Kestrel release

Often seen hunting from the windows of Everett our resident Kestrel got into a bit of bother a few weeks ago. Luckily she was rescued by one of our groundsman.
Story from Head Groundsman Richard Evans below.

Our resident kestrel recently had a run in with a sparrow hawk and came off worse.

The kestrel was rescued by Luke Douglas and has spent the last three weeks being treated and recuperating at the Hawk Conservancy Trust.

http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/index.asp

A full recovery was made and today the bird was released down by the boat sheds.

She flew a full lap of the river meadow before perching in a tree in the Headmasters garden.

Richard Evans

Head Groundsman

U16 Football Home Counties Shield

U16 Football – Milo Taylor, Will Clarke and Ben Markham. All three boys played during the thrilling semi-final against Thorpe House, the final score was 7-2 to Shiplake with some good link up play between Milo and Will from midfield to attack, with Milo being heavily involved in the build up play to several of Ruairi Van Raalte’s 6 goals. At the other end of the pitch Ben played the second half at right back and worked hard to retain possession and win the ball back from the opposition with some hard hitting tackles. The final was a much tighter affair with Shiplake and Claires Court being very evenly matched. Full time came and the teams could not be separated at 0-0. Sadly, time was against us so we had to go to penalties, during which Milo calmly stepped up and slotted away his spot kick, as did Ruairi. However, despite a valiant effort from Toby Brough in goal, tipping one on to the bar and seeing one go wide of his post, we lost 2-3 finishing runners up. The boys can be very proud of their unbeaten record of 4 wins and a draw.

House Colours

I was really pleased to award Anna Proctor and Rose Parker their House colours this week. Both have carried out their School Prefect duties well, supported House events and sport, carried out House and prep duties effectively and made a great contribution to Everett and College life, be it through sport – hockey and netball, music – girls choir and organising House singing, playing in House teams, cross country and athletics. Well done to both, thoroughly deserved.

House Rowing

On a lovely spring afternoon our rowers competed for the House Head of the River trophy. Competition for places was fierce as for this House event we actually had more rowers than spaces in the crews. In some very close racing Everett held their own and the first Everett crew back were the VIII of Marsh, Mottram, Pollard, Baker, Grun, Cooke, Mehmet, Chambers and Urquhart. They finished a close second behind Skipwith who had four 1st eight rowers in the crew. The 4x (Orchard, Baker, Colao, Burnand and Messer came just a whisker off 3^rd  place and the 2x of McCulloch and Peacock finished very strongly in their event. Michael Glover took 1^st place in the 1x in fine form, beating off rivals from the 1^st crew. Overall we finished 3^rd. A great performance from all our rowers, with vocal support on the bank and a very sporting Harry Frost who agreed to row for Burr so they could boat a VIII.

Hockey Dinner

The Hockey club celebrated the season with the Hockey Dinner on Monday night.
I was delighted to see Anthony Miarli awarded Players player for the 2nd XI.
Rory O'Conor was awarded most improved player for U15A XI and Chris Baker was awarded Full Colours for U15 Hockey, well done to all.

£80 for Red Nose Charity

On Friday we held a non-uniform day to raise money for comic relief, ‘wear something red’ was the theme. Although not red, Will Urquhart certainly got into the theme of doing ‘something funny for money’ in his banana suit – a brave fundraising effort!

Everett House has so far raised over £80 with more donations still to come in.

House Singing

Well done to all of Everett, James Wilson accompanied by Will Tse did a great solo performance of Wonder Wall. Rose Parker was a revelation singing Titanium in the ensemble a real vocal talent, ably supported by James, Josh Hirst, Myles Everett and again the guitar talents of Will. Finally the whole House raised the roof with Billy Joel’s Uptown girl, conducted with gusto from the rear of the sports hall by Mr Brownley. Rose, James, Will and Mr Brownley all put a lot of effort into organising our entry and I thank them for their efforts, it was not easy getting such a good performance out of the House.

Summer External Exam Timetable

With the Easter holiday fast approaching and the sumemr exams looming the link below may be of use.
Summer exam timetable
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BybyRe6jkVkoM0pDNHBoUkNVTlk/edit?usp=sharing

House Colours

House colours – it was my great pleasure to award House Colours today to Frankie Paolella-Kemp and James Wilson, both have been great as Chapel Wardens and on duty nights, but both also give up a lot of their time to help with House events, looking after their peers, and being all round great guys. Several pupils and staff have commented on them this term making the decision an easy one, well done to both.

Anna continues goal scoring success

Anna Proctor continues her good form in the girl’s netball team; again her shooting skills contributed to a fine win over local rivals Pangbourne College, a thumping 21-15 away win. Shiplake started the match confidently ending the first quarter 5-1 to Shiplake. They let Pangbourne back into the game but managed to hold their lead at 8-5 by half time. As the third quarter started, Shiplake began to play stronger again and thanks to Anna Proctor and Sophie Arnold’s shooting skills, they almost doubled the score to 14-7, the final quarter of the game was by far the hardest, Pangbourne began to fight back but substitutions paid off as the centre-court play became dominated by the Shiplake girls, channelling the ball easily past the Pangbourne opposition to the awaiting shooters, Proctor and Arnold. Thanks to the strong determination and fast fluid movement from the Shiplake girls, they overcame Pangbourne for a second consecutive match and won 21-15. Well done to all the girls and I look forward to Anna captaining the Everett Netball team in the House competition next week.

Red Nose Day

On Friday we are holding a non-uniform day to raise money for Comic Relief.
Miminum suggested donation is £2.00 for this worthy cause.
As it is Red Nose Day and we are Everett - it would be nice if we could wear something red!

Warm up games for International Tournament

It has been great to see many Shiplake pupils in the local papers recently and this week Mr Edwards put forward the following article for publishing in the Henley Standard. I am sure we all wish Max well for the forthcoming international tournament matches at Wellington College.

Shiplake College’s Max Chandler enjoyed starting for England North U16s in the warm-up games leading towards a four-way England tournament on the 31^st March.

Playing at loosehead prop, Chandler started against the Wasps U17 Academy.  Wasps soon showed the value of having played together for the season when they found the gaps in the England North lineout to score the opening try. The Academy’s physical maturity brought dividends as they ran in four tries on a bitterly cold day when handling skills were at a premium.

‘I’m really looking forward to the tournament with France, Belgium and Holland, played at Wellington College at the end of March,’ said Max aged 16. ‘There will be a shirt presentation on that day and I will finally get to keep the shirt.’

Senior House Hockey

Senior hockey took place on Saturday afternoon, and again we were short of players, but nevertheless we put out a competitive side. Mr Fitton the tournament referee commented on how well we played and importantly the spirit in which we played. Despite coming fifth the boys and girl did the house proud, well done. Thank you to Chris Baker for stepping in to help out the seniors Anna Proctor, Anthony Miarli, Myles Everett, Will Tse and Dani van der Lely. Thanks also to the other Houses for lending us a goal keeper!

Goal keeping heroics!

Oscar Fagerstrom-Day got a special mention from two hockey coaches this week after a very good performance in goal for the U14B hockey side v Lord Wandsworth. His side were under real pressure for most of the game and despite a heavy loss things could have been much worse without his many saves, diving and throwing himself and his stick at the ball; a heroic effort. Praise indeed coming from Mr Pugh who is a Welsh international lacrosse keeper, who knows a thing or two about goal keeping!