Mr Williamson from the Kent Hospitals Trust, Mrs Griffths Chairperson of the Friend's of Vernon Holme and Mrs Stratton the events co-ordinator joined the school for Monday morning assembly. The Friends of Vernon Holme were delighted to present a generous cheque to Mr Williamson for five thousand three hundred pounds. The money raised by the parent's and friend's of Vernon Holme will be used by the East Kent Charities Trust to invest in the latest breast screening equipment for the Kent and Canterbury and William Harvey hospitals. The hospitals Trust is aiming to launch an early breast screening unit with women having the opportunity to be screened at the younger age of 40. Our invited guests also enjoyed the music recital performed by the Junior String quartet and an enjoyable sermon by Dr Glass and his puppets. The whole assembly made for a very positive start to the new week.

Linked to our 125th anniversary celebrations, 6TB recently undertook an interesting piece of first-hand research. This was to make a transcript of a hand-written diary of Neville Cooper, kept when he inherited Vernon Holme following the death of his father, Thomas Sidney Cooper in 1902. The diary records his work to create a beautiful garden and tree collection as well as his health problems and struggle to keep the house running in the depths of the 1930's depression.

Robbie Whittaker reports: It was a great experience to be able to read this deeply emotional and personal diary. In 1931 Nevill wrote 'I was pleased with the new rockery and waterfall, it is only the loss in dividends and the terrible new taxation that dwarfs everything, and I fear I may have to give the dear place up...' We then had the task of transcribing the hand-written diary to a computerised version so that others can read his words more easily. Some of the entries about his health and fears led Lizzie and Felicity to comment that 'It was strange and even spooky to read his thoughts from so long ago.'

Year One would like to say a really big THANK YOU! to Dr Glass for coming to visit us and help us with our re-enactment of a Baptism. Each child took part in the service and had a very special role to play. Kent College is a loving, christian family of which we are all very proud to belong to!

As part of working in partnership with our Reception parents Mrs Seery, Jake's mum joined our class to share with us, why and how she and her family celebrate St David's Day. The children were introduced to some simple Welsh language and even learnt to say good morning and good afternoon in Welsh. The children have since loved responding to the register in Welsh! They each made their own Welsh flag and enjoyed the pictures of the dragon. Mrs Seery is a highly talented musican and also taught us a popular Welsh song, which we all sang along to whilst she played her guitar. Before she left Mrs Seery kindly gave the class gifts of a fresh leek and some potted fresh daffodils, these take pride of place in our classroom. We have loved looking at the daffodils and have begun to use them as part of our still life paintings. The children have really captured the beauty of these Spring flowers. We are most grateful to Mrs Seery and Jake for sharing with us their Welsh roots.

As another part of our 125th birthday celebrations the children in our infant department helped to plant two small willow trees at each end of the infant school building. Everyone tied a colourful ribbon on the trees to mark the occasion. We hope that as the trees grow and we watch the blossom and catkins come and go, we will remember all the important and interesting things that we have done to help celebrate such an important birthday at our school. Let's hope that the willow trees will still be here in another 125 years time!

We were all touched by the suffering of those involved in the Haiti earthquake disaster and as a school wanted to do what we could to help. Mrs Davison (Mum of in Ben Year 2 and Francesca in Year 1),came up with a simple yet wonderful idea to raise money and awareness within the school. With the skills of Hayward Designs, who kindly offered their services for free, we reproduced an emotive image, one in black and white and the same image again in colour. The black and white image was gridded into 100 squares. We then offered the opprtunity to purchase a coloured square which lay over the corresponding black and white square. Within a week we had converted the black and white image into stunning colour. Along with our non-uniform day, money raised came to just over 400 pounds, all of which is being used to support some of the people directly devastated by the earthquake. Our thanks is extended to Mrs Davison and Mrs Swain for their wonderfully effective idea. The children too are thanked, as indivdually they saved their pocket money, undertook extra chores and kindly donated their small savings to the people of Haiti. We achieved in our small way the aim of bringing some colour back into Haiti.

Kent College won the county schools under eleven hockey championship beating local rivals Kings, Canterbury two nil in a hard fought final. They now go on to represent Kent in the East of England Championships.

Since the wonderful celebration of the school's anniversary in the cathedral we have turned our thoughts to the last 125 years in a variety of ways. As part of the English curriculum, pupils from Years Two to Six have chosen poems to read in class competitions from which finalists were drawn for this event. The children were asked to link their poems to an event or era of the last 125 years. Each spoke with confidence and expression, the calibre of presentation was extremely high. The invited judges had quite a challenging time when considering their verdicts. We especially thank Mr Shipton a former School Chaplain and now our school Governor for generously giving his time to share this afternoon with us. It was a great afternoon enjoyed by the children,parents and staff.

26 children from Years 5 and 6 joined the Year 7 and 8 Kent College Choristers for the regional round of the Music for Youth Competition at Tenterden on Saturday 27th February. They received a superb report from the judges who wrote about their 'excellent stage manners', 'excellently projected words', excellent touches in Soldier, Soldier, with first rate part-singing and whistling', and 'what a versatile choir you are!'. We now have to wait until all the other regional heats are over before we find out whether we are through to the National Finals, which take place at the beginning of July in Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Well done to you all!

A team of ten children travelled to Malvern College to challenge the terrain, the weather and the best runners Prep Schools could provide from throughout the country. An excellent performance from Lizzie Neal saw her finish in sixth position. The boys' team were led home by Henry Todd who has two more years in this age group. Team coach Kath Carter, an ex international athlete herself commented how proud she was of all the competitors to run so well in such difficult conditions.

The overall strength of sport at Kent College was demonstrated when a netball team severely weakened by the loss of several key players who were representing the school in a national choir competition reached the semi final of this prestigious competition. Coach Samantha Freeborough said, 'Our policy of encouraging all our girls to attend after school clubs ensured that we were able to put out a team that worked hard for each other and supported each other at all times, the girls can be delighted with their efforts'

Lizzie Neal a Kent College pupil and Kent Cricketer had the thrill of meeting England and Kent cricketer and World Cup and Ashes winner Lydia Greenway. Lizzie hopes to follow in a tradition of Kent College Junior School pupils being leading players for the county. Last year saw Marina Barwick captaining the Kent girls under eleven team and William Heywood being vice captain of the boys team. Eventually all three hope to emulate Lydia's achievement of competing at the very highest standard.

On February 26th 2010 the Nursery and Infant Departments buried their time capsule in the school grounds as the finale to our school 125th birthday celebrations. The capsule contains a collection of paintings, photographs and written work by each of the children. It is all stored in a durable conatiner that will keep all the memorablia safe until it is all discovered some time in the distant future. Despite the cold whether all the staff and children gathered around the pergola, the hole was dug and together to children lowered the capsule into place. Perhaps it will be a Kent College pupil of the future who discovers and digs up our time capsule in another 125 years!

Emma Newson and Oliver O'Shea modelling the new chorister outfits that are in production at the moment, ready (hopefully!) for their first competition on the 27th of March.

The new equestrian facility is growing in popularity with students from both Kent College and Vernon Holme.
The new home bred limousin cross sussex cattle calves are growing fast, in preparation for the Kent Show in July.
Grooming is an important part of caring for your horse!
Students teach their animals to walk wearing a halter ready for the show ring.

The first half of the Spring term has been fantastic throughout and the final week was no exception. Just before half term we all celebrated the 125th Anniversary of the school, with a week full of themed activities, games and events. We all took part in whole school assemblies with each year group taking a turn, from Reception to Year 6. Each presented to parents, staff and all the other children a part of history from the last 125 years. Reception dressed up as astronauts and told us all about the first men on the moon, Year One were Innuits and polar explorers and told us about the first explorations of the North and South Poles. Year Two wore crowns and read some of their own history work linked to the Coronation. Finally our senior pupils impressed the audience with a rendition of Beatles songs.
The week concluded with a huge party for everyone. We had an amazing cake and our school chaplain had just enough puff to blow out the 125 candles! It was lovely to see our oldest children sharing the celebrations and supporting our youngest school pupils. After such a busy week we are all looking forward to the half-term break. A happy holiday to everyone!

In Year 3 we have been choosing poems about school to perform as part of our 125th year celebrations. We thought about how to dramatise them and used props and costumes to bring them to life. They covered every topic from parent's evenings, bad behaviour and daydreaming to grumpy dads and what happens to boys when they become men!

It was a bit scary performing them to the whole school and parents, but as usual, once we got going we had a great time. In the end, we felt we did a really good job and everybody laughed and seemed to like them.

The Cathedral stood before us. It was waiting, waiting for Kent College. Dr. Glass had arranged sunny weather for our big birthday party, and as the service started I noticed the sun peek through the great, stained glass windows, lighting up the instrumentalists who were busy filling the air with important sounding noises during a Fanfare.
'Lord for the years' was almost immediately belted through the Cathedral as Mr. Spencer hit the notes like never before! I remember standing and straining my voice in the last verse as the rest of the Choristers and I were leading the descant.
The opening prayer was split into four readers, Amelia from my class read very well. Annabel Jones, a year 4 pupil, read her competition winning prayer, and I felt the adrenalin pump through my body as I was reading a part of the next speech.
Daniel Westcott, a year 10 pupil, started with 'It has been 125 years'. My longest bit was complicated, I had to pause after each line as representatives from each activity would stand and show themselves to the large congregation of roughly 1,500!
The reading went well and I was proud when I had finished, but also relieved! Next on my list, after the choristers' piece 'Behold Now Praise the Lord' (which was evident why they were in the finals of BBC Choir of the Year), was the 'Jubilate Deo', which involved both the Choristers and the Senior Choir. The Choristers in the parts of joyous Latin, filling the cathedral with immense noise, and with the Senior Choir on top, I think it would have been heard within a five-mile radius!
The service was finished at around 3.30pm and my Granny and I drove up the hill for a tea at Kent College ' I took a liking to the sausage rolls rather quickly! The whole afternoon was a worthy celebration of 125 years of Kent College.
Here's to the next landmark!

It is not every year that a school celebrates it's 125th birthday and recently Kent College in Canterbury gave thanks in style.
The entire school (all 650 pupils plus staff) were transported by coach into the centre of Canterbury where over 1,000 people gathered in the Cathedral for a special service. From the Nursery to the 6th form all pupils attended and over 200 of them took part in the worship by singing in choirs, marching with banners, playing in the orchestra or reading. The school was joined for the occasion by some important guests including Lord Griffiths (who preached), Baroness Richardson (Chair of the Methodist School's Board of Management), the President of the Methodist Conference, Revd. David Gamble, the Dean of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor.

The current Head Master of the school (Dr. David Lamper) was joined by three previous Head Masters (Gino Carminati, Ed Halse and Roger Wicks).

The Head Girl of the school, Anna McGibney, said during the worship that in its 125th year the school was certainly not standing on its laurels. Individual MacBook computers were being rolled out to every pupil in the Senior school and from September the school offers the International Baccalaureate alongside A Level. Chaplain of the school, Revd. Dr. Paul Glass, said, 'Today has been a fantastic celebration of who we are ' a school with it's roots deep in our Methodist heritage.'

In early January when the snow came rolling in, Kent College remained open throughout. It was on the very worst day of the snow that only a few pupils were able to safely get into school. Mr Carter declared we have a day in the snow! Learning through play at it's best! The snow covered football pitches were the setting of sledging races, snowball battles and a canvas for the many snowmen that were built (Mr Carter even enjoyed a chat with one of them!). The children had an absolutely wonderful day and it was a great way to start the new term and new year.

We left school on Friday the 15th at about 2:30 in the direction of Essex where our first game was played against Felsted. The boys were a little out of form from the Christmas break and it was evident with both the A's and B's losing in the very cold conditions. We then headed to the Holiday Inn in Ipswich for some well deserved dinner and a good night's sleep.

The next morning we woke early and set off for Abbey School in Woodbridge. The game was a great improvement from the day before with the B's just going down in a hard fought game in which Alex Jones was a key player. The A's did very well to secure a 2-2 draw with some great play by Jonas Zahn on the right wing. After the game we headed back to Ipswich to watch the Ipswich vs Coventry football game which was a thrilling game with 2 goals in injury time securing a 3-2 win to the locals.

Sunday morning the boys woke looking forward to the tournament ahead. We arrived at Framlingham College and got straight in the action with the A's going down 3-1 to Harleston Magpies and the B's losing heavily against a very tough opposition (Cambridge - who eventually went on to win the day). The next games for the A's were much better winning 4-1 against Brandeston (our hosts) and 2-0 against Ipswich, with some excellent attacking by Bill Cain and James Meakin and wonderful defence by Fraser Coupe. The B's lost both their remaining games but clear improvement was evident in each game. The A's managed to win their group and advance to the semi-finals against Old Loughtonians. It was a tough game and they ended up being beaten 4-1 by a very good opposition. In the end the A's finished fourth in the tournament and had a lot of fun throughout the whole tour. The day was a great success and a good chance for the boys to develop their skills for the upcoming season.

As part of our topic 'All about me' the Reception class visited the new Estuary View Medical Centre in Whitstable. We met Dr Ribchester and Nurse Debbie who showed us around the centre. First we went to the Treatment Room where Nurse Debbie showed us how to bandage an arm and make a sling. We then visited the Operating Theatre and found out the importance of washing our hands and why doctors wear gloves. After a drink and a snack in the scenic Conference Room we went to the Doctors Room. Dr Ribchester showed us how to listen to each others heart beat and we all got the chance to see inside someone's ear. A fun and informative time was had by all and we have created our own doctors surgery in our class to practise all our new skills.

Firstly a sincere thank you to all our pupils, staff and parents this term for not only their support during the various charity events we have organised in school but for also raising impressive sums of money for each worthy cause.

Each event has been tremendous fun whilst at the same time very meaningful in terms of knowing what we are raising money for!

Our Carol Service Collection will be shared equally between the Lord Mayor of Canterbury's Christmas Gift Fund (delivering over 600 grocery parcels to needy families and the elderly in Canterbury) and the sponsorship of Dulki,the girl we support throughout the year,who lives in a village in Sri Lanka.

This term we managed to raise: £178.10 for Children in Need, £100+ for Orchid Charity, £144.10 for Perthes along with the 109 boxes donated to Operation Christmas Boxes.

Colin Knowles
Assistant Head

Year 3 made a special visit to the school library to select stories to share and read to the younger pupils in Reception and Nursery. Year 3 made wonderful Book Buddies, they had really thought about the selection of stories and books to bring that were most appropraite and engaging for the young audiences. The Junior children shared their stories with great maturity, capability and wonderful animation, some pupils even acted out the simple story to really bring it to life! The Early Years children were totally enthralled and thoroughly enjoyed reading with their Year 3 friends. It was an enjoyable morning for all.

Friends of Vernon Holme Christmas Fayre was a big success with everyone enjoying the stalls and opportunity to get some early Christmas presents. Father Christmas also made a suprise visit.

Year 3 and 4 were riveted, when the author Jack Trelawny recently visited to tell them about his books. As well as reading passages from his first book, 'The Crystal Pool', which is part of a trilogy, he told the children all about his life as a writer. He used the interactive white board to show how he gets inspiration and how he develops ideas into stories. At the end of his talk the children had chance to ask questions to help them with their own story writing.

Everyone enjoyed the morning and there was also the chance to buy books that were signed by Jack Trelawny and personally dedicated.

Over half term many children managed to finish the first book and are keen to read the next five that he has written for children!


Alison Appiah Year 4

Dave Lee was delighted to be presented with a generous cheque from Dr Lamper at the Junior School Assembly. All the money was raised by Vernon Holme parents and friends at the recent and highly enjoyable Ball.

The Football team take the Molten League Championship

What a season so far! The Spring Grove tournament won for the fifth consecutive season and now success in the first ever Molten League Championship, with two league games left to play.

The League title was decided last week with two outstanding performances.

The first was against Junior Kings, whom we had previously beaten 1-0, in our first encounter.

It was a physical game and after some early scares we started to dominate the game. Eventually we took the lead and from there we grew in confidence and continued to pile on the pressure. In the end it was a convincing 3-0 win and we were one game closer to the title.

On the Saturday, we played Northbourne Park, the only team that could mathematically claim the title from our grasp.

As yet, we had only met them in the Spring Grove Tournament semi-final, where we had won 2-0. However that was a game over 8 mins! It was clearly going to be a far harder task in the longer format.

Once again the game was extremely competitive. We closed down our opponents exceptionally well and we made it incredibly hard for them to play any football at all. This was a good Northbourne Park team, yet we restricted them to very few chances. In attack, we kept the ball intelligently and some of the passing and movement was sublime to say the least. The boys had saved their finest performance of the season for this important game and they thoroughly deserved the 3-0 victory, securing the Molten League with two games left to play.

A big well done to the following players: Bill Cain, Alix Jones, Harry Lee, James Meakin, James Lake, Fraser Coupe, Jonas Zahn, Jamie Crocker, Finn Quealy and Danny Maguire.

These named, were the boys who played during the course of the season, but our success on the field has been dependant upon the hard work displayed by all the boys in year 5 and 6.

So a big thank you to you as well.

How it was won:

Kent College Junior 6 v 1 Wellesley House
St Edmunds 3 v 4 Kent College Junior
Junior Kings 0 v 1 Kent College Junior
Wellesley House 1 v 4 Kent College Junior
Kent College Junior 3 v 0 Junior Kings
Kent College Junior 3 v 0 Northbourne Park

Year 4 visited Bedgebury pinetum for a day of team building, increasing their thinking power and fun! We played 4 games which tested our ability to listen to each other and work together. We had problems to solve and we had to try hard to complete the tasks as a team. In the afternoon we went orienteering and had to read a map, find clues and collect numbers. We were allowed to run through the beautiful forest and explore all the different trees and landscape. Everyone worked well together and each team reached their goal - to be a team. Bedgebury is a wonderful place to visit and we all had a fantastic day.

The children in Year Three have been learning about the Celtic invasion of Britain. In order to bring to life the idea of tribal living we planned and carried out our own invasion of the neighbouring classroom. This invasion involved the acquisition of next door's most valuable asset, namely Mr Buckley (oh and his comfortable chair!).

We are crusaders
Celtic invaders
With woad painted skin
-no trace of a grin
as we attack, steal and pillage your tribe.

We plot, we scheme
We can be very mean
And take your most valuable things
Ferarsome and strong
Join our throng
Or face the trouble it brings

After a very sunny and warm Monday games lesson, we woke up on Wednesday to a rather cold and miserable day ' not the weather you want for a hockey tournament. To add to that many girls called in sick that morning meaning we had to adjust our team for the day and call up a few girls to make their debut for the A team. They responded magnificently to the challenge and went on to win the tournament! A squad of 8 was down to the bare minimum of 7 in the final as the brave Hannah Griggs, coughing and spluttering lasted until the very last game, one very tough girl! She did however ensure we got through the group stages with some fantastic goals! We went undefeated the whole day, twice having to come back from a goal down in an 8min game ' great spirit! Having won our group with closely fought matches again Wellesley House and Loose, we faced Dulwich in the semi final. We utterly dominated this game and although goalless after golden-goal extra time, we went through on a superior penalty corner count. Although not the best way to win, we were up 5 corners to 0 ' showing our domination and deserved progress (it also saved the girls from the inevitably painful penalty flick shoot out!). In the final we were up against our hosts Sutton Valence. By this stage the girls were shattered having played 6 games within a few hours, and Anya Sochacka doing particularly well to stay focussed as she had little to do with a solid defence in front of her. We took an early lead in the final and were pegged back as SVPS drew level to take us in to another period of golden goal extra time which didn't produce any goals or penalty corners until the very last play of the game. We were awarded a much deserved corner as the full time buzzer went…in hockey you have to complete the corner before the game is over. Unfortunately we didn't score but as the game was over and we had more penalty corners than the opposition, we won! Not the greatest manner of victory but once again deserved as we did dominate the game. Particular mention must be given to Lizzie Neal who worked tirelessly and received numerous commendations from mother schools about her attitude and skill level. Well done girls!

Exciting news! Riding lessons at the Kent College farm will be starting during the Half Term break. After much preparation and planning we are now able to offer riding lessons to pupils of Kent College. These riding lessons are available for all levels of rider from complete beginner to those that are more advanced and will be given by Beatrice, our farm manager, who is a fully qualified riding instructor. Please contact Beatrice by email (bboyle@kentcollege.co.uk) if you would like to get involved in any equine activities up at the Kent College Farm.

Kent College Junior choir and instrumentalists visited St.Johns Alms houses and Hospital with Harvest festival goods yesterday. An appreciative audience of 25 elderly people listened to a programme of choir pieces and soloists. The children then delivered Harvest Festival produce to each resident individually.

The U11 A and B teams travelled to Bishops Stortford College to play against Bishops as a warm up for a tournament on the Saturday featuring many leading independent schools such as Greshams, Felsted College, Bishops' Chigwell and local rivals Kings! Both teams had a shakey start on the Friday, losing easily to our hosts and struggling to gel as a team. A good night in the hotel was obviously worth it as the Saturday was a different story ' with both teams finishing third in their respective groups, a very impressive result given the size of many of the other schools involved.

In the B-team tournament, we opened up with a 0-0 draw against Felsted mainly thanks to some resolute defending by Sara Harris and Hannah Brett. The next game was played at the opposite end with Rebecca O'Shea leading the team to a 3-0 victory against Chigwell with her goal scoring heroics! Our hosts were up next and must have been expecting an easy win after Friday's experience - something they didn't get! After a battling performance they just managed to grab a last minute goal to give them a narrow 2-1 victory. The final games was a 2-1 loss to Greshams as our legs tired!

In the A-team tournament we only conceded 2 goals in 6 games! We opened with a 0-0 draw with Felsted as both teams struggled to get going, but we then had comfortable 2-0 win against Chigwell as the girls got in to their stride, with Lizzy Neal in particular working tirelessly in midfield. The next game was once again against our hosts who we lost to 2-0 despite tenacious defending by Ella Williams and Felicity Bore. We followed this up with a 0-0 draw against Greshams and also finished with a 0-0 draw against Barnardiston: a game that ended with us hitting their post at the final whistle. In between these two games we played our local rivals Kings and came away with a 2-0 victory, marked out particularly by Hannah Griggs' weaving runs into defence and her goals.

All in all it was a fantastic tour and time away, with the girls showing great maturity on and off the pitch, representing the school well! Thank you to both Mrs. Freeborough and Mrs. Carter for all their help.

H. Pearce

Briefly, the charity ORCHID is the only UK registered cancer charity to focus entirely on the male-specific cancers and in particular, funds are essential to promote research, education and awareness. It is vital to recognise the symptoms of disease early and at least 37,00 men will be diagnosed with a male-specific cancer this year! Each man a husband....son...brother....grandfather and friend!

We felt as a caring community that we could at least support this wonderful gesture by holding a bring and buy cake sale in our school, which was scheduled for Wednesday 23rd September. Briefly, the charity ORCHID is the only UK registered cancer charity to focus entirely on the male-specific cancers and in particular, funds are essential to promote research, education and awareness. It is vital to recognise the symptoms of disease early and at least 37,00 men will be diagnosed with a male-specific cancer this year! Each man a husband....son...brother....grandfather and friend!

A group of our Junior School pupils and their parents signed up to take part in a charity cycle ride in the New Forest on Sunday September 20th 2009 and cycled 18 miles through this lovely environment to help raise funds for this charity. This school group have been training for this event on a regular basis since May.

The sale duly took place as the photos clearly illustrate and sincere thanks go to all those families that provided cakes; to all pupils that bought cakes and to the Year 5 and 6 pupils for running the stalls with such natural entrepreneurial skill! A total of just over 100 pounds was raised.

Thursday 10th September - Year 2 visited St Nicholas church in Harbledown today as part of our curriculum work for RE and geography. We are learning about external features of a church and local places of interest. The church is very old - built in the 11th century as a hospital for lepers. We were really lucky to arrive just before a church service was about to start and Reverend Ron invited us to look round the inside of the church where we saw the stone font, beautiful stained glass wondows and a man ringing the four bells!

We also saw the well near to the church where water from a spring was used for its' medicinal properties to help treat the lepers. This well was also visited by The Black Prince in order to help with his ailments.
The year 2 children did some very interesting sketches of the lovely windows,flint walls,tombstones and bell tower. With the sound of the church bells and singing from the congregation wafting around the churchyard, we certainly had a really enjoyable morning.

Mrs Cronin, Mrs Parker, Mrs Fairhurst and Mrs Curd

Children have to opportunity to come and do Touch Typing on a Tuesday lunchtime. Toby can be seen here - what amazing concentration!!