Sixth Form Trip to See Dracula at the London Library What better way to celebrate St Valentine’s day than a trip to watch a theatrical adaptation of one of literature’s most terrifying narratives in the gothic surroundings of the London library? Bram Stoker himself was a member of the library and a collection of the books he consulted there for his... infamous masterpiece had recently been discovered. It was fascinating to see his own little pencil marks and turned down pages corresponding with passages in the real novel and we all enjoyed perusing these works; particularly Gould’s Book of Were-Wolves! The play was staged in one of the intimate upper libraries (no more that thirty in the audience) and the space was transformed into a shadowy gothic room with canvas projections on which Dracula’s claws, little spiders and the eerie ghost of Lucy appeared. There was a large canvas covering one of the windows on which two red eyes shone intermittently and a video projection of a little bat flew accompanied by real flapping sounds at the window; this was not for the faint-hearted! At one point the actors actually climbed out the window heading for the dark night! Dracula is an epic tale with myriad characters and settings from London to Romania and the Criterion theatre company had expertly distilled the novel with just two actors seamlessly transforming into the different roles. Dracula himself was never portrayed but revealed through a chilling use of echoing voices and graphics. Some of the students were outraged that the ending did not chime with the original text as the play indicated Dracula’s cosmic and malign influence had not been quashed! Overall an excellent production and I hope the students will feel more confident in writing about the considerable influence Dracula still has to thrill and terrify audiences today. See more
Year 6 Art Trip To The British Museum Today the intrepid Year 6 class, art boards in hand, transported themselves into the worlds of Mayan and African ritual art and artefacts to take a closer look at works carved from stone and wood. Masks and other carvings were observed and sketched in detail using graphite on paper. The class came into... contact with ancient objects that were created to invoke the spirit of ancestors, or used ceremonially. Short sketches and longer studies were drawn in the galleries, as an extension of the Year 6 work this term in humanities and art. A taste of their fantastic work is shown below. See more
Pre-Nursery Enjoy A Week Of Elmer The Elephant This week the children in Pre-Nursery have been working on Elmer the Elephant activities including making elephant biscuits and patchwork lanterns. They enjoyed weighing out their ingredients and putting them in the mixing bowl, each child then had a turn mixing the dough before rolling it out and using... our elephant cutter to make their biscuits. The children have also been using sequencing cards to create the story of Elmer in preparation for their trip to Richmond Theatre to watch a production of Elmer The Patchwork Elephant. See more
Year 4 Receive Their First Letters From Penfriends In France The pupils in Y4 were delighted to receive their first penfriend letters from the students in Ecole Jules Ferry Limay, 30 miles outside Paris. They are now excited to write back to their new friends using their French writing skills.
Reception Class Experience Their First Chemistry LessonReception class visited the Middle and Upper Years’ Chemistry lab this week to learn more about our solar system and to watch our chemistry teacher, Thomas McCarthy Ward, conduct an experiment demonstrating the use of fuel for launching rockets.
Cuban Revolution: A Week of Assemblies To Mark The 60th Anniversary Hampton Court House marked 60 years since the Cuban Revolution in the form of a cross-curricular week led by the humanities department, with contributions from our art, English, modern languages and music departments. Children of all ages across the school have been studying the Cuban Revolution and... Continue reading
Exceptional progress at A level in DfE league tables Yesterday the DfE published their league tables of last summer’s results at A level. We are delighted that HCH, in its second year of offering A levels, is ranked 1st in the borough. Of the 2625 sixth forms in England with at least ten students taking A levels last summer HCH ranks 10th and is the... highest ranked independent school in the London area. The league tables rank the schools on the progress made by 16-18 year olds by comparing their A level results to those of other students with similar results to them at GCSE. The local league table can be found on the DfE website See more