Interform Special, Superlative Silk Roads & Christmas Cheer!

Welcome to the Third Year Blog!

We’ve made it!

Another High-Octane Hampton TermTM has flown by in a blaze of confiscated rugby balls, untucked shirts and, frankly remarkable, effort and achievement from the Third Year as a whole.
It is time for you all to fall into the embrace of your families/consoles/Netflix subscriptions and recharge your batteries, ready for next term. In the meantime, your teachers retreat to the cryogenic chambers that they are stored in during the holidays (deep under the Hammond Theatre), in order to regenerate in time for January.

Of course, some of you will be going on School trips and the Third Year Blog wishes you well and looks forward to the flood of reports from those trips which will fill the first blog back after the Christmas break!

There is still achievement to be celebrated this week, with some outstanding swimming success, along with a cup victory in the football and more updates from the Interform competition.
But, the main achievement to be celebrated is the outstanding spirit, energy, positivity and warmth that exudes from Third Year Hamptonians. It has been a fantastic start to your Third Year (and to your time at the School, for some of you) – you should feel proud of yourselves and you should be looking forward to the holiday, but also to the knowledge that in January you get to come back and build on everything you’ve already achieved in January.

All that’s left to say is Happy Christmas from everyone in the Third Year team!

Heads of Year Message

Interform Competition

Well done to all the boys who took part and made the Interform Quiz an enjoyable occasion on Wednesday lunchtime. Read on for an update on how this impacted the Interform standings. Thank you to Miss Alexander for organising such a fantastic range of Interform events this term.

Grade Cards

Parents will have access to their son’s end of term grade card from 4.30pm on Friday 13 December via the parent portal. Any follow-ups will be conducted by Form Tutors from the start of next term.

Trips

On Thursday, Mr Rigby enjoyed spending time with several Third Year linguists on the Mandarin trip to see the “Silk Road” exhibition at the British Museum. It was a fascinating experience, complemented by a superb meal in China Town. The boys’ behaviour was excellent throughout. We expect that all Third Year pupils will maintain the same high standards of behaviour on the school trips setting off this weekend – skiing in Austria and visiting the Christmas markets in Germany. We look forward to hearing all about both trips in the New Year.

Holiday Wellbeing

We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday with family and friends. We hope that parents found the letter we sent earlier this week on Personal Safety and Digital Wellbeing useful, and we would encourage you all to review this advice with your sons at the start of the holiday period.

Laptops

Pupils and parents should be aware that the school’s network filters monitor all devices for inappropriate language, inappropriate content or concerning behaviour. The School laptops are subject to the School’s network filters for online activity at any time – i.e. searches made at home will be picked up by the school’s network filters on arrival at school. Pupils must recognise that the laptops are for school work only, in School and at home. Any activity that meets the threshold for concern over the holidays will be followed up in school in January.

This notice has been relayed to Third Year pupils in school via their Form Tutors.

We hope everyone enjoys a well-deserved holiday.

Merry Christmas

Mr T Rigby & Mr H Moore

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Hampton School’s fantastic male voice choir Voices of Lions accompanied by lots of pupils and staff members from across the Hampton Trust, ensured everyone is feeling festive as we come to the final day of term. Enjoy the 2024 Christmas video and see if you can you spot anyone you know! 🎄 🎁

Interform – Williams Cup Special

Interform Volleyball

Last week, we brought a short report on the results of the Interform Volleyball. This week, we bring a cinematic celebration of the event – watch and enjoy…

 

Interform Quiz

After testing the physicality of the Forms last week, this week their knowledge was tested in the Form Quiz. The Third Year Blog understands that a good time was had by all at the quiz, but the Third Year Blog also understands that the competitive fires burn deep within the heart of most Hamptonians (and their Form Teachers – just you try to tell Miss Towler or Mrs Reilly that every point isn’t important!), so let’s see what the results were…

1st – 3A – 9pts
2nd – 3E – 8pts
3rd – 3B – 7pts
4th – 3D – 6pts
5th – 3J – 5pts
Joint 6th – 3F & 3H – 4pts
Joint 8th – 3G & 3C – 2pts

Overall Standings

So who currently has their hands on the coveted, revered, invaluable, rarely seen Williams Cup? Let’s have a look…

1st – 3D – 27pts
2nd – 3F – 25pts
3rd – 3A – 24 pts
4th – 3B – 23pts
5th – 3J – 20pts
6th – 3H – 19pts
7th – 3E – 17pts
8th – 3G – 15pts
9th – 3C – 14pts

As you can see, it’s incredibly tight, so there is all to play for next term….

SILK ROAD Exhibition

Miss Zhang reports on the recent Mandarin Trip to the British Museum:

Pupils studying Mandarin from Third Year to Lower Sixth recently had the amazing opportunity to visit the British Museum and Chinatown. We saw the Silk Roads Exhibition, which was a fascinating insight into the incredible story of the famous trade routes across Asia and Europe that transported valuable silk, spices, and other goods such as glass.

There were many interesting artefacts and pieces of history that really made it so intriguing and informative. We then went to Chinatown, we arrived a bit before our reservation so we got the opportunity to see a bit of Chinatown. Many of us went into Chinatown Bakery or the various supermarkets and lots of pupils bought something! We then went to Leong’s Legend for lunch. The food and staff were amazing. We ate 小籠包, (Chinese soup dumplings) among other delicious dishes like fried rice noodles. Everyone had an amazing time and we hope that there are more trips like this in the future.

Swimming Success

Last weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to compete at the 2024 Welsh Winter Nationals in Swansea. I also had the chance to meet Commonwealth Games finalist and Welsh National Record Holder, Dan Jones and talked about swimming at a national level. He reminded me that every race is part of a bigger journey. There will be moments where things don’t go as planned but rather than dwelling on what went wrong, the focus should be on how to improve for the future. Our brief chat was a perspective shift I needed.

Despite racing against some of the best junior swimmers from across the country, I achieved personal bests in five of the six events I qualified for and narrowly missed a spot in the finals for the 200m backstroke event. Despite not taking home any medal this time, I have successfully gained qualifying times for three events at next year’s London Regional Championships. I plan to follow the advice I’ve been given, improve my performance in upcoming competitions, and maintain a positive attitude.

Report from Nathaniel O (3G)

Shoebox Appeal

Hamptonians spent the week organising, filling, and wrapping over 100 shoeboxes to donate to Solace Women’s Aid. Solace is a leading specialist charity in the UK supporting women and children experiencing domestic abuse. The lifesaving support that Solace provides to over 20,000 women, children and young people each year is so important. Each form donated items including stationery, toys, vital hygiene products, games and so much more. The donations will certainly make a huge impact on those in need and the life changing work that Solace do. On behalf of Form Charity and Solace, we would like to thank all Hampton staff and pupils for their valuable contributions to the shoebox appeal this Christmas.

Thank you to everyone who contributed!

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