6th Septmber 2024
I hope your children have had a smooth transition back to school after a fabulous summer.
Seeing the look on their faces as they noticed the physical changes as they came into school for the first time was a sight to behold! Our vision with the work is to create a visually inspiring, fun and stimulating environment which they both love and are proud of, and which will continue as we gradually revamp the rest of the school. If you have not yet had a chance to see the work that has taken place over the holidays, please do step in through the Big Blue Door to have a look!
It was wonderful to welcome 22 new pupils during our first Assembly on Thursday morning. We have new starters in Nursery, Reception, Years 3, 4 and 5 and it has been lovely to see the other children helping them to settle so smoothly into life at Rupert House over the last few days. Our new staff are also quickly finding their feet and have already made a very positive impression on the children, which I am delighted about. I enjoyed chatting with a number of you over coffee after drop-off on that very first morning and I hope that our new parents soon feel very much a part of the Rupert House family.
In that first assembly, I talked about the postcard your child hopefully received from their Form Teacher, with the quote from Clara Hughes, the Summer and Winter Olympic medal-winning athlete, who said: "If you dream and allow yourself to dream, you can do anything." I challenged the children to consider what they dream of achieving this year and referenced Erin Kennedy (cox of the Paralympic Four, who spoke at our Prep Prize Giving) and Tom Digby (former pupil and member of the Men's Eight) who achieved their dreams this summer of winning Gold Medals in rowing. They are like the climbers on the postcard who are celebrating having made it to the top of the mountain. I also spoke of the importance of teamwork, which is also shown visually on the postcard, with the climbers helping each other, and which Erin spoke to the children about in her speech, where she said that the ultimate compliment we can be given is to be called a good team player. I completely agree!
As we embark on this new term, I have been reflecting on the children who left us at the end of last year to start their journeys at senior schools. They achieved remarkable success, securing places at their first-choice schools and earning 9 scholarships and awards between them. Most importantly, they left us as confident, kind, and well-adjusted young individuals who have a love of learning. We wish them the very best and look forward to hearing about their future achievements.
Welcome meetings
Thank you to everyone who was able to attend their year-group parent welcome meeting this week. The remaining meeting times and dates are shown in MySchoolPortal.
Staffing News
As you may be aware, Frances Harris' husband, James, has achieved great success as a coach of the British Women's Rowing Squad. On the back of an excellent Olympics for our rowers, James has just been offered and accepted the role as Head Coach of the Australian Women's squad. This is a fabulous opportunity for him and nothing less than he deserves, as one of the world's top coaches, and it has all came about very quickly. It means that he and the family will be moving to warmer climes and so Frances and the girls are going to be moving out to near Sydney with him. The role commences in January and the family are going to move out together at the same time as this will also be the start of the academic year for the girls at a new school for them.
We will be advertising for a replacement imminently and I am certain that we find someone to ably step into Frances' shoes and with whom Frances can ensure there is a smooth handover.
Frances has undertaken a number of roles in the Pre-Prep and Prep School over the last ten years, each with huge passion and commitment, be that teaching, coaching sport, running clubs and also introducing the Prep Pastoral lead role, where she has supported the Prep children and their parents with great tact and sensitivity. She has done an excellent job, is a very popular member of staff and she and the girls will be much-missed. We will be advertising the Prep Pastoral role internally as I know we have a number of staff who are keen to undertake it and who will do an excellent job of this important position if appointed.
In the six years Jack Williams (our Network Manager) has been with us, he has helped us navigate the periods of remote teaching during COVID, significant upgrades in the system, including our move to the Cloud and introduction of staff and pupil devices, migrating our system over to the Wishford network, all on top of the excellent job he has done in supporting us with our day-to-day technical issues. Like Frances, he is a superb team-player, so willing to also help with non-IT issues around the school and a very sociable member of the staff. Given Jack's skillset and personable nature, it was only a matter of time before he moved on to bigger and better things, and he has been offered and accepted an excellent opportunity with United Learning, which will see him supporting a large number of schools across their network.
We will be working with the Wishford team to consider the most effective way of supporting our IT needs going forward, which will likely include onsite support as well as Wishford IT support where it is helpful. The Wishford team were a great help over the summer with the migration, and so they already know our system well.
Staff Email addresses
Please note that our staff email addresses have changed over the summer break. The format is now firstname.surname@ruperthouse.co.uk. If you send an email to an old address, it will still work for the time being.
Artwork and photographs
Thank you to Lucy Vernon for her lovely new header for the weekly newsletter which you can see above. Thank you to everyone who handed in their fantastic, colourful designs. Do look out for them on the school walls where they will be displayed within the next few weeks.
We have extended the summer photography competition where we challenged the children to undertake 100 acts of kindness between them in their local communities. Please do take a photograph of whatever your child might have chosen to do and share this with Ms Ovstedal (jenny.ovstedal@ruperthouse.co.uk) with a brief description. We will put them all together to form a very special display throughout the remainder of the centenary year.
Centenary Ball
The Centenary Ball takes place next Saturday 14th September from 7pm to 11.30pm. We have a fantastic number of current parents and alumni coming along. The deadline for purchasing tickets is 11.55pm tonight (6th September) so please make sure you act quickly if you’d like to come along! It promises to be a very special evening. The link to purchase tickets is here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/t-jzpvzpp
Back British Farming Day
11th September is ‘Back British Farming Day’ and we would like to celebrate with the children. The menu will not change as we are celebrating the produce, not the recipes. However, the Pre-Prep children have been busy colouring in pictures of tractors this week to decorate the dining room and we would also like your help in sourcing a few tractors. If you have any small toy tractors at home (not of the ride-on variety!), please could you bring them into school on Tuesday morning. Please make sure they are named. Our catering manager, Barry, will make sure all tractors are returned to their rightful owners after the event.
Second-Hand Uniform
There will be a second-hand uniform sale on Friday13th September in our Pavilion from 8.30am. Please park in the Rugby Club or Waitrose car parks.
Music Lessons
If your child would like to try instrumental or music lessons, please contact Mrs Light and she will be happy to organise a taster session (anne.light@ruperthouse.co.uk). As we mentioned in our letter about homework, there are many proven benefits of learning an instrument or singing to a child's wider academic development and it is another string to their bow when it comes to senior school applications - please forgive the pun!
I hope you and your children have a restful weekend. I should imagine they may be fairly tired after a busy first few days back at school!
Best wishes,
Nick Armitage