Category: Woodbridge News
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.
A Suffolk School raised a generous sum for good causes in the first month of School. Following formation of the Charity Club at Woodbridge School, more than £1,300 was amassed from activities, including more than £170 on the school’s annual Speech Day for those affected by the Syrian refugee crisis and more than £400 from a bake sale in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning. Caterer, Cilla Kindred also raised almost £200 from a coffee morning held at home.
Meanwhile, almost 600 gave a pound to take part in a charity cross-country run for mental health charity YoungMinds.
Headteacher, Neil Tetley said: “I am amazed and very proud of the kind-hearted dedication and generosity of pupils, parents and colleagues who have helped to raise such a fantastic amount.”
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.
Many congratulations to Zara Lye, caught in brilliant action here, who finished in the top half of the field in both the showjumping and cross country elements of British Eventing’s Open Novice section at the recent Moreton Morell weekend event. These excellent results bode well for her as she prepares for the National U18 Championships in May next year despite being only 14.
Friday saw the first round of the Trower Trophy (the Inter-Section competition). Two teams from the Army & RAF sections & one team from the RN section competed. This year we have introduced a new rule that each team must include two female cadets for all the rounds. Despite all the teams working well and pushing hard two Platoon from the Army came out on top. The next round is the command task on 13 Oct 15.
