Welcome to the Third Year Blog!
World Cup fever swept through Third Year this week. There was palpable excitement on Monday morning as Third Year anticipated the England vs Iran game and boys gathered in the Dining Hall and form rooms through lunch break to watch and cheer. Extra time meant it ran into lesson time and teachers kept boys updated or screened some of the game. Victory for England, a happy Third Year! As a form tutor, I can vouch that the form room chat is footie, footie, footie. Good luck to England tonight!
Mr McBay gave a presentation about GCSEs options in the Hammond Theatre on Thursday and Third Year Hamptonians discovered how much flexibility they have. They also learned about the independent learning project, HELP, where boys can choose any subject to study that interests them. The deadline is the end of the autumn term and the proposal forms are on Firefly.
Next week we have the Carducci Quartet visiting on Tuesday, 29 November. During the day, they will deliver masterclasses, working with some of our advanced string players and chamber groups, and then an evening concert with pieces from Haydn and Dvorak. Grab the last tickets!
Enjoy this week’s blog which includes reports on the archaeological dig at Hampton and a review of the St Cecilia’s Day Concert. Please keep the articles coming – send them to me at v.whitwam@hamptonschool.co.uk
Have a super week – It’s only a month til Christmas!
Heads of Year Message
GCSE Options & HELP
Further to Mr Wilkinson’s presentation in Third Year Assembly on Thursday, we hope that many Third Year pupils will seriously consider undertaking a HELP Level 2 project this year. A reminder that there is an expectation that Academic Scholars undertake either an Arts Award or a HELP project in the Third Year. Mr McBay has requested that all GCSE Option forms are submitted by Wednesday 11 January. Please refer to his letter of 24 November.
Merits
We were delighted to hand out Bronze (20 merits), Silver (30) and Gold (40) Merit certificates to several Third Year pupils in our Assembly this week. Form Tutors will distribute the remaining certificates (10 merits) before the end of term. We encourage all Third Years to keep up the good work and good deeds to earn these merits, and then come to sign them off and collect an edible reward during either Wednesday or Friday morning break at the Third Year office.
Behaviour
We have noticed a slight increase in the number of conduct and work detentions being issued to Third Year pupils over the past fortnight. Whilst this is a familiar feature as fatigue sets in over the second half of term, please continue to encourage good standards of behaviour and the accurate recording, completion and submission of homework tasks.
All pupils will receive a behaviour reminder during registration on Monday morning that they must listen to carefully and adhere to.
Uniform
Boys are allowed to wear sensible hats, coats and gloves to keep warm on their journeys to and from school, but they must revert to full school uniform throughout the school day whilst on site. This means they must wear a school tie (properly tied) and school blazer, with a white shirt (tucked in and buttoned up), smart black trousers, black socks and smart black shoes (non-trainers). If they are cold, it is permissible to wear a vest under the shirt and/or a black V-neck jumper. Coats should not be worn in school. Persistent failure to meet these uniform requirements is a conduct issue and can lead to sanctions and/or contacting parents.
Boys – Please remember to let us, your Form Tutors or the relevant subject teachers know if you are having any difficulties.
We hope you enjoy the weekend.
Best wishes
Mr T Rigby & Mr H Moore
Middlesex Cup Success
Harry D (3A) tells us all about the U14A rugby team’s success in the Middlesex Cup:
After comfortably beating St Benedict’s at home in the Middlesex Cup quarter-final, we progressed to the semi-finals where we played Gunnersbury School. Being one game away from the final, we knew we had to have a quick start against a physical team. We started off very well after a good try in the corner by Will O (3A). Soon after, Ollie W (3A) put us 12 points ahead with a strong carry over the try line. Just before half time we were stuck in our own half until Stanley spotted a gap and offloaded it to a support man on his shoulder and he passed it on to the next man who ran it under the posts to score. Just before half time, we played a good switch, turning back the other way and into the space where Aidan K beat a couple of tackles to score, to make it 26-0 at half time. The game finished 26-14 with a few players from the Bs stepping in and helping us get the victory to progress to the final on Tuesday!
Good luck boys, we’ll be cheering you on from Hampton!
St Cecilia’s Dinner and Concert
It’s been a busy term for our musicians, with lots of fantastic concerts taking place in the Hammond Theatre and plenty more to come. Joshua R (3E) tells us about the recent St Cecilia’s Concert which took place last weekend:
Saint Cecilia was a Roman martyr who lived in the 3rd century CE and is the patron saint of music, musicians, and in particular, church music. The reason is because when at times of happiness, and sadness, such as her wedding and her death, she “sang in her heart of the Lord’’. Often depicted with a lute and an organ, she is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, who is commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. She was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian, his brother Tiburtius, and a Roman soldier Maximus suffered martyrdom in about 230CE, under the emperor Alexander Severus.
Musical compositions are dedicated to her, and the Saint Cecilia feast is held on the 22 November. Hampton dedicates a unique concert to her and so the annual St Cecilia’s Dinner and Concert saw The Hammond Theatre transformed into a wonderful concert dining venue for a musical extravaganza. Sixth Formers entertained the audience with beautiful pieces of music and the catering team treated us to a lovely three course meal. The music was absolutely amazing and it was really inspiring for me, as a budding guitarist, to see these Sixth Formers play beautiful pieces of music with such talent and passion. I thoroughly enjoyed last Saturday night and I would recommend it to any music lovers. Thank you to the catering team, events team, theatre team, HSPA, the Hampton School Music Society, the accompanist, and, of course, our Sixth Former musicians.
The Dig!
Joshua R (3E) tells us all about a new project that our History, Archives and Archaeology Club started this week:
We are really quite fortunate at Hampton to have such a wide variety of co-curricular clubs and activities. I have been attending History, Archives and Archaeology Club (HAAC) run by Mrs Willcox and Mrs Arnott. The Hampton School Parents Association (HSPA) has gifted our club the necessary equipment to dig up a part of the School field, so that we can see what interesting archaeological curiosities we can find. The ground staff very kindly removed the topsoil of this area and closed it to non-club members.
We have been preparing to dig up a section of the field for quite a while and we have been avidly researching the methods and equipment that we needed and the rules that we had to follow in order to start our archaeological adventure. Our dreams were granted and last Tuesday was the first time where we could channel our inner archaeologists and we started to do a bit of digging. I found it really exciting – it was the first time I had done something like this.
It was hard to dig the soil at first, but we were happy when we found a change in soil colour – this meant that we were beginning to get to the deeper parts of the ground where items that have been hidden for decades or more could be found. We did find a few items: a piece of brick and a fragment of green glass. This may not sound very interesting but even the most ordinary of objects can tell an amazing story about our local history. We might even find a bit of Roman treasure, but, alas, anything that we do find has to be reported to the local Coroner and returned!
Oliver A (3J) has been creating a podcast about our progress that you can listen to after we finish our archaeology project.
CONNECTION CORNER
Well done to the 29 Hamptonians who had a go at last week’s Connection Corner. It was a tricky one and foxed nearly all of you – lots of you said either places in Central London or Tube Stations. The correct answer was Monopoly Board locations! Big shout out to Albert S, Neel M, Teddy H, Patrick M, Ben B, Jude L S and Agalyan S.
Another tricky one this week, have a go over the weekend and see if you can spot the connection:
In case you’re still perplexed, here are last week’s answers:
Where would Harry Potter would catch the Hogwarts Express from Platform 9 3/4? Kings Cross Station
In which battle did Admiral Lord Nelson die? The Battle of Trafalgar
Ian Fleming is famous for creating which fictional character? James Bond
Which team defied odds of 5000/1 to win the Premier League in 2015-2016? Leicester City
Connection answer: Monopoly Board Locations
