Senior Girls' Boarding Blog: 10 February 2019

It feels like only 5 minutes since writing the first blog of the new spring term, and I’m already writing the final one before half term! It has certainly gone quickly, but with the cold weather and busy schedules, I know everyone is still well ready for the half term break and it has been lovely hearing the girls’ plans for their week off. We hope you enjoy having them home for a little while!

Something I’m sure the girls won’t miss while they are away…the week was brought to a loud start bright and early on Tuesday morning with a fire drill. Despite some very unimpressed faces, the girls all braved the cold morning and were still ready to start the day at 8am. Impressive!

On a more sociable note, some of the Malvern girls went out for a meal to celebrate Chinese New Year this week. It is always lovely to see the girls getting together to celebrate special occasions and by the look of the fabulous photos taken by Lisha they had a lovely time and plenty of delicious food.

Happy New Year!

It was great to have the house even busier than usual with Hettie joining us as a flexi boarder in the week too. Having stayed earlier in the year when the snow hit unexpectedly it was lovely to be able to welcome her into Malvern properly and we look forward to having her more often!

Codi has also been busy this week, representing Malvern at the boarder’s food committee. The committee gives the boarders a chance to pass on comments to the catering staff about what they enjoy about the school food, and anything they would like to change. The committee has been a real success so far this year, with the feedback last term leading to more ‘themed nights’, more prominent healthy options in the evening, and many other changes. Thanks to Codi for doing such a great job of collecting everyone’s feedback and representing the house at the meetings.

On Thursday Mrs Mulready and Miss Naylor enjoyed playing an evening of board games with the girls after Mrs Mulready had a chance to go through parents evening comments with those girls whose parents could not make it to the evening itself, and give them some mentoring and advice.

Despite some initial reluctance (which resulted in Mrs M and Miss N playing Qwirkle alone in the common room), as the evening wore on the girls couldn’t resist (or took pity on us…We will let you decide) and joined in to learn Qwirkle and Articulate. Despite the best efforts (and enthusiasm) of the girls, Mrs Mulready reigned in Qwirkle, and then remained top of the pile teamed with Miss N in articulate. Keep practising girls; we will happily take you on another time!

The weekend was soon upon us, and this weekend’s activity was the much-anticipated London to Paris boarder’s triathlon. All the boarders from all 4 houses headed up to the SBA to complete 6km on a spin bike, followed by a 600m row or swim and a run from Poltisco to Boscawen Park where they were generously rewarded for their efforts with a cream tea each.  The girls all rose to the challenge brilliantly, even stepping up to put in some extra metres on Sunday morning to take us closer to our 455km total! The triathlon was in aid of Shelterbox, and if you’d like to support the challenge you can do so at: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/truroschoolboarders.

After their triathlon efforts, you could be forgiven for thinking that the girls would be tired out and quiet on Saturday evening. However, this certainly wasn’t the case in Malvern! Cherry had organised American themed snacks complete with milkshakes, waffles, pancakes and hot dogs to fuel the girls through an evening of decorating the annual house canvas. I have to admit I was a little apprehensive when I discovered this would involve melting hundreds of wax crayons with hairdryers…However, despite one tripped fuse and the common room smelling like hair salon for the evening, the canvas is looking fantastic!

Thank you to Cherry for organising such a fun and original evening, even staying to make sure all the left overs were cleared up and the common room was left spotless. No mean feat considering at one point there was whipped cream on the ceiling (and on most of the girls’ faces!). I look forward to seeing the finished canvas!

I hope you all have a lovely half term, and the girls get through the final week before the break with as much energy as this one!