This week the Drama department has been full of girls preparing for the student run production of Lady of the Flies. The production which is taking place on the 30th June and 1st July will be a spectacular showcase of talent, which we hope you can all attend. You can get tickets from the box office outside the canteen, by returning the letter sent out to parents or by buying them on the night from the door. We hope to see you there.
Swimming
Congratulations to Olivia East who won gold for her age group 12yrs) in 200m fly and silver in 100m fly at the regional swim-ming championships. The article in Get Bucks. Olivia has also been selected to participate in a regional talent camp for her age group over 2 weekends in Septem-ber. They are among 5 girls from Berkshire and South Bucks who will join girls from the rest of the region (Bucks, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent) for 2 days of pool and land train-ing as well as classroom sessions.
Tennis
Year 8 tennis v St Mary’s—A good evening of tennis for 16 DCHS tennis players and a good win for DCHS 12 - 0. Well played to all the girls.
Aegon tennis v Aylesbury High School—Two teams from Years 8, 9 & 10 played against Aylesbury High in the final match . The Year 8 team played exceptionally well with close singles matches. The final score DCHS 4 - Aylesbury High 8. The Year 10 team played against superb opposition and the score does not reflect the competitive and superb quality of the play involved. DCHS 0 - Aylesbury High 12. Well played to all the girls.
Little Chalfont Nature Park
Last Saturday saw the opening of a wonder-ful local community project which we are lucky enough to have as our neighbours here at Dr Challoner’s High. Little Chalfont Nature Park opened its gates for the world to see what is described on the website as a ‘hidden gem in the Chilterns’. It really is a gem and despite a rather wet day, all guests were treated to an informative tour of the beautifully pre-served woodland which is home to natural wildlife.
Our own Head Girl, Evie Vennix, officially opened the park and welcomed local supporters of the project and our MP Cheryl Gillan. Evie was particu-larly impressed by the emphasis on conservation and the focus on the park as a resource for young people. The intention is to develop a playground and even more child-friendly activities. For our girls, this is an opportunity to explore an outside classroom and for the sixth form to have a tranquil sanctuary in which to relax and ponder!
Follow this link for further details and I encourage you all to make it a top choice to visit –how fortunate we are to have such a peaceful and educa-tional place right on our doorstep !
Kew Gardens
We were promised we’d see spectacular things at Kew Gardens, and we certainly did.
Walking sky high in among the trees and singing birds was the first thing we did. The Tree Top Walk was super surreal and you could see for miles and miles over the breathtaking landscapes. Next we visited a lake, home to lots of small, fluffy chicks. There were playful goslings snoozing under the shade of a willow tree and cheeping ducklings following each other in a line across the lake.
After that came my favourite bit, The Wet Tropics. The Wet Tropics was like a rainforest, bursting with life and colour; it was so lush you could almost feel the plants growing all around you. It was certainly a noisy atmosphere; there was the rushing of water and humming of bees and all the plants were so exotic-looking and sweet-smelling. In addition to the plants and flowers in the Wet Tropics there were also some interesting creatures like stripy lizards and massive, brightly-coloured butterflies.
As well as the Wet Tropics we also walked around the Dry Tropics. The Dry Tropics was mainly made up of odd shaped cacti. It sur-prised me how different each cactus looked and how many different textures there were. Some cacti were long and thin, lying along the ground like snakes, and others were round and spiky like green pumpkins, and everything in between, there was also one that looked like a maze of higgledy-piggledy mountains covered in soft peach fuzz.
Then the last thing we did was visit the gift shop where I bought two of my own cacti and now I’ve got part of Kew Gardens growing on my window sill at home. Issey Robertson 7L
Geogrpahy
Most year 10 geographers were struck by the wonder and majesty of the spectacuar mountanious landscape in North Wales during their fieldtrip. However, one girl was not convinced and when pressed as to why, commented:
The landscape is so vast and expansive that it makes me feel rather small and insigninficant and I'm not sure that I like feeling insignificant!
