SCSC in Action (Students Challenge and Stretch Coordinators
Our Year 10 stretch and challenge coordinators help Departments in a variety of ways, and are invaluable in offering mentoring to younger students. This programme has been running for over three years now in school, led by Mrs McFadyen. Here is Tiffany in action, leading a year 8 revision session in our French clinic. Any girls in Year 7,8,9 who need a boost, or are struggling with French gram-mar should know they can come along on Thursdays to ML4 at 1pm. Merci!
French Exchange
”Right girls, we need to turn around and go back the other way”; probably the most frequent instruction given on the 5 day exchange in Versailles. 30 girls and 3 teachers, (unmissable, since we were dressed in those bright blue DCHS hoodies Mrs McFadyen had given to us) arrived early afternoon on Tuesday 8th March 2016, to a crowded street corner. W were finally at the Collège Sacré Coeur opposite the glorious château, where over 30 French people stood waiting for us!! A panicked commotion arose inside the bus, like we had all been told we had an exam the next day! Everyone soon relaxed and enjoyed their first night in a French family’s home, tasting some French food and learning lots about French culture. Some of the highlights from the trip include visits to Versailles palace, a lunchtime- as well as birthday meal for one of our girls- at a super traditional restaurant, and a visit to Chartres Cathedral, with the glass-making museum. We all learnt a lot of new French, from both our families and each other; and most of all, had a brilliant time with our new French companions and our old English ones.
C’était très bien- Merci beaucoup Mrs Callaghan, Mrs Foster et Miss Devaux!
Ella Lee 10P
The Lecture Series
This week, we were extremely lucky to welcome Councillor Mimi Harker OBE, who has been a district Councillor since 1999, a role she took on after fighting a community campaign. She spoke of her current position as Chairman of the Council for Chesham Bois and Weedon Hill as well as her very enjoyable time as mayor of Amersham. Mimi enthusiastically talked about her involvement in helping to improve the commu-nity by means of campaigning such as trying to and save post offices and local supermarkets. She lead the creation of the 12A cinema classification and was awarded an OBE for her passionate work for women and the local community. Mimi inspired us all in telling us of overcoming her fear of water in order to successfully compete her recent fundraising event for Sport Relief and spoke of her trip to Israel where she had the opportunity to visit The Knesset and meet former Palestine chief negotiator Nabil Shaath. On behalf of Sixth Form, a huge thank you to Mimi Harker for taking time out of her busy schedule to share her experiences, thoroughly inspiring girls to follow a career in politics and to always follow an 'I can do it' attitude! Riya Thakrar
Year 7 Netball
The final match of the season was a very competitive game against Royal Masonic School last week. The girls all played well.
A team lost 6 - 18; B team won 12 - 6; C team won 5 -2.
100 girls have played for DCHS this season with unbelievable enthusiasm and we look forward to seeing the girls again in September.
Year 9 District Netball
On Saturday 19th March the Year 9 A and B teams performed very well in the District Netball Tournaments.
The A team narrowly missed out on being section winners having won 5 out of 6 matches but went into the semi finals. The team narrowly lost to Beaconsfield High School. The girls have improved greatly this year and are competing strongly with the best teams in the county. Sade Wallace and Katie Stocker were the joint players of the tournament, and Simi Brar played a great captain's role this year.
Instrumental & Vocal Evenings
Featuring performances from a staggering three hundred girls, the two Instrumental & Vocal Evenings last week were a fabulous opportunity to celebrate the developing musicianship of girls from Year 7 to 13, beginners to post Grade 8. The first half on each night featured our smaller instrumental ensembles as well as one or two put together especially for the event. Please click here for the full review.
Con Brio at the Wycombe Swan
On both Thursday 17th and Saturday 19th March, the girls in Con Brio entertained at the Energize! 2016 Festival at the Wycombe Swan. Having performed at this bi-annual event in 2014, it was exciting to be invited back and new and old members alike had a wonderful experience. Combining some new repertoire with more established numbers, the girls thrilled their audiences with jazz, ballads and spirituals. Other Energize performances included a (very cute) re-telling of the story of Noah’s Ark and some emotionally moving contemporary dance, creating an fabulous contrast to our a cappella performance. This show was a fantastic chance to gain experience on such a large stage and showcase our talents to a wider audience, feedback from whom was wonderful. Highlights of the evenings included our personal dressing room with Broadway style mirrors, a pre-show (and now traditional) Wagamamas and lots of selfies! Thank you so much to Energize! 2016 for inviting us to participate once again – we found it a truly memorable experience, not only to perform but really to bond as a group. Already looking forward to 2018…(eek!).
For a peek into our backstage preparations, check out our twitter feed @DCHS_Music!
Well done 7H
In an entirely student led initiative, 7H raised £61.56 for WaterAid. During Thursday lunchtime they organised an Easter Egg Tom-bola which proved very popular - tickets were sold out and eggs gone in 15 minutes! The form had discussed potential charities and voted on the one to support.
P.A. March's 200 club winners:
- Samantha Race £80.25
- Elaine Herbert £48.15
- Mark Lawther £32.10
Thank You
A huge Thank You to Blaser Mills who sponsored The Curve magazine this year.
PGL
On Friday 18th March 40 girls departed for PGL, for some of the girls it was a return trip, having attended the weekend last year. On our arrival we were greeted by our "Groupie" Karen and the girls were whisked off for Harness training and Team Building Games. Friday night saw little sleep and we woke early at 6.50am, to have breakfast. The Year 8's were warming up on the courts by 8am for matches to start at 8.30am. Great play by all 3 Year 8 teams; the A's convincingly winning 3 of their 4 games and B and C team, working hard to play against a very strong field of teams. Meanwhile, the Year 9's were swinging from great heights, climbing obstacle courses and enjoying a game of Aeroball. Tempera-tures were cold and so after a good, hot lunch, it was Yr9's turn to play Netball and Yr 8's to "run wild!"
The 2 Year 9 teams also faced a high standard of play and the B's were relishing the opportunity to learn from the experience and were a true credit to themselves, fighting hard in every game. 9A won 3 of their 4 matches in the afternoon and this left them and the 8A team in good positions, to complete the 1st rounds of the competition on Sunday. Saturday evening was busy once again with a game of "Ambush" out in the dark and the girls enjoyed takeaway pizza in their rooms! Sunday morning was early once more and all 5 teams were out warming up at 8am. There was all to play for!
Year 9A and Year 8A won their morning matches and marched into the Semi finals. With a fantastic crowd of DCHS support behind them, they played hard but sadly, both teams were defeated. England's Ebony Beckford-Chambers arrived and we had photo opportunities. Teams were then presented with medals and the Year 9 team were bronze medallists! Thank you very much to Mrs Yeomans and Miss Hall for coming with us all. The girls were a true credit to themselves and the school.
Maths Challenge
On March 15th a Junior Maths Team travelled to Oxford for the Maths Challenge which took place in the beautiful, glass front-ed Andrew Wiles Building. Coincidentally Andrew Wiles had just won the Abel Prize, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which added to the feeling of awe that the building inspired.
There were 26 schools taking part, coming from as far away as Winchester and London. The Challenge comprised of four rounds, starting with a team round and finishing with a frantic relay, and lasted the whole day.
We knew that the Dr Challoner's team was in the top six as the day progressed and at the final presentation the girls found out that they finished in a brilliant fourth place.
Well done to Emily Came, Poppy Smalley, Susanna Catling and Natasha Joseph who were tremendous ambassadors for our school and showed themselves to be outstanding mathematicians. Mrs Wells.
Thank You
A huge Thank You to the PA from us all.
Thanks to some fantastic fundraising this year, the PA were delighted to present Mr Roe with a cheque for £25,000, in support of the Courtyard Cafe project.
Thanks to our Chairman of Gover-nors, Mrs Pip Wood, for baking the staff a cake that looks too good to cut! But we did.
Thanks to Mrs Russell for organis-ing the staff technical challenge in the Sport Relief Bake off and to all the staff who bravely baked.
