13 The Musical - The Chailey Christmas Show

The American musical "13" is being performed Wednesday and Thursday this week and there are still tickets available for tonight, available at the door from 6.30pm.

Come along and enjoy this fast moving musical performed by the students with their usual enthusiasm and talent.

Staff and students enjoy the Christmas lunch

The Cologne Christmas Market trip

Imo Carmichael, Year 11, writes:

Year 11 German Trip battles all weathers to reach Cologne on time!

 After battling wind and rain Year 11 finally headed off on the road-trip of the year. For two hours the class slept silently, until the channel crossing appeared ahead of us, offering warm coffee, food and a much needed stretch of the legs. Once aboard the Euro-tunnel, the coach trip picked up speed and it wasn’t long before we were in France singing Christmas songs, attempting a rap battle and watching “Love actually”. In Belgium we had a quick stop to get pizza and snacks before setting off again, into the ever-lasting traffic-jam throughout Belgium and all the way to Kӧln - Cologne in English.

After dropping our things off in the youth-hostel we headed back out into the never ending rain to explore the amazing Christmas markets, full of lights, food and the amazing smell of Glühwein.

After picking up pretty gifts, eating till we could pop and taking as many selfies as we could, we made our way back to the coach where we sang all the way to the youth hostel.

The next morning we were up again early, ready for a few more hours in the markets, until at midday we had to say “Auf Wiedersehen” to the markets and the city we had stayed in, before another 8 hour, song filled, film watching, laughter filled coach journey back to Chailey.

Year 7 Lexia Party

The cohort of 20 Year 7 students who have been working on the software programme 'Lexia Reading' during the autumn term enjoyed a party to celebrate their achievement and progress.  They have all now completed their ten week period of three twenty-minute sessions each week.  The students were given a book and a certificate as a reward for doing so well.

Zoe completes fund-raising 8-hour marathon ice skating

Zoe Webber, Year 10, writes:

In November, I completed 8 hours of ice-skating in one day to raise funds for my trip to Japan next year. On the day we had lovely weather throughout and I really enjoyed the challenge despite being very tired by the end!

I am representing the scouting movement by attending the World Scout Jamboree, and as part of that I have to fund-raise £1900. I would like to thank all of the staff and pupils who contributed towards this so generously by sponsoring me. 

Christmas Jumper Day

Staff and students celebrate Christmas Jumper Day 

Presentation Evening for the Class of 2014

Mrs Young presenting Harriet Quick with her special award

Mr David Whelpton, Mrs Elaine Warburton and Mr Andy Harris congratulating a student

Our Presentation Evening for last year’s Year 11 was held on 27^th November.  A selection of music was performed by Harriet Quick on the viola and she was given a special award by Mrs Lesley Young in recognition of her musical achievement and being given a place in the National Youth Orchestra.  Additional music was performed by Georgia Cudby who sang her own version of the Jackson 5 song “I’ll Be There”.

We were very pleased to welcome our special guest, a former Chailey student, Mrs Elaine Warburton, OBE.  After presenting subject prizes and other prizes recognising the achievements of the year group, Mrs Warburton enthused and engaged students about the possibilities for them to make their future in the world beyond school, drawing on her own experience in the field of DNA scientific research.  She urged the young people to ensure that, whatever challenges lay ahead, they needed to be determined to pursue their goals relentlessly – outlining the successes and failures in her own journey as an entrepreneur since leaving Chailey School.

Mr David Whelpton, Chair of Governors, presented the GCSE certificates, Duke of Edinburgh Silver Awards and Governors’ Awards to the students.

Mr Andy Harris, our Key Stage 4 Director, then gave the audience a presentation on “The Class of 2014 – A Look Back at the Year”.

Mrs Young closed the evening with an inspirational speech about what the students had achieved and will go on to achieve in their lives. 

Our best wishes and congratulations go to the Class of 2014 and we wish them every success and happiness in their future.

Learning to Learn and a cat finds a happy home in the Library

Isabell Orwin and Amelie Woodbridge-Cox in  7 Caburn write:

In Learning to Learn with Miss Hall we have been creating a project over the last couple of weeks on a subject that we would like to learn more about.  Some of us have worked in a group who wanted to research a similar thing. We have all really worked hard to produce our projects and we have all made something really interesting.                                                                       

Our project is “How Cats Show Their Emotions!” and we have created a paper mache cat and we wrote up facts and stuck them on the cat.  We also made a PowerPoint presentation.

Some other topics that 7 Caburn have researched include Horses; A humming bird’s life; Cars; Spiders; Eiffel Tower; What life was like for a girl in World War 2 and Andy Murray! A lot of people find it interesting, fun and great to learn new things.  Also we have a great teacher!

We found doing this project was really fun because we got to make something that was really interesting so people can learn more about it.

Murder in the Library

Year 7 are looking at detective fiction and Sherlock Holmes in English at the moment.  To launch the unit of work they take on the role of detectives themselves to investigate a murder.  Two corpses were provided to add a note of realism - Mrs Duck and a Year 11 student - who had to remain still for half an hour while the class studied all the clues spread around the bodies.  Deductions were made, conclusions were reached and the murderer was identified.

'The Diary of Anne Frank' at Lewes Little Theatre

Miss Hutton writes:

Those of us who know the events of the last four years of Anne Frank’s life, or read her diary, will have experienced the disbelief that during World War II, Jewish families were forced into hiding for years to escape the persecution sweeping through Nazi occupied countries.  Lewes Little Theatre’s production of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ portrayed the claustrophobia, fear and desperation of Anne’s family, but also the love and vibrancy that helped them survive for so long.

The year 7 and 8 students who attended the show would like to extend their thanks to Lewes Little Theatre for welcoming us so warmly for our first trip to the theatre.  You couldn’t hear a pin drop from the gallery where we were sat as Anne’s story unfolded, which was testament to the excellent acting and direction.  We were treated to a backstage tour after the show, where we met fellow Chailey students Charlie Pope and Cameron Wallis (sound designer and front of house manager respectively), and the cast, including Seerche Dindial, a home grown Chailey talent, who left Year 11 three years ago!

Thank you also to Mr Smith and Ms Turner, who helped make the trip such a success.