E-weekly Issue 149


Year 7s sing ‘Feliz Navidad’

The girls in Year 7 have had a wonderful time recording this lovely performance of ‘Feliz Navidad’ in their Music lessons over the last couple of weeks. We think they sound wonderful! Wishing you a Merry Christmas!


Virtual Live Crib 2020


While we were not able to invite parents and OCs to the School this year to watch Live Crib with us, we were able to record the dress rehearsal and we very much hope that you will enjoy watching it from the comfort of your own homes.

Please click here to watch Live Crib 2020


Musical Highlights

We are delighted to present a compilation of the girls’ work from this term which you can find here. The running order is as follows;

1. Introduction (0.00)
2. String Orchestra – String Symphony no.1 in C major (1. Allegro) - Mendelssohn (2:18)
3. Izzy – Dalmatian Cradle Song - Roberton (7:29)
4. Mayfield Melodies – Carol of The Bells – Leontovych (9:36)
5. Natalie – Widmung – Schumann (11:36)
6. Imogen – El noy de la mare – Catalan Folksong (14:21)
7. Flute Group 1 – Morning has Broken – Trad. & Silent Night ­– Gruber & Coulthard (15:22)
8. Leona – Getting to the Front of the Queue - Harris (19:01)
9. Contemporary Choir – Winter Song – Bareilles (20:20)
10. Esme – Sicilienne - Paradis (23:59)
11. Flute Group 2 – Country Gardens – Trad. (25:48)
12. Awujo – Warwick Avenue – Duffy (27:45)
13. Chamber Ensemble – Edelweiss – Rodgers (31:23)
14. Helena – Sonata in G minor – Vivaldi (34:29)
15. Wind Band - Noël d’Enfants - Fauré (38:06)
16. Rie – When Sunny Gets Blue - Fisher (41:41)
17. Helena - Étude Humoristique – Chaminade (44:52)
18. Year 7 Choir -  Feliz Navidad – Feliciano (49:35)
19. Thank You & Merry Christmas (52:46)


Christmas Hockey

There is an annual Mayfield tradition whereby the girls dress up to play a Christmas hockey match or mini-tournament in their last lesson of term. Music is played and the girls have a great time on this festive, but highly competitive occasion.  

2020 has been an unusual year for sport at Mayfield and, as so many things have been cancelled, we were delighted that Christmas Hockey was able to happen! The Year 13 girls had particularly impressive outfits and thanks must go to Senior Hockey Captain India for sharing her extensive fancy dress collection with the team! 


On Saturday 12th December, a team of Elves took part in a closely fought Year 9 Christmas Hockey match against a team of Christmas Decorations, ending in a 5-4 win for the Decorations! 

Unfortunately, Lower School Christmas Hockey was scheduled for Wednesday and so could not take place. Instead, Miss Nixon organised a fun Virtual Christmas Challenge in which the girls competed in teams to create the best festive photos, before having an elf-inspired work-out!”

Mrs Georgina Fletcher, Director of Sport 


Mayfield Radio Seasonal Special

The girls at Mayfield Radio have been busy making a Seasonal Special! 

Tune in here to find out how you can enter our logo competition and to hear about some of the ways that people celebrate Christmas around Europe
Mrs Lynette Le Riche


Festive Fun at the Yard

Mayfield’s riders have been getting into a festive mood with Christmas games at the Yard for boarders last weekend. The Yard staff even put a Christmas tree in the stables!

Jill Barker, Director of Riding

 

Christmas Secret Cinema

Boarders from Leeds House, Gabs and Micks had a fun-filled Saturday at Mayfield’s socially-distanced Secret Cinema. The gym was transformed into a cinema room and the girls from each House chose a Christmas film to watch while munching pizza, popcorn and other treats.

The girls in Leeds House started the afternoon off watching ‘Elf,’ which the PE Department enjoyed very much too! The Gabs’ girls then watched ‘Christmas with the Kranks’, followed by Micks’ boarders who chose to watch ‘Love Actually’ for their Secret Cinema. This was a great way to end the term and to kick off the festive season.

We hope all of the girls enjoyed themselves and we are planning more Secret Cinema sessions for the New Year.

The PE Department


Chocolate Treats in Lower School Cookery Club

The girls in Lower School Cookery Club were very creative in their last session of the year, making delicious chocolate truffles to give as gifts to their loved ones. Scrumptious!

Mrs Claire Davies, Teacher of Food and Nutrition 


St Dunstan’s Gingerbread

Boarders in Dunstan’s enjoyed making gorgeous gingerbread at the weekend.

Mrs Jana Carapinato, Teacher of Maths and St Dunstan’s House Boarding Assistant


Christmas Chemistry

Mrs Mackenzie has been very creative in making the Chemistry Labs look Christmassy!

 


Library Christmas Quiz Winners

Many congratulations to the winners of the Library Christmas Quiz who received chocolate prizes. The winners are as follows:

Year 8s Willow and Lynn
Year 9s Elenya, Darcy, Eva, Rosie and Alice
Year 10s Abigail and Sophie
Year 11s Evie, Christina and Mia
Year 13 Monam
Mrs Stone and Dr Ward

Mrs Julie Gabriel, Librarian


News from the Chaplaincy

Firstly, if you would like to attend socially-distanced Christmas Morning Mass at Mayfield, please book here: Mayfield School Chapel Mass Booking Form. Unfortunately Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is now fully-booked, and the waiting list is also full. We are sorry that we can’t accommodate everybody who would like to attend this very special liturgy, but we will pray for the intentions of all the Mayfield Family at that Mass.

Back in 2004, Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI wrote the following Advent Reflection for an Oblate publication. Today, moving into a Christmas laced with uncertainty, I feel his words are more apt than ever. I cannot think of a better reflection for our last E-weekly of this term. In the meantime, we wish everybody a happy, holy, peaceful and hopeful Christmas, and assure you that all members of the Mayfield family will remain in our prayers over the festive season. We will continue to light the Advent candles here for you. God bless.

Henri Nouwen was once asked: “Are you an optimist?” His reply: “No, not naturally, but that isn’t important. I live in hope, not optimism.”

Teilhard de Chardin once said the same thing in different words when he was accused of being overly-idealistic and unrealistic in the face all the negative things one sees in the world. A critic had challenged him: “Suppose we blow up the world with a nuclear bomb, what then happens to your vision of a world coming together in peace?” Teilhard’s response lays bare the anatomy of hope: “If we blow up the world by nuclear bombs, that will set things back some millions of years, but eventually what Christ promised will come about, not because I wish it, but because God has promised it and, in the resurrection, God has shown that God is powerful enough to deliver on that promise.”

Hope is precisely that, a vision of life that guides itself by God’s promise, irrespective of whether the situation looks optimistic or pessimistic at any given time.

Hope is not simple optimism, nor is it wishful thinking. Hope is not based on whether the evening news is good or bad on a given day. The daily news, as we know, is better on some days and worse on others. If we hope or despair on the basis of whether things seem to be improving or disintegrating in terms of world events, our spirits will go up and down like the stock market. Hope looks at the facts, looks at God’s promise, and then, without denying the facts or turning away from the evening news, lives out a vision of life based upon God’s promise, trusting that a benevolent, all-powerful God is still in charge of this world, and that is more important than whether or not the news looks good or bad on a given night.

Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners and one of the prophets of hope in today’s world, has a wonderful way of illustrating this:

Politicians, he says, are all of a kind. A politician holds up his finger in the wind, checks which way the wind is blowing, and then votes that way. It generally doesn’t help, Wallis says, to change the politicians because those who replace them do exactly the same thing. They too make their decisions according to the wind. And so – “We need to change the wind!” That’s hope’s task. The wind will change the politicians.

How does this work? Wallis uses the example of the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was not brought down by guns or violence or even by changing the politicians, but by changing the wind. And it was changed by hope. How?

In the face of racial injustice, people of faith began to pray together and, as a sign of their hope that one day the evil of apartheid would be overcome, they lit candles and placed them in their windows so that their neighbours, the government, and the whole world would see their belief. And their government did see. They passed a law making it illegal, a politically subversive act, to light a candle and put it in your window. It was seen as a crime, as serious as owning and flaunting a gun. The irony of this wasn’t missed by the children. At the height of the struggle against apartheid, the children of Soweto had a joke: “Our government,” they said, “is afraid of lit candles!”

It had reason to be. Eventually those burning candles, and the prayer and hope behind them, changed the wind in South Africa. Morally shamed by its own people, the government conceded that apartheid was wrong and dismantled it without a war, defeated by hope, brought down by lit candles backed by prayer. Hope had changed the wind.

During the season of advent, Christians are asked to light candles as a sign of hope. Unfortunately this practice, ritualized in the lighting of the candles in the advent wreath, has in recent years been seen too much simply as piety (not that piety doesn’t have its own virtues, especially the virtue of nurturing hope inside our children). But lighting a candle in hope is not just a pious, religious act; it’s a political act, a subversive one, and a prophetic one, as dangerous as brandishing a firearm.

To light an advent candle is to say, in the face of all that suggests the contrary, that God is still alive, still Lord of this world, and, because of that, “all will be well, and all will be well, and every manner of being will be well,” irrespective of the evening news.

Mr Ronan Lavery, Lay Chaplain 


A big ‘thank you’ from the Hygiene Bank

Thank you very much to everyone who kindly donated much-needed products to the Hygiene Bank. We collected over 74 kg of high-quality products which will be distributed this week to church food larders and shelters in the Tunbridge Wells area where they will be greatly appreciated!

Year 11 Sissy

 


Year 9 “witch trial” in ‘The Crucible’

Students in Mrs Parrett’s Year 9 English class devised and performed their own versions of Act 3 of Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ in their lessons last week. The scene, in which John Proctor must convince Deputy Governor Danforth and Judge Hathorne that his wife is not involved in witchcraft, is a climactic moment in the play.

Eva said: “I think the most effective part of our version of the scene was watching Breanna (playing Mary Warren) and Katie (playing John Proctor), working together to show Proctor begging Mary to tell the truth. He knows that his wife's life lies in Mary's hands. Breanna portrays Mary as pleading with Abigail (played by Tabitha) in the beginning of the scene, and as being scared of Abigail but still more afraid of Proctor’s wrath if his wife hangs. Towards the end of the scene, we start to see Mary's allegiance turn towards Abigail as she realises she too could be tried for witchcraft if she does not go running back to Abigail.”

Mrs Laura Parrett, Teacher of English
 


From the School Shop 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the School Shop.


Billing
A reminder that any debits or credits from the School Shop on your end of term bill are for transactions from 1st September to 30th November 2020. Any items purchased or credits received from 1st December 2020 onwards will appear on your Spring Term bill.

Pre-loved uniform
Please remember that we only accept second-hand uniform that has been washed and ironed. Any un-washed clothing will be treated as a donation. Please note that we do not accept white shirts, socks, the older style quilted coat, any items featuring the old logo (no cross in the logo), or items that have holes, stains or are faded. All these items will be donated to Mary’s Meals.

Have a safe holiday and we look forward to welcoming back everyone in 2021.

Mrs Susan Bowles, School Shop Manager

 


Mayfield Social Media Accounts

For up to date information on School events and activities.
Mayfield School - @Mayfieldgirls
Mayfield Geography - @MGeographers
Mayfield Economics - @MayfieldECON
Mayfield Food and Nutrition - @MGFoodandNut
Mayfield Music - @MayfieldGirlsM1
Mayfield Drama -@DramaMayfield
Mayfield STEM - @MayfieldGirlsS1
Mayfield Careers - @MGCareersDept
Mayfield Sport - @MGPEDept
Mayfield Spark Camps - @SparkCamps                                     
Mayfield Library - @MGLibraries

Instagram:
Geography - www.instagram.com/mayfieldgeographers      
Mayfield School - www.instagram.com/mayfieldschool

Facebook:
School - www.facebook.com/mayfieldgirls
Alumnae - www.facebook.com/OldCornelians
Spark - www.facebook.com/mayfieldschoolsparkcamps