Terrific Tennis, Glorious Golf & Summer Show Spectacular!

WELCOME TO THE FIRST YEAR BLOG!

This week has been a busy one on the co-curricular front, with fixtures in several sports taking place. On Monday, the U12 Tennis squad travelled to St George’s, Weybridge for the Surrey Tennis finals, performing strongly to a well-deserved second place. Our young golfers and athletes have also been away at competitions this week – more news on these as results come in! Tuesday and Wednesday also saw several First Years taking part on or behind stage in the Lower School play, Alex.Wonderland, giving fantastic performances in an innovative and hilarious re-telling of Alice in Wonderland – well done, boys! There is still lots to look forward to in the final few weeks of term, with Biology trips and Combat workshops coming up, as well as preparations for the Summer Concert.

FIRST YEAR CLUBS

As we enter the final half term of the year, it’s your last chance to try something new from the wide range of clubs that that are on offer at Hampton. Here’s a reminder of ones that you might like to check out:

Tennis Success

Brennan C (1H) tells us all about the success of the U12 tennis team in this week’s Surrey Schools Festival:

Our U12 A tennis team set out for the finals of the Surrey Schools Festival on Monday 20 June. We had qualified for this through a series of matches in our league all term. The team consisted of Oliver Scott, Jayden Chit, Oliver Khaksar, Alex Milicic, Theo Tang and myself.

We were in for a tough day when our opposition would be Reeds School and KCS Wimbledon. We were in a round robin and were up against KCS in our first round of matches, followed by Reeds. It was a doubles tournament and each pair played six matches in total. Three against each school. When facing KCS, we had a few narrow matches and ended up losing 5-4 against them. However, that didn’t stop us from comfortably beating Reeds 8-1 with strong performances all around by taking multiple victories 4-0 and in one of them the opponents only getting one point of us.

Overall, we came second and weren’t too annoyed on the way back to Hampton but everyone had a feeling that next year we would come back stronger and bring back the gold medal.

Glorious Golf

This week saw our First Year golfers take to the fairways as they competed for Hampton at the Richmond Schools’ Golf Tournament. Josh G tells us more:

On Tuesday 21 June I played golf in the Richmond Schools’ Golf Championship which Hampton hosts annually at Fulwell Golf Club. There were two separate competitions – a nine hole competition for all pupils with handicaps and a five hole competition for those without. I was playing in the five hole competition.

When we arrived at the golf club we were given the chance to warm up with some chipping and putting. After about half an hour we were put into groups of 3, I was with two other boys from other Richmond Schools who I had never met before, but they were really nice and it wasn’t long before we had a good sense of camaraderie going, celebrating each other’s good shots and commiserating when things weren’t going so well! I managed to win my group match on the last hole with a birdie which I will be proud of for years! The other boys in my group both did really well also, so everyone was in high spirits on the last green. I ended up coming 6th overall in the five hole competition which I was proud of considering it was the first time I had ever played in a golf competition.  I was really grateful I got selected for this and I had a great time!  

ALEX.WONDERLAND

Lower School dramatists entertained an audience in the Hammond Theatre this week, with the spectacular summer show Alex.Wonderland. Tristan D and Dean F take us behind the scenes:

On the 21 and 22 June, I, along with a few other Lower School Hamptonians, recreated the famous story of Alice in Wonderland, into the new and exciting video game of Alex.Wonderland. After many sessions of rehearsal, we were ready to perform, and the group of 20-30 people were geared up. The play was excellent! Everything went to plan and because of it, we got to order takeaway for dinner the next night! This is one of the best experiences I have had yet, as it is my first Hampton play. Now all friends, I hope the cast and tech crew will come together again to perform another great show. By Tristan D

I was really excited to take part in this year’s Lower School Play, Alex.Wonderland. We had a large group from the First, Second and Third Years and it was a very fun experience. There were lots of interesting and funny roles and the whole play was very entertaining to prepare for. My favourite part was acting on stage in front of an audience. We had lots of fun at rehearsals and it was really interesting to see how a play is put together – both from the acting side and the technical side (lights, music, etc). I am looking forward to the next one! By Dean F

Digital Parenting webinar 

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve seen all the wonderful benefits technology has to offer; but with issues such as inappropriate content, misinformation and abuse increasing at worrying rates, it’s never been more important to know how to protect young people from online risk. For this reason, we have invited back the leading online safety organisation Digital Awareness UK to deliver an online safety webinar to help our parents feel empowered about keeping their child safe online.

The 1-hour webinar, on Monday 27 June at 6.30pm, will talk you through:

• Major trends in how young people are using apps and games
• Critical digital issues to be aware of
• The practical steps you can take to protect your children from online risk and to encourage happy and healthy tech habits

If you are interested, please sign up for the webinar here. Could we kindly request you do not forward on this event invitation outside of the Hampton School parent community. If you have any questions about the webinar, please contact me at g.haynes@hamptonschool.org.uk.

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

TALK! CINDY ROSE

Do you fancy yourself as a global tech leader of the future or perhaps want to find out more about how tech innovation continues to change the world, then come along to the next Hampton School Talk! event on Monday 27 June at 1pm in the Hammond Theatre when we’ll be joined by Cindy Rose, President of Microsoft for Western Europe.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to hear Cindy talk about the future of Microsoft and her mission to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more. The global tech leader will also be shining a light on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and discussing all things tech, from artificial intelligence to the internet of things, tackling climate change to explorations in space. It promises to be fascinating event.

TUTEE OF THE WEEK

Each week, Tutors in the First Year team nominate a boy who they have been particularly impressed with and Mr Hill and Mrs Peattie will provide the boy with a football to use on the 3G for the week!

This week’s Tutee of the Week is Oscar M-C (1L), Oscar’s thoughtful, kind and caring attitude has been excellent this term, and he always looks out for others. Well done, Oscar!

SPECIAL SHOUT OUTS!

We love to hear about what you have been getting up to outside of School. Please do send any information about any of your achievements through to Mrs Ziegler (h.ziegler@hamptonschool.org.uk).

FIRST YEAR 5 QUESTIONS

Well done to everyone who entered last week’s quiz! Merits go to:

1J: Josh M-J, Myles B-N, Alex M

1W: James P, Oliver S

1L: William O’S, Olly P

1B: Rory M

Take a look at this week’s questions – have a go yourself or challenge people at home and see if they know the answer.

1. Which river flows through Paris?
2. Which swimming stroke is named after an insect?
3. Which vegetable did Sir Walter Raleigh bring to England?
4. Fe is the symbol of which chemical element?
5. What is the name of Jack Sparrow’s ship?

Merits are awarded for everyone who has a go! Just click on the link below and enter your answers; points for the Interform Competition will be awarded to the form with the most entries every week.

Why don’t you have a go and enter your answers here. 

Remember to write your name in the form so you can be credited with merits!

Take a look at next week’s blog to find out the answers and here are the answers to last week’s 5 questions:

1. 1. Which award-winning musical is a prequel to the Wizard of Oz? Wicked
   2. Mount Vesuvius overlooks which modern Italian city? Naples
   3. Who were the other two astronauts with Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission? Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins
   4. At what temperature are Celsius and Fahrenheit equal? -40
   5. In Norse mythology, where do the gods live? Asgard

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!