tockington tracker 03-05-13

The Weekly Newsletter of Tockington Manor School 3rd May 2013

© 2012 Tockington Manor School, Washingpool Hill Road, Tockington, Bristol, BS32 4NY.

Music Assessments Please note that a Music Assessment Day will be held

on Monday 6th May for those children receiving

individual lessons. If your child plays two instruments

they should choose to be assessed on their better one. If

they play three or more instruments they should choose

two.

Open Morning Would parents please note that Monday 6th May is a

normal school day. We shall be holding our Open

Morning from 9.30 am to 12 noon. If you know anyone

who might be interested in visiting the school we would

be very happy to see them. Upper School children may

be collected at 4.20 pm after normal lessons or can stay

until normal sign-out time.

Year 6 Fieldwork Trip Year 6 spent a day on the River Caerfanell, a tributary of the River Usk, undertaking their data collection for their

forthcoming enquiry. They focused on measuring the width, depth and velocity at the youthful, mature and old age

stages of the river. We observed many changes along the course of the river from its source to the mouth at

Talybont Reservoir where it forms a delta. We had our lunch at a beautiful waterfall. The pupils were impeccably

behaved and were a pleasure to be with. My thanks go to Mr Mildon and Miss Milsom who assisted me on the

trip.

Mr Jones

Work Experience Will Moss, who is now at Cheltenham College, was at

Tockington Manor for all his prep school years. He is

now 16 and is looking for work experience during the

last week of June. He would be very interested to hear

from anyone who could offer him a 7 day placement in

finance, engineering or science but would also consider

other professions. Will lives locally and would be

happy to discuss anything that might be on offer.

Please contact Sarah Moss (mother) on 07799 603361.

Long Exeat Long Exeat begins at 4.00 pm on Friday 10th May.

There are no after school activities on that day.

Cathedral Visit On Thursday 9th May Years 7 & 8 will visit Bristol

Cathedral as part of their RS studies.

Alex Grocott Congratulations to Alex Grocott who was named best

male athlete of the 2012-2013 season at Westbury

Harriers (including adults). Alex was also novice

athlete of the year.

Year 3 Science Please can all Year 3 pupils bring in a toothbrush and

toothpaste on Tuesday 7th for their Science lesson. We

suggest using a freezer bag to minimise mess!



Cricket Coaching

Owen Dawkins, Gloucestershire CC Academy

Director, ran an excellent session for the Year 5-8

boys last Saturday. They covered batting, bowling

and fielding through a series of drills and activities.

Owen got them to focus on a specific hitting area

while keeping a stable batting position, hitting a

target area and weight distribution while bowling. He

showed us a series of fun activities designed to

improve catching and throwing. We would like to

extend our thanks to Owen for his time and expertise.

The two hour session was enjoyed by all.

Mr Jones

Boarders’ Trip to Cattle Country

Music Success Congratulations to the following children who, despite a

busy end of term with 'Alice' and the Eisteddfod,

managed to achieve the following music exam results last

term.

Piano Grade 3

Aditi Mehendale (Distinction)

Piano Grade 2

Annabel Sheppard (Pass)

Piano Grade 1

Poppy Carter (Pass)

Theory Grade 2

Aditi Mehandale (Distinction)

Theory Grade 1

Olivia Campbell (Merit), Isobel Browning (Pass), Tom

Edwards (Pass)

Violin Grade 3

Olivia Campbell (Merit)

Recorder Grade 3

Lucy Allan-Jones (Distinction), Abigail Blackwell (Pass)

Recorder Grade 1

Alex Gooch (Distinction)

Singing Grade 3

Elliott Orchard (Pass)

Singing Grade 2

Annabel Sheppard (Merit), Bellayia Lazarides (Pass)

Singing Grade 1

Antonia Hopcraft (Merit), Roshan Patel (Pass), Ella

Howard-Robinson (Pass)

Athletics

Congratulations to Oliver Shutt and Max Curtis who achieved UK Athletics gold standard in the cricket ball

throwing competition.

Bennie Sanzo, Ceredig Jones and Poppy Carter all achieved the Year 6 gold standard in the 600 metres. This is

very promising in the school’s strongest event.

STOP PRESS! Jessie Sanzo broke Claudia Thompson’s 2008 50 metres record. It now stands at an impressive

8.21 seconds. Heartiest congratulations, Jessie!



Dance Exams

Congratulations to all the girls who sat

their dance exams in Alveston last

month. Jeanne Veron (Year 2) passed

her Grade 1 Modern with Distinction,

Lucy-Ann Gingell (Year 3) her Grade 2

Tap with Distinction and Lucy England

(Year 7) her Grade 3 Tap with Merit.

Well done!

Willow Sculpture Workshop

Last Friday Year 6 spent the day with Visual Artist Nina Davis

creating willow sculptures for the Tockington grounds. After a

morning of creating stick and ink drawings of seed pods, the class

divided into five groups and worked together to design and make their

sculptures. You can see these hanging in the trees along the front

drive - do go and take a look.

General Knowledge Quiz Club

Last Friday, Aditi Mehendale, Adassa Walker, Annabel Sheppard and

Joe Ancell were invited to the regional semi-finals of the Quiz Club.

We were very excited to be called to compete and to discover that two

teams would go through to the Finals at Harrow School. The questions

were considerably harder than those we faced in the Heats and

Birchfield School soon had a very pronounced lead over all of the

other competing schools. In the end the scores were very close with

only 100 points between the teams – the same value as some of the

questions. On this occasion we got pipped to the post but the team was

fantastic with their strategic voting and their general knowledge. A

huge bravo to all four of the children!

National Youth Choir Great Britain

During the Easter holidays, Tom Edwards, Aditi Mehendale and

Olivia Campbell from Year 6 all performed in the Royal Albert Hall

as part of the 750 strong National Youth Choir. Children were selected

from across the country through an audition process and then they

were invited for their first residential course in Oxford which lasted a

week and resulted in them performing to a capacity audience. The

Choir consists of eight smaller choirs of children from Year 5 and up.

The oldest performers are 24 and are studying to be professional sing-

ers so the bar is set high. Our trio sang parts of Monteverdi’s Vespers

of 1610 accompanied by renowned period instrumentalists, La

Serenissima and directed and coached by an impressive line-up of

musical dircetors. If you would like to know more about the National

Youth Choir of Great Britain, details can be found online

(www.nycgb.net). Well done on being part of such a prestigious per-

formance, Aditi, Olivia and Tom!

500 Words Story Competition

As you will know, the children in Years 5 to 8 all wrote stories for the

500 Word Story Writing Competition run by Chris Evans for Radio 2.

There were 90,000 entries this year – an increase of 15,000 since last

year! Fifty children have now been shortlisted. Sadly, we are not

among them but the stories which have been shortlisted can all be read

on the rather lovely website. Log on and enjoy the stories at bedtime

with your children. They are inspirational and since the children took

part, they will all enjoy comparing their own entries to the ones which

have been selected, I’m sure. The website address is : http://

www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/500words/2013/stories/. Also, you can hear the

stories on Radio 4 Extra's The 4 O'Clock Show from Monday 6 May.

Well done for everyone who submitted an entry and better luck next

time!

Breakfast

Can we remind parents from Year 1 to

Year 8 that if you would like your child

to join the boarders for breakfast, please

remember that the drop off time is

07:45. The house staff are unavailable

before this time, as they are upstairs

with the boarders. Your assistance with

this is most appreciated.



Ski Trip December 2013

There are only four places left on the ski trip! To

secure your place a deposit of £150 per person is

required. If you have any questions please contact

Mrs Wakeling.

Spelling Bee

This Tuesday in prep we had an inter-house spelling

bee. This was good fun and the teams worked hard to

get the best scores for their Houses. The results

were:

1st Cunningham

2nd Churchill

3rd Alexander

Stars were awarded to each House for their

performance. Well done!

Holiday Workbooks

Well done to all children who completed holiday

workbooks for English and who entered the Undercover

Exercise Book Competition which Mr and Mrs Tovey

enjoyed as much as I did. The winner was Alex Gooch

for a fabulous book and a wonderful souvenir of his

Easter break. Runner-up was Patricia Sanchez, who,

despite being at Spanish school in the holidays,

managed to produce a super, complete and interesting

account of what she did in Spain. Well done to both!

If your child did not do the exercise book competition,

please could you send the unused exercise books back to

school as they are part of the English department stock.

Very few have been returned!

A Night with the Stars Summer Ball

A reminder to all parents and Year 8 pupils that the

early sparkle price for tickets will expire on 24th

May so don’t forget to get your ticket requests in

before half term. The invitation to this year’s

Summer Ball is also open to all OT’s and the wider

community as a “Fond Farewell” to Richard and

Jane, so demand for tickets is extremely high. If you

are thinking of attending the Ball, then we would

suggest you take advantage of the early sparkle offer

and hand your requests for tickets into the school

office as soon as possible. Payment can be made by

cheque, cash or credit card. With over 250 tickets

already sold, there is a strong possibility that we

could sell out!

If you have any questions regarding the Ball then

please contact Karen Gingell on 07811 109778.

Swim Squad Dates

25th April Senior

2nd May Junior

9th May Senior

16th May Junior

23rd May Senior

6th June Junior

13th June TEAM ONLY

20th June Junior

27th June Activities Week new recruits for

September

4th July Senior

11th July No squad - awards and colours

Measles

After the recent breakout of measles in Wales Nurse

Becky urges all parents to check their children's

immunisations record to ensure they have received their

MMR vaccination etc.

Informal Concert

There will be a short, informal concert on Monday

13th May at 1.30 pm in the school hall. Parents are

welcome to attend.

Year 5 Traffic Study

On Friday 10th May Year 5 will be collecting data on

the type and volume of traffic on Washingpool Hill

Road as part of their Geography and ICT work. They

will be working with Mr Jones and Mr Mildon.

tockington tracker 03-05-13

Documents