School Walk and Tea on the Lawn
After the mayhem of the morning’s go kart race, the whole school enjoyed a more leisurely afternoon in the afternoon sunshine. Accompanied by a selection of canine friends, staff, pupils and parents spent a few hours away from the classrooms, taking in the air and the beautiful countryside that surrounds the school, before returning to Main School for the traditional Tea on the Lawn. Thank you to all those who donated so generously to the wonderful tea table, and to our own catering team for making sure we all started our half term break well refreshed and replete.
Summer Fair
It was lovely to see such a fabulous attendance at this year’s Summer Fair. The friends had worked tirelessly to lay on a superb range of activities, entertainments and stalls for all the family, and even the weather made a special effort to be nice for us! The Form competitions were a huge success with the miniature gardens and vegetable characters seeing a spectacular range of entrants. Thank you to all who entered and well done to our winners: George Dunn (Miniature Gardens), Stanley Clarke (Vegetable Characters) and Oscar Staveley (Photography). The Friends would like to extend a huge thank-you not only to all the families who supported the event, but to those who did so much to make the event happen: to all the Friends who manned stalls, to Mrs Partington’s Leckby Business Studies students who provided so many attractions, and to the school catering staff for all their help setting up and helping out on the day; to Mr Bayne for his marvellous balloon creations, to Mrs Saxby and Mrs Sowerby in the Bursar’s Office for all their help behind the scenes; to Mr Lister for the generators, and to Mrs Lister for all the meat for the BBQ.
Latin Scholars celebrate the Restless Dead
Latin students from Form 4 and 5 recently had a great day out at The Mount School in York. They joined students from other local schools to take part in a series of activities based on the Lemuria festival: the Roman Festival of the Restless Dead. They learned how to appease these spirits by throwing beans over their shoulders and saw a real Roman soldier’s tomb! A popular activity was learning about how Roman soldiers trained, with running, marching and long-jumping (to develop stamina, discipline and strength!).
PP2’s All about Form 1 morning.
PP2 were all very excited to meet their buddies on Wednesday morning. They began by joining Form 1 and Mr Bayne for some outdoor singing before finding their buddies. The children then had the opportunity to ask questions such as ‘Do you get lots of homework?’ and ‘How do you know which lesson to be in?’ Next the Form 1s took PP2 on a tour of the school to show them where to find everything. Everyone enjoyed a play on the field and explored the classrooms before saying goodbye. All the PP2s and Form 1s are looking forward to their Summer party.
Skipathon fundraiser
The Form 4 girls completed a 5 hour skipping marathon to raise money for the British Heart Foundation last Wednesday. The girls organised themselves into teams to skip in shifts of half an hour, ensured that they had a good supply of sugary drinks and snacks, decorated T-shirts to promote their cause and finished the day off with a choreographed skipping display. Every single one of them participated, many having to learn and rehearse new skipping moves during break times. It was great to see them all pulling together, sharing their ideas and supporting each other. We were really impressed with their commitment to the idea and the responsibility that they all took for the organisation of the event. We are incredibly proud of what they have achieved and BHF will be very grateful for the donation, in excess of £570, that we will be able to make.
Lunchtime Concert
Last Friday we enjoyed another lunchtime concert in Cundall Church. Once again, we had some first time performers who had been very stressed in the days leading up to the concert, However, they performed brilliantly and actually really enjoyed the experience and the wonderful sense of achievement which follows such a performance. It is exciting to have another extremely talented boy chorister in Form 1 – well done Jolyon! It was lovely to have performances from across the age range and also a variety of styles and genres. For some, it was their last lunchtime concert at Cundall. Special congratulations go to Sarah Sullivan who sang a beautiful duet with Mrs Dunford (Panis Angelicus) and to the group of form 6 girls (Ellen, Francesca, Maya and Niamh) who had worked hard, learning and practising the song ‘Say Something’ which they performed so competently. We have some talented piano players and singers coming up through the school and it is great to hear the progress which our brass players are making. Henry also delivered a confident and musical performance on his clarinet. Well done to all of our musicians on making this another very memorable and joyous occasion. Many parents were in the audience and they thoroughly enjoyed the ‘oasis of calm’ which these concerts have become!
Boarding House News
It was a healthy combination of work, rest and play in the boarding house this weekend. Following the busy Open Morning, the boarders al headed down to the Summer Fair where they took part in every activity on offer. Then it was off to Thirsk for their supper; a delicious Chinese takeaway. Sunday was a mixture of rest and prep accompanied by a trip to Sugar Mouse in Easingwold, where they each bought a range of delicious energy restoring goodies.
Cundall Election 2015
Election fever swept through Cundall Manor last week. At the hustings on Tuesday the seven candidates presented their policies to the whole school and the polls opened early on Thursday morning. Turnout was over 80% and all voters had a taste of how a polling station actually works. The result was announced to the whole school on Friday morning by the returning officers (James Gordon and Ellen Watkins) with Michael Jimmy’s Luxury Party sweeping to power in the senior school, whilst Hollie Potter led the Happy World Party to victory in the lower school. Congratulations to all the candidates who each demonstrated the value of communicating strong positive messages to the electorate.
The Ullswater Experience
Forms 3 and 4 all enjoyed an action packed and fun-filled weekend in Ullswater. Upon arrival the skies were starting to darken which led to two days of challenging weather that the children dealt with remarkably well. They took part in a variety of activities which encouraged them to step outside of their comfort zone and understand the importance of supporting one another with positive thinking. Activities included gorge scrambling, abseiling, rock climbing, canoeing, trapezium jumps and the annual jog and dip only an hour after their arrival. All in all, the children showed great resilience in tricky circumstances and still left with a smile on their faces.
Form 5 in Aberdovey
Form 5, with Mmes Cook and Hunzinger and Ms Ballantyne, arrived at the Outward Bound centre in in Aberdovey a bit later than predicted, due to a wrong turning near Birmingham (!) but soon settled in and enjoyed an evening of team building exercises involving various leaps and heights. Saturday saw all three groups take to the mountains for a hike and scramble. The force 9 gale necessitated lying flat on the mountainside at one point, but pupils coped brilliantly with both this and the freezing rain! It’s no coincidence that the theme for the weekend was ‘resilience’ and the pupils demonstrated almost limitless reserves of this life skill. Their teachers took note and are already identifying potential prefects and Head Boy and Girl! The day was concluded with an evening camp fire where pupils cooked mussels gathered on the beach during the hike. Sunday was the highlight of the weekend with the notorious jetty jump being attempted by nearly all pupils and even some staff! After a well-deserved ice-cream, a packed coach set off home, only to break down within the hour! Transport gremlins aside, it was a great weekend; plenty of fun was had and pupils’ resilience and stamina were tested to the maximum.