After arriving very early at school the children in Year 6 were delighted to be on the coach and heading for a day in London.  Our first stop was the Winston Churchill Britain at War Experience.  Everyone piled into an old lift which trundled down to a replica of an underground station where people would shelter from air raids during London's Blitz.  The whole museum was full of interesting artefacts and displays as well as hands on experiences such an Anderson Shelter to sit in and plenty of wartime clothing to dress up in. 

Ellie in Year 6, won a competition in the summer holidays, to raise awareness of animal conservation. The competition was organised by Orion Books, The Born Free Foundation and Waterstone's bookshops.

It was designed to highlight why wildlife is so important. Hundreds of entries were received from around the country and Ellie won her group with a model of a cheetah made out of recycled material, including newspaper and cardboard. Ellie was also able to meet her favourite author Lauren St John, who was one of the judges.

‘I loved the fabulous taster day and although I was nervous I was quickly made to feel very welcome. Everyone is always smiling and happy!’

This was the view of one of the seventy eight pupils who sampled lessons at Alton Convent School’s Taster Day for prospective year seven pupils. It was typical of many. The girls experienced a range of lessons, had a chance to find their way around the school and to make some new friends. Most lessons ensured that there was something to take home and at the end of the day the girls cheerily left with a newsletter of the day and a balloon tied round their wrists.

Year 6 enjoyed a cultural day out visiting the City Art Gallery in Southampton in the morning followed by an afternoon of music making at a school in Milford on Sea.

The children were given a conducted tour of the gallery where they viewed the Perseus series by Burne-Jones, early renaissance and romantic paintings and finally some 21^st century sculpture. In the afternoon they played the gamelan known as "The Trusty Servant." This is one large musical instrument played by many people and which has been part of Indonesian life for many hundreds of year's. Andy Channing introduced the instruments to the children and led them through several different pieces of music. Everybody took turns to play big gongs known as Suwaken, small gongs called Bonang using bronze keys such as Saron and Slentherm.

 Twenty nine excited Year 6 pupils all piled into the coach having had to get out of bed incredibly early! Though we had a long journey ahead of us we knew we had an exciting week to look forward to with lots of interesting places to visit.

Some of these were Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacre Cour Basilica, the Pompidou Centre and a Seine river boat trip. We also went to the Musee du L'Orangerie, Fountainbleau, a market and a French art workshop in Barbizon. However the best part was going up the Eiffel Tower, or 'Tour Eiffel' in French! When we we got up the tower I felt as though I was flying. I was stunned by the views as you could see for miles around.

After a poor start to the season against St. Margaret’s the team a much needed morale boosting team performance against a strong Kingscourt team. They boasted having 4 district and regional players. Undaunted in losing the toss Alton Convent were put into bat. Joanna and Ben weathered the storm of Kingscourt fast and furious attack only losing 1 wicket in their allotted 4 overs. Jo suffered a nasty rising delivery which she required treatment. Jack and Josh scored 20 runs only to lose  a cheap wicket. They were followed by Tom and Jamie (Yr4) and they struggled to advance the scoreline. The next pair were Alton’s inexperienced pair of Harry and Harry (Colonel and Chippy). After hitting the ball perfectly into space, Harry R was run out in a daydream. However, they began settle and kept the opponents bowlers frustrated. Already Alton accumulated 223 runs starting with 200 runs. The last pairing of Harry and Matt needed to make Kingscourt aim for a bigger batting total. Matt was stumped in the first over.  This only galvanised Harry to bat brilliantly scoring 3 boundaries off the cream of the bowlers, he actually top scored with16 runs.

The last few weeks of the Spring term were marked by tremendous enthusiasm for independent research and learning as Upper Prep children worked hard on the presentations, prose and poetry for their ESB exams. Our pupils once more excelled themselves, with a record number of children (38!) achieving the top, Distinction grade. Nearly everyone achieved a Merit or better and 83% scored at Merit Plus or above. One of the highlights of Open Day was the opportunity to hear again some of this very polished work, which does so much to enhance our English curriculum and the children’s broader educational experience here.

Following the courageous efforts of the previous day's rugby, virtually the same squad set off in optimistic mood to Hindhead. With the inclusion of Ben as back-up goal keeper, Alton started the tournament confidently and came through with a well deserved draw. However that was to be the highlight of the afternoon. Alton began in each of the following games playing like strangers. They did not communicate or play with zeal. At times also some refereeing decisions were very mystifying to all who were playing and watching and seemed to be always against Alton.Thankfully due to very brave goal keeping by both Jack and Ben they only lost by the odd goal, mainly due to poor defence.

The squad headed off to Oakwood for the their annual Rugby 7s tournament full of confidence to come away with some silverware.
The team was pooled against two of the strongest teams Oakwood and Great Ballard and lost both matches. However it was encouraging how the team stuck to the basic game plan of tackling anything that moved. The sheer audacious and down right gutsy determination of Rebecca brought the crowd to their feet. This determination brought the team to the plate final after another gigantic team effort in the semi final against Sompting Abbotts.

On 18th March, Year 6 went to the Curtis Museum in Alton, to see what Alton was like in the past. I was in a group with Mr Lyons. First we went round the museum and a lady briefly told us about the activities we were going to do. First our group wnt upstairs to go 'Through the Keyhole'; we all answered the questions one by one about the people who lived in Alton in 1881 and 1891 using information from the census. Next we went to 'Whose am I', I personally found this the best bit: my person was called Mary-Anne and she was a maid to the Curtis family. After that we went to 'Mapping Changes', and I found out that Alton has got a lot bigger since 1871. We went downstairs to find out about W T Kenward, who was a soldier in the First World War. Finally we had to sort out which pictures whent into the four sections for children, hop pickers, street and occupation. I wnt away having learnt lots of new information about Alton in the past.