Music, Sport, Psychology and ...football

I have just returned from a lovely evening listening to our Y10 Music students singing and playing to parents and a tremendously enthusiastic and supportive audience of fellow students. We were impressed by the solo vocal performances and the courage that it takes to sing to a full house of your peers, your peers' parents, and, worse, teachers. Some of the tunes were innovatively arranged to create lovely, sweet  harmonies; and then there were the rock bands who got everyone tapping away.  Many thanks to Ms Quinn Larkin and Ms Fairbairn for their hard work in organising this, and other staff who came to support and work on the door.

Last week was a sporty one for us. Our Sports Day was held on Friday: St George's Dragons (green colours) won narrowly over Nightingale Foxes (red).  This is a time for lots of students to shine and enjoy themselves. Many also had a great time at Sheen Mount Primary School, where our sports leaders accompanied Ms Calloway to help our local Primary put on a wonderful day. Mr Hutchins, the Head, wrote a lovely letter full of compliments about how the students had helped make the event so successful.

In Psychology, which class I happened to visit today along with a parent governor and Cllr Paul Hodgins, they were conducting some research, looking at Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development. They were looking for evidence to confirm  that they had reached the Formal Operation stage and were therefore capable of hypothetical thinking (could be interesting!). They  produced diaries to monitor the extent to which they think in this way throughout their school day.

Clearly, Fabio used psychchology more successfully than previously on our English team; we had a full hall this afternoon full of England fans cheering on their team. The delight expressed when we scored was a delight to witness!  Red and white faces, a few silly hats and a winner of an England football shirt made this a lovely afternoon. We have to wait now and see whether England will successfully reach the Operation stage in their next game to preempt other players scoring....

I have just read that we raised just over £100 for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Great Ormond Street Hospital (entry to hall fee going to good use!).