16 minute read
Family
Charlie Woodhouse, Aged 16
Leweston School
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Charlie was about 5 years old when she first got on a pony and strangely enough did not enjoy her initial experience! Trying it again as a riding activity at school and then getting her first pony helped ignite her passion. Coming from a relatively non-horsey family, Charlie has been the driving force behind learning to ride and care for her horses, and eventually progress to compete at national level.
Charlie rates achieving Individual 3rd in the 2020 NSEA Intermediate Show Jumping Championships on her pony Peasedown Toners Neo and winning the SEG National 90 Eventing Championships on her new horse Quinn as her proudest achievements so far.
Leweston Equestrian Manager, Lorraine Roberts, describes Charlie as dedicated, hardworking, reliable and a very competitive rider who has been instrumental in their teams winning the NSEA Intermediate Eventers Challenge Championships, the Novice County Show Jumping finals and more recently the National title in the Regional Points League mixed height show jumping at the 2021 NSEA National Championships.
With Neo now handed down to her younger sister, Charlie has ambitious plans for Quinn and hopes to qualify for the Badminton Grassroots final along the way.
Charlie’s positive approach to life will drive her to achieve great things and one day realise her dream of becoming an Equine Physiotherapist.
leweston.co.uk
KATHARINE DAVIES
PHOTOGRAPHY
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Children’s Book Review Rafa Armand, Leweston Prep, Aged 10
Call Me Lion by Camilla Chester
(Firefly Press Jun 2022) £7.99 Sherborne Times reader offer price of £5.99 from Winstone’s Books
Call Me Lion is a children’s book written by Camilla Chester. The story is narrated by a 10-yearold boy called Leo. Early on in the story you learn that Leo has a condition called
‘selective mutism’ which means that he can’t speak when he is in public. He can only speak to his own family and to his dog, Patch. You get a sense that Leo is very lonely and feels misunderstood.
His dream is to have a real friend but everyone (including Leo) thinks that that is impossible because of his selective mutism. The story starts in a heatwave when a new family moves in next door. In the family there is a girl called Richa who has a trampoline in line with Leo’s which is how they first meet. Richa doesn’t seem to mind that Leo doesn’t speak. In fact, she has her own secret that Leo finds out about. Together they help each other to face their fears.
Call Me Lion teaches you that no matter what differences, difficulties or disabilities people have you can still be best friends with them. (Age range 8+)
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 For busy bees and book worms
AT THE TABLE
ZESTY LEMON & ROCKET PASTA Michela Chiappa
Ilove this recipe as not only does it make a delicious cold pasta for picnics but you don’t need to pre-cook any of the ingredients; apart from the pasta of course! It’s very simple to make, refreshing for the summer and the kids enjoy it too.
Ingredients (serves 2): 200g pasta 1 tin of tuna (in olive oil ideally) 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil 50g fresh rocket 50g small cherry tomatoes, sliced in half Juice and zest of 1 lemon Salt flakes Ground black pepper
1 Cook your pasta in a large pan of salted boiling water. 2 When al dente, drain the pasta and then run it under cold water to stop the pasta cooking.
You can also enjoy this recipe hot - if so, drain the pasta and continue on to the next stage. 3 Coat your pasta with the extra virgin olive oil to stop it from sticking 4 When ready to eat, toss the tuna, tomatoes and fresh rocket leaves through the pasta and sprinkle a generous amount of the salt and pepper 5 Zest your lemon and squeeze over at least half the lemon juice.
The amount of lemon used is personal preference - I love lots and put extra on, but some people find too much lemon overpowering. Tweak this to your preference and don’t forget to taste as you go along – same with the salt and pepper seasoning. I love putting a little extra salt in as I like the contrast of the salt and lemon but again this needs to be adjusted according to personal preferences.
My tip for making pasta salads is to pre-cook the pasta a day or two in advance, cool it and cover it with olive oil and put it in a zip-lock bag in the fridge, ready for when you go on your picnic.On the day, toss the remaining ingredients over the pasta.
@michela.chiappa
TheChiappaSisters thechiappas.com
Recipe courtesy of barilla.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
Image: Nigel White, Head of Photography, Gryphon School
ABOVE AND BEYOND
Ian Bartle, Headteacher, Sherborne Primary School
Providing special experiences, events and opportunities that truly ‘go beyond the curriculum’ is something that, like many schools, Sherborne Primary School is completely passionate about.
All of England’s state schools are expected to adhere to a countrywide National Curriculum (there is also curricular for Wales and Scotland), but this is just a guide. It focuses on key elements to help our children in their development to a productive adult life (preparing them for the workplace and integrating them into society). It is also occasionally supplemented by the government to tackle national issues, such as sex education etc. But it is also up to individual schools to ascertain how to implement their curriculum and how far to stretch the experiences offered to their pupils.
Ofsted (the national education body that inspects schools) expects every school to adapt their curriculum to meet the needs of its own children and community. This is key as each area, school and community can be very different! Below is an extract from Sherborne Primary’s own inspection report, which demonstrates the importance for schools in providing, not just the
‘basics’ for children.
Staff carefully plan exciting and memorable experiences that support pupils’ personal development. They deliberately seek out opportunities to involve pupils in the local community… Pupils value these experiences and talk about them enthusiastically (Ofsted Report - Oct 2021)
This is generally divided into these areas: music, the arts, sport, languages and the community. However, it is not as simple as that. For example, the usual yearly calendar and local, regional as well as national events help provide ‘special days’.
Recently our Queen’s Jubilee celebrations provided an opportunity to go ‘beyond the curriculum’. Our children were exposed to drone photography, the logistics and organisation of a ‘Whole School Street Party’ and gathering as a whole school for the first time in nearly two years (after the Covid pandemic). To be in a large gathering is in itself, ‘an educational experience’ for many. This might just sound like a party organised by adults, but this is simply not the case! It was an educational opportunity. Every outside classroom window was decorated with the seven decades of the Queen’s reign. It was truly amazing to watch the children become fascinated with our past; the key events, fashions, famous people and history. This was immersive learning. The children then had to make their own dessert, learning about baking cakes. Finally, our children understood how we collaborate socially as we work towards a large shared event. Part of this involved empowering our oldest children to direct and facilitate the logistics; organising tables, herding their younger peers, tidying and working as a team. This was not only massive fun for all (we truly believe education should be fun. All humans do things better when they are enjoying it!) but it is active learning. (See our drone photograph involving over 300 children.)
Another example of ‘going beyond the curriculum’ is our emphasis on teaching children about the environment. I know we all understand how important it is for the people of the future to be interested, engaged and proactive about their commitment to environmental issues. At Sherborne Primary we have worked hard to achieve multiple National ‘Green Flag’ Awards, but the journey to these ‘trophies’ is much more important. We have recently become one of the very few national ‘Plastic-Free Schools’. Our incredible Eco Committee wrote to national companies (like Walkers Crisps) and asked them to justify their use of single-use plastics and questioned them about their commitment to recycling now and in the future. When children question these large companies these organisations must find it very uncomfortable to justify their environmental stance. This then continued with the children focusing on eradicating the use of plastic straws on our milk cartons. They came up with a simple solution – serve the milk from large recyclable containers into reusable cups. Thus no plastic straws! This is problem-solving and changing their world in small steps at its best!
Finally, when delivering the required curriculum you can still ‘go beyond it’. Recently our key stage 1 pupils (5, 6 and 7-year-olds) were studying various sports and sporting personalities. They had to understand sports at different levels, this included personal ‘PE’ all the way up to international competitions. Our children enjoyed interviewing Tom Daley to ask him how he made it to the top! Aspirations are always part of great educational experiences!
As parents/carers/wider family members you are also very important in this journey to ‘go beyond the curriculum’. The wider the experiences we all provide for our children the more rounded they become. This can be as simple as a woodland walk, a scavenger hunt on the beach (to then conjure up some ‘beach art’), a ‘saucepan drum kit’, a bug fest hunt under logs or visiting a stately home. This doesn’t need to include expensive trips or visits; with my background of nearly 30 years in education, children just want your time and need to be directed and inspired to enjoy a life full of a range of experiences. Just one of these various experiences you provide as a parent/carer/ family member might inspire your child or children to take a different direction in life; fulfil their dreams or aspirations and also understand their sense of adventure. Children enjoy exploring in a variety of ways, utilising their senses to find out about the world around them…
It is our role as adults to help our next generation ‘go beyond the curriculum’ to facilitate this exploration.
TIES OF FRIENDSHIP
Rachel Hassall, Archivist, Sherborne School
The merger on 1st April 2021 of Sherborne Prep School with Sherborne School was in fact a re-merger of two schools that share a close history stretching back over 158 years.
The Prep, as it is affectionately known, was from 1885 until 2021 run independently from Sherborne School, but despite this, the two schools have, as was so aptly described in a 1948 prospectus, always been bound by ‘ties of friendship’. These ties are not only the result of the close physical proximity of the school sites but also because of the generations of boys who have gone from the Prep to Sherborne School.
The origins of the Prep date back to the early 1860s when the Rev. Alfred Clapin (1826-1924), an assistant master at Sherborne School, opened a school boarding house in what is now Sherborne School’s Bursary in Abbey Road.
In 1872 the Rev. Clapin moved his Prep School to Westbury House (now Wessex House) in the Westbury area of Sherborne where during the first few years the pupil numbers grew from 21 boys in 1873 to 30 in 1875. When in September 1880 the Rev. Clapin decided to give up the Prep, its importance was recognised by the Head of Sherborne School who privately purchased Westbury House and gave a five-year lease of the property to William Heitland Blake (1852-1916).
The Prep thrived under William Blake’s headship and by June 1884 there were 36 boys at the school. Mr
Netherton House from the orchard, 1926
Blake needed larger premises for his growing school and purchased from the Congregational Church a two-acre green field site in Acreman Street known as ‘Meeting House Close’. Here he built Acreman House – on the south front of which can still be seen his initials ‘W.H.B’ and the date ‘1885’. Acreman House was designed by the Sherborne architects Farrall & Edmunds and built by Messrs. Young of Salisbury. It comprised a dining room, three classrooms, a matron’s room, and six dormitories.
In summer term 1905 Littleton Powys (18741955) became Head of the Prep. Littleton had loved his time as a pupil at both the Prep and Sherborne School, which he described with great affection in his autobiography The Joy of It (1937). He was a member of the remarkable Powys family from Montacute and was one of six brothers who attended the Prep, three of whom became notable authors - Theodore, Llewelyn, and John Cowper Powys. It is therefore fitting that in 2005 the Powys Library was named in their honour.
The school site grew to its current size in 1913 when Littleton Powys purchased the neighbouring Netherton House, the former home of Old Shirburnian Edward Broadlake Dingley (1827-1912). Netherton House came not only with beautifully laid-out gardens, an orchard, peach house, vinery, woodland and three paddocks, but also Mr Dingley’s head gardener, Alfred Lane (1865-1939), who remained at the Prep until his retirement in 1939 having looked after the grounds for over fifty years.
In 1916 the first female member of teaching staff was appointed and in 1957 the Prep’s first head of science was appointed, who was also a woman. Girls were admitted to the Prep in Michaelmas term 1976 and in 1978 the first girls’ netball match was played (the Prep won 18-14 against Port Regis!).
The Prep’s proximity to Sherborne School allowed the pupils to make use of the senior school’s larger facilities, including the outdoor swimming bath (now the site of the Pilkington Laboratories), the gymnasium (now the dining hall), the art school, the rifle range, and on Sundays they held their own service in the school chapel.
In 1924, a tangible link between the Prep and Sherborne School was formed when a two-storey bay window, which had been built in 1839 by Sherborne School’s Headmaster on the east end of Sherborne Abbey, was taken down and rebuilt at the Prep. The bay window had to be removed prior to the building of the Abbey’s new Lady Chapel and was sold to the Prep School for £60.
In 2021 the ties of friendship between the Prep and Sherborne School were further tightened when Mrs Natalie Bone was appointed Head. Not only does Mrs Bone have a vision to build upon the Prep’s distinctive character and values but she is also married to the Director of Art at Sherborne School, who is also an Old Shirburnian!
Rachel was appointed the school’s first archivist in September 2010 and has previously worked in archives at the universities of Bristol and Reading, Longleat House, and the Dorset History Centre.
A NEW TUNE
Laura McCormick, Music School Manager, Sherborne School
Taking on the role of Music School Manager at Sherborne School in March 2020 after seven years as the Principal’s PA at Sherborne International was a new challenge and a prospect that was filled with excitement, slight trepidation and a sense of pride at joining the prestigious Sherborne School Music Department. The busy environment of the Music School was a quick settling-in process (!), learning the ropes under the supervision of James Henderson, the Director of Music for the School and who also leads the music on a wider scale in Sherborne as Director of Music for Sherborne Abbey.
My role is to support the Department who are a dedicated team of talented, committed and inspiring individuals. The Music School is a hive of activity from morning until night — there is always something going on, whether it’s an ensemble rehearsing, a musician practising, or one of the many instrumental lessons which take place throughout the day. One of the privileges of my role is the sound of music drifting as you walk to and from work, a multitude of instruments from brass to bagpipes and cornet to choral singing.
Every Friday during term time, Sherborne School musicians perform a Lunchtime Recital in Cheap Street Church — concerts which are open to the public and free to attend. During lockdown these recitals couldn’t be performed ‘live’, but rather than stop them altogether, the musicians filmed themselves performing at home and then submitted the recordings to James Henderson for ‘blending’ and uploading to YouTube every week. Since the come-back of ‘live’ events, members of the local community have made an enthusiastic return with audience numbers regularly reaching up to 100. A hugely enjoyable part of my role is always being there to greet guests at the door, and it is lovely to see so many familiar faces coming along regularly to enjoy the music. Performances focus on a specific category each week and include strings, woodwind, brass, pianists, and singers. Reaching out to an ever-growing audience is a great boost to the musicians’ confidence.
In April, the Sherborne Abbey Festival returned following a break during the pandemic, much to the delight of many. Sherborne School musicians opened the week of music-making with a Chamber Concert, featuring performances from the Chamber Orchestra, String Quartet, Brass Quintet, Brass Band, Clarinet Trio and Wind Quartet, and solo performances on the Abbey’s organ and new grand piano. That evening, the ever-popular Swing Band brought the house down with foot-tapping numbers by Duke Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie, Glenn Miller and more. The following morning in the Abbey the talented Chamber Choir, which includes many ex-Choristers of Salisbury, Winchester and Exeter Cathedrals, sang a programme of music ranging from the 16th century
Image: Josie Sturgess-Mills
to the present day, and the Close Harmony group then followed with some light-hearted arrangements of well-known favourites. The town was a-buzz and the residents of Sherborne were treated to a veritable delight of musical performances of the highest level, and all of these concerts were very well-attended and enjoyed by so many of our local community. For me personally, it is always heart-warming to hear so many positive comments from the supportive and appreciative audiences, as the events require a degree of organisation not dissimilar to a military operation!
My role is a busy one, and I am grateful for the experience that I had prior to becoming Music School Manager in juggling several tasks and spinning many plates! If I am not creating the latest programme for the next concert, I might be making arrangements for instrumental exams or organising the many music competitions and events which take place throughout the year. Currently, I am working on plans for the Swing Band’s 10th Anniversary Tour to Barbados in the summer. The group will perform in venues such as the Frank Collymore Hall and the Sandy Lane resort, providing a spectacular highlight to draw this first ‘postpandemic’ year to an upbeat and optimistic close and surely an unforgettable experience for the boys. For me, I am at my best when I am busy — the job requires it but the reward of seeing the joy on people’s faces as they listen to Sherborne’s music makes it all so worthwhile.
