Ben Tait in 'Cats'

Ben Tait recently took part in Starmaker's production of 'Cats', where he played the part of Coricopat, one of the mystic twins. The production Cats is based on the Old Possum Book of Practical Cats by T S Elliot and tells the story of a variety of Cats who are at the Jellicle Ball celebrating. The musical goes through the various characters and tells us about the secret life of the cats and Ben's character is a twin and they can foresee the future. They can foresee what happens to Old Deuteronomy, the leader of the Jellicle Cats and help in his rescue from the mystery cat Macvity. 

Starmaker provides children with the opportunity to perform in a variety of productions ranging from musicals to Shakespeare and Ben has been lucky enough to have had number of main parts including young Tommy in Tommy and the Artful Dodger in Oliver, all of which he has had enjoyed. The next production is Miss Saigon in March 2014.

Open Morning

The day started off with an outstanding drum performance at the front of the school to welcome families. They entered the sports hall for the Headmaster’s speech. The tour guides then took their guests to the day houses or boarding houses. Once they had looked around the very clean houses (Orchard especially), they got to view the different subject areas. They were greeted by the teachers who told them all about their respective subjects that they teach and, on occasion, they were then greeted by the boys too. In the English department with Mr. Miller, we were writing Greek poems. The visitors who came to the department seemed to be impressed with the pupils. In Maths it was a fun experience, not only for the guests but also for the boys because of the games we challenged them to. As always, Orchard made a strong impression on the visitors.

Written by Ollie Simpson, Will Parton, Marcus Hillman and Andy Hildred.

A busy week....

As always it has been an incredibly busy penultimate week of term! Last week saw the results of the house football. The seniors did really well, winning the competition, beating Skipwith in their final match. The junior A team came 2^nd, closely pipped to the post by Skipwith A – avenging the senior team! Next year they will be aiming for the double. The house enjoyed another successful open morning, with all of our boys involved in some way. Many of the boys gave tours to parents, were involved in departments or were helping to organise the day. Parents were notably impressed by the maturity of all of our boys – I am sure that this did not surprise anyone reading this! Further sporting news; the 15s enjoyed a clean sweep of results against local rivals Pangbourne in rugby. The 15As won 27-0, the 15Bs won 42-7 and the 15Cs won 80-0; well done to all boys involved. On Saturday the year 10s leave for Little Chalford for the Duke of Edinburgh trip, “to drag yourself through grass for two days” according to Adam Fletcher! In fact they are looking forward to walking, camping over and generally enjoying themselves outside for 2 days to celebrate the end of term. Finally, last Thursday the CCF field day years 10 -13 were involved in a multitude of activities such as cycling, shooting, sports activities, camp building, face camouflaging, cooking ration packs and a tug of war!

Compiled and written by Mr Morgan and his tutor group. 

Oli Walker's Canoe Exploits

This past weekend, Oliver Walker was competing on the Thames at the National Hasler final which he qualified for. He and his regular canoe partner Matthew Atkins (Pangbourne College) represented Reading Canoe Club in Division 5 K2  - an 8 mile marathon canoe race with 2  portages. They faced very stiff competition and they were the youngest crew in their class – over the season they have steadily progressed and been promoted twice into a higher division following some good results. The boys enjoyed their race and are even more determined to better their performances with some serious winter training!!

Strictly Ballroom . . . Orchard Style!

On Friday 20^th September, together with the other Houses, the Orchard Boys stepped out in style.  They were taken to Queen Anne’s Girls School in Reading to participate in Ballroom Dancing Classes.  This is an annual event which ends in a Black Tie Ball and Ballroom Dancing competition against the Oratory school in Woodcote.

Tom Banks kept up with the pace,  despite being surprised by the speed of the Jive.  

James Sloman is a born leader on the dance floor, if ever I saw one.

Ruaridh Sheppard’s snake hips was a sight for sore eyes.

Will Janes what a smooth operator. William Simpson silent but with a deadly swerve, a sight to behold.

And the new additions to the House, Henry Waller and Harry Wiggins glided through it all effortlessly.

Harry Chapples, just so cool, took it all in his stride.

George Lawley's beautifully postured look, almost a pro.
Charles Marsden and Jonnie Graham suave and sophisticated  

And finally, Harrison Balchin and Adib Wain kept bringing it all together.

Poor Matron was just exhausted but a great time was had by all. Well done!

Written by Julie Knight, Orchard House Matron

More Summer Achievements

Cosmo Hearnden, Seb Newman, Ollie Potter (Welsh) Henry Blois Brooke (Skipwith) and Felix Hearnden won a bronze medal at National Championships in Nottingham J14 (coxed quad).  Barry and Mr Fitton gave up massive amounts of their time to coach them and go up to Nottingham to watch them race – great achievement for all boys and coaches.

Stories from the Island...

When the normal school day was over, the year 9 Orchard pupils went down to the boat house with their belongings to stay the night on the island, based about 150 feet down the river. When we had all been ferried across the river, we started to unpack the boat and set up camp in our strategically located camp spot. We were each given 2 tarpaulin sheets to improvise as a tent, as many pegs and string as we needed. After we had set up our rather hopeless attempts at ‘tents’, we returned to the storage tent to wash our hands in the river – and then with hand wipes – and set up portable barbecues. After all the fire from the barbecues had gone we all got one piece of chicken, a sausage, plus, a burger. After the food had all been cooked and eaten, we put the barbecues away and started a fire. When we had the fire going, we roasted marshmallows - burned marshmallows more like – and sat around for a while relaxing and laughing at silly jokes that really weren’t that funny, before stumbling blindly through the dark to our camp sites. It took us all a while to settle down and even longer to get any sleep. Although if we remember correctly, there was a particularly loud and obnoxious swan during the night, so not all of us got our beauty sleep. After a night of restless sleeping – of which a handful of pupils slept perfectly, to the annoyance of the other students – we got up and packed away our tents, pegs and knot-ridden string. We then greeted the other students and shared stories of what happened in the night. We then packed our belongings away and put them on the boat, to which, ferried us back across the river to begin another day at school.

Paragraph by Brett Fullard and Andy Hildred