GCSE Art and Textiles Exhibition
Last Wednesday saw the staging of this year’s GCSE Art and Textiles Exhibition in the School Gym. The Art Department transformed the room into a wonderful gallery space that really showed the students’ work off to full advantage. Visitors were able to peruse the portfolio books laid out on the tables, chronicling the development of the students’ work from conception through experimentation and on to finished product. The final pieces hung around the room and gave a clear indication of the wealth of diverse and inspirational talent our Thornton pupils have.
Thornton Leavers’ Dinner
120 pupils, parents and staff met in the splendour of Rockcliffe Hall on the last evening of last half term, for the Thornton Leavers Dinner. Drinks were served on the terrace followed by a 3-course dinner hosted by the school and organised by the Head of Upper School Sara Hall. Head Boy and Head Girl, James Gordon and Laura Aspinall, gave a both moving and comical presentation featuring footage of all Thornton pupils both now and in the past, many as far back as Pre-Prep and even earlier! Mr Sample‘s own speech, celebrating the Thornton pupils’ time at Cundall was followed by his presentation of leavers’ gifts; Cundall cufflinks for the boys and bracelets for the girls.
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.
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.
Leckby set sail for Cowes
What a phenomenal week Leckby had in Cowes! The journey, (thankfully shorter than previous coach drives to Salcombe) was painless and of course included a ferry trip across the Solent, instilling a taste of far-flung adventure. The UKSA centre in East Cowes proved to be a perfect choice with comfortable accommodation, an enormous range of sailing craft and fabulous instructors. The weather was the only bugbear: whilst it was always warm and relatively dry throughout the week, the heavy winds proved quite a challenge. After a very enjoyable first day on the water, the budding sailors were then left high and dry on the second day as winds reached over 50mph. Alternative forms of entertainment, in the form of an impromptu rugby match, football games and a very useful classroom session covering all the theory required for the RYA Stage 1 certificate, filled the day. The third day was just as windy but with a little persuasion, the instructors finally relented and allowed the groups onto the water in their larger sail-training keelboats for a half-day session. With just a foresail (the winds were too strong for a mainsail) the pupils experienced the exhilaration of a yacht in full heel and at high speed. The other half of the day was spent messing about within the marina in kayaks – all great fun! The final day at the centre saw the winds calm down enough for another day of dinghy sailing although the afternoon’s gusts did preclude the scheduled racing regatta. Suffice it to say conditions ensured that every single pupil had thoroughly mastered their capsize drill by the end of the day! The instructors all expressed their appreciation of the pupils’ enthusiasm and resilience through the week and were delighted to present them all with their Youth Stage 1 certificates. Indeed, such was their progress, the pupils were encouraged to set their sights not on Youth Stages 2, 3 and 4, but on the more demanding Adult Level programme which the instructors felt the pupils were all ready for. Well done Leckby on a very productive – if exhausting – week on the water. Further pictures are available to view on ourFacebook page (click to open).
Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Expedition
On Saturday 2nd May, twenty Eldmire students arrived in the Cundall bus park fully laden and raring to set off on their Bronze expedition. After the promise of sun and warm weather the group were a little disappointed that on their arrival in Bainbridge they were greeted by cold, damp weather; however, in true Cundall style all of the students set off into the wild with huge smiles on their faces. During Day 1, lots of exciting events occurred and one group even came to the rescue of a trapped lamb, much to the surprise of the assessor! That night the rain set in and just as the staff began to fear that the smiles might fade, Tom cheered everyone up, including the teachers, with a fresh batch of popcorn! As the morning of Day 2 dawned, the rain increased and the temperature remained unpleasantly low. However, the students got their bags packed and on their backs without so much as a grumble and off they set once more with their smiles shining out. All of the groups managed to surprise both the teachers and the assessor: Tom’s group arrived in Middleham in record time, and Ellie’s group were not far behind them. Becky’s group though created utter panic for everyone, seemingly disappearing altogether! However it turned out that they were right under everyone’s noses, sticking religiously to their route card. After an action packed weekend, all of the groups qualified and should be really proud of their achievements. It was a tough weekend, with awful weather conditions but, to quote one of our parents, “we breed them tough at Cundall!”
Dazzling designs from DT
Every year Mr Coates and his DT students put together some fantastic work in their GCSE classes and this year is no exception. Tom Dicken had everyone dazzled with his design and production of an impressive, fully functioning guitar. Josh Hall created a fully functioning Art Deco radio and other designs included a gun cabinet, (Sam Youmans) A Table, (James Green) A Chair, (Morgan Gray) and a superb Dog Kennel (Harry Hodgson). All of these amazing designs will be on display soon for all to see. Well done guys, great work!
Duke of Edinburgh Silver Practice
On Friday 24th April, eleven Thornton students set off for the edge of Dalby Forest, with their bikes, ready to complete their practice silver expedition. The first night was spent relaxing and enjoying the luxurious campsite; there was even time for a quick game of duck, duck, goose! Then, early on Saturday morning the teachers were woken up to sound of Sam and Harry merrily cooking themselves bacon for breakfast in preparation for their journey ahead. By 7:30am all of the students were on their way to Goathland, unaware of the steep hills which were lying in wait for them. They all conquered these and still managed to have huge smiles on their faces! Unfortunately the temperature plummeted at the end of the second day and that, coupled with the heavy rain, meant that we all set out for Whitby in search of chips and somewhere warm to shelter. By bedtime the smiles had returned though and the students had an early night ready for day 2. Day 2 was far more eventful and eventually led to all of the students realising that the moors around Whitby are not suited to an expedition on bikes! Chains were broken, gears and brakes failed, and there were more punctures than the cyclists would care to count. However, still this did not dampen their determination and spirit, and all of them seem raring to go for the real expedition which will take place in June. Well done Thornton