15 minute read
Family
Lily Yeatman, aged 14
The Gryphon School
As a young child, Lily was frequently dragged along to her brother’s football practice and matches. Not a lot of girls were playing football then, but Lily was inspired and wanted to give it a go, and she’s been playing ever since!
From barely being able to kick a ball when she started, to now training six times a week, Lily is a real force to be reckoned with in her role as a defender. As well as playing for The Gryphon School, Lily also plays for Dorset Schools U14s and has now been put forward for the England Schools U15s trials next year. She has also represented her local team, Pen Mill, for several years but now travels to Bridgwater each week to play for their hugely successful academy.
Dan Burleigh, PE teacher at The Gryphon, who coaches Lily says ‘Lily was an integral part of our U15s team who made it to the last 16 in the entire country, losing to the eventual winners! She was also Player of the Tournament at the U18s 6-a-side county competition that we won in April. Her attitude in every game is superb. She is supportive and a brilliant role model for younger players at school, and she has represented the school in a whole range of sports – not just football!’
Lily’s dream is to pursue football as a career, and one day play in the Women’s Super League. We can’t wait to see how she gets on!
gryphon.dorset.sch.uk
KATHARINE DAVIES
PHOTOGRAPHY
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Children’s Book Review Molly Broadley, Aged 11, Leweston Prep
Magicborn by Peter Bunzl
(Usborne Publishing £11.99) Sherborne Times reader offer of £9.99 from Winstone’s Books
Magicborn is the thrilling adventure story of two children (Tempest and Peter) with magical powers who find themselves in England 1726, where magic and sorcerers are completely normal. Tempest is a bit shy but she shares everything with her best friend Coriel (a little red robin). Peter is a bit more outgoing and prefers to shape-shift with the wolves instead. The children have no recollection of their past and have to pick up the broken pieces as they go along. Then, the royal sorcerer of England captures them and steals their magical necklaces. They need to find them again and get out of there – but how? During their adventures Tempest and Peter make some new friends and bump into some very familiar people! This story is absolutely fantastic and there are many different plots that unfold during its exciting read with many twists, including an attempted escape. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone from 8 to 15 as it really has something for everyone. I would easily give it a 10/10!
Celebrating 10 Years as Sherborne’s Independent Bookseller 2012-2022 8 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PX www.winstonebooks.co.uk Tel: 01935 816 128
Little Elizabeth
by Valerie Wilding Illustrated by Pauline Gregory The incredible true story of a young and brilliant Princess who grew up to become our Queen
AT THE TABLE
Michela Chiappa
FRITTATA FINGERS
These Frittata Fingers are one of my all time favourite recipes! Such a crowd pleaser and perfect for multiple lunchboxes or picnics. So simple to make as you throw in all the ingredients into one bowl and no pre-cooking is needed – just one bake! My kids love it in a lunch box but the whole family devours this any time of the day and there are never leftovers which is ironic as they keep brilliantly in the fridge for several days.
Prep: 5 minutes Cooking: 40 minutes Difficulty: easy Serves: 4 - 6
Ingredients 1 cup grated courgette 1 cup grated mature cheddar cheese 1 cup of lardons (or finely diced bacon or ham) approx. 250g 1 cup of self-raising flour (approx. 140g) 1 cup of sweetcorn and peas, frozen or tinned ½ cup of sunflower oil 5 eggs, whisked 1 cup of diced onions
Method 1 Preheat the oven to 180ºc. 2 Line a high-sided baking tray with baking paper (approx. 23cm x 13cm) and set aside. 3 Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl making sure well combined (no need to pre-cook the onions or lardons). 4 Empty the mix into the lined baking tray. 5 Cook in the oven for approximately 30-40 mins until golden and cooked through. 6 Set aside to cool then turn out onto a chopping board. 7 Slice into fingers or squares once completely cooled.
@michela.chiappa
TheChiappaSisters thechiappas.com
Baby at the Table: A 3-Step Guide to Weaning the Italian Way (Michael Joseph) £16.99 Sherborne Times reader offer price of £14.99 from Winstone’s Books
Simply Italian: Cooking at Home with the Chiappa Sisters (Michael Joseph) £22 (hardcover) Sherborne Times reader offer price of £20 from Winstone’s Books
ADDING VALUE
MEASURING PROGRESS THROUGH CHILDHOOD Briony Harris, Director of Teaching and Learning, Sherborne Prep
At Sherborne Prep, we focus on the holistic development and progress of our pupils. This means specifically developing the individual in their wellbeing, independence, creativity, confidence, and curiosity for learning. A crucial part of this journey is to encourage and nurture the individual’s understanding of how to learn, the desire to learn and to apply that learning.
Sherborne Prep is a non-selective school and so we have a wonderful, broad and colourful collection of pupils with different abilities, passions and personalities. We are rightly very proud of the Common Entrance and scholarship successes that our pupils achieve. We have, for example, recently celebrated 50% of our Year 8 pupils achieving scholarships to senior schools, including Sherborne School, Sherborne Girls, Cheltenham Ladies College, King’s Bruton, Canford, Leweston and Clayesmore. We are also proud to see how this early grounding translates to continued success at GCSE, A level and beyond. But, a good set of exam results only paints a small part of the picture.
It could be argued, therefore, that one of the key questions we should be asking ourselves as educators is, ‘Are we adding value?’. If we are adding value, then how do we know we are adding value? Some value is evident
in watching our children come to life on stage, on the sports pitch, at the easel, presenting to peers or playing their part in a choir or orchestra. But, how do we know we are also adding value to their academic progress?
Children progress and develop at different stages of their education and at different times to their peers. Ultimately, measuring richness and speed of progress can only ever be a mixture of art and science: the data is important and helpful but gives a partial view of the whole. To come full circle, to see a child’s holistic development we need both this data and a clear sense of a child’s friendships, extracurricular interests and achievements and overall joie de vivre. We are justifiably focussed on, and proud of, our pupils’ academic achievements, but this is only one important part of their exciting progress through childhood.
Our role as educators is to support every part of their journey to ensure our children become the best version of themselves that they can possibly be. There is no doubt that their journey will be a rollercoaster of learning and grasping opportunities, whilst having fun and building friendships for life, along the way.
THE TEN TORS CHALLENGE – 1960S STYLE
Ed Smith, aged 17, The Gryphon School
Ten Tors is one of the greatest challenges offered to young people in the South West. Over 2,400 teenagers take part in walking 35, 45 or 55-mile routes in under two days, whilst being entirely self-sufficient. The challenge pushes the teenagers in teams of six to the limit. It is run across the north of Dartmoor providing rough and boggy terrain, and the teams each visit ten ‘tors’ or checkpoints along their routes.
The challenge originally started in 1960 and this year marks the 60th event as well as the first since 2019 due to the pandemic. This year my team walked the 45-mile route having trained for 35 miles in 2020 before the event was cancelled. To add to the challenge, we completed the challenge dressed in, and carrying authentic kit almost identical to that used in the first event in 1960. Our goal was to recreate one of the original teams and discover how different it was completing the challenge 60 years ago. Compared to modern-day kit the difference was significantly noticeable – the empty bags alone weighed twice the weight of a modern-day bag but lacked the padding and clips found on modern rucksacks.
Our team leader, Mr Cooke, spent countless hours researching and collecting the equipment for us to use. Our outfits consisted of lightweight pale green trousers, black boots, puttees/gaiters, base t-shirts, army shirts and smocks, and an authentic headdress. The clothes proved to be surprisingly comfortable as well as practical, and we all enjoyed looking the part as well as walking in the gear. However, the rucksacks proved to be painful and incredibly hard work. Two members in my team; Louie and Leon, carried frame carriers which were by far the hardest to pack and carry, as they required endless adjusting and were susceptible to breaking.
Despite the rucksacks, we had the time of our lives doing Ten Tors and felt over-the-moon to cross the finish line after the endless hours of training and planning. It is a moment that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. We were honoured at the end of the challenge to be greeted by six veterans who took part in the original Ten Tors having just experienced what they had 60 years earlier.
Alongside the ‘1960s team,’ there were four
Image: Tim Clark
other teams from The Gryphon School – making us the biggest school at the event – all of which made it to all ten tors before the end of the challenge. It felt incredible to share the experience with these and so many other teams all going through the same ordeal.
The challenge had pushed every one of us to our physical and mental limits, but it all became worthwhile when we crossed the line. We are incredibly grateful for all the effort that went into organising the event, especially from Mr Cooke our team leader, who provided us with the incredible opportunity, and we now look forward to returning next year for the 55-mile challenge – although hopefully this time in modern kit.
John Jenkins, Director of Music, Sherborne Girls
The last thirty of my forty years in teaching have been spent at Sherborne Girls. It has been a huge privilege to work with several generations of girls and my colleagues in the Music Department, teaching and administrative, past, and present.
Alongside all their academic and sporting endeavours, the girls manage to achieve a rich variety of music at an impressively high standard. The close musical collaboration we enjoy with Sherborne School, such as in the joint orchestras and the Choral Society, was a factor which greatly appealed to me when I moved here. This pooling of talent and resources enables us to embrace vastly more than if we were just a singlesex school, and I have loved seeing the links develop even more successfully over the years. Given all these challenges and rewards, the bedrock of our Christian foundation and the inspiring tradition of the Senior Choir’s role in our school and Abbey services, I have never really thought about moving anywhere else.
The building of our new performing arts centre, The Merritt Centre, in 2019, has been transformational. It is a wonderful place to work in and has been a huge boost for the School and girls. It has provided a space for them to perform on a professional platform and has raised the standard of our concerts and recitals to an even higher level.
There have been so many standout performances over the years, there are too many to list; however, I have always been inspired by the large-scale concerts with the Choral Society: Elijah, the Mozart Requiem, Elgar’s The Music Makers and Bach’s St John Passion (with Sherborne Old Girl Lucy Cox’s divine singing of the soprano arias) in Sherborne Abbey, and great works like Messiah and the Verdi Requiem (which I had been longing to conduct since I first heard it in Bristol Cathedral at the age of thirteen) in Wells Cathedral. Musical stage productions have been great fun, too. I have enjoyed directing Dido and Aeneas, Coram Boy, Guys and Dolls and Evita (which cajoled me from my comfort zone!).
On a more intimate platform, we have given countless Madrigal Society and chamber music concerts in churches in Dorset and London. I always tell the girls what a very special role they have to play in providing music for the all-important occasions in people’s lives, and it has been a privilege to do that for numerous weddings, funerals and memorial services. I eventually got used to Sherborne Old Girls texting me on their wedding night to say how much they had loved the girls’ singing at their marriage service!
The overseas musical tours we have done have been memorable – the Symphony Orchestra to the Czech Republic in 2001, with Cloe Loo playing the Schumann Piano Concerto, and, more recently, fabulous Madrigal Society trips to Malta, Italy, Budapest and Vienna. I have loved seeing the girls singing in The Bach Choir’s annual St Matthew Passion in the Royal Festival Hall over the last twenty-five years, and playing in the major national orchestras such as the NYO and NCO. I am so pleased to be passing on to my successor a current cohort of fine instrumentalists who have done so well in recent competitions and festivals.
It has been very rewarding to see several girls leaving the School to embark upon musical careers, winning choral scholarships to universities. However, I think the main aim is to give all our pupils the opportunity and encouragement to have music as a vibrant part of their lives, regardless of their chosen careers. I believe that music, in one or more of its many forms, is a vital ingredient in a complete education.
Having been passionately involved in music for some sixty years, the best part of which has been sharing its joy and power with children, young people and grown-ups, I can’t see myself existing without it in some practical way. I have been offered some orchestral conducting engagements and I will continue to run summer school courses and play the organ occasionally.
Since 2008, I have been working with a choir and orchestra in the Dordogne, giving two major concerts at Easter each year. After two years of unavoidable lockdown, I hope that they will restart their activities next year. I am looking forward to spending more time with my family – I have ten great-nephews and -nieces whom I have seen little of during the past few years and family in New York who are long overdue a visit. European travel is a favourite pastime, and I am thinking about learning to cook properly as death by food poisoning remains a constant threat.
David Guy, Director of Sport, Sherborne School
Hopefully the title will have raised a few eyebrows and caused some confusion, leading to questioning why an all-boys boarding school in the South West of England would dare to suggest that sport should be about an outcome rather than the process.
So cards on the table, we are not obsessed with winning and do not see the result of our extensive fixture list as the key performance indicator of success. But winning can be viewed in different ways and my title refers to the challenge of winning in the battle to promote a life-long love of sport and a healthy lifestyle.
According to government statistics, less than
half of the children and young people in the UK meet the guidelines for taking part in physical activity which are currently set at 60 minutes per day. The figure (44.9%) is lower now than in 2017 with no clear sign of a turnaround. Regionally the South West (49.4%) fares slightly better than other areas such as London (41.9%) and there are significant differences among ethnic groups. The long-term impacts on health, welfare and wellbeing are obvious and as educators, it is a topic we cannot ignore.
At Sherborne, our mission is to find a sport or recreational activity that our boys are passionate about and will hopefully continue through university and adult life. A focus for us is enjoyment; in PE lessons, games sessions, practices, recreational play and competitive events we want our pupils to be engaged, challenged, enthusiastic and happy. Our programme is based on variety and whilst it remains compulsory to participate, we provide a wide choice for the boys who select their options each term. Many boys still favour the hugely successful major games such as hockey, rugby, football or cricket but there are others who for various reasons have decided that sailing floats their boat or that clay shooting hits the spot. We facilitate their participation, support, encourage and yes, we do enter into competitive fixtures and tournaments with the intention of performing as well as possible and that can and often does lead to success on the regional and national stage. But our definition of ‘winning’ is for the long-term.
And the taking part aspect? For us, even that simple term requires clarification, about how our boys take part. The fundamental point is to participate and perform in the right way, with humility, dignity and respect for others including officials, opponents and spectators. In line with the schools’ values, expectations and standards we promote and encourage fair play, sportsmanship and collaboration above the natural and obvious desire to be victorious. Of course boys want to win and we do have a wish to see every boy fulfil their potential and commit fully to giving their very best, but as coaches, parents and supporters we have a responsibility to ensure that the really important benefits of sport and exercise are not lost to ‘winning at all costs’.
