Welcome to the Third Year Blog!
Each year, Hampton welcomes a group of ducklings to the Cloisters. They are protected by their mother as they grow, but the School also looks out for them, providing them with water and food, and ensuring that no one disturbs them. They are remarkably cute, even in the eyes of the most battle hardened Hamptonians. However, if you were to look at them this week, a transformation has taken place. The once tiny, yellowish ducklings have become almost as big as their mother. They look ready to move on; ready to progress beyond their carefully managed existence in the Cloisters in order to take on new challenges and spread their wings.
As we move towards the end of the Third Year, it is impossible not to draw clumsy comparisons between these rapidly growing ducks and the current crop of Third Years. One imagines that the ducks would also struggle to tuck their shirts in, though with greater justification. Watching them eat is reminiscent of the feeding frenzy that anyone ‘fortunate’ enough to have lunch hall duty will see on a weekly basis. The way in which they huddle together, even as they grow, calls to mind the squads of Third Years barrelling around the corridors, having a wonderful time, but not always quite aware of how much space they now take up. Of course, the main thing to observe is the fact that it does become time for the ducks and the boys to move on. As a Third Year group of teachers, we are always sorry to see each year group move on, though this is tempered by the excitement at what they are all going to be able achieve as they move into their Fourth Year. This is just as true this year as any other. They have been a great year group and we only have a few more weeks with them!
Anyway, enough of this flimsy, whimsical analogy! In order to fully capture the reality of everything the pupils are capable of, lion cubs in the cloisters would be more appropriate, but I believe this would carry insurance implications. In this week’s blog, there’s a huge array of achievements that these ducks/lions have managed to squeeze in. Let’s get onto that without any further ado.
Head of Year Message
Congratulations to all the Third Years who have been nominated to receive an award at our Prizegiving ceremony. The list of prize winners is further down this blog. Their achievements are rightly recognised at this time of year and we look forward to applauding them on Thursday evening. However, we are always very aware that prize winners (although worthy) are only a small representation of the achievements of the year group as a whole. We cannot award prizes for every effort grade 1, note played in tune, line rehearsed, goal scored, tackle made, ergo test completed, wicket taken, mountain climbed, or homework handed in on time, but this should not detract from the recognition of each of those achievements. Well done to everyone for what you have achieved this year.
Laptops: A reminder to all pupils and parents that there is software loaded onto the school laptops that enables safeguarding monitoring to take place at all times. Any online searches, social media interactions or other digital activities that meet the threshold of concern will be picked up by the school’s network filters when the laptop is brought into school. Pupils should recognise the need to use the laptops for school work and school purposes only (including when away from school).
We strongly encourage Third Year pupils to take advantage of the range of opportunities in school over the final two weeks of term. A few highlights for next week include:
- Monday period 3: Personal Finance lesson
- Tuesday/Wednesday: Interform Chess
- Wednesday: Third Year Careers in Creative Industries afternoon
- Thursday period 3: Personal Safety/Water Safety Talk
- Thursday 7pm: Third Year Prizegiving
Please throw yourselves into the activities on offer (including the lunchtime co-curricular programme) and keep supporting one another with kindness right until the end of term. As always, do reach out to us or your Form Tutors if you are having any difficulties.
Absences
For medical absences, please notify your son’s Form Tutors via email (cc’ing absence@hamptonschool.org.uk) on the morning of each day of absence by 8:45am, or complete the absence form via the parent portal. For planned absences and appointments, please contact Heads of Year requesting the absence with as much notice as possible.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend in the sunshine!
Best wishes
Mr T Rigby & Miss M Bedford
Arts Award Leadership Workshop
The Third year Arts Award is an outstanding programme that allows the pupils to explore and develop their skills in an area of the arts of their choosing. The programme finishes with a day where the Third Year pupils go to Hampton Prep School and run workshops in their chosen area with the younger pupils. It’s a great chance to practise their own leadership skills and to share what they’ve learnt in a fun environment. Below are two reports from two of the groups who participated.
Take a look at some of the photos from the day here.
Arts Award – Music composition
After working on my Arts Award project with Arun S for the most part of Third Year, we finally got around to the (dreaded) leadership workshop at Hampton Prep. To be honest, it didn’t go as badly as I thought it would.
The project Arun and I have been working on is a music composition utilising unconventional musical instruments. Learning the different instruments has been enjoyable, though presented its own unique set of challenges with it. The composition also was quite tricky, and took significantly more time to finish, but we got there nonetheless. We eventually decided that our composition would be a theme and variation style piece based on the Jurassic Park theme, and although we have had some atrocious sounding music along the way, we’ve got to a point where we are very happy with what we’ve done.
Our workshop aimed to teach all the participants how to play two unconventional instruments, being the spoons and the glasses. I’d say we did well to teach everyone, we got loads of positive feedback and nearly everyone saying they would go home and annoy their parents or siblings try out what they learnt at home. After two very loud sessions with the boys at Hampton Prep, we had finished everything to do with the project itself, but there remains some forms to be filled out and a few logistical issues, but those did sort themselves out.
Despite my initial thoughts, I really enjoyed the session (it would be safe to say Arun also enjoyed it) and found it a very enriching experience.
Report by Harry N (3B)
Editor’s note: It is worth saying that from speaking to people at the event, Harry is being unnecessarily modest here in his description of their workshop – it sounds as if the boys at Hampton Prep absolutely loved it!
Arts Award – Wildlife Photography
Some of the Hampton boys travelled to Hampton Prep to pass on their skills that they had learned throughout the year on their Arts Award subject. Both sets of boys enjoyed their time playing games, designing hospitals and even having lots of chocolate.
In my group of me, Joe P and Ben F, we were trying to teach the skill of wildlife photography. We started by showing them some of our best photos that we have taken over the year. I then introduced the Year 6 pupils to camera settings. These include sports mode, automatic, portrait etc. Once they had got to grips with these, they had a go on a real camera as I had brought mine in and they enjoyed playing around with it. After this Joe had another game for them to play. It was a sort of Where’s Wally, but find and frame. This was a fun interactive game that we saw all the boys enjoy.
Finally, we had one last game for then to play. This worked on their skill of framing. One of them would run as fast as they could past the camera and the other one would have to catch them in the middle of the frame. There were many amazing photos taken and there were definitely some young photographers there.
We had a great time and would really recommend the Arts Award to anyone in Second Year as they move in to the Third Year.
Report by Tom B (3A)
Japanese Drumming Workshop
Our Third Third Year musicians got into the rhythm with a Japanese Taiko Drumming in their music workshop this week. Take a look at what they got up to:
Performance at the Prep School
A couple of weekends ago, Daniel T (3J) performed at the Hampton Prep School Summer Fair. He sang a played guitar for two separate 45 minute sets, with him enjoying the experience (despite the heat!) as much as the lucky souls who got to listen to him. Well done, Daniel!
Kayaking at the London Youth Games
The variety of talents and skills within the Year group seems endless. The School affords so many different activities and opportunities to shine, but sometimes we hear about remarkable achievements which the School has had nothing to do with at all. One of these instances came this week.
Henry P, while quietly getting on with everything else, has been throwing himself into his kayaking this year.
During half term, he competed in the National Kayak Sprint Championships, winning bronze medals in K2 and K4 (the number refers to the number of seats in the kayak).
Then, earlier this week, he represented the London Borough of Richmond in the London Youth Games. He won the U14 50m sprint. He came second in the U15 200m sprint. He came second in the U14 kayak slalom. All these outstanding individual performances helped Richmond to win overall Gold in the sprint and overall Bronze in the slalom.
A remarkable achievement! Well done, Henry!
Third Year Prize Winners
Next week sees the Third Year Prizegiving evening. Winning a prize up against the incredibly tough competition of an entire year of Hamptonians is a great thing. The winners are now on the School website and you can find the full list here. Well done to everyone for what you have achieved this year.
Two truths and a lie
Last week, the inimitable Miss Bedford tried to pull the wool over our eyes with this claptrap:
- Miss Bedford has been swimming in open water with sharks and sea lions.
- Miss Bedford has five cats, named after the main characters in The Famous Five.
- Miss Bedford once read the news live on the radio whilst standing in a pond of koi carp.
Which was the lie? Miss Bedford laughs in the face of danger, so swimming with sharks is nothing to her. Miss Bedford was once a radio news presenter and did once perform her job with her feet being nibbled by koi carp. Which means that Miss Bedford does not have five cats named after the Famous Five. That would be ridiculous.
This week, Miss Towler is our Third Year tutor casting aside her morals in order to lie to you all. Here are her outlandish claims:
- Miss Towler once broke the same arm twice in the same year
- Miss Towler used to work at London zoo
- Miss Towler has scored more goals in hockey this year than games played
Which is the lie? Find out next week!
CONNECTION CORNER
Well done to the everyone who had a go at last week’s Connection Corner. Well done to everyone who correctly guessed that the answers were all Salads, merits go to Archer J, Leander K-B, Jasper E, Oliver A, Albert S, Prabodha A, Ben B, Samuel H, Ollie W and Joshua R.
Another tricky one to have a go at over the weekend:
In case, you’re still perplexed here are the answers from the last week’s conundrum:
King Edward, Jersey, Maris Piper and Yukon Gold, are all types of what? Potatoes
Rhodes, Santorini, Mykonos and Zakynthos, are all more commonly known as what? Greek Islands
Who led the Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC? Julius Caesar
Guava, acai, dragon and durian are all types of what? Fruit
Connection: Different types of salad (Potato Salad, Greek Salad, Caesar Salad, Fruit Salad)
