February 2013 Newsletter

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’ - Excellence Leadership Opportunity

Newsletter

February

2013

From the Headteacher

Dear Parents / Guardians Well we managed to get through the harsh weather relatively unscathed this year which is good. The attendance on the snow days was good which was pleasing and reflects the students’ positive attitude to school. Although I suspect that playing in the snow with their friends at school, at break and lunchtime was a bit of an incentive. The school held a careers fair for year 9 this week where students had the opportunity to chat to 17 representatives from local businesses about career paths. There was quite a buzz in the hall and the students and business representatives were equally impressed with each other. Many thanks to Wates, Logica, Legal & General, Unilever, Mole Valley Housing Association, Intertek and Menzies. Susan Willman Headteacher

Back in November, the Therfield Jazz Band were approached by the Dorking Halls and asked to play at the Youth Showcase Awards. At first we were asked to play one piece to open the show, but as time went on, we were asked to do more and more until eventually, we were preparing to introduce each award with a short clip of film music plus opening and closing the show. On Friday 8th February, after many hours of practising led by Phil Singleton, we headed down to the Dorking Halls for a technical rehearsal. Setting up on stage and seeing the hall set up for the awards finally put all our hard work into context. It was very exciting! The students came back for the evening performance at 6:45pm immaculately dressed in black suits, white shirts and the gentlemen in black bow ties – they looked fantastic and total-ly fitting of their “house band” role for the evening. We opened the show with a rousing version of the James Bond Theme by Monty Norman which was followed by various musical selections from the likes of West Side Story, Austin Powers, The Incredibles, My Girl and Les Miserables. The band were absolutely brilliant and received a great deal of praise. The evening ended with us being invited to play for another gig by the Chairman of the Mole Valley District Council – Caroline Salmon! Thank you to all the students and staff who took part and dedicated their time to rehearsals, they were simply amazing!

Therfield School ‘The Best for All’

Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity Therfield Jazz Band

& the Youth

Showcase Awards

Leatherhead and

District Primary

School Sports Athletics Competition


Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity

Therfield Leaders did us proud!

12 Students from Therfield joined forces with 12 Leaders from Howard of Effingham on Monday 4 February to run the Leatherhead and District Primary School Sports Association Sportshall Athletics Competition. They managed all the events superbly from indoor Triple Jump and Javelin to timekeeping and scoring on the track. Leaders were confident and motivated having had a training session with Graeme Allen from England Athletics and clearly enjoyed working with the Yr 6 pupils from our local primary schools. One of the teachers from Oakfield said 'this was the best one yet, well organised and ran smoothly'. Raleigh Primary school won the event and will be going through to the County finals. The Leaders are all members of Therfield's School Sports Organising Committee and regularly give their time to assist with events and develop their Leadership skills. Well done to Joe Tisi, James Young, Lydia Stead, Ellie Griffiths, Georgia Leslie, Joe Elbishlawi, Ben Heels, Charlie Heels, Glenn Waller, Jimmy Elphick, Oli Ayres, Ed Simpson.

Surrey Schools Swimming Individual Competition. This was held at The Spectrum on Saturday 2 February and we entered 7 boys to the competi-tion. Jos Winfield, Simon King, Tom Proudfoot, Robert King, Connor Terry, Kieran Hosking, and Daniel Malamud all swimmers at Leatherhead swimming Club represented the school in their individu-al races. It was a stark contrast to the freezing weather outside but all managed to swim person-al best times. We were up against some very stiff competition and only Daniel Malamud man-aged to swim a time that may take him to the Inter-county competition in March. However, a gallant effort by all the boys, well done!

Surrey Schools Therfield School

‘The Best for All’


Surrey Schools Cross County Championships Saturday 2 Feb 2013 We were lucky enough to have 3 students representing Central Surrey in this event. This had been re-arranged due to the snow a few weeks ago but was still a freezing morning at Reigate Priory. Anna Price (Yr 9) came 33rd in her race which was very respectable and only 2 minutes off the winner. It was a tough course around the park but she persevered to the end. We had 2 students in the Senior Boys event, Liam Hoskings and Ben Gillings who came 16th and 41st. Theirs was a gruelling 4 times round the Priory, by then the sun had gone in and it was feeling much colder. Liam has been asked to attend training at Oxted as a result of his success, well done to all.

Katie Elphick School Sports Co-ordinator

Step Into Sport Leadership Day On Thursday 24 January Therfield School organised a fully Inclusive Leadership Training day for students across the County. 2 of Therfields’ students, Chelsea Hook and Ben Bruty attended the day which was lead by Steve Brown, Athlete Mentor for the Youth Sports Trust and Captain of the GB Wheelchair Basketball team. Students worked together to design games using Sportsa-bility equipment such as Table cricket, Goalball, Boccia, Mini Hockey, all designed to be used with students who have a disability so that lessons or clubs can be fully inclusive. It was fantastic to see all students working with people they didn’t know developing their Leadership skills such as organisation, communication, delegation. We hope that these students will then go back into their schools and use the skills they have learnt either during lessons or in extra-curricular time. Therfield is a Partner School with the Youth Sports Trust and the Lead school in Surrey for Coaching Leadership and Volunteering. As such we hope to bring schools together by working collaboratively to develop Leadership to assist in the delivery of the School games. This in turn gives young people the necessary skills and confidence to be successful in whatever they do.

Step into Sport – Leadership Day—by Ben Bruty What I learn’t from Step into Sport Leadership day at the Leatherhead Leisure Centre. Steve Brown the wheelchair Paralympian GB Rugby Cap- tain told us that with a disa-bility it does not end there you can do anything if you put your mind and dedication to what you are aiming for. He told us about his life and why he came to the LLC to tell us about this. He wanted to inspire the next generation for people working on sport whether they have a disability or not. We had to work out how to run games adapting to those that have disabili-ties and thinking outside the box like using certain equipment to run the activity. For example one game we thought of was setting up 2 nets on two tables in the shape of a `T’ for four play-ers, the result was it could be played with disabled and abled players. I enjoyed my day and recommend it to anyone else. Ben Bruty



Construction SATRO

Surrey SATRO works with young people each year at schools. One of its projects involves mobile classrooms offering training courses that lead to BTEC qualification in Building and Construction Services. Some of our Year 11 Building and Construction students are pictured here displaying their work.




Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity Geography

Geography Visit the Royal

Holloway University of London

The Geography department returned to the Royal Holloway University of London with a group of Yr 12 students for another lecture designed for A level students. The lecture investigated fluvial geomorphology in NE England along with possible flood management scenarios within this region. Students thoroughly enjoyed the evening and will surely benefit from this additional information in the run up to exams. The Geography department will continue to have strong links with the Royal Holloway University of London and hope to continue being able to offer extra evening lectures in the future. Mr M Johnson Head of Geography

Year 9 Careers Fair On the 12th February Wates, Logica, Legal & General, Unilever, Mole Valley Housing Association, Intertek and Menzies gave students advice on their career plans. The student’s feedback was all positive. They mainly enjoyed the professional conversation with the company representatives. They asked excellent questions to help them to make the appropriate choices about their options and their futures. Thank you to all involved.



Attendance

Attendance at Therfield remains a priority and we celebrate increasing numbers of students achieving 100% attendance and those achieving high attendance percentage well above the national average. The school works closely with educational welfare to ensure attendance is the best it can be. It is vital that parents continue to work with the school by informing the attendance office of any absence. The attendance officer can be reached on the main school number 01372 818123 press 1 or ext:316. All students are legally required to attend tutor time as well as lessons and any unauthorised absences will be sanctioned by tutors or the house team. As per the new government legislation , if attendance goes below 85%, educational welfare will become involved and the risk of penalty notices is a distinct possibility.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank parents and students for their continued efforts to ensure uniform is worn correctly and looks smart. Please see the reminder below about school uniform: No black trainers—all students should be wearing black polishable shoes Girls wear the logo blouse and school kilt or black tailored trousers (not skin tight

leggings or jeans) All should be wearing a blazer Please can we ask for your continued support in ensuring that students are ready after half term looking smart and in correct uniform – black shoes, not trainers or plimsolls included! Uniform will continue to be monitored by Leadership and House team. Any infringements will be sanctioned appropriately and students may be sent home to get changed. Many thanks.

Uniform Reminder

Ready to Learn Please make sure that students are equipped properly for School as this has an effect on the class. To have the correct stationary and uniform enables classes to run smoothly and ensures that they are ‘ready to learn’ as they enter the class room. Thank you for your support in this matter.

Did you know…

Leatherhead County Secondary School In April 1945 the Leatherhead Central School on the Woodvill Road/Kingston Road site became known as Leatherhead County Secondary School. This was as a result of the 1944 Butler Education Act, whereby Infants' and Junior Schools became Primary Schools and Senior Schools became Secondary Schools. An-other provision of this Act was to ensure that every child should have the right to receive secondary edu-cation instead of having to leave school at fourteen after only elementary education, as most children had done up to that time.

This meant that extra accommodation was needed at the Kingston Road school, so three Horsa Huts were installed to provide more classrooms. By 1946 there were over 550 pupils and there were plans to build a new school, though this was not to happen for some time yet. However, three years later, the playing field at Dilston Road was being fenced, which was on land adjacent to the new school site. By 1952 the school was so crowded that there were times when three classes had to share one of the Horsa Huts and the situation was becoming impossible.

However, by 1953 the new school was at long last ready for occupation and Mr Stanley Moore (who had been Head since 1938) and some of the teachers spent a great deal of time making arrangements to move into the new building. Unfortunately, it was not just a simple matter of transferring the whole school from one building to another.

Owing to financial cuts by Government in education, the building programme had been halved, which meant that the new school was not big enough to take all the pupils, of whom there were by then over 700. So they were divided between Dilston Road for the older pupils and Kingston Road for the younger ones and it was to be another twenty three years before all the pupils could be housed in the Dilston Road buildings.

Opening of the school at Dilston Road As the two schools are over a mile apart, it must have been extremely inconvenient for all concerned. However, in April 1953 some of the second year pupils and all of the third, fourth and fifth year pupils moved into the newly completed building which was opened officially later that year, on 24th Novem-ber, by Lady Maxwell Fyfe.


Excellence - Leadership - Opportunity Therfield History

Photo of the new school at Dilston Road 1953

The buildings at Dilston Road get a name. It was he who decided that the school should have a name. In February 1964 he received notifica-tion from the Divisional Education Officer that the Governors' request for a name for the school had been granted by the Surrey Education Committee. From henceforth, the school was to be known by its present name of Therfield School. Mr Claytor had suggested this name to the School Governors after having done some research to find a suitable name and on 6th February 1964 he wrote in the School Log Book: "This name is connected with the district in that we stand on land which was once part of the Man-or of Pachesam, and this Manor was presented to Brian de Therfield by King John in 1205." Mr Claytor remained in charge of the school until 1972, two years before his death.

The original School Badge:

When the new building first opened, it was treated with such respect that no outdoor shoes were allowed to tread the polished wood floors, especially the one in the Hall used every day for Assembly! This hall was also used as a gymnasium and Mr Moore refused to al-low fixed apparatus to be installed there, as he felt that this would further delay the building of the proposed gymnasium which had been promised.

Mr Claytor - a man of immense will-power At the end of the summer term in 1957 Mr Moore retired after eighteen years as Headmaster. In September, he was succeeded by Mr Frank E Claytor and within another two years there were over 1,000 children attending the school. Mr Claytor was a man of immense will-power and courage - he had one arm which was useless, but so determined was he to overcome this handicap that other people were hardly aware of it. He played every form of sport and gave demonstrations of how to make equipment for scientific experiments and would in no way allow his disability to curtail his activities.



The netball team 1956

For more information please visit the Therfield Alumni website on www.leatherheadweb.org.uk/therfieldalumni

http://www.leatherheadweb.org.uk/therfieldalumni

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February 2013 Newsletter