NEWS FROM TESTBOURNE
Some of you will be aware that the school was hit by a serious bout of sickness in February. It seems that children had picked up two viruses doing the rounds in the area, a flu virus and the norovirus which causes sickness and stomach upsets. At its peak 240 pupils were affected at any one time, meaning over a third of pupils were absent in the week before half-term. Some staff were affected but not on the same scale as the pupils, meaning we were open for business as usual but with much-depleted numbers in some classes. We hope that by the time you read this we will be back in good health.
One of our aims as a school is to strengthen our overseas links to give our pupils the chance to come a little closer to the wider world. We had a marvellous opportunity to do just this recently when the Reverend Michael Lubowa visited the school and spoke to some our pupils. Michael, whose home diocese of Mityane in Uganda is matched with the Whitchurch Deanery, was able to remind our pupils about their own good fortune compared with the pupils in Uganda, who have to walk a long way each day to fetch their water and often have classes of up to 70 pupils. One of our own ex-students, Kayleigh Noble, who has actually visited the school in Uganda, was also there to share her experiences and reflect on the warm welcome she had been given. As a result of the visit the School Council has agreed to set up a twinning between the school in Mityane and Testbourne. We are delighted at this development and hope this will be the start of a really exciting partnership between our two schools.
Ironically our pupils had already been raising money towards building a new school in Uganda and they raised another £100 towards their total with a “Love@Lunch” event as a precursor to Valentine’s Day. Prefects organised a fun lunchtime – including requests to some of our musicians for live performances of their chosen love songs, “Guess that Lovesong” based on a live rendition by the Head Boy, Sean Main, and Prefect, Joe Clark, live on-screen e.valentine messages, loveheart face-painting and valentine fairy cakes on sale. All very cross-curricular!
Seats are selling well for our forthcoming production of “Titanic- the unsinkable dream”, being performed at the Theatre Royal in Winchester on March 23rd, 24th and 25th. Tickets are on sale from the theatre box office( 01962 840440 or www.theatre-royal-winchester.co.uk). It should be a really memorable first production under our new status as a specialist performing arts school so please do come along and join us.
Governors play an important role in overseeing the running of the school and we currently have vacancies for both partnership and co-opted governors. If you are interested in becoming involved please contact us to find out more. You can telephone on 01256 892061 and ask for Paul Welch or email him on paul.welch@testbourne.hants.sch.uk
Hilary Jackson
Headteacher
Longparish Community Association
Many thanks to all those people who supported the inaugural meeting and establishment of Longparish Community Association. There was particular support for the plan to establish a Youth Group as part of our priority activities.
An interim management team was elected by the meeting and, when we have got through the initial bureaucracy of, for instance, registering with the Charities Commission, we will be announcing membership details, initial priorities and community activities. Fiona Gould
All singing!
All dancing!
All Gershwin!
Andover Musical & Operatic Society will be performing "CRAZY FOR YOU" on Tuesday
4th to Saturday 8th April at Harrow Way School at 7.30pm (and also at 2.30pm on Saturday, 8th April).
This exciting show includes music & lyrics by George & Ira Gershwin.
Tickets are available from Tourist Information on (01264) 324320 & cost £10 (with concessions available at some performances).
We'd love to see you there! If you'd like more information about the show or AMOS, please email AMOSPublicity@hotmail.com