Sunday's activities

Our first Sunday with all the boarders turned out to be a very relaxing day made up of outdoor activities, forest school shenanigans - with a bit of added chocolates and marshmallows.

As the weather was extremely nice for a change, the morning was dubbed 'free time' for all boarders, meaning that they could choose to either play tennis or football, ride bikes around the grounds, go swimming, play the Wii, or just relax and watch a film.

After that, we headed into the dining room for a delicious roast lunch - we are extremely grateful to the kitchen staff who made this happen as it was absolutely delicious!

Mr and Mrs Roberts (formerly Miss Palmer, just in case 'Mrs Roberts' sounds unfamiliar) then rounded up all the boarders and headed up into the Forest School. Once up there, a fire was lit which the kids all sat around so that they could receive the deliciousness that is S'mores - for those that haven't had them before, S'mores are chocolate biscuits with marshmallow in the middle that are then cooked over the fire so that the chocolate and marshmallow melt!

It's safe to say that everybody extremely enjoyed their time in the woods, not only because of the chocolate and marshmallow, but they also had time to run around and explore - which is what kids do best!

Signing off,

Miss Donato :)

Welcome back :)

Hello all and welcome back to another school year at All Hallows School!

I hope everybody had lovely summer holidays and that they were able to relax a bit before the new school term began again - I definitely enjoyed the break!
However, it's not been bad at all returning to All Hallows as we have gotten a lot of new boarders joining us this term, as well as some new buildings within the school - such as the cricket pavilion on the Front field and the design studio and art room which is located where the library used to be. So with all of our new additions it's bound to be an exciting Michaelmas term!
Our Wednesday night boarders activity began last night where we played 'Capture the flag' out on the Front field due to the lovely weather we were blessed with.
Mr Roberts - the newly married husband to Miss Palmer - was in charge of the game and ensured that all rules were followed as it can be a very controversial game thanks to the tagging that is involved. Thus, all the kids seemed to really enjoy the couple of games that we played and enjoyed cereal bar (which we had after the boarders' activities) all the more.

Will update again soon with some pictures,
Miss Donato :)

Year 8 boys last ever All Hallows' treat!

Monday night was both a very exciting and very sad night for the Year 8 boys as it was their last ever treat night at All Hallows before they leave for the end of the school year next week.

They enjoyed some coca colas and pizza outside on the Front Field - which was especially nice due to the amazing weather we have been experiencing lately!

They will be sadly missed and we all wish them the very best at their new schools.

Last Disco of the school year

Last Wednesday's boarders activity night was one of the famous All Hallows' discos! The last one for this long summer term was always going to be a good one - especially with the many flexi boarders that were in that night - but it became even better when the venue changed from St Bede's, to the drama theatre.

The windows in the theatre were covered, disco lights were put up along the sides on the walls, and DJ Wheatley set up his DJ booth right at the front of the stage - making this the most authentic-looking disco so far!

With many popular tunes such as 'Timber' by Kesha and 'Let it Go' from the Disney movie Frozen, the dancing was absolutely amazing. All boarders joined in, even making a conga line that travelled around the decked-out theatre for a couple of the songs. We also saw some break-dancing from some of the boys, as well as some gymnastic skills from two of the Russian boarders - Arina (Year 4) and Tasia (Year 6).

Again many thanks to Mr Opie and Mr Callow for the retro lighting and organisation of the disco - hopefully we will be able to have many more like this in the new school year!

Rock Climbing Adventures

Last Sunday's activity was something a little different to usual - something the boarders hadn't yet done this school year.
Rock-climbing!
Nonetheless, the majority loved this new activity and some managed to reach amazing heights - I have no idea how they managed to climb so high!
The rock-climbing activity was accompanied by Mr Somerville and Mr Radford, along with his two year old daughter, Autumn. After having a delicious roast lunch, the kids were rearing to go. All the children were strapped securely into a harness before they started and were explained the safety rules.

Surprisingly, some of the younger kids had the best success with the rock-climbing wall - Autumn (although only aged two), managed to climb halfway up the massive wall. Nico (Year 5) was also one of the better climbers - he made it all the way to the top, and did not look unlike a mini Spiderman!
Other excellent climbers included Issy Perales (Year 7), Archie Botsford (Year 6) and Charlie Hannah (reception) - strangely it seemed the younger children had more success, perhaps because they had less fear about the consequences of falling!

Overall it was a lovely day out - beautiful sunny weather once again - and the boarders seemed to really enjoy doing this activity.

Miss Donato :)

Wednesday "Raid" Activity

For the last boarders activity of the term, the children participated in the group game called 'Raid'. Due to the numbers of kids, both juniors and seniors were separated into three teams - red, yellow and green. Luckily, the weather was absolutely beautiful again and so we held the activity on the Front Field. The rules were as followed:
- Each child had to have a team-coloured ribbon attached to somewhere on their bodies that would be in an easy spot for the opposition to grab
- Each player had to go to the oppositions' base (a circle made out of either red, yellow or green cones) and collect their own coloured tokens
- If someone from the opposing teams manages to take the coloured ribbon from a person, then they have to run back to their base and start their attempt again
- The team with the biggest collection of their own coloured tokens wins that round

Although there was lots of accusations of cheating - as it is an extremely hard game to umpire - but fortunately it was all sorted out after the first couple of rounds when Mr Callow informed the kids that any cheating will result in -5 points.

After many, many games with some talented running and dodging the reds ended up with as the winners as even though they had collected the least amount of tokens, they had done the least amount of cheating - therefore deserving the honour of being the All Hallows' Raid Champions!

Sunday at Taunton

Following on with the amazing sunny weather, the boarders travelled to King's Hall School in Taunton on the last beautifully warm Sunday afternoon.
On arrival, the boarders enjoyed a lovely roast for lunch where they were first able to meet the other boarding children.
After the filling lunch, the children were split up into teams - comprising of both All Hallow's and King's Hall children - in order to carry out the different activities. The other school had arranged a carousel of activities for the All Hallows students such as swimming, climbing, various games, and other physical challenges. Also, since it was such a hot day, everyone was able to enjoy a lovely swim in Taunton's impressive swimming pool.
Both the All Hallows and King's Hall children were able to get along with each other and even were able to make some new friends.
Tatiana (Year Three) said that it was one of the best days of her life and especially loved the climbing wall!
Finally, the exciting afternoon ended with a delicious evening picnic on the Library Lawn back at All Hallows.