To celebrate the Epiphany, a number of Year 7 groups found out about the tradition of “la galette des rois” during their French lessons. As many of our students now know, “La galette des rois” is enjoyed by French people on the day of the Epiphany and a “fève” (a sort of charm/coin) is hidden in it. Whoever gets the slice with the “fève” is crowned King or Queen for the day. The recipe was shared and many Year 7 students have been busy this week creating crowns and making the galette at home.
The many impressive crowns that Year 7 created to accompany the galettes were fine examples of their creativity.
Christel Ainge
We welcomed Presdales alumna Polly Watson back to school this week to share her experiences of learning languages at university. Students from Year 10 upwards attended her lunchtime talk and found it very useful and interesting. Polly described her journey from Presdales to the University of Bristol, where she is studying French and Italian in her fourth and final year. As well as explaining some of the differences between language learning at school and university, she told us all about her year abroad, where she studied in Toulouse, France, and Palermo, Sicily. Polly is really passionate about promoting languages and inspired our students to consider where their language learning might take them. Year 12 Italian students also enjoyed a presentation given by Polly about festivals in Sicily, to link in with the A Level curriculum. We are so grateful to Polly for giving her time and sharing her experiences with us.
At the start of November, a group of Sixth Form Senior Students launched their community project to support the Welwyn and Hatfield Women’s Refuge. The project involved asking the Presdales community to donate items that would benefit those who were linked to the refuge. Items such as toiletries, non-perishable foods and games were donated.
On Wednesday 9th December, two people from the refuge came to collect the items and they have invited Presdales to visit the refuge to see how the donations will benefit women and children.
If you would like more information, please do click on the link: https://whwr.org.uk/. A big thank you and special mention to Maeve, Abbie, Nefeli, Lizzie and Clara in Year 13 for organising the collection and for liaising with the refuge.
On Tuesday 16th December, Mrs Schillaci-Rowland and 10 Year 12 students volunteered to support our local community and visited the Riverside Care Home in Ware. The students entertained the residents by hosting games of Bingo which brought much excitement.
The students took it in turns to call out the numbers, help fill in bingo cards and to ensure that everyone was enjoying themselves. Chocolate treats were given to those who were the first to get a line, and then a full house.
At the end of the session, the residents asked the students to come back as they really enjoyed the afternoon. One of the ladies who works in the Care Home’s Activities Team went to Presdales as a student, and said it was a pleasure to have a strong link with the school, which has been going now for the last two years. We are planning another visit in the Spring Term to play some more games and entertain the residents.
As always, we are very fortunate to have such enthusiastic and talented dancers who work extremely hard to get their performances ready on time! The Dance Club Leaders have worked so hard to choreograph such fantastic dances around their GCSE and A Level studies. They have been committed to run numerous practices and we are very appreciative of the hard work involved and we know the students are as well, so well done and huge thank you to Sienna Akore, Amelia Dimitrova, Olivia Kinnear, Lexie Rowley, Alice Tanner, Kiri Lobb, Reyyan Demetriou and Florence Webb. Also, a massive thank you to Mrs Hicks for putting yet another show-stopping Gymnastics piece together as well as organising the whole show this year! It is not an easy job (with 43 gymnasts!!) but the students have been dedicating their time on a weekly basis to get their performance ready. The show doesn’t happen without the people behind the scenes! Thank you to Annabella Johnson and Laila Mirza who did the sound and lighting for both performances, you did an amazing job and we will miss you next year!
This year we had a record 113 students in the show! They all chose brilliant songs to represent this year’s theme; ‘Our School Values’. It was a pleasure to hear a huge variety of music representing the values; Ambition, Equality, Creativity, Integrity, Resilience and Kindness. Students from all years performed in routines from tap, ballet, hip-hop and an amazing gymnastic display, creating an evening which was entertaining and captivating.
Sisters Sienna and Mya Akore opened the show with their colourful blue 2-pieces as they danced to ‘Turn to Stone’. We had an uplifting tap performance from Amelie Martin and Sophia Wright performed on an incredibly emotive piece to ‘Never Enough’. We then saw contrasting upbeat numbers from Jasmine Lee and trio; Melisa Demetriou, Reyyan Demetriou & Mya Akore to ‘Life is just a bowl of cherries’. We had more sister acts, from Ella and Katie Jauncey and Caitie Lund and Jasmine Lund. Senior dance club, Year 7 and Year 8 dance clubs demonstrated creativity and resilience to their polished numbers, in particular year 8 where 27 dancers squeezed on stage! Teah Gregory put on a well-choreographed solo gymnastics number to ‘Friend Like Me’ to finish the first half in style and for the final time as she leaves Presdales this year. We would like to thank Teah for everything she has done for the show behind the scenes and her leadership at Gymnastics Club since Year 7.
The second half of the evening led off with a fantastic showcase of skill, timing, and ambition; Gymnastics club, choreographed by Mrs Hicks to ‘Proud’. Following this, a variety of dance genres kept the audience captivated; including a classy ballroom piece from Cleo Lambourne. The second half was also full of beautiful duets from Lois Vinall and Mia Mundell, Lexie Rowley and Florence Webb, Sienna Akore and Olivia Coghlan. The Year 9 dance club put on a glitzy number to ‘One Night Only’ and the Year 7’s did a brilliant performance to ‘Man I feel like a woman’. The show finished with perfected solo’s from Olivia Kinnear, Amelia Dimitrova, Reyyan Demetriou. We finished the show with everyone on stage dancing to ‘Dancing Through Life’ and the audience clapping and enthusiastically cheering!
Finally, the Dale Dance Trophy Award this year was awarded to Sienna Akore for her incredible commitment to Dance during her 7 years at Presdales. Sienna has been a dance leader for many years and performed in Dance Evening every year, demonstrating how talented she is every single year with amazing choreography and performance. We will really miss you and thank you for being such a wonderful role model as a dancer and a dance leader.
Thank you to those who came to watch, we hope you had an enjoyable evening!
Mrs Dann and Mrs Hicks
Latest News
Coming Up
Friday 17th
Term Ends, 12.45pm
Thursday 3rd
Term begins : Years 7 & 12
Friday 4th :
Term begins : Whole School
Contact Us
Presdales School
Hoe Lane
Ware
Hertfordshire
SG12 9NX
Tel: 01920 462210
admin@presdales.herts.sch.uk
Headteacher:
Mr Warren
