The Christmas events are in full swing and St Faith's has been a feast of festive fun this week. The Foundation Nativity Play is always a highlight and this year was no exception. On Wednesday morning, proud and beaming smiles radiated from the audience as the children lit up the stage with their humourous, musical interpretation of the Christmas story, 'Whoops-A-Daisy-Angel'. The wonderful array of costumes and songs with, of course, the amusing unpredictable moments, made for an enchanting performance and one for which the staff and children should take great credit. It is quite remarkable that such young children can perform on stage with so much confidence. Congratulations to everyone who took part – it was magical.
On Wednesday afternoon it was the turn of the Year 2s to perform their musical, 'Eddie the Penguin Saves the World', a vibrant show with an eco-theme. Catchy tunes, confident acting and plenty of humour captivated the audience throughout the performance. The clarity of the children's voices was most impressive. It was great to see the whole year group on stage, enjoying themselves and revelling in the fun and challenges of a large scale production. Well done to every child and thank you to the Year 2 teaching team for putting it all together so skilfully. The full album of photos for the Foundation and Year 2 productions will be available on the VLE by the end of term.
This afternoon it is the turn of the Year 3 and 4 staff, children and their families to revel in the festive mood, when we join together for 'Carols around the Christmas Tree'. By the time the choirs and ensembles have finished performing and we have all enjoyed some congregational singing and mince pies, we should be well and truly in the Christmas spirit.
Rehearsals are in full swing for 'Last House Standing', the keenly contested and hilarious annual House singing contest which takes place next Thursday afternoon. This year's theme is 'disco', so the sound of 'Car Wash', 'Blame it on the Boogie', 'September' and 'We Are Family' have been wafting around the corridors this week.
On the final day of term, we hope that you will be able to join us for one of the Carol Services (Pre Prep 11:00, Bentley and Chaucer 13:30 and Latham and Newton 14:40) – all families are most welcome.
Pupils in 6F have been working on developing their descriptive writing skills. They discussed how books for younger children are often written to appeal to the senses and how the writers, given that they did not use as many words as we might, make very specific word choices. Off the back of this, a lovely one-off shared reading time with the Foundation children came, which gave great pleasure to all involved, as you can see from the photos.
Old Fidelian Richard Huntingford called in to St Faith's this week. It was the first time he had been back to St Faith's since he left in the 1960s. He was overwhelmed by the development of the school and delighted to see that we still award the Huntingford Cup for Drama (pictured here), which his family kindly donated to the school when he left St Faith's and moved on to Radley College, Oxford. Richard has led a very successful business career including being the founder of Heart FM and former Executive Chairman of Virgin Radio. It was wonderful to welcome him back to the school.
One of the great pleasures of my job is showing prospective parents around the school. On Wednesday I took a few photos of the work and lessons as we toured the classrooms. Amongst many other things, we witnessed Pre Prep children practising their handwriting, dancing as they recited numbers in Spanish and making Christmas cakes (not at the same time). We also observed a spelling test, a Maths lesson, trampolining training and saw Year 7s designing shock absorbers for space craft landings (as part of their term's Engineering project on flight). Later on we viewed some of the outstanding displays of art work and at break time, briefly joined a group of girls enjoying a game of table football. The prospective parents commented particularly on the engagement and happiness of the children.