the old luctonians annual dinner - lucton school · gilbert, tommy, mike l, leo and henry,...

Autumn term2018, Week 11

www.luctonschool.org23rd NovemberAutumn 2018, week 11

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THIS W

EEK

In this issue:l Prep School Newsl Boarding Newsl ISA Swimming

Updatel Prep School

Concertl Reception

Autumn Walkl Sports Reportl Equestrian News

At the weekend, the OldLuctonians’ AssociationAnnual General Meetingand Dinner was held at theschool. The age range of theOld Luctonians that turnedup was from 19 to over 90!It is always great to see somany former Luctonianswishing to remain part ofthe school and to meet upwith people who havebecome lifelong freinds. MrsThorne gives an update tothe Old Luctonians andusually each year, one Old Luctonian gives a talk abouttheir life at Lucton and beyond. This year, Peter Burgoynedid something a little different, reminding us all of the lifeof Old Luctonian, Richard Hall, who has been a greatsupporter of the school, who sadly died late last year. Itwas veryuplifting tohear just howmuch Richardhad done forboth theSchool and theLuctoniansRugby Club.

The Old Luctonians Annual Dinner

As is always the case, as the end ofterm approaches we seem to fit moreand more in. Admittedly the autumnterm is filled with traditional eventsthat happen every year and this justadds to the level of excitement for thechildren. Last week’s assembly was noexception. Year 4 put on awonderfully informative assemblyabout Children in Need. I reallydidn’t know that the Beeb has beenfundraising since 1927 and that hasmorphed into the current form of Pudseyamongst other events. Year 4 went on tohighlight 4 local charities that havebenefitted from donations from Childrenin Need. Well, we helped to raise moneyfor them by our annual cupcake sale. Agrand total of £293! How fantastic is that.So a huge thank you to all of you whodonated cakes and bought them as well.

Keeping with the theme of giving, wehave decided to have a Reverse Advent thisyear and hope to do so in the future. Theidea is to give something (in this case non-perishable goods) rather than receive. Eachchild will be allocated a day when they willbring in an item of food (tinned vegetablesfor example). The whole of Prep Schooland Nursery will take part and we willdonate the goods to a local food bankchosen by our chaplain, Rev. Price. ASo asAdvent approaches, a new tradition of

23rd NovemberAutumn 2018, week 11 www.luctonschool.org

service for us will begin and, I hope, it willmake the children reflect on those who areless fortunate than ourselves

What else have we been getting up to?Year 3 have used their history topic tocreate their own cave art and, to greatexcitement, Bob the Skeleton arrived andis standing proudly in their classroom. Year4 pupils have been drawing their responsesto Holst’s Planet suite. Year 5 has beengetting to grips with coding (otherwiseknown as Computer Software Programing)Year 2 pupils have been writing traditionalstories involving witches, ghosts, giants,fairies and magical apples. Year 1 madetheir own soup as well as their own bread.Reception class got absolutely soakedmaking a fabulous bug hotel down in thewoods. They even managed a superautumnal walk in Queenswood.Meanwhile, there has also been Nativityand carol practice as well.

Prep School News


DON’T FORGET: NO BUSES ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON

AS WE HAVE THE CHRISTMAS FAYRE

It is almost time for our Christmas PostBox to come out. This is for the children toput their Christmas cards in and they thenget delivered by Year 5. You will notice itnext week; so do get writing.

On that note it is just to remind you thatnext week is our last Friday Assembly ofthe term and 2018. Please do come along ifyou can to help us celebrate the children’sachievements, catch up on school news,have a cup of tea, sing Happy Birthday andeven use the school pool. A great way tostart the weekend!

AutumnWalkWhat a lovelycrisp day forReception’s visitto Queenswoodon Thursday. Thechildren practisedusing positionallanguage with hideand seek ghosts,they ran aroundthe trails (to keepwarm!) andcollected autumnleaves. Then it wastime for hotchocolate and thedelicious chocolatecake they hadmade the daybefore!


The boarders have been continuing theirrun of working hard and relaxing in theboarding house. The new TV seems to bequite the attraction and has broughttogether a variety of pupils, which isalways lovely to see. So many pupils havebeen helpful and shown good characterrecently that plenty have earned amilkshake trip!This weekend, the boarders went iceskating; much talent comes out of thewoodwork on these trips with Timperforming spins on the ice and Marlenedancing her way around the rink – well,she is best friends with an international iceskater, after all! Ben Ling and JoeMatthewson had their first ever go on theice and showed impressive progress; bothwere soon smoothly winding their wayround. Although there were many falls andslips, there were no tears and greatenjoyment was had all round. We wereparticularly fortunate because, unusually, itwas not a busy day over at the large Telfordrink.The cottage boarders also enjoyed anescapade to the play park, which resultedin some hilarity as we tried out themassive slide and scared each other on theswings! Miss Roper took the group for atrip to the farm to walk some dogs onSunday, which was a delight to all. We

hope they’ll all be well exercised as theywere even taken for a run in the morning!Aside from the usual amount of cookingthat has taken place this weekend, there hasalso been plenty of sport for Croft Housetoo. Mr McBride took a small team toTenbury to play St Michael’s School atbasketball. The team, consisting of Nabil,Gilbert, Tommy, Mike L, Leo and Henry,continued their unbeaten run against theschool and performed in a sportingmanner.Emily Walsh ran a fantastic badmintonsession here at Lucton, which was veryimpressive! Well done to the followingpupils for getting involved andrepresenting the school well: Ching Mei,Evie, Halan, Jack Wang, Harold, Tim, Enbo,Kristy, Justin, Lek and Jack Zhou. An activeweekend through and through!

Boarding News


Chess ClubThis term has been extremely competitivewith fifteen boys and girls regularlyduelling over the chequered boardsin an all play all and also a knockout style championship. The all-inclusive tournament is reaching itsconclusion, with Charlie Wangemerging as a very dominantwinner, dropping only half a pointas he has rampaged through theopposition. Charlie is also a finalisttogether with George Williams inthe knock-out sections – morenews of that next time. Coinci-dentally, at this very moment, thechess championship of the World isbeing contested in London

between current champion MagnusCarlsen from Norway taking on FabianoCaruana from the USA.

Lucton sails throughunannounced OfstedInspectionWe were pleased to welcome three OfstedInspectors here on Wednesday and showthem our lovely school. They spent the daywith us and meticulously inspected ourpremises includingthe boarding housesand classrooms,looked at ourpolicies and chattedto staff and pupils. Atthe verbal feedbackwe were givenhugely positivepraise forsafeguarding,welfare, health andsafety, recordkeeping, governance,management andmany other aspectsof school life. We

were told that there were no areas ofconcern. As yet, we have to wait until thereport comes out but we were so verypleased that, yet again, we have had anotherhuge endorsement of Lucton School, itsethos, values and every day management.They were impressed with the fact that weare not complacent and that we areendeavouring to improve our offering, allthe time, in every area of school life.

ISA Swimming updateThe annual ISA regional swim champi-onships took place this month for thejuniors and seniors. Each year, the hugeincentive is to be the fastest in the regionand so go on to swim for the Midlands ISAschools at the London Olympic Pool inDecember.

In the Juniors, step forward PoppyCrawford (Year 4 breaststroke and freestylerelay team) and Thomas Berry ( Freestylerelay team) as this year's outstandingsuccesses. We wish them well and extratraining will be provided too!

Lucton's other excellent result in theJuniors was the girls team who came 8thoverall in the team competition out of 24schools and the boys team that came 9thout of 17 schools. Within these results theYear 4 girls came 2nd in their age groupand Year 6 girls 8th. In the boys age groups, Lucton came 6th, 5th and 11th in Year 4,5 and 6 respectively. On an individual basis,

many children were competing for the firsttime and this was great to see and satisfyingthat at Lucton we can bring children fromnot swimming at all to a level ofcompetition in a short time. Particularresults of note were Nathan Berry and WillEvans coming 3rd in Year 4 boysbackstroke and breaststroke respectively.Hugo van der Laak-Gibson and ZacThomas came 3rd and 8th in Year 5 boysbackstroke and breaststroke respectively.Thomas Berry achieved the 4th fastestfreestyle time to be part of the regions'srelay team. Year 5 boys were 3rd in thefreestyle relay. James Hellyar came 6th inthe Year 6 boys breaststroke. In the girlsraces: Poppy won her race by more than asecond and a half, Solange Dakar-Arop was5th in backstroke and Poppy achieved the4th fastest freestyle time to be part of theregional relay team . In Year 5, ChloeMorris-Jones was 8th in freestyle andPhillipa Price was 5th in Year 6 girls breast-stroke.

Overall the junior team , although not


our strongest results showing overthe years, was nonetheless a goodday and the children's attitude andbehaviour was excellentthroughout. Thank you especiallyto the parents who came alongand carried out a multitude oftasks. Floreat Luctona!

Lucton returned to Walsallfollowing the success of the PrepSchool event, full of optimism.With more or less a full teamcovering Years 7-13, Lucton hadstrength in depth and werelooking forward to adding to theNational Qualifying successes inthe Prep School.

Lucton Started off well with thevery strong Year 7 teams. Almostevery swimmer scored points withtop 8 finishes. The girls were 1stplace overall and Hannah Lawrywas crowned Midlands BackstrokeChampion for the second yearrunning. The boys had top 3finishes in all individual eventswith Matthew Grant crowned asthe Midlands Freestyle Champion.The boys teams were also crownedMidlands Freestyle Relay and MedleyRelay Champions and both boys and girlsteams were 1st overall on the day!

In Year 8, the boys had top 8 finishes andscored in every event too. The pick of theindividual swims was William Muckaltwho again, was the runner-up in breast-stroke for the third year running. The teamis Midlands runners-up overall. The girlsalso had top 8 finishes in all events too,reflecting the consistency of the team.

In the year 9-10 age group, the standardwas incredibly high. The girls team finished3rd overall thanks again to scoring swimsin all events. A tremendous achievementagain for Lucton! Ellie Muckalt wasrunner-up in the butterfly by half a second!The boys mirrored the girls in everydepartment too which was a fabulousachievement!

In the senior event we had many newswimmers experiencing the event for thefirst time which was excellent. Although,not quite at full strength, the teamsperformed admirably with the girls teamfinishing 4th and the boys 9th. The bestswimmers on the day in terms of results forthis age group were the girls freestyle relayteam gaining 3rd place and Gina Yatesbeing 3rd in the butterfly.

This is a first in the schools’ history and allof those pupils who contributed to thisteam huge effort, along with all swimmingteachers at Lucton and the Lucton-Typhoon Club should be praised for theirsustained commitment to swimming atLucton School. It was also lovely to have somuch parental support too on the day andthroughout the year at all major events.



Prep School ConcertThe Prep School Concert was very wellattended by mums and dads, grandparentsand family to witness the first stage perfor-mances by some as young as Year 2. Theevening opened with the Prep Choirreminding us in song of “Notes to theaudience” – one of which, was no flash

photography! Mrs Thorne, hastilyacknowledged the words of the song as sheraised her camera in recognition. Pupilsperformed on the piano, flute, cornet,clarinet and boom-whackers! You reallyneeded to be there to experience it all!Terrific! Thanks again to the musicdepartment: Mr and Mrs Wall, MrsWoollard, Mrs Ruth and Mrs Kinnaird.

Sports ReportU14/U13/U12 LACROSSE v PrestfeldeThe A team played a 12 a side matchagainst Prestfelde. This was a tough matchand Prestfelde applied pressure from thefirst draw. Lucton took a while to get usedto the players they were defending, andstarted to get used to how their opponentmoved. As the game went on, Lucton’sdefence improved and they were making itharder for Prestfelde attackers to getthrough. Unfortunately, we lost the gamebut the girls never gave up even whenPrestfelde were scoring goal after goal.They showed great resilience, and a specialmention goes to Annalise Burns who wasgoalie and kept her head high and madesome amazing saves. A huge well done to:Tiphany Williams, Olivia Harris, SophieCampbell and Darcy Clarke for creatingmovement up the pitch.

The B team played a 5 a side game. Wehad enough girls to make two teams androtate every quarter which allowed the girlsto have far more energy. The girls startedoff slow and got used to the team as theyare not used to playing 5- a side. After halftime the girls started to bring the ball upthe pitch more and managed to score 2goals. The defenders were getting moreconfident in sticking with their players andmade it hard for Prestfelde to get near tothe goal. Well done girls for your greatimprovement as the game went on! COUNTY RUGBY U13Rugby at Ledbury on Thursday gave theU13s a chance to gauge their skills anddevelopment against the rest of the county’srugby playing schools. Starting in group C,the team got off to a great start beatingJohn Masefield 3 tries to nil. The teamrucked fast, moved the ball to space withpace and precision. The team continuedwith fast-paced play and superior technicalability in the second match and this provedtoo much for St Mary’s. Another three triesto nil win!

Winning their section, the team played

group D winners Fairfield. They were hugeand the team started too tentatively lettingFairfield win rucks too often starving theteam of ball. Fairfield scored a try andLucton were chasing the game. Pressurewas sustained with Fairfield giving awaypenalties at regular intervals but the teamjust couldn’t capitalise and ended up losinga very winable game by a sole try.

The final game was a whimper and theteam were a shadow of their early matchsuccess, suffering a heavy loss to John Kyle.A disappointing end to a tournament theyhad every chance of being finalists in.LUCTON 1st U18 RUGBY vsBedstone 64 – 43 win! On Wednesday, Lucton’s 1stXV rugby team competed againstBedstone in a thrilling game of rugby. Ourwarm up was not its best but despite thiswe were willing and eager to get out onthe field to play rugby. Clearly, Bedstonewere up for a match too!

The match kicked off, and within thefirst 5 minutes Lucton had their first trythanks to some fantastic lines of runningfrom Fin Franke et al. Tries were scored atregular intervals by both teams and with aconsistent back and forth in attack meantthat at half time Bedstone led by only 1point which would have been a larger



difference if it hadn’t have been for thekicking of Aaron Powell, who kicked 3from 4 in the first half, not bad for his firstattempt at fly half. In the second halfLucton showed grit and determination andindeed some intellect and game managedreally well, scoring a further 6 tries thanksto quick pace and stepping in the backs.Bedstone couldn’t handle the pressure fromour superior agility and ability to read theplay and take opportunities as they werepresented to us. All of the boys playedexceptionally well and as a team. Welldone! By Taylor MogfordTries: Nabil – 4, Fin Franke – 2, JakubLukes – 2, Luke Blacklock - 1, ThomasQuinn – 1. Conversions: Aaron Powell - 7U13 RUGBY v ElmsThe U13 played really well against theElms on Wednesday. We tackled really welland got the ball out into space so our goodrunners, Ellis, Nathan etc could run theball up. There were some great perfor-mances from Jack Fletcher who was strongand powerful running the ball and he alsoscored 2 tries. Ellis played really wellscoring 3 tries and was exceptionalrunning the ball on the wings. Nathanscored 1 try and had some great runs upthe wing. Jayden was very powerful andstrong running the ball up and ended upscoring 2 tries. Will Muckalt made somegreat tackles and Jack N put in a very goodall round performance in attack anddefence. All the boys played really well and

it was a very well deserved win. The finalscore 11 tries to 3. Well played boys! Will MuckaltNote: this match was played in excellentspirit, with both teams battling hard forsuperiority on the field. Off the field thetwo sets of boys enjoyed a happy andchatty meal together in the Queen AnneDining Room. Jack Nicholas was anexcellent host and looked after the Elmsboys and staff very well, but congratulationsto all the boys on an excellent performanceboth on and off the field.U12 COUNTY RUGBYOn Monday the U12s travelled the shortdistance to Lucs to play in a county rugbytournament. The format is two pools of 7,so 6 ten minute matches and the idea is togive the boys plenty of game time in ashort period. We returned with 3 victories,1 draw and two defeats. The matches arevery short and a quick score can undulyinfluence the match one way or another. Inour two defeats a couple of missed tacklesearly on gave the opposition momentum,from which it was hard to recover. We havesome powerful and creative runners, in ZakPowell, George Jones etc and given a bit ofball we can score against anyone; however,in similar fashion to all the other schoolspresent defence, both individually andcollectively was not great-so this is the areato work on mostly over the next fewsessions in training. Nevertheless, a goodand profitable afternoon’s work!


MIXED AGE FOOTBALL v BredonOn Thursday we hosted a mixed agefootball team against Bredon. In bitterlycold conditions both teams tried to playpositively, but we held the upper hand withEllis, Joel, Charlie and Archie all playingreally well, using good individual skills andawareness of colleagues on the field tostretch Bredon fully. The first 10 minuteswere quite even and it was 2 apiece then.However, our superior team work andpositional play in particular helped us toscore 6 unanswered goals throughout therest of the match. Only great goal-keepingfrom the Bredon keeper prevented furtherdamage. This was a very pleasingperformance and a match played in a goodspirit. Well done, boys!U11 HOCKEY TOURTNAMENT,The DownsAfter a tough first game against The Elms,the girls came back strongly against MoorPark, with good attacking play fromHannah Wilson, who provided an idealopportunity for Scarlett Barrett to scorethe equalising goal. Good character wasdisplayed throughout the tournament andit was encouraging to see an improvedperformance against Abberley with a 1-0loss. Ava Coleman was outstanding in goal,making many good saves and there was anoticeable improvement in the final matchagainst RGS The Grange, where the girlsshowed improved confidence whenwinning and distributing the ball indefence, to then string a succession ofattacking passes together!U16 NETBALL v Alcester GrammarThe Year 11 girls netball took on AlcesterGrammar School this week(Wednesday 21November). The girls made a positive startwinning the first quarter by more than halfwith some great long shots made byMegan and Ella. The girls continued todemonstrate some brilliant netball withGina making some wonderful interceptionto keep Lucton in the lead. Cassie, Georgieand Aoibh worked hard in the defence to

keep the Alcester score down. The finalscore was 25-17 to Lucton. This was a greatteam performance by all players and welldone to Ellie who was awarded player ofthe match. U18 NETBALL v Alcester Grammar True Lucton spirit was displayed as we setof for our annual mini tour to AlcesterGrammar School in Warwickshire. Withtwo defenders down and out with the flu,we had to mix and match in order toredress the balance, which they did in styleand although we didn't win (lost 24-21),some fast, accurate netball was played,especially in the attacking circle. Player ofthe match, Annie Shuvalova, stepped upfrom the U16s in admirable fashion,moving fluently to create space andshooting opportunities, even when playingagainst a fiesty, talented, goal defence. Milliestuck to her new task as goal keeper,displaying great progress throughout thegame, with excellent support from Elsie,whose positional awareness at goal defence,definitely created problems for theopposition. Ching Mae was a tirelesscentre, always available for a quick pass toHolly in the shooting circle, whilst Grace'sprogress and contribution at wing defencedid not go unnoticed, along with Ella'squiet presence at wing attack. Thiscompetitive match was played in goodspirit and as the new line up gelled, wemanaged to win the second half of the


RIDING LESSONSOPEN TO THE PUBLICSaturday mornings from 10.00am

and weekdays from 4.00pm.Call 01568 782000 for details.

game, which just proves that all clouds havesilver linings!BADMINTON v AlcesterAlthough it was a long journey to reachthis week’s opposition, Gilbert and Enboand Justin and Kristy were straight out ofthe starting blocks to demolish Alcester’sbest mixed doubles partnerships. Wefollowed up in the next round with amuch closer game in boys doubles whereGilbert and Justin were triumphant in theend having reached a tie break at 20-20.There were great performances all round,with Mike and Evie and Justin and Enboproviding more wins in the mixed doubles.BASKETBALL vs St.Michael’sLucton travelled over to Tenbury High thisSunday to face St. Michael’s basketballteam. For various reasons we could onlygather a small team so were a littleunderpowered with only one substitute.The match was very close with lots ofaction end to end with the first quarterfinishing 13-12 to St Michael’s. Luctongathered momentum and finished ahead athalf time (21-19) but pressure wasgathering. St. Michael’s made some goodrebounds and the third quarter finished 22-

21 to St.Michaels. Lucton only had 10minutes to secure victory and finally foundsalvation in Gilbert who scored a 2 pointrebound after being fed the ball by Nabiland then scored a wonderful 3 pointer lessthan 1 minute from the end to make thefinal score 31-26 to Lucton. Specialmention to Mike Lau who was excellent indefence and congratulations to Leo, whoonce again held his own as a Year 10playing in a senior match.

Equestrian NewsWeekend assistant job available at theSchool’s Equestrian Yard. Please contact theschool office for full details.

There is a dressage NSEA at Kings onDecember 2nd and Show JumpingChampionship the following weekend.Please reply to office asap!

JAKE’S BLOGThe weather is colder so we haven'twanted to stay out as much! Some of uswere involved in the photoshoot last Fridaywhich was fun and we enjoyed watchingthe pole clinic!

the old luctonians annual dinner - lucton school · gilbert, tommy, mike l, leo and henry,...

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