After a much awaited 3 years, the Staff vs Students hockey match was back; faster and better than ever. It’s every student’s dream to be able to play against their teachers in a fast pace, competitive atmosphere and hopefully, win. From the first push back, the pace of the game was set and both teams new this was going to be a tough game. Within the first few minutes the staff were able to break […]
Old St Stephen’s (aka Raw Church) will be a familiar sight to Fyling Hallers past and present, whether as a milestone on the Senior Cross run, the spot for spooky midnight walkabouts or as the setting for the annual Harvest Festival. We’ve even heard tales of students visiting the abandoned building in the 1960s being overwhelmed and fainting; needless to say, the air circulation is much better these days. What you might not know […]
Y6 have been having fun in maths lessons creating scale models of Harry Potter’s bedroom at Hogwarts. Using their knowledge of scale and ratio, our Junior School pupils worked in groups to choose from a list of items and scale down real-life dimensions by a scale factor of 10. They then made the items from cm squared paper, also choosing their own items to make; estimating the real dimensions before working out the scaled down […]
This past weekend our boarders enjoyed the lovely city of York. Our short stay Spanish visitors also joined the trip to this fabulous city. Whilst our “permanent” boarders enjoyed shopping, the Spanish spent their time visiting the Railway Museum. Going out on the weekends visiting several towns and cities gives our international boarders the chance to experience different cultural aspects that the UK has to offer. York is a beautiful city nestled in the heart […]
This last weekend saw our first Duke of Edinburgh expedition of the year. On Saturday morning, seven young people set off on the minibus to explore the Esk Valley on their Bronze practice expedition. Blessed as we are with our surroundings, we didn’t have to go far. After a 15 minutes’ drive it was time to get the rucksacks on and the adventure began. Everyone was in good spirits, still strong after a good night’s […]
We are very excited to tell you about our first ever Bake Off competition! It will be held on Monday 23rd May and judged that morning by Sarah Muir from the Arches Cookery School. The winner will receive a baking course at her fabulous school in Grinkle. The competition is open to all pupils. Parents are invited to come and join us on the morning for freshly crewed coffee and to watch the judging. You […]
What are our newest students first impressions of Fyling Hall boarding life? Mrs Jeeves, Head of English as a Second Language, asked Laure and Mathilde to share their thoughts. Both girls are French, are in Year 9 and will stay with us for one term. When I arrived at school I didn’t want to come because I didn’t speak English and I was very stressed. At the same time, I was happy because it would […]
As we start the final term of the year I have found myself reflecting on my many years at Fyling Hall. It is as usual a very busy term. Year 11 and year 13 are about to 3 start their external exams (the first to run since June 2019) and KS3 and Year 10 will have internal exams over the next few weeks. For those who have been part of the school for some time […]
On 7th June 1971 the three presenters of the BBC children television programme Blue Peter, Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves, buried a ‘time capsule’ in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, live on television. The idea was that it would be dug up in the distant future – in the year two-thousand – so the children of that time might marvel at the mysteries of the past and the children of 1971 […]
Our Rose Garden Festival is a fantastic afternoon of live music with local bands, in the glorious setting of Fyling Hall’s Rose Garden. After two years without it, I am super excited that this Festival is going to happen again this year. For those who haven’t attend this festival before, it’sIt is usually on a Saturday afternoon between 2-5 and welcomes audience members from all over. The profits all go to a chosen charity, and […]
Weekly clubs are back for the summer. Here’s what we’ll be doing up to half-term starting this week, 2nd May which is WEEK 2 of our five-week half-term. MONDAY 4:30-5:30pm Drama (for years 5-8) with Mrs JeevesMaths Revision (Years 11 and 13) with Mr WalshBoard Games (for all) with Mrs Banks or Mr ThomasFootball (for all) with Mr Coats and Mr Parker TUESDAY Duke of Edinburgh all afternoon from lunchtime with Mrs Trotter WEDNESDAY 4:30-5:30pm Technology […]
I would like to start by saying, welcome back to all of our boarders and a big warm welcome to our new boarders that have joined us this term. This week has been a busy one and it certainly has been for our new pupils. They have all had their induction into boarding. An induction into boarding, for those of you that may not know, focuses on what the day to day running and life […]
As English as a second language students improve in their studies application of language to a range of settings is increasingly important. Over the past half term, year 11 students have considered the future of technological developments and in particular the rise of Artificial intelligence. This study allowed them to revise scientific language needed for their GCSE exams as well as apply their language to written articles. The article below was written by a year […]
During the Spring Term we’ve taken tentative steps to return to our programme of assemblies and Learning for Life sessions after two years of hybrid events, broadcasting, videos and small groups. Aside from our outside gatherings on the Fountain Lawn and last summer’s Awards events we haven’t yet had a whole school assembly inside. Instead we’ve run Key Stage events with age appropriate material for the two groups of years 7, 8 and 9 and then years […]
In teaching the same topics come around again year after year and again in each year group at different times. In Science we call it ‘spiralling‘ as students see the same topic again in a different year but at a more advanced level. For example, I teach electricity in Year 7 around March, with Year 9 and Year 10 in September and with Year 12 in April. You might think, doesn’t that get a bit […]
What makes me happy or feel at home is when I can spend time with the horses at the stables. The stables are next to the chemistry and physics lab. We have very nice and beautiful horses. We have a lot of horses and a very nice teacher, Coleen. Riding Mistress, Coleen, and Jimmy who’s not quite ready to get up 😉 In Fyling Hall School you can do some horse riding as well as […]
A team is defined as a number of people who do something together as a group, but what defines a team? I think most people would probably agree that teams are often defined by success. As you move up the sporting world this generally comes through fame money, fame and public interest. Unfortunately, fame, money and public interest is where our sports teams fall a little short, thankfully however, these are not the yardsticks used […]
Gig -economy, livestream, overshare, sofa surfer. What do all these words have in common? They were all added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021. We may not realise it, but we are constantly acquiring new knowledge. The average person learns the equivalent of one new word a day. In the same way, we need to keep learning and developing professionally. There is no more important area to concentrate on than developing our skills, aptitude […]
Spring has finally arrived in North Yorkshire, and with the physical, skills and volunteering sections well underway, it is now time to get ready for the expedition season! During our first DofE training session in 2022, our Bronze group have learnt how to cook a substantial meal on a Trangia camping cooker – we had a buffet of couscous, mac ‘n’ cheese, pasta pesto, jasmine rice, and pancakes with melted cheese, and I think they […]
History is often most interesting when it directly affects us in some way. A personal connection can often help us engage more fully with events in the past. This is evident in the two pieces included below, from two enthusiastic year 10 History Club and GCSE students. In these two fascinating pieces, Josh and Alec recount the exciting adventure stories of the lives of their great grandfather and grandfather respectively. Have a read and see […]
In the last week of the Spring Term the Year 12 girls maths students visited Newcastle University, taking part in the SUMS (Steps to University for Mathematical Students) enrichment day. When we first arrived at the university in the morning, we were given a lecture which discussed topics including university applications, different types of maths related degrees and the jobs they can lead you to, plus additional requirements for studying maths at university – such […]
Once again, the year 9 geography groups have been investigating tourism. Two years ago, we were in lockdown at this time so I decided that a good activity would be to create an iconic landmark from a chosen city/country. As it worked so well I decided to keep doing this activity, and this year the year 9s did not disappoint. The same rules applied. No writing or just drawing the chosen landmark. Instead they were […]
Choosing which school to send your child to is one of the hardest decisions. Apparently not for my husband – Fyling Hall was the only school he wanted our daughter to go to. He did not like my answer – no way were we sending our daughter to a private school! Well that was what I thought until the moment I stepped onto the school grounds with our daughter who was still only a baby […]
I am pleased to say that boarding life has returned to “normal”. Indeed, what a Spring Term it has been! There have been an array of activities that the boarders have enjoyed throughout the duration of the term. Many have been challenging such as a treetop challenge in Dalby Forest, quad biking an Go Karting. It has been a joy to be able to finally watch live performances in the Barn. Concerts have been performed by […]
The PTA’s Chocolate Bingo was a wonderful, fun way to end a busy and productive half term in the Junior School. Thanks to very generous donations of chocolate and lots of pupils, parents and staff attending, the evening was a huge success. The prizes were so large that the younger pupils had trouble carrying them back to their seats! Mr Instone was our bingo caller and he did a splendid job and I enjoyed being […]
Time flew in Mrs Milner’s Year 9 English class recently when they all decided that Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ could do with a bit of a ‘trim’ so cut out a few lines and attempted what is known in the business as: ‘The 32 second Romeo and Juliet’. They actually dispensed with over four thousand lines and got it down to about twenty! “Who knows what the Bard would think of Fyling Hall’s slimline version […]
It was a truly great day at this year’s Maths Feast. Taking place at Teesside University, Maths Feast is a fun educational challenge for Year 10 students which tests problem-solving and teamwork skills. Maths Feast is delivered nationally by the Advanced Maths Support Programme to enhance Maths take-up to GCSE and higher. As amsp explains, “Teams of four students test their maths skills with all-you-can-eat feast of problems! There are several rounds requiring different skills […]
Let’s be honest, some of the most interesting parts of history are those that we can most relate to: What did people eat? What did they wear? What sort of houses did they live in? What kinds of jobs did they do? Year 7 have investigated what life was like for medieval people living in the countryside and next term they will look at Medieval life in the towns. How and why did towns grow? […]
Even though we are a small school we continue to have a big heart, often thinking of others who are less fortunate. With that in mind, we are running the Rotary Club Shoebox Appeal again next term. Many of you will already be aware of what this entails but for those of you who do not I will give a quick recap. Each tutor group will aim to fill a number of shoeboxes with gifts for […]
Form 2 have investigated and researched how much sugar can be found in drinks and the effects of sugar on their teeth. Their research was done on a wonderful Science afternoon to accompany our topic of Animals including Humans. First the children predicted how much sugar was in a variety of different drinks and put them in order of their sugar content only. They were shocked at how wrong they were. After much investigating the […]
In their latest weekend activity, it was time for our boarders to take on a treetop challenge. On a stunning afternoon 13 brave (well some of them) students faced Go Ape’s Treetop Challenge at Dalby Forest. After the safety courses and instructional tutelage was complete, they were let loose in the treetops. It didn’t take long however, for some not so brave pupils to start doubting their choice of weekend activities as the first Tarzan […]
Our annual whole school cross-country House Run is back! A precursor to the summer term Sports Day, the House Run is a whole school activity from the juniors to sixth form with teachers either joining the run or stationed at a checkpoint along the route. Starting at the sports field everyone set off at 3pm around the corner and across Low Farm. At that point the juniors turn and come back. KS3 students run down […]
After a two year hiatus the much loved Technology Tournament, organised by Rotary, is back. A team from Fyling Hall has won every year since the tournament began fourteen years ago. The secret to our success? Read on… On the 17th March we sent six teams to take part, two in each category (that doubles our chances). It was a tough job to pick the teams. I chose those that attend my Technology Society on […]
In our blog a couple of weeks ago we promised that we would let you know how we got on at this year’s Rotary Club ‘Speak Out’ competition, so here is our update. Fresh from success at the Eskdale Festival, our fabulous teams set out for St Hilda’s Church in Whitby to take part in ‘Speak Out’. There were teams from Ruswarp and Airy Hill, and the church seemed very big once we were standing […]
Recently, the Rotary Club hosted a writing competition asking for poems or short stories with the title ‘Environment’ and, true to form, our Fyling Hallers stepped forward to take part. There were several age categories in which we could enter and I was absolutely thrilled with the quality of the work ranging from year 7 to year 11. We also had some excellent submissions from the prep school which have already been written about by […]
After weeks of preparation, our Year 11 and Year 13 musicians really did perform amazingly at the RockSchool concert events. Both events went smoothly (bar some technical drum issues!) and the audience expressed their love for the performers. Some particularly great highlights of the nights were the beautiful harp piece from our only school harp player – Maya – who played an emotional classical piece called ‘Nataliana’. The other great performance which got everyone dancing […]
This weekend a group of boarders set off to Snainton Golf Centre set on trying their hand at golf. For many it was their first experience. The morning started off with a ‘Full English’ and conversation focused on the question of how difficult golf could be, surely, it’s just like hockey!! After, 50 balls on the practice range it was starting to dawn on some pupils that maybe this was not going to be quite […]
Pi Day is a long established tradition, taking on the US-based date system of month-day giving us the first three digits of pi: 3.14 on the 14th March. This year’s event at Fyling Hall was another very successful and popular event with some very accurate estimates of pi to within 5% of the actual value. The class followed a method from Matt Parker of Numberphile.com. All of Year 9 came together and were split into 5 […]
Forest school is something I look forward to at the end of every week. Our pupils love our Friday afternoon sessions too, indeed we often hear the children making plans during the week for improving their dens or a game they’d like to play. In a world where children don’t usually go out to play after school with their friends, forest school allows them the freedom to play outdoors in acres of wonderful woodland. In […]
What is your “Vision of Whitby”? Have you seen it captured in a photograph? Could you capture it in a photograph? Everyone has the opportunity to enter this amazing competition which will showcase your photos. This is an excellent opportunity which could result in your work being exhibited at the Pannett Art Gallery during the month of April. The competition is linked to the Tindale exhibition at the Whitby Museum. The Theme is “Vision of […]
The PTA, Friends of Fyling Hall, are delighted to announce that Chocolate Bingo is back! Date – Wednesday March 30thStart Time – Doors 5.30pm Flying Hall Dining RoomEyes down – 5.45pmAdmission – £5 per child to include all food, drink, bingo cards and a complimentary raffle ticket. Lots of chocolate prizes to win! Amazing raffle prizes and most importantly lots of fun to be had! Admission is for Children only; no charge for Adults. Please come along […]
Year 6 are becoming experts on the ancient world! Having completed their study of ancient Egypt, its cult of the god-king pharaoh, its farming, trade, industry and dependence on the Nile for existence, they have turned to examine the ancient Greeks and how their civilisation has impacted on our modern-day world! Already they have considered the key elements of Greek architecture and how features such as Doric and Ionic columns, friezes and entablatures can be […]
This weekend’s quad biking event was great fun for Fyling Hall students. Quad biking is one of the newer, and in my opinion, more exciting, activities added to our activities programme. It is one which is seemingly individual, but is actually, great for building confidence and camaraderie. Pupils were assigned into two groups and were allowed two thirty-minute sessions each. There were two different machine sizes to allow larger pupils a more ergonomic position when […]
We are saddened by the news of the passing of John Woolley – Pupil, Teacher and Headmaster at Fyling Hall School. Mr Woolley was an integral member of our Fyling Hall community, and we will fondly remember him. We all extend our deepest sympathies to his family and thank Mr Jeakins for this lovely tribute. John Woolley (25/9/1936 to 8/3/20222) Pupil, Teacher and Headmaster at Fyling Hall School. He first arrived at Fyling Hall (along […]
Eskdale Festival is two weeks of competing in all aspects of music and drama. This festival is a wonderful opportunity for children to learn new skills and step outside the comfort zone of their school. The festival kicks off with verse speaking, poetry composition, contemporary monologues and Shakespeare before continuing into the musical categories. Drama in education has enormous benefits to pupils.There is a lot of established research about the positive influences from drama, theatre and […]
We’re looking at a new scheme of learning that focuses on studying and writing a variety of non-fiction texts from journal writing to newspapers to writing about our surroundings. Over the past few weeks, some year 7 students have been stranded on a desert island. But never fear – they are certainly making the best of it. After a plane taking the students to a poetry competition was lost from the radar, students found themselves […]
In our Year 7 this year, they all have a very different set of software skills and experiences. There are some pupils who were at Fyling Hall Junior School and some pupils who attended different primary schools in the Whitby and Scarborough areas. Consequently, so we use their first term in the senior school to consolidate and learn some of the basics that they are going to need in other subjects. They have created informational […]
Year 7 pupils have been delving into the human body. How? By learning about the various systems that all interlink to make the body. This has included practical lessons, measuring their heart rate in response to exercise. Measuring their lung capacities with the use of bottles of water. Not for the squeamish! Dissecting a pig’s leg to see how muscles connect to the skeleton. All of this has then been combined and summarised with the […]
This term in English Year 6 have been learning how to write persuasively, and some of the children put their newfound skills to good use by writing letters to Mr Allen in the hope of persuading him to let them wear their own clothes to school and introduce a ‘Bring your pet to school day’ every week. They have now handed their letters in and are eagerly awaiting Mr Allen’s response. Pupils in Year 5 […]
As the crowds surrounding the king’s scaffold at Whitehall disperse in anger and bewilderment, our year 8 students put quill and ink to paper and write in the king’s defence! The year is 1649 and the month January. King Charles I has been illegally condemned to death and his execution, the first and only one of a British reigning monarch, has just occurred. The king is dead, long live the king! Year 8 having examined […]
