uplands school weekly newsletter - term 1 issue 14 - 21 november 2014

8/10/2019 Uplands School Weekly Newsletter - Term 1 Issue 14 - 21 November 2014

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To all in the Uplands Community,

This weeks newsletter has something for everyone!

Music, Science, Art, Drama, Community Service and

Sports to mention a few of the articles that have been

included.

Thank you to all who have contributed articles and

photographs to document and illustrate the many ways

children learn and participate in the school.

The school newsletter is becoming a key feature of the

communication from the school to the wider Uplands

Community. We receive comments and replies from all

over the world. It is truly an international newsletter!

Your sincerely,

Matthew Bristow

Principal

Follow us on Twitter:@ispuplands

Contents Page No

Message from The Principal 1

Secondary News 2

Uplands Roar 3 - 9

Primary News 1011

Art Department 1213

Science News 14

University News 15

CAS News 1617

Year 9 News 18

UPTA 19

Logo Competition 20

Upcoming Events 21 -22


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Welcome back to both the U15 FOBISIA team and the Music FOBISIA group who went Bangkok and Beijing

respectively. In speaking with the students, they all had a fantastic time and an experience they will alwayscherish. For more information about these trips please see the related articles in this newsletter.

Two of the past three weekends have also been busy for the English Department, with the Year 13

students completing their Individual Oral Commentaries; HL students on Saturday 1stNovember and SL

students on Saturday 15thNovember. Thank you to the English Faculty staff for giving up their Saturdays

to ensure their students had a quiet environment to perform their best with these assessments. I would

also like to take this opportunity to thank the ToK teachers who will be doing similar opportunities over

the next two Saturdays and wish all of the Year 13 students the best of luck for their upcoming Theory of

Knowledge orals.

Next weekend also sees two more trips abroad. We have nineteen students, accompanied by Mrs Hollis

and Mr Davis, attending the FOBISIA Model United Nations Conference at the ABC International School

in HCMC, Vietnam. The other trip involves our U15 Boys Tennis Team, accompanied by Ms Lim and Mr

Scully, travelling to Jakarta to participate in the FOBISIA Tennis Championships. I hope all the participants

in these two events truly appreciate this wonderful experience and I am confident you will represent

Uplands with pride.

Have a great weekend

Craig Skinner

[email protected]

Follow us on Twitter:@UplandsSecSch
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Another incredibly busy past week has seen Uplands competing in:

Bangkok at the U15 FOBISIA Games

U14 & U16 MSSPP Netball

U11 Invitational Football

U18 PSAC Netball

U10 TBall

For detailed results, photos and write ups please go to:

http://uplandsroarsport.webs.com/apps/blog/

U11 Invitational Football

160 Primary footballers took part in last Saturdays 2nd Annual U11 Invitational Tournament with Alice

Smith, SCIPS, Dalat, Straits and Tenby all represented. Through 7 hours of football our Uplands teams

showed great team spirit and fantastic sportsmanship. As always our teams looked to pass the ball and

make the opposition run, this resulted in both A teams achieving great success and the younger B teams

making good progress.

Special congratulations must go to our U11 A Girls for

finishing the day as undefeated CHAMPIONS, having scored 17

goals and conceded just the 1! Lead by their Captain, SophiaPoulsen, the Girls played some outstanding football and I am

sure this is just the start of what looks like a very promising

year of football.

Thank you to all who helped organise and run the day, this was

a great advert for Uplands and the friendly, positive

atmosphere was a great example of what sport should be

about.
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U14 & U16 Netball

Tuesday saw our Girls in action at Westlands in the local MSSPP Kelawai Zone Tournament. The MSSPP

netball tournament was a great experience for all of us! We managed to secure a bronze medal and even

though it wasnt gold we enjoyed the games and gained a good experience. We had a rough start at the

beginning, but as the matches continued we got stronger and worked more efficiently as a team. This

tournament taught us many things about playing as a team and encouraged us to improve our skills, so

that we can strive to be a better team. Overall it was a really fun and competitive tournament that we all

enjoyed participating in.

U15 FOBISIA Games

Well done to all involved in what sounded like a fantastic Games over in Bangkok. Some fantastic

achievements and I am sure many great memories made. As always these trips do not happen without

an awful lot of time and hard work being put in beforehand by both students and coaches:

Mr Driscoll, Mr Mitchell, Ms Teddy & Coach Ben

For more details please read Mr Driscolls page from earlier in the Newsletter.

Penang Bridge Marathon

Congratulations to all our brave runners who dragged themselves out of bed in the early hours of Sunday

morning. I hope you all enjoyed the event and the new course and hope to see you all on 11th January

for the 3rd Race of the Penang Run Series!


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As always for all fixture/event write ups, photos, calendar and training information please go to:

www.uplandsroarsport.webs.com

And for more immediate Roar Sport updates you can follow us via Twitter at: @UplandsSport

FOBISIA Swim Meet

Registration is now open for those interested in attending the inaugural FOBISIA Swim Meet being hosted

in Bangkok in January 2015. This will be a highly competitive Meet with Swimmers from across the region

taking part. Please see Coach Ben for more information.

Weekend Sports Programme

We are coming towards the end of the Term 1 Weekends Sessions, with just this coming Sunday and the

following Saturday left. It has been great to see so many of our students showing such impressive

dedication and commitment. With this in mind we have opened registration for Term 2, and again thefocus will be on Football and Swimming. For more information and details of the Term 2 dates please go

to:

http://uplandsroarsport.webs.com/weekend-sports-programme

Monday Night Football

Slow Motion Football continues to grow on Mondays. All ageing Messis are welcome. Just bring along a

pair of trainers and both a light and dark top. Teams are mixed up each week; fun and a little exercise are

very much emphasised! Start time is 8pm, and we play until approx 9pm.

Dean MetcalfHead of PE Faculty

Follow us on Twitter:@UplandsSport

U15 FOBISIA

On Friday of last week 24 students travelled to Bangkok to participate in the U15 FOBISIA Games. After

months of hard work and preparation, the students were extremely excited about competing against

students from 6 other schools (St Andrews, Bangkok, Dulwich College, Suzhou, Harrow International

School, Beijing, International School of Brunei, Regents School Pattaya and ELC Kuala Lumpur).
http://www.uplandsroarsport.webs.com/http://www.uplandsroarsport.webs.com/http://uplandsroarsport.webs.com/weekend-sports-programmehttp://uplandsroarsport.webs.com/weekend-sports-programmehttp://uplandsroarsport.webs.com/weekend-sports-programmehttp://www.uplandsroarsport.webs.com/


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After a very early start on Friday, the students spent the afternoon acclimatising with a quick swim

followed by the welcome dinner. As is expected, Uplands students showed fantastic manners and werethe only school to remain quiet and listening to the welcome addresses from the Head of St Andrews.

Saturday morning saw a very early start (5.30am!) in order to get to the athletics track for 7.30. The team

were confident going into the athletics having trained very hard and it came as no surprise that the first

gold medal of the day went to Oliver Rose in the 1500m. This was quickly followed by numerous other

medals in on both the track and field taking our tally to over 20 medals and in doing so, putting us in 3rd

place overall!


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In the afternoon, Coach Ben took control of the proceedings and

got the swimmers fired up for what would be a very intense and

exciting meet. From the off, the students were swimming exceptionally and were medalling in almost

every race. With 12 gold medals (Melina Morach won 3 of them!), 8 silver medals and 9 bronze, our total

tally of 29 is our best ever yet at a FOBISIA Games and secured us a fantastic 2ndplace overall. Well done

to you all!

Football and basketball dominated the final two days of the competition and hopes were high for both

teams as they expected to medal. The girls played footballfirst whilst the boys showed off their skills on the basketball

ball court. The girls got off to a bit of a shaky start winning

1 and drawing two games, before putting together a

fantastic string of results to claim a well deserved 3rdplace

The boys set themselves a target of 3 wins in the basketball

and were delighted to achieve this and nearly exceed their

goal as they played out a number of close games. Some

quality shooting from Ong and some great team play from

the rest of the team saw them come 4thwhich is 2 places

higher than last year!


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We are now very much looking forward to the U13 Games in March. The trials for these teams start next

week and the schedule is below Please note the change to the boys schedule (highlighted in yellow) from

the initial letter that went out due to fixtures we are playing against a visiting school. My apologies for

any inconvenience that this may cause.

Day / Time Boys GirlsTuesday 6.307.30am Athletics

Wednesday 3.304.30 Basketball Swimming (until 5pm)

Wednesday 4.305.30 Swimming

Thursday 6.307.30am Athletics

Thursday 3.405.00 Football Football

Thursday 4.305.30 Basketball

U18s Netball Uplands V Tenby V POWIIS

20thNovember 2014

Last night the new look U18 Netball team hosted both Tenby and POWIIS for the first matches of the

school year. The first match was Uplands V Tenby. Uplands started strong in a very fast paced game and

over the first 3 quarters they worked hard to get in front of the Tenby players to intercept the ball and

kept the score even at 3-3. Unfortunately, Tenby stepped up the pace in the last quarter and the passes

into the Goal Shooter were a bit too much for us to contend with. Final Score: Tenby 14 Uplands 7.

The second Uplands match was versus POWIIS. The girls benefitting from the experience of the first match

and changed their playing style. They slowed down the pace of the game and concentrated more on

making their passes and keeping hold of the ball in pressurised situations. Excellent work from the

defending pair Alice and Alina helped keep POWIIS out of the shooting circle. Strong work from the whole

team meant that we take away many positives and know how we can move forward from here. Final

score: Uplands 4 POWIIS 8.

Miss Regan and Mrs Skinner.

Team:

Vera (C), Jastine, Alice, Logan, Kate, Divya, Karina, Honami, Sophie, Alina, Yu-Jin


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Spice Garden visit

This week was another interesting one for Year 1i as we were able to visit the Tropical Spice Garden. The

students were immersed in the 5thSenses walk amidst the lush greenery. They were organised into groups

of 4 for the nature box activity where they had to find 10 items around the garden. The winning group

was awarded prizes by the nature educationist, Ms Jo Leen. There was a definite team effort by the

children in order to accomplish the activity successfully. The students also got to taste the refreshing

nutmeg juice. On the whole, everybody had fun and gained lots of knowledge about plants. Once again,

our appreciation goes to parent helpers, Ms Suzanne Freeman and Mrs. Watson for being our chaperones.

Year 6 Trip to Langkawi

As this newsletter goes to print the Year 6 children are on their way backj from Langkawi. Please read

about our adventures in next weeks newsletter!

Ali Nicholson

Head of Primary

Follow us on Twitter: @UplandsPriSch


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Music FOBISIA Festival 2014

From 13th-18thNovember, 6 students

(Year 13 Alex, Year 10 Alycia, Year 9

Miles, Year 8 YeFun, Year 7 Ryan and

Carson), 2 teachers and 2 parents

went to the Music FOBISIA festival

being hold in Harrow International

School in Beijing. They all performed very well with very intensive rehearsals from morning to evening

everyday as well as various concerts every night. We were very proud of our students excellent musical

progress during the festival. We are sure that they all enjoyed this precious time to share their huge

musical passion with many other students and the excellent music teachers from other schools. Please

look forward to the presentation of the Music FOBISIA in the secondary school assembly next Monday.

-Ms Ogusu and Mr Liao

This Music FOBISIA was great. I had

loads of fun and nervous moments. The

activities that I enjoyed the most were

practicing for the concert and doing the

workshops that we got to pick. I tried my

best in the concert and was extremely

nervous for myself and my other peers. Ilearned more about the people

travelling with me and made many new friends along the way. Overall this trip was amazing and I want

to thank Ms. Ogusu and Mr. Liao for all the hard work assembling a team to go and the many other things

needed to get us ready!

-Carson 7s

I had a fantastic experience in Beijing. The weather was cold. I made many

new friends from the other schools. We spent most of the time rehearsing

in the school. We played many pieces. I enjoyed the piece Jesus Christ

Superstar the most. We went to the Forbidden City on the third day. The

only thing that is tiring is travelling back to Penang. Non of us slept that

night because we had a midnight flight. Overall, I had fun. I would like to

join Music FOBISIA again next year.

-YeFun 8p


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Music FOBISIA was an unforgettable experience. I was never very

musical growing up so having the opportunity to attend an event like this

playing not one but two instruments was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime

event. I very much enjoyed the workshops and the bands I got to play

with. Furthermore, I got to meet some fantastic people who share the

same passion for music as I do. Beijing was very scenic and Harrow

International School was very welcoming. Gala Night was nerve-

wrecking but ultimately very rewarding. If I could, I would not hesitate

to sign up for the next one. A huge thank you to both Ms Ogusu and Mr. Liao for organizing this trip, as

well as everyone else involved.

-Alexan 13i

IB Theatre Arts Performance

There will be a performance next Thursday at 5pm by the Year 12 IB Theatre Arts students. It is a devisedpiece of theatre inspired by the recent pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, created using the

theories of a famous 20th century theatre practitioner. The piece is about 30 minutes in duration and the

students involved would very much appreciate having an audience, so if you are able to come along this

Thursday at 5pm to F208 please come and show your support.


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A week ago today (on Friday 14thNovember), Philae, the first spacecraft to ever land on the surface of a

comet, fell back into sleep as its batteries ran out of power. Scientists and engineers from the EuropeanSpace Agency (some of whom had worked on this project for 25 years) were jubilant at the successthe

whole team is delighted" the manager of the lander announced.

The European-built, washing-machine sized probe had been launched into deep space in 2004 from South

America, attached to the Rosetta craft, both tasked with reaching and then orbiting Comet

67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko, some 700 million km from Earth. To build up enough speed (15 km per

second!), it followed a complicated trajectory through the solar system, flying by the Earth, Mars, the

Earth again, the asteroid Steins and then the Earth for a third time in 2009, followed by the asteroid

Lutetia in 2010. To conserve power both craft entered deep hibernation in June 2011 for two and a half

years. One of the tensest moments was waking the two craft up again in January this year. They arrived

at the comet in August and last Wednesday (12thNovember) the Philae lander separated from Rosetta

and headed towards the comet. The plan had been to fire anchoring bolts on touchdown but these failed

and Philae bounced off the surface, flying back into space for two hours and to a height of 1 km before

bouncing off a second time. It finally landed at 9 pm Malaysian time.

Philae ended up in shadow near a cliff face on the head of the 4 km-wide comet and was only able to

spend 57 hours investigating the surface with its ten instruments before lack of sunlight sent it into

hibernation. Im feeling a bit tired, did you get my data? I might take a nap was its final tweet.

The hope is that as comet 67P approaches the Earth in 2015, Philae will receive enough solar radiation to

recharge its batteries, awaken once more and continue its study of the comets surface. The Science

faculty at Uplands wishes the craft well and with the Chinese lunar rover also in deep hibernation, as

three American rovers are busy exploring the surface of Mars and as the New Horizons craft is speedingtowards Pluto, we wonder if future alumni of Uplands will be involved in even more exciting space

exploration endeavours.


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University VisitKorean Information Session

Just a reminder of the upcoming visit from George Mason University, Korea on November 26 from 12:30-

1:20 for students, and a second session for Korean Parents from 1:30 to 2:50. Please let Mr. Mitchell,Head of Pastoral, know if you would like to attend the parent session. Email: [email protected]

As you can see below Ghent University, Korea has also been added to the event to assist Korean parents

and students of the offerings and processes for not only Korea, but the US as well. Please join us in F206.

Time Topic Participants Details Speaker

12:40-1:20 Info session 1 Students Session during lunch hour

1:20-1:40 Info session 2 Parents B.Mitchell, Head of Pastoral

1:40-1:50 Ghent Uni Info Parents Ghent University, GMU Korea

Mr. Taewan Kim, Ms. June M. Jung

1:50-2:20 1. Ghent University Parents Ghent University, GMU Korea

2. George Mason University Korea Mr. Taewan Kim, Ms. June M. Jung

2:20-2:30 Admission to Korean Universities Mr. Taewan Kim

2:30-2:45 Q&A Ghent University, GMU Korea

Mr. Taewan Kim, Ms. June M. Jung

Hope to see you there.

Mr. Bill Mitchell

Head of Pastoral, Universities & Careers

Student Reminder

Lockers

For the security of students, school resources and personal effects, each student is required to purchase

a lock for their locker. It is in the interest of the school and student to have a safe and secure place for

items brought to school. This will allow all of us to focus on education and not misplaced items. Please

have a lock on your son/daughters locker by the end of the week. If you have not, one will be provided

and the associated cost billed to the students account. We advise students not to bring expensive items

or large amounts of money to school unless unavoidable. In this case, please have your son/daughter

approach their Head of Year to secure it until the end of the day. Thank you to all of those students and

families that have already seen to this.

Mr. Bill Mitchell,Head of Pastoral, Universities & Careers
http://zeus.cooltext.com/d.php?renderid=1799802653&extension=png


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IB CAS students and community work with refugee children

For their CAS project, a group of Year 12 students decided to try and address the lack of education for

refugees in Malaysia by running weekly art workshops for refugee children between 4 and 6 years old.

The sessions take place at the Good Start Learning Centre - a newly opened kindergarten in Butterworth

for Rohingya children from Myanmar.

The group started by helping to man an art stall for the Penang Stop Human Trafficking Campaign at

Little Penang Street Market in September. They wanted to get an idea of how to run such an event, and

meet the children from Good Start who were there on the day. They then planned and budgeted their art

sessions, costing in the price of the paint they were going to use to paint the walls of the school. Raising

enough money to cover these expenses involved hard work after school operating a stall selling coke

floats to students. With the help of Mr McGill in the Art Department, they managed to exceed their target

and raised 1600RM for the paint and resources for their classes.

Having spent a weekend up ladders painting and decorating the room themselves, our students began

their first art session with great success. They are now several sessions in, and one of the students,

Malaika Franks, describes a new addition to their schedule:

We decided to expand one of our classes into a greater event involving the public and the parents of the

childrenan Art Jam. This was to be held at Hin Bus Depot Art Centre as part of a two day Stop Human

Trafficking Event raising awareness and money for the school. The day was a great success and was not

only fun for the children but for us as volunteers. We did simple yet fun activities with the kids like making

pasta necklaces, hand printing and Q-tip art.

The aim of the IB programme is to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help

to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. These

students - Malaika Franks, Vicky Oh, Amanda Tan and Melika Nabipourembody this ethos and are doing

a fantastic job reaching out to the local community to address global issues that concern them.

The Art Jam was featured in The Star newspaper last Sunday.

Mel Cartlidge

CAS Co-ordinator


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I am delighted to report that Year 9 students have had a busy past fortnight showcasing their talents in

Bangkok, Beijing and Penang! Congratulations to those students who represented Uplands in the U15FOBISIA Games, hosted by St. Andrews International School Bangkok (please see the sports sections for

further information on this) and to Miles Kelly who played Verdi on trombone at Harrow International

School FOBISIA Music festival in Beijing.

Year 9 students (of Art class 9CBA) have also finalised artwork for a Maths Department exhibition!

Students have created a collection of carved and painted Islamic Designs.The Medieval Arab Muslims

loved geometric designs which have regular or repeating lines and shapes. They made many beautiful

tiles which showed these designs.

The origins of the exhibition designs range from across the Islamic world. It is wonderful to see Year 9

students accessing areas of interaction between subjects. Year 8 Historical study on the Medieval Islamic

Empire is referred to in Year 9 Maths classes which influence lessons in Art and vice versa!

The PSHE focus for Year 9 students in November is the IBDP Learner Profile element Caring. After

working through lessons on the benefits of community service each student pledged to undertake at least

one service activity of their choosing this week. Students have been given autonomy to choose activities

they personally feel are of benefit. Different activities have been assigned different values in points

ranging from 1 10 and students have been given a Service Card on which they can record points

collected. Students must collect at least 1 point but may volunteer for further activities as they wish. It is

encouraging to note that quite a number of our students are more than generous with their time. I believe

I will have no shortage of praise to write in up-coming newsletter articles!

Miss Emma Mc Askie

Head of Year 9


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A few messages from the UPTA Committee:

This mornings German Country Breakfast was a great success and was well-attended. If

you were there, Im sure youll agree that the good company, delicious food and pleasant

atmosphere made for a very enjoyable morning. Thank you so much to our German

Country Representative Tanja Sigloch and her friends, for leading so skilfully and

enthusiastically this special UPTA event. Your hard work definitely paid off. If anyone else

would like to host a Country Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or even Afternoon Tea, please

contact the UPTA at [email protected] to volunteer. Its a wonderful way to

represent your home country and create an opportunity for fellow Uplands parents of all

nationalities to strengthen camaraderie.

We would like to thank all of the parents who volunteered at last Saturdays football

tournament. Everyone did a great job, and we enjoyed ourselves at the same time.

Volunteering to serve refreshments with the UPTA at a sports event is a nice way to meet

and get to know other parents while doing something helpful for the school. Its also our

chance to show guests from visiting schools some Uplands hospitality. If you would like

to represent Uplands at an upcoming event, please [email protected] sign

up for an hour or two of service.

Carols by Candlelight, a much anticipated annual UPTA event, has been scheduled for the

evening of Friday, 5thDecember. The exact time and other details will be announced next

week, so watch this space. In the meantime, you can start considering which Christmas

carol or holiday song you might like to perform, either in English or your native language.

If you play an instrument even better! Start rehearsing now because its time for you to

show off your skills. We hope that plenty of families and friends will sign up to provide

some festive musical entertainment, all in good fun. Dont be shy, email

[email protected] share your idea. We hope everyone can make it.... Santa Claus

will be taking a break from his Christmas Eve preparations to pop in.

The next UPTA Coffee Morning will be held at the PARKROYAL Penang Resort on Tuesday,

2nd December, from 8:30am to 10:30am in Tiffins Restaurant. Please RSVP to

[email protected] you are able to join us. This will be our final Coffee Morning of

2014.

Kind Regards,

Roslyn Wirth

UPTA Secretary
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Year 6 Langkawi Residential Tuesday 18Friday 21 November 2014

Primary TBALL with SCIPS & Straits Friday 21 November 2014

U16 Netball @ POWIIS Tuesday 25 November, 2014

U16 & U14 Football vs St Patricks (Singapore) Wednesday 26 November, 2014

FOBISIA Tennis Invitational hosted by BIS Jakarta Thursday 27 to Sunday 30th November 2014

U13 Boys Basketball vs Straits Thursday 27 November 2014

U11/U10 Football vs SCIPS Friday 28 November 2014

Year 3 ExcursionIpoh Caves Thursday 27 November

Year 4 ExcursionSelangor School Monday 1 December

of Hard Knocks

UPTA Carols by Candlelight Tuesday 9 December 2014

Sports Day Years 7 to 12 Tuesday 16 December 2014

Primary & Secondary Christmas Concert Wednesday 17 December 2014

Term 1 Ends at 12.00 noon Friday 19 December 2014

Boarding House closes at 12.00 noon Saturday 20 December 2014


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Orientation Day for all new studentsmorning Monday12 January 2015

Boarding House re-opens at 2.30 pm Monday 12 January 2015

Term 2 Starts Tuesday 13 January 2015

Mid Term Break at 2.40 pm Friday 13 February 2015

Boarding House closes at 12.00 noon Saturday 14 February 2015

Boarding House re-opens at 2.30 pm Sunday 22 February 2015

School re-opens Monday 23 February 2015

Term 2 ends at 12.00 noon Thursday 2 April 2015

Boarding House closes at 12.00 noon Friday 3 April 2015

Boarding House re-opens at 2.30 pm Sunday 19 April 2015

Term 3 starts Monday 20 April 2015

School closedLabour Day Friday 1 May 2015

Term 3 ends at 12.00 noon Friday 19 June 2015

Boarding House closes at 12.00 noon Saturday 20 June 2015

uplands school weekly newsletter - term 1 issue 14 - 21 november 2014

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