The Flagpole

Regrettably, we have had to postpone all the Duke of Edinburgh practice expeditions that were due to take place in March and April 2020 – Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Participants will still need to complete a practice and qualifying trip in order to meet the conditions of the award. So we are currently putting plans in place to get these into the school calendar. Once there is more clarity with regards to return dates to school, we will be able to confirm details.

In the meantime I recommend the following:

If you can continue with your physical, volunteering or skill sections, keep doing them!

Should your activity have been stopped for now, are there any tasks you can complete at home to count as your hours? If this isn’t possible but you have completed lots of hours I would wait until the activity resumes rather than starting a new one.

If you have finished a section email your assessor requesting that they please complete your assessor report.  Please refer to the attached template explaining the process.

If you haven’t started a section please select one from the attached programme ideas.  I have also added some volunteering and skill ideas kindly provided by Mrs Ryalls.

There are lots of activities that can be completed from home.  You will, of course, need to ask someone to be your assessor who isn’t a parent, this could be done via email.

Finally, please click here for a link from the DofE with some suggestions to help you to continue working on your award.

My aim remains for all Bronze and Silver participants to have completed all of the award sectionos by October half term 2020.  For Golds, with your longer timescales, you may need until February 2021.  

I am confident that with time, we will be able to come to a solution that will allow you all to complete your award.

Will Bower                                
Head of Outdoor Education, DofE Manager

Every year the Performing Arts Department at Princethorpe College works tirelessly to stage a superb musical production. Who can forget the success of We Will Rock You, Little Shop of Horrors and Arabian Nights to name just a few.

Trailed on the department’s Instagram last week, Director of Music, Gil Cowlishaw, has now announced that the College’s 2021 production will be the fantastic 1970s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.

It promises to be a highly entertaining show, featuring a number of classic rock musical numbers including Gethsemane, I Don’t Know How To Love Him, Everything’s Alright and of course the powerful anthem Superstar.

The team are planning to cast the show before September and pupils are encouraged to get involved. So whilst pupils are learning from home why not encourage them to warm up their vocal cords and try something new.

Pupils can use the code fnram84 to join the Jesus Christ Superstar group on Teams.

We can't wait!!

Many of the Princethorpe community will be aiming to spend more time in the garden over the coming weeks, improving their outdoor space, planting fruit and vegetable patches, and enjoying the positive physical and mental health benefits of nature.

To aid us in these endeavours we're delighted that Princethorpe's very own 'Gardening Guru', Head of Grounds, Edd Robertson, has agreed to share his gardening expertise with us in the Flagpole.

Here are some jobs he thinks you could be doing over the next four weeks.

Lawns

Here at school we are now seeing signs of the lawn and sports fields recovering after a long period of wet weather, below are some tasks you can do to help your lawn recover and look its best.

• Walk over your lawn to see if the area is dry enough for you to work on (if not be patient).
• Collect any debris from the lawn, hand pick the sticks (keep these for supporting your herbaceous perennials) or rake your lawn lightly, we like to use a plastic leaf rake at this time of year as it is not as aggressive.
• If you have any divots these should be levelled out with top soil and seeded (mix the seed and top soil together in a bucket pick out any big stones, as you don’t want to hit these with your mower or have children falling onto these).
• The fun bit, if you have not already cut you lawn yet, is checking your mower over.

1. Give it a clean, making sure you isolate the power before turning upside down, if you have a rotary mower check the blade is secure and not dented and also sharp enough to cut the lawn without tearing the grass.
2. Height of cut is very important, you need to just make sure you don’t scalp the lawn; otherwise the mower will struggle, and you can damage the grass plants.
3. If you have cylinder mower the same rules apply, just setting the blade is a bit trickier.
4. Let the grass plant dry out and you are ready to go don’t forget PPE.

Once you have mowed your lawn you may see areas that need attention, moss and wet areas or just areas where the grass is not looking healthy.

1. Moss will always appear to be worse just after winter and all the rain we have had, you can apply a lawn sand (follow instructions on the bag) or just rake this out with a metal spring rake, the lawn need to be growing so this may need to wait for a few weeks yet depending on your soil type and location.
2. Make holes in your lawn this is very labour intensive and hard work (if you are using a hand fork) this will allow air to get into the roots system and the roots also grow in the air pockets, you can leave the holes open no need to fill these as long as they are small and tidy.
3. In the next few weeks keep mowing your lawn ideally 2-3 time a week this will encourage growth, so many of my friends ask about how they can improve their lawn. I ask them when they cut it and they answer once a week.  When I tell them it should be 2-3 times a week, they are shocked,
4. Now you should be thinking of applying seed to the lawn. There is lots of choice here, for a general lawn I would recommend a general purpose Ryegrass mix (this is a fast germinating seed and can start to germinate in 5-7 days) some of the other fine lawn seeds can take up to 20 days to germinate. Most will recommend 35 grams per square metre. You can work this out lay canes over the lawn each 1m length in a square then apply the seed this will then give you an idea of the coverage (no need to use the canes again). You need to make sure the seed is in contact with the soil, use a light roller or a piece of wood and tap with hammer, it needs to have contact with the soil so it germinates and will not blow away with hover mowers.  You can keep mowing over the seed it will not damage it.
5. Once the seed has germinated do not let it dry out as the plant will die, watering when required (always try to water as late as you can in the evening this will again stop moisture loss) with a fine rose sprinkler so as not to disturb the plant in the soil.

Finally half-moon the edges of your lawns you can do this with a string line pulled tight at each end, or if it curves use a hose.  Make sure the half moon lawn edger is sharp then spade the excess soil away.

Other jobs

• Mulch flower beds after weeding this will retain moisture and prevent weed coming back (it needs to be 4-inch layer of material)
• Fruits trees pruning should already be done, just make sure you tie the new growth in if grown up a wall or fence, if you have not done any work to these just go through them and remember the three Ds:

1. Any branches that are Dead remove with pruning saw.
2. Any branches that are Dying again remove.
3. Any branches that are Diseased again remove.

• There is lots you can do to add colour to gaps and pots, just be aware of the frost if thinking of tender plants, think about the summer plants you can fill the gaps with and prepare the soil, give these room to grow and think about what conditions these will need in your garden (full sun, shade, wet or dry)
• It’s a great time of year also to feed the birds or make bird boxes, there is plenty of info on the web about how to build and where to site these.
• Ponds are starting to show signs of life, even frog spawn and water margins plants are starting to come back up, some of the clumps can be divided, and replanted depending on what plants you have.
• If you have a small greenhouse vegetable seeds can be sown (again look at pack for details), mixed salad leaves are great, they grow quickly so you can sow to time the crops, for instance at 1-week intervals.
• Fences can be painted and repaired, there are so many colours to choose from, lots are water based and quick drying.
• Another great project to do with the kids is building an insect hotel, this doesn’t have to be perfect, again there is lots of information online and you can use material you have in garden – a great form of recycling.

That should certainly keep everyone busy over Easter, it would be great to see the fruit of your labours, send some pictures of your hard work to flagpole@princethorpe.co.uk. Happy gardening!!

As most of us are spending more time at home than usual, here are a few ideas for pupils and parents alike which should help us to enjoy the time we are spending together and maybe even give us the opportunity to try something new!

Take a look at the ideas attached and try a few, there's something for everyone. Click here to see some fun suggestions.

Why not take a photo of you and your family enjoying one of the activities and email it to us here?

We'd love to share in the fun and keep in touch.