School News

Peter Frankopan’s New History of the World (which I can highly recommend) has taken a bit of a back seat these past several days as I have immersed myself in the approximately one hundred wonderful stories composed by the boys for our annual Writing Competition.

There was much excitement at Christ Church Cathedral School this afternoon. Not only were we holding our annual Inter-House Cross Country Championships, but there was a ceremony to mark the official start of the building of a new pavilion.

Earlier last term, CCCS was one of 4,400 schools which took part in a nationwide competition aimed at Years 7 and 8. It is called the Junior Mathematical Challenge and it allows boys to see how their Maths ability compares with pupils in the rest of the country.

Christ Church Cathedral School is delighted to announce that the construction of the new Pavilion & Outdoor Centre is due to commence in the coming weeks, with the completion currently scheduled for Hilary Term 2022 with an official opening ceremony to follow soon after.

On Saturday 12th June the boarders were delighted to take part in an orchestral workshop run by musicians from Bedford School.

Despite the pandemic preventing us from playing any serious Cricket last season, we have had a very pleasing start to the season this term with some good individual, and team, performances against local schools.

House Music 2021 was always going to be a little ‘different’, but not even the most enthusiastic supporter could have expected this year’s final to be such a triumphant event.

We hosted a Teddy Bears’ Picnic at our Woodland School which is situated in the corner of Merton Field, the most intensely lovely part of Christ Church Meadow and, at this time of year, the clouds of cow parsley swirl generously under the vivid greens of the glistening trees.

On Wednesday, Pre-Prep and Nursery blew bubbles for ‘Oxygen for India’.  While on Thursday,  Prep School danced to raise money for the same cause.

The service was held yesterday evening at Christ Church Cathedral. With just hours’ notice, many of the choristers came back from their well-earned holiday following Holy Week to sing at the special thanksgiving evensong conducted by the Sub Dean of Christ Church, the Revd Richard Peers.

It's been wonderful to be together again this week; to hear instruments being played from countless different directions, to see the peripatetic staff again and most of all to hear singing everywhere!

The CCCS community, nothing daunted by lockdown, celebrated World Book Day 2021 in style with a wonderful variety of caps, hats and hairdo's in the image of favourite authors and characters from literature.

Over half term Mme Loyer, who is running our weekly Cooking Club on Teams, set a challenge - Cooking Around The World. Boys were invited to create dishes from a country of their choice and submit photographs of their creations.

I was delighted to be able to spend the first part of Lockdown #3 poring over compositions submitted by boys for our Carol Competition. Entrants were invited to create their own entirely new carols, or to make an alternative setting of an existing carol. It was particularly heartening to receive submissions from such a wide age-range.

The Nursery children of Christ Church Cathedral School certainly got a surprise when they visited their Woodland School to find they had a Woodland Lake!

Since January, Reception have had the challenge of adapting to online learning and I am so proud of their achievements in such unusual circumstances.

The wet weather did not stop play in the Nursery this week. With boots, hats and coats we ventured to the Woodland School for a 'Soup and Sausage Sizzle'.  We read the story of Stick Man and Searched for our own Stick men, who were hiding on the Meadow whilst our Sausages cooked.

The School was delighted to learn that the actor and CCCS Old Boy, Toby Jones (CCCS, 1971 – 1979) was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama in the 2021 New Year’s Honours List. 

On the first day back of this term, other than Nursery, which functioned as normal, we met for online school as many of us did last spring.

Two Christ Church Cathedral School boys spent the Summer riding almost 500km each in aid of the School’s charity, A Rocha.

Former Christ Church Cathedral Chorister, Alexander, was this week crowned BBC Young Chorister of the Year and hailed as the voice of hope for 2020.

CCCS launched three short films this week – one about the Prep School, one about the Pre-Prep and Nursery, and one about the Cathedral Choristers – with the common theme that the School is a place where “Boys can be themselves”.

The corridors of Pre-Prep have been ringing with the exchanges of different languages among the children this week as our European Day of Languages, usually celebrated on 26th September, extended over several days with a variety of activities linked to the topic of languages.

Form 2 boys spent an exciting and most informative day at Cogges Manor Farm. The morning was jam-packed with activities, such as wool carding, weaving and even milking a cardboard cow and making butter.