Month: April 2022

1st April 22

In mid-March the Head Boy, Head Girl and Prefects wrote to the Finton House community with a proposition to help Ukrainian refugees.

The pupils had been touched by the operation at the White Eagle Club in Balham, which is a Polish centre local to our school that we have used in the past for events such as the Christmas pantomime. The White Eagle Club have been collecting donations for Ukraine with the help of numerous volunteers, and our pupils wanted the Finton family to support them by donating items from a list of those things most needed by refugees.

On March 22, the children travelled to the White Eagle Club in a mini bus packed full of donations that were generously brought in by our community. They were lucky enough to meet some of the wonderful volunteers and see the truly inspiring operation in action as they helped them unload the items. As the mini bus drove away, some of the volunteers gathered outside to clap and the children clapped back to them.

1st April 22

On Tuesday 22 March, Year 5 pupils visited their collaborative ‘A Place to Call Home’ exhibition at Southside Shopping Centre, Wandsworth.

Year 5 pupil Krish describes the event:

“This was a collaboration across Wandsworth with fifty other schools taking part. Each school brought something new to the table, whether it was self-portraits or even Covid particles with words on them that students thought described home (this was our idea; pretty cool right?). This exhibition brought a sense of community and hope as we emerge from this global pandemic – we’re all affected by this and we’re in this together. For me, it highlights how we have stuck together through the toughest of times and shown resilience.

We were inspired by Miss Sophie Potter who painted Covid particles and we were allowed the artistic licence to put our own spin on them. I was blown away by the artwork on display and as soon as we were allowed to look around, we all rushed to find our panel. It was a scramble, to say the least, as everybody was super excited. Our facilitator gave us all sheets and we were split into groups with one group per panel. We were told to draw a picture of one of the artworks on the panels’ and answer a few questions based on our chosen piece. I chose a self-portrait of a boy who I thought went into amazing detail with his mark-making and his use of cross hatching. We all gathered back up again and this time the facilitator gave us a soundscape to ‘watch’ or should I say listen to. A soundscape is a video recording of lots of different sounds that you want to hear, it sometimes makes you feel you want to be where these sounds have taken place. This was interesting as lots of us said we ‘saw’ something even though we did not see anything! This to me highlights the power of sound and how you can visualise things with sound in more detail – two senses are better than one.

Finally, we were split into groups again and created some self-portraits and put our favourite things around us. Overall, this was a really fun trip, and it was so good to work as a team with 50 other schools, and I hope we can all do more things like this in the future.”

1st April 22

It really was a fabulously Finton World Book Day this year.

Pupils and staff alike showed their creativity and personality through their World Book Day costumes this year (everybody knows that Fintonians love an excuse to dress up); from Willy Wonka to Madeline and from the Gruffalo to Gangsta Granny, we really did see it all! As is tradition, the Lower School, Middle School and Upper School all enjoyed parading in front of each other in the playground, clapping and cheering for each other’s costumes.

This year the whole school were treated to an assembly and class workshops with our visiting author, Sylvia Bishop, and illustrator Ashley King. Pupils were delighted to meet the author of much-loved books such as Erica’s Elephant and The Bookshop Girl, and even more so to ask questions to Ashley about being an illustrator. One great query was: ‘What comes first, the words or the illustration?’

Some photos from the day can be found on our Instagram .

1st April 22

We celebrated Children’s Mental Health Week 2022, the theme of which was Growing Together, in many different ways this year.

We started the week with assemblies about the importance of growing not just physically and intellectually, but growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow.  Pupils considered how trying new things and taking on challenges helps us all to grow emotionally. During PSHEE lessons, each child was given a circle drawing replicating the growing rings on a tree trunk and then filled in the names of all the people who have helped them to grow and supported them through their lives.

As this was celebration of Growing Together, each member of the school community was given a sustainable pot containing a Love Plant bulb to take home and nurture.  As the plant continues to grow, it is our aim for everyone to give the ‘off shoots’ to someone special in their lives.

Finally, we wanted a whole school project to bring all year groups together and represent us growing together as a community. We commissioned local artist Tim Norris to produce a ‘Tree of Wellbeing’; made from rebars (reinforcing steel bars), the tree is now a permanent feature in the front garden. Throughout the week the children produced a specially designed, handcrafted item to go on to the tree, representing our collective growth and reminding us that looking after our mental health should be a permanent feature in our lives. This project is ongoing, and over time the tree has started to ‘blossom’ and will soon be populated with birds.