Two of St Andrew’s Prep’s top swimmers represented the school at the IAPS Swimming Finals at K2 in Crawley last weekend.   Ailish Bliss Moran and Ethan Dando both swam in the 25m butterfly events for their respective age groups.

Ailish, swimming in the Under 13 competition came fifteenth and Ethan, competing in the Under 10 event attained a personal best and finished fourth.  Jill Garbett, the school’s swimming coach said, “I am absolutely delighted with their performances.  They both had great swims are to be congratulated for their humble manner poolside at the championships and at school.  They are a delight to coach.” 

Josh Veitch narrowly missed a place at the Finals (by 400ths of a second) in the Under 12 butterfly and 23 other swimmers from the school are also to be acknowledged and commended for participating in the qualifying rounds back in February.

Seven lucky St Andrew’s Prep pupils are looking forward to a trip to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London to watch a performance of The Merchant of Venice on Thursday 4 June.

This fantastic opportunity forms part of the 21st Eastbourne Schools’ Shakespeare Festival. The trip will be followed a week later by a showcase event at Ratton School where, pupils will watch and perform creative interpretations of Shakespeare’s work. St Andrew’s Prep pupils will be putting their own spin on a scene from The Merchant of Venice.

St Andrew’s Prep is promoting democratic processes and getting children involved in politics by staging its own (albeit mock) General Election on Thursday 7 May, the day the country goes to the polls.

Seven St Andrew’s Prep pupils, backed by their own Campaign Managers, have been selected to represent the seven major UK political parties including Conservative, Green, Independent, Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP and UKIP. The representatives will try to establish themselves as the voice of the school and their party by developing strategies to satisfy the pupils needs and wants across the year groups. They will present their policy statements in front of the school next Tuesday and take part in a question and answer session two days later. Voting will take place on the same day at the General Election.

The election organiser and Deputy Headmaster, Gordon Ferguson, said, “I very much look forward to hearing our candidates’ statements. They are all working hard to establish a following and I anticipate the result being a close run thing. It is important that pupils understand the election process and have some degree of knowledge about the parties taking part. I often read that young people are turning their backs on politics, so this is a chance to catch their interest early.”

Year 6 children have spent a very enjoyable few days in Normandy in glorious sunshine. They travelled out on the Portsmouth to Caen ferry and particularly enjoyed the limbo dancing competition (as did Miss Warren and Gap Student Alex Gordon).

On Wednesday they visited the Bayeux Tapestry and Bayeux Cathedral as well as having the opportunity to spend their money at the local market.

The focus on Thursday was the 2nd World War when they visited the town of Arromanches and the D Day Landing Museum. The afternoon was spent visiting the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Bayeux and the Juno Beach Centre before spending some time chilling out on Juno Beach.

Before boarding the ferry at lunchtime today they visited another market to buy some smelly cheese and called in at Pegasus Bridge en route to the port.

On Thursday 16 April the Year 8 classes experienced trench life first hand. Mr Ashley Taylor appeared in full kit from behind the curtain in the Richardson Building to give us a view of life in the First World War from the ordinary soldier’s point of view. He unpacked his kit bag which contained every conceivable item needed for day to day life from a sewing kit to a saw capable of cutting down trees.

When he had finished his talk he gave all the pupils a chance to handle the items, many original artefacts from his only family. This included various helmets and weapons including a homemade hand grenade fashioned from a tin of jam. Perhaps the most moving items were the First World War ‘pennies’, the brass plaques given to every family of a dead soldier. His family owned fourteen of these, each engraved with the name of the casualty.

The presentation was much enjoyed by all who attended and provided a wonderful first-hand experience for the pupils who would go on to write their own ‘trench diaries’ during the week.

The St Andrew’s Prep sports field was crammed with children on Saturday afternoon as more than 300 boys and girls, aged 7-10 years old, representing 32 teams from local primary schools and football clubs gathered together for the St Andrew’s Prep Football Festival.

With the emphasis on fun and skill development, each team played in seven mini-matches. There were no winning or losing teams but every child received a medal and certificate and Golden Boots were awarded by St Andrew’s Prep Headmaster, Simon Severino, to the player or teams who had, from their coach’s point of view, performed particularly well.

Support was passionate from the side-lines and industrious and enthusiastic teamwork was evident on each of the eight football pitches. There were some outstanding performances which were noted by the many teachers, FA approved coaches and officials present. Especially pleasing was the number of girls who played in the event – almost certainly the result of a big drive by the FA to increase female players.

Chris Pinch, Joint Director of Sport at St Andrew’s Prep said, “Thank you to all of the children, parents and the army of volunteers who have helped to make this such a special day. It has been a huge amount of fun and I’m sure that each player has gained from it technically, physically and socially. It was encouraging to see so many children involved and such a positive attitude from all the coaches and spectators.”

All contributions made towards the refreshments on offer at the Festival were combined with funds raised by St Andrew’s Prep selling Red Noses throughout the week and a cake sale on Friday.  As a result, £787 has been sent to Comic Relief to help people living tough lives across the UK and Africa.

St Andrew’s Prep raised £787 for Red Nose Day when the school joined the nation in the record-breaking charity fundraiser.

The school sold Red Noses throughout the week, held a cake sale and took refreshment donations from its Football Festival with all monies going to the Comic Relief charity to help transform people’s lives here in the UK and across Africa.

A cast of some thirty children from Years 5 to 8 performed a range of entertaining and light-hearted sketches over two packed nights in the Richardson Building on 5 and 6 March through our annual comedy sketch show. The children found and prepared the sketches, usually ‘borrowing’ from the comedy greats or more modern material from the visual encyclopaedia of YouTube as well as writing some of their own very clever sketches. Taking responsibility for their own scripts, learning, props and costumes instilled a real sense of ownership and it was super to see the children coming together as a team, laughing along the way, to produce a show that retained informality and brought so many smiles to those in the audience.

St Andrew’s Prep Year 8 singers Sophie Nicholles and Ashraf Owasil ran away with the silverware in the 2015 Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival, an event affiliated to the British and International Federation of Festivals.  Sophie and Ashraf are both pupils of Mrs Goss-Turner and gained eight distinctions between them at the event.

Ashraf won the following four awards:

Won with Distinction for Duet (with Elizabeth Garner of Moira House) – Bronze Medal class
Won with Distinction Solo Boys 12 years – Willingdon Cup
Won with Distinction Themed Recital
Distinction solo Musical Theatre 12 years

Sophie also won four awards including: 

Won with Distinction, Duet with Ashraf Owasil – Silver Medal Class
Distinction Solo Singing 13 years
Won with Distinction Unaccompanied Folk Song U16 – Cup
Shared win with Distinction Recital Class – Cup

Many congratulations to them both.