As my exam paper marking started on 13 December, we mostly finished up our academic work for then so I could concentrate solely on working. We were ready for a break then anyway – autumn is a long stretch!
What we’ve been to
Subjects/Activities done jointly
Forest School – we enjoyed our final sessions in the forest before the long winter break; sessions usually resume after February half-term. Sadly we had to say goodbye to our forest leader Eleanor who has been holding the fort whilst our usual leader Polly was on maternity leave. So it was one sad goodbye, but one happy hello again to Polly coming back. We’ll miss the forest over winter but we won’t miss being outside in the wild weather!
Youth Club – this club has now become as fixed in our diary as forest school; this afternoon must not be booked up for any other reason!
Spanish GCSE June 2024 – we’ve finished a few topics off this month so we’re making good progress in preparing for the exams. There still seems a lot to do but that’s always the case with languages as there is no end to what you can learn.
GCSE subjects done separately
Classical Civilisation June 2024 – Peggy has worked super hard on getting all her revision notes written for paper 1. We can then make a fresh start in January on the paper 2 material. I think that’ll end up being the most interesting part of the course.
Psychology June 2024 – Aggie had a big push and managed to get unit 4 out of 7 completed of her pre-recorded course by Survive Succeed Achieve. She’ll start the new year will less than half of the syllabus to go which is a great position to be in.
Other subjects done separately
As we only had eight days of learning this month, the girls chose to concentrate on their GCSE subjects. Everything else got parked until 2024.
Music
Performance day of The Addams Family Musical finally arrived! The girls did an absolutely amazing job on stage: Aggie played Gomez Addams and Peggy played Lucas Beineke, Wednesday’s love interest. They were so nervous and excited but absolutely pulled it off, despite Aggie having a cold and losing her voice towards the end of the second performance. We were so proud of both of them! They’ve now well and truly got the theatre bug so I’m sure they’ll be back on a stage again soon…..
As is usual in the run up to Christmas, the girls’ brass band have lots of “gigs” and this year was no exception. They performed in churches, in the foyer at Tesco and on an evening pub crawl of 13 local pubs. Lots of money fell in the buckets which will all go towards the band’s residential trip to St Ives in July 2024. The gig we enjoyed the most was at the Christie Cancer Hospital in Manchester. The band performed at their Christmas concert for patients, families and staff. It was an amazing atmosphere and the girls even got to meet some celebrities: the Malone family off Googlebox!
Sports
Aggie’s had her usual swimming and gymnastics training and all hockey training was off because of the dreadful weather. I never understand why hockey can’t be played in the summer!
Day Trips and One-off activities
We had one big day out before hibernating for the Christmas period and this was an early Christmas present from Grandma. We spent the day at Flyme in Barnsley on an Aviation Career Day where we got to be pilots, flight attendants and airport staff. It was an outstanding experience which we all absolutely loved. You can read about all the activities we got to take part in here.
So that was December!
We neatly finished off the academic work for 2023 ready for a lovely break over Christmas. Books were all put back in the cupboard until 2024!
