Claires Court News

Ridgeway junior boys join in the Olympic Reading Relay

The junior boys at Ridgeway have now joined in the Olympic Reading Relay and their selection of books is:

The Hunger Games — Suzanne Collins — Year 6

Diary of a Wimpy Kid — Cabin Fever — Jeff Kinney — Year 5

Gangsta Granny — David Walliams — Year 4

Hundred Mile an hour dog goes for gold — Jeremy Strong — Year 3

Beast Quest — Noctila the Death Owl — Adam Blade — Year 2

Tuesday — David Weisner — Year 1

Mixed Up Fairy Tales — Nick Sharratt — Reception

We look forward to their news in due course.

Claires Court senior boys win a silver medal at Dorney

The Claires Court Boat Club raced at the Ball Cup South regatta at Dorney Lake on Sunday emerging with a silver medal! The J16 coxless quad of Rory Seekins, Alex Johnson, Oscar Cox and Fareed Saleem had a blinding race storming home into second place in the final and winning a silver medal for their efforts.

For many of the rowers it was their first ever rowing race. The J13 quads did very well in their heat winning a place in the final where they came 4th and 5th. The J14 development quad and the J15 beginner crew raced well, but were not quite fast enough to get through to the finals.

In addition to racing a number of the younger boys and girls helped out with the event, acting as stake boat assistants at the start

Chembakolli Day for Year 4 boys and girls was a great success

Chembakolli Day for Year 4 boys and girls was a great success. Girls from Year 4 joined the boys at Ridgeway for a special day to learn about life in Chembakolli, a small village in Southern India. The day commenced with a walk in the Thicket imagining it was the Chembakolli forest so the children could learn how the villagers lived and worked in the forest. The children then played the Indian game khokho together which was followed by an Indian lunch. The afternoon was spent trying out a variety of Indian crafts and carrying out a quiz. The children thoroughly enjoyed their experience and had a wonderful time.

Claires Court Community Contribution!

Many thanks to Tim Knight and his colleague, Nadia, who spoke to Years 11 and 12 last week about an exciting community initiative his charity, ‘GroundWork’ are running in conjunction with the National Citizen Service.

The programme offers young people of 15–17 years of age an opportunity to plan, prepare and deliver a community project of their choosing. The project starts with a week's residential course at Longridge from Monday 16th July and includes an opportunity to crew narrow boats as well as lots of opportunities to develop planning, organisational and leadership skills during the process of identifying and running a much needed community initiative through an interactive and engaging series of activities.

Claires Court wows at Art on the Street

What a day — the sun shone and Maidenhead was bustling with activity. Claires Court A Level Art & Photography was on display in the High Street, Art Workshops were in full swing in Waterstone's and likewise Claires Court Art & Craft Club Workshops in ‘Art’ (opposite Argos).

As if this wasn't enough, our musicians and actors excelled themselves. The ever popular Samba Band was received with enthusiasm, whilst Sam MacGregor just took the breath away with his performing of his own compositions as well as well-known numbers. Laura Spencer and Sarah Crookes ‘busked’ outside Waterstone's, adding to the ambience.

Equally breath–taking were the ‘statues’. All around could be heard the whispers of ‘have you seen the statues’ and they were photographed endlessly.

Well done to all who participated in this great event and helped to make it the success and fun it is!

A busy week-end

Have fun to all those visiting Art on the Street in Maidenhead this week–end. Look out for our stand, musicians and workshops.

Good Luck to Ridgeway junior boys in the Karate Tournament and at the MindLab Olympics.

Have fun at the Diamond Ball for all those parents indulging themselves in an evening of fun and huge entertainment!

Saturday 12 May – Art on the Street, Maidenhead High Street - sponsored by Claires Court Schools

Come and join the happy throngs enjoying not only the range of art, but also the entertainment and workshops on offer. There will be music — some of it from our own pupils, our ‘statues’ will be found in a range of locations, Claires Court Art & Craft Club workshops in the unit in Queen's Mall, opposite Argos, Art workshops in the old Waterstone's Unit in the Nicholsons Shopping Centre PLUS of course, our own students' art and photography on display alongside that of many other talented local artists. A ‘treasure trail’ of questions and answers around the event gives the opportunity to win prizes.

The Samba Band will perform at 12.50 and Sam McGregor will also be performing at 2.05 — both may be found at the top of the High Street on the stage located by the Boy with the Boat statue.

College senior girl is netball hopeful

Congratulations to Daisy Rühle, 9B, who has been invited to attend the Netball South's Summer Programme for athletes with promise (PDP). PDP is an excellent opportunity for athletes looking to progress with England Netball.

Daisy will attend four training days in June and hopefully will then be invited to attend the Regional Screening session at the end of the fourth day which leads to selection to the Regional Academy. We will be delighted if Daisy gets selected as she will be the fifth Claires Court netball player to have reached Regional Screening!

College senior girls take part in the BIG Dribble

Early last week, 11 girls from Year 8 and Ellie Rayer (Year 10) took part in the nPower BIG Dribble in Reading. The nPower BIG Dribble is an amazing opportunity for the Great British public to get into the Olympic spirit! The hockey roadshow has toured the country over 18 days giving people of all ages and abilities the chance to pick up a stick and take part. On the day, our girls joined Katherine Grainger (Rowing Olympic Silver Medallist at the Sydney, Greece and Beijing Olympics and London 2012 hopeful gold medallist) and took part in the attempt to set a record for dribbling hockey balls 2012km across Great Britain.

Year 4 boys and girls have fun at Longridge

Year 4 boys and girls enjoyed a great time at Longridge last week–end, with some new experiences and activities. The weather wasn't too kind to them but they made the best of it. Full reports will appear in the Sports Circular but be assured that they would all love to repeat the exercise!

Claires Court published author!

In the words of Mr Wilding, there is an "amazing new literary star rising through the ranks of CCS." Over this bank holiday weekend (Friday 4th – Monday 7th May), you can download Mr Wespieser's (English Department at Claires Court) first novel ‘The Eternal Book of Lol’ (for Kindle, Ipad, android and PC) free of charge on Amazon.

Enjoy the read and you can boast that we have a published author in our midst.

College girls selected for hockey teams

Ana Murphy, 10R, has been selected to play for Berkshire U15 Girls hockey team this weekend, 29 April, for their final fixture of this year. Of the 30 girls who make up the Berkshire U15 team only 16 were selected for the two matches, v Middlesex and Sussex. Ana also played in both matches of their previous double fixture in March, v Hants and Bucks. By the end of the programme, she will have played in 4 out of the 5 matches (unfortunately she missed the 5th game as she was away on Geography trip!).

Kathryn Wills, 8F, has also been selected from the Berkshire U13 Girls Hockey team (as with Ana, only 16 selected from the 30 team members) for a match in Reading this weekend. Good luck to both girls!

Year 10 girls Sport Relief experience!

Well done to the 4 girls who completed their 6 miles for Sport Relief on Sunday: Hannah Wardman, Katy Pocock, Ana Murphy and Liz Newton, all 10R. The girls said there was a great atmosphere at the event and, to make the day even more special, some of them managed to run alongside JLS. They all had their race numbers signed by a number of celebrities. The money is still coming in, but their total so far is £370!

College senior Highly Commended in ISA Essay Competition

Molly Ross in Year 11 was awarded a Highly commended in the Favonius Senior section of the ISA National Essay Competition. Another budding author?

College senior girl is an author on the way …

Sarah Messer in 9B entered the Chris Evans Breakfast Show 500 words competition and out of 74,000 stories submitted, is one of the top 2,000. Her story ‘Eilean Mor Lighthouse’ will now be sent to the National Literacy Trust for the second stage of judging. We have our fingers crossed for Sarah in the next round!

Claires Court Schools/Art on the Street Award

We were delighted to make the presentation of the Claires Court Schools/Art on the Street Award earlier this week at the Rendezvous Café in Maidenhead Town Hall. The clear winner of this award was the Slough Arts Group who were flabbergasted and delighted at their success. The next Art on the Street will take place in Maidenhead High Street on Saturday 12 May when you will find not only some terrific art (including that of our own pupils and students), but also art workshops, craft workshops (run by Claires Court) as well as entertainers some from different parts of our organisation. Put the date in your diary and come and enjoy all the delights on offer.

Ridgeway Swimming Pool news!

We are delighted to inform you that we have now received planning consent for the re–build and improvement of our swimming pool. Much of the research has been carried out and we are now working on the logistics of getting the physical work carried out! Those at Ridgeway will be able to watch the progress!

Ellie Rayer at College playing for England

Ellie played in all of the England games in The 4 Nations Championship in Hanover, Germany in what proved to be very testing conditions, both due to the standard of the opposition and the weather conditions (Spain v Germany match was stopped due to a hailstorm making conditions unplayable). England lost to Germany 4–0, Spain 3–1 and Netherlands heavily, however the team showed clear improvement through the tournament and enjoyed the experience.

On her return Ellie travelled to Cannock where she joined up with Miss Fuller, Miss Hudson and past pupil Laura Haynes who beat Oxford 4–1 in the final of the National 2nd Team playing for Maidenhead.

Claires Court Senior boys win cups at the ISA Drama Festival

We were delighted to learn that our actors who performed in ‘Hymns’ and ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ emerged with cups. ‘Humns’ was awarded the Nancy Griffiths Cup for an aspect of acting/production/staging or costume effect which caught the Adjudicator's eye and Blue Remembered Hills was awarded the Hollygirt Trophy for the Best Moment of Theatre. Well done all and their producer Mrs Olivier.

Claires Court senior boys hard at work at Hazewinkel Rowing Training Camp

Claires Court Schools Boat Club travelled to Hazewinkel in Belgium for this year's training camp. A party of 34 boys and staff embarked on a week of intense training at the world class training centre in Willebroek. After an early start on the first day, we finally arrived there when the training began.

With 3–4 sessions per day the training was intense and the afternoon off in Ghent was a well earned break. Crews and individuals developed well through the week, building up to pieces on the last day where all the boys performed well. This puts the Boat Club in a great position going towards the regatta season and the main event of the season, the National Schools' Regatta in Nottingham at the end of May. Early indications show that this should be one of the School's most exciting and successful summers for a few years — watch this space!