I hope that the half-term holidays have gone well and that
your son/daughter is refreshed and ready to return back to College. We return
to the Summer routine version of the daily timetable from Monday 24th February,
with the last lesson of the day finishing at 15:55 and games or activities
beginning at 16:30.
We will hopefully fulfil all of the sports fixtures for the
rest of the term with waterlogged pitches and gale force winds forcing the
cancellation of some of the games before the holidays.
Despite the weather, the Dunbar pupils were
characteristically busy during the past six weeks of the Lent Term. They have
continued to present on a Friday or Tuesday morning during the Dunbar
Assemblies. Peter Bezant gave us an insight into the world he had created in a computer
world creation game of Mine Craft, Maisie Marsh gave a detailed presentation on
her favourite boy band - One Direction, Sam Ward inspired us all with his talk
on Nelson Mandela, Oscar Harper shared his passion for guitars and showed us
his guitar collection and Bastien Hamilton followed his summary of e-safety
with an adhoc performance of The Hall of Fame (by The Script/will.i.am) on the
piano, with all pupils joining in with the sing-along of the chorus!
Bastien also played his piano in a far more formal setting
when he played in a String and Piano Concerto on 31st January in the Nancye
Harding Recital Hall on campus. Lucy Perring and Henry Dailey also played in
the Concerto; all went very well.
We took the Dunbar boarders to see the College production of
Little Shop of Horrors on the evening of Wednesday 12th February. Well done to
Sam Holloway, Louis Winter and Cameron Branney for their performances and for
all the time and effort they put into rehearsals especially the all-day Sunday
rehearsals!
Two of the Dunbar 2nd Form were involved in the Design
Technology Department STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) team
Land Rover 4x4 Technology Challenge. Peter Hyde and Abbie Lewis contributed
with their creative and technical skills to help create an all-terrain remote
controlled vehicle that would have to be 'driven' across a series of obstacle
courses that would test the vehicle’s design. The team did very well in the
first round of the competition (hosted at City University, London) coming away
with three prizes: Best New Comer, Best Course Time and Most Innovative Design.
The boarders enjoyed a variety of activities last term: on
Wednesday 29th January the Dunbar boarders helped Kenny Xu celebrate the
approach of Chinese New Year with a trip to the Imperial Palace restaurant in
Reading. Miss Green has involved the boarders in Art and Design projects with self-portrait
prints of the boarders and a Sunday trip to decorate pottery.
May I take this opportunity to thank those parents and guardians
who attended the Dunbar Dinner and I hope that you will all agree it was an
enjoyable evening. This year the theme of my speech focused on the fact that
our current 1st Form will graduate from Pangbourne College in the year 2020. I
suggested that in order to make our Dunbar pupils ready for the year 2020 we
cannot really tell them what it will be like and what will happen but we can at
least prepare them as to how they approach the ever-changing world that they
will step into.
Finally, the 2nd Form will start ‘Buddy’ training after half
term. They will be trained in various aspects of mentoring such as listening
skills and knowing when to tell a member of staff if someone asks them for
help, for example.
Will Ogilvie-Jones
Housemaster of Dunbar
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