Category: Woodbridge News

Woodbridge School 36 : Thomas Mills 12

The Third match of the season was away and we were fired up. Woodbridge received the kick and attacked ferociously with awesome handling. Committing each player, before offloading to Lorry Bertram who finished despite multiple tacklers. Woodbridge weren’t rucked off the ball at the breakdown meaning the backs could run. While fly-half Oliver Bacon, distributed well and recognised the need to shift the focus of play out wide. This led to a series of impressive midfield phases with offloads that would have made New-Zealand. By half time, we had scored another try but also conceded one too.

In the second half the Woodbridge team kept shape, as we scored four more brilliant tries. The fearless tackling never wavered, despite us winning convincingly the effort never dropped. This is a Woodbridge team that is learning what makes a great team and demonstrated it, notably Harry Brett how was always in the action and scored a great try. Unfortunately they broke the line meaning they got a try in the second half but we kept going. Dom Ellice-Freeman scored three tries all of which were amazing to watch. James Eaton used his strength to get over the line and James Phelan did a try saving tackle on one of their biggest players. Ben Harper played extremely well for any player especially a new one, his running lines and commitment was brilliant.

Man of the match:   Dom Ellice-Freeman

Tries:

• Harry Brett
• James Eaton
• Lorry Bertram
• Dom Ellice-Freeman  3

The Swing Band performed at the Seckford Almshouses last Tuesday. The residents were entertained in great style. After the previous visit last summer the residents had asked Mr Shepherd if the band could play some music by Glenn Miller and the band obliged with three numbers by the great Swing band leader of the 30s and 40s who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in a presumed air crash over the Atlantic during the second world war. This culminated in a performance of his greatest hit “Moonlight serenade” with Josh Cole starring on the clarinet solo part. The band also played later music by Dizzy Gillespie and the theme track from the 60s cartoon of Spiderman.

Former student Justin Tan had just achieved another remarkable feat, finishing tied for fourth (fifth on tie break) in the World Under 18 championships in Porto Carras, Greece. His last round win over second seed Grandmaster Kiril Aleeksenko from Russia (who finished with the Silver medal despite the defeat) secured him a podium placing in a gruelling tournament that lasted nearly two weeks. Justin finished with 8 points from 11 games.

On Monday, the children at The Abbey came back to school to find a mysterious object had landed in the grounds. Shrouded in mist, it was all very dramatic! Mr Brett explained to the children in assembly that there had been a disturbance in the night and some people had seen bright lights and heard a strange humming sound. Whatever it was had landed in the grounds of the school and the visitors had vanished, leaving just a few clues.

The children got a chance to investigate and have a good look at the site, then they were asked to write the story of what they thought had happened. The government were investigating the landing, but were a bit stumped and wanted the children’s ideas. And they had lots of ideas! Some told of aliens having to leave their imploding planet in a terrible rush and choosing Earth as a place to seek refuge; some described aliens searching the galaxies for other life forms and finally finding us here on Earth; some believed that the aliens were here to teach us about looking after our planet; and some described aliens burrowing beneath the grounds of The Abbey, building an underground city.

It was such a fun day and one that the children will certainly remember.

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our Assistant Director of Music, John Stafford.

John was an incredibly talented musician and teacher with a wonderful, subversive sense of humour. His work with our students, particularly as an accompanist, was of the highest order and invariably helped them to give of their best in very stressful situations, often inspiring them to excel well beyond their own expectations. There can have been few better than John able to perform the most complex music, often at very short notice, with such amazing skill and authority.

John passed away peacefully on Wednesday 28 October.  His sparkle around the music department, his warmth, his friendship, and his complete commitment to others will be sorely missed by us all.

Our riders had a full day today at ‘The Jays’ in Bury St Edmunds,  competing in the Schools Arena Eventing.

We achieved fantastic results at all levels, with 4 out of the 6 classes being won by Woodbridge individuals, and two team wins. All in all everyone did very well. The course consisted of 16 fences, very twisty with several very narrow fences and a difficult corner. A challenge well handled by the Woodbridge riders!

Full results-

50cm – 1st Olivia Lubbock, 3rd Oliver Reid
Woodbridge School team of Olivia Lubbock, Ada Marson & Oliver Reid WON

60cm– 1st Ada Marson, 2nd Olivia Lubbock, 3rd Oliver Reid.

Woodbridge School Team of Ada, Olivia, Oliver and Olivia Brown WON

70cm – 1st Olivia Lubbock

Team of Ada, Olivia, Olivia Brown were 3rd

80cm-No individual placings but

Team of Ada, Olivia & Olivia Brown were 5th

They were the youngest team by far competing at this level.

1m  – 1st Tessa Lye, 5th & 6th Rowena Wilson-Smith

Harriet has been selected for the England Women’s Under-15 Training Camp taking place at Loughborough University at the end of October.

The 14-year-old midfielder is one of 24 players from across the country invited to attend the five-day training camp and will rub shoulders with players from Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Manchester United and Sunderland Ladies.

Harriet, who plays for Woodbridge Town Boys at Under-14 level, said she was delighted to receive an email from the FA informing her of her selection.

“I was shocked but really happy when I found out. I am really excited about joining up with the squad and will just see what happens.

“Playing for England has always been at the back of my mind, but this has happened quite suddenly,” she said.

Woodbridge School’s Director of Sport Ian Simpson said that Harriet is a talented all-round sports woman. He said: “It’s an incredible achievement for Harriet to be selected for the squad.

“She is a very dedicated pupil involved in lots of multi-sports, training two to three times a morning doing strength and conditioning. Harriet’s hard work has paid off which is great to see.”

Suffolk FA Girls’ & Women’s Football Development Officer Paige Shorten said: “Congratulations to Harriet on being selected for the England U15 Camp. It’s a great achievement for Harriet, Suffolk FA ACC staff, Woodbridge Town Boys and Woodbridge School.

“For this season we have been licensed to run the Advanced Coaching Centre which allows players to be involved in the FA Girls England Talent Pathway, as a result of this the East Region can support players like Harriet to play in mixed football but also be selected for the Regional Excellence Camp and even better the England Under-15 Camp.”

On Sunday 11th October eleven of our riders competed in an inter schools style jumping competition at Newton Hall, Swilland. It was the first time representing the school for several of them and what a great success it was too.

The team of Oliver Reid, Ada Marson and Eve Marson won the 60cm, with Ella Reynard, Olivia Lubbock and Maddy Ayres coming second. The Woodbridge School teams wiped the board with their third team gaining a 3rd position – Lily Waterer, Grace Childs and Zoe Newman. With a commendation to Lily for her riding on Poppy.

In the 65cm individual class, Woodbridge school held the top 6 placings – 1st Oliver Reid, 2nd Olivia Lubbock, 3rd Grace Childs, 4th Olivia Brown, 5th Ada Marson 6th Eve Marson.

Olivia Brown won the 70cm, with Ada in 2nd and Olivia Lubbock in 3rd place. The 80cm class saw Ada come 2nd on her new pony – Rolly Rascal, a 3rd for Olivia Brown, 4th for Olivia Lubbock and 5th for Lara Bell on her young horse. Lara is our Riding Captain for this year and it was great to have her there to encourage the younger riders.

Next weekend the riders will be off again to another competition. Good luck!!

Audrey McBride reports from the Charity Club….

Charity at Woodbridge this term has begun in an exciting and energetic way and indeed, right from the outset. A spur-of-the-moment collection was held on Speech Day to raise funds for the ongoing refugee crisis and contributions allowed us to give over £170, a short five days after the Prime Minister’s pledge to receive 20,000 refugees from Syria over the next four and a half years. On Friday 25 September, the Tuckwell Room was transformed into a hall of tea and cakes as part of the annual Macmillan event; ‘The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning’. Donations of bakes and purchases were aplenty, enabling us to collect over £400 for the charity. A special mention must be given to Cilla Kindred of the catering team at Woodbridge who held a coffee morning at her home before work, and who managed to raise £180 for Macmillan, entirely under her own steam. Thank you to everybody who made the time to give something to such a worthy cause and to those of you who held their own events.

The cross country race on Tuesday 29 September also contributed strongly to the School’s fantastic fundraising efforts- with every pupil running to raise funds for the charity YoungMinds. The newly formed Charity Club at school hopes to organize something complementary to both this and to World Mental Health Day which falls this year on Saturday 10 October.

On Friday the Suffolk American Football Association descended upon Woodbridge School and spent the morning coaching our Sports Leaders a simplified version – Tag American Football.

The afternoon featured a mini tournament with 150 girls and boys in years 7 and 8 split into 16 teams, competing against each other. Sports Leaders were then spread across the teams and fields, so when combined with -five full time staff members and the SAFA staff, there was an excellent player to coach ratio.

The Leaders had only half an hour with their teams to teach them the rules, which they themselves had only learned a few hours earlier, so was vital they implemented the methods and approach learned from Matt and Alex to ensure the kids could make a fast start.

Matt said of the Sport Leaders, “I think the Sports Leaders did a brilliant job, and the tournament was a huge success. We were fortunate that we could move between the groups ensuring all 150 children were given the best introduction and explanation. Similar to the morning session, the use of a visual demonstration was widely used, walking through outcomes and game situations. Partnered with open ended questions fired back to the players, to test what they’d learned meant in half an hour they went from zero to creating their own plays between them…. I think we might have found a few budding NFL stars in the making!”

Great fun was had by all and this marks the start of a club which will begin after half term on Friday evenings.