 4.15pm till 5.00pm

Drop in sessions open to everyone, we will discuss:

• how to revise,
• use of revision timetables,
• different techniques,
• dealing with stress etc.

Should student feel they need any extra support, please contact Mr Patten and he can arrange a specific session based on student’s needs.

Please note that the Rock and Pop examinations are not taking place on Saturday 23 January as advertised, but will be taking place on Thursday 25 February.

Congratulations to all the children in Queen’s House who received certificates today. Effort certificates were awarded to Ernest, Freya, Barnaby, Olive and Elizabeth. Table Manners certificates were awarded to Scarlett, Amalie, Emilia, Arwen and Ike.

On Wednesday we were privileged to welcome Monty Halls to come to speak to Years 6-12 about the importance of developing leadership skills in young people. Monty is a former marine who went on to do a Marine Biology degree and is best known for his three BBC2 series ‘Great Escapes’, where he lived on the west coast of Scotland and Ireland with his dog Reuben. He also presented the multi-award winning series ‘Great Barrier Reef’.
Monty spoke about his life and career, including working with Nelson Mandela for a year, sleeping in a scorpion filled cave and being attacked by a Tiger shark!

However, his main focus was on how important it is for all young people to received leadership training. He told the students how, in a survey of over 400 top business leaders, over 90% felt leadership should be formally developed at school. His key message was that everyone has the capacity to lead and he challenged the archetypal image of a leader as a dominant ‘alpha’ personality but instead asked students to think about how there are very different approaches to effective leadership.

At Woodbridge School we want all our students to leave feeling they have the capacity to lead so we are looking to pilot a leadership course, developed with Monty Halls and various other independent schools, to help develop this confidence.

Monty was effusive at the end of the day:
“It was my great pleasure to visit Woodbridge to speak to the students about the importance of their own leadership development. The school is showing real drive and initiative to make sure that leadership – such a crucial life skill – is introduced to all students. Woodbridge is very much at the vanguard of creating meaningful, progressive, accredited leadership training for every young person that attends the school, and I look forward very much to working with them (and indeed learning from them) in the future.”

Our pupils found this talk an enlightening experience:
“I found it extremely useful listening to someone who has taken the same career path that I am hoping to travel on”
Matthew Sutton

“It was encouraging to discover that someone who had such little military experience was so successful in his field”
Phoebe Cook

“Varied as our aims and goals were, he was a fascinating and personable man with words of wisdom for everyone”
Gabby Zins

“He is an inspiring man who definitely helped me realise that leadership can come in many forms and that our path of life is not set in stone”
Abi Crane

“It was very interesting to hear about his experiences in his field because he talked to us as equals”
Matthew Bye

“I found it a truly enlightening experience. It was a great opportunity to learn not only more about leadership, but also what we can expect going into a life in the armed forces and general life after school- a very worthwhile experience!”
David Spray

“I enjoyed talking to Monty and learning about his own life through the armed forces and university. It has definitely give me a good idea what to expect in the future”
George Cory

This term, in PSHE, the Reception children are thinking about their emotions and how to cope with feeling sad, happy, worried, excited etc. Biscuit and Eileen are visiting each week to tell stories and talk to the children about their feelings. Today the children listened carefully to Biscuit as she told them how she had once broken her Mum’s best vase and how worried she had been. They had lots of ideas about what she should do.

Emily Hauser in conversation

Thursday 28 January, 7.30pm

Woodbridge Library

‘For the Most Beautiful’ is a brilliant debut novel, re-imagining Homer’s ‘Iliad’ from the perspective of the women who were there.

The author is Emily Hauser who grew up in Woodbridge, studied in Cambridge under Mary Beard and is now pursuing a PhD at Yale University. In her brief visit home from the USA, Emily will be visiting us to talk about her novel. Come and meet her!

Tickets £5 with refreshments. Tel: 01394 388890

Emily will also be visiting the school on the same day to talk to our Classics students in Y10 and above.

Many congratulations to Y7 Tobias Juszt who was part of the IES (Ipswich East Suffolk) Hockey U14 Boys’ Team that won the Suffolk Youth League Championships, earning their Gold Medals after a long and successful season.  Congratulations also to Y9s Oliver Juszt and Alex Weir-Simmons who have made it into the Suffolk County Hockey squad for the second year running and have even been asked to play up a year, joining the U15s.

By Ruby Cole

Before Christmas, we went to Leiston Film Theatre to see Lab Live hosted by EDF energy.  There were two acts: one was about micro science and one about the circus of science.  They were both very inspiring and I really enjoyed seeing them.

The micro science was very interesting as we looked at pixels inside a phone and we also looked at what different animals looked like under the microscope.  They looked really unrecognisable when they were under the microscope. The presenter who was telling us about micro science had to wear a special suit to make sure that no hair or skin could get onto the microscope because that could ruin his sample.

The other show was on forces like gravity, friction, pushing and pulling and twisting. The presenter was amazing at juggling and he was telling us that forces only work in pairs.  He also got one of the teachers to come up and he put a cup of water onto a tray and then he told the teacher to rock the tray side to side and then do a circle and the cup didn’t fall off because there was a balanced force. He also told us about air resistance, and that two different shapes might fall at different speeds.  Then he showed us a clip on the moon and the two shapes dropped at same speed.  That’s because there was virtually no resistance. The last thing he did was amazing: he got onto a massive unicycle and he was juggling at the same time and he said if he kept the unicycle level with him he would stay on. [The editor adds that he reckons there’s more to it than that having never lasted as much as one second upright on one wheel… and he even has trouble on two from time to time]

Congratulations to the following, who were successful in last term’s ABRSM music exams.

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

Grade 7

Grade 8