FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Area for current parents, past parents and future parents of Blues or Old Blues.

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englishangel
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by englishangel »

Katharine wrote:I think it may be more like 25 mile radius Mary. Herts & Essex High School was in Bishop's Stortford, other places we played included St Albans Grammar (some of my primary school friends were there and played against us!), and Hitchin High School. Poles Convent was just north of Ware on the A10, it was about the southern boundary of my father's parish - the northern being St Edmund's College (RC Boys school). He had good relations with both and talked about his A10 ecumenical movemnet.
Hertford to Rickmansworth is 26 miles, Hitchin, BS and StA are between 14 and 17 miles away.
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by Fjgrogan »

Well off topic, but ....................
Returning for a moment to Kerren's mention of the Sunday letter home being read by the Ward/Housemistress - in addition to the letter home we were allowed to provide a list of (I think) six other people approved by our parents that we could write to. On one occasion I was taken to task for writing to a man who was not on the list. If they had actually read the letter it would have been obvious that he was the superintendent of the Sunday school which I attended during school holidays - DR seemed quite convinced that I was corresponding with an illicit boyfriend, whom I addressed for some strange reason as 'Dear Mr Wainwright'!
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by Katharine »

Did we get the extra people to write to before we had our BAs?
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englishangel
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by englishangel »

I am sure I wrote to my best friend once or twice a term. Certainly she was always in my doorstep when I got home for the holidays.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by J.R. »

Fjgrogan wrote:Well off topic, but ....................
Returning for a moment to Kerren's mention of the Sunday letter home being read by the Ward/Housemistress - in addition to the letter home we were allowed to provide a list of (I think) six other people approved by our parents that we could write to. On one occasion I was taken to task for writing to a man who was not on the list. If they had actually read the letter it would have been obvious that he was the superintendent of the Sunday school which I attended during school holidays - DR seemed quite convinced that I was corresponding with an illicit boyfriend, whom I addressed for some strange reason as 'Dear Mr Wainwright'!

I certainly don't remember any form of 'censorship' with letters home, or any restriction on who we could or could NOT write too from Horsham, even as far back as 1958.

I know that it my final year at CH, I had a VERY steamy letter correspondence with the sister of a fellow house-mate. It made life that little bit so more bearable (bareable ?)
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by wurzel »

I only lived about 3 miles from school (between itchingfield and slinfold up the road beside tote hill garage) but boarded and have no recollections of ever being homesick.

in the 80's it was leave days only - sat dropped to 3 lessons so you could get away by about 11 to be back for 8pm or you could go Sun after breakfast back for chapel. My mum still points out that I only ever wrote 1 letter to her in seven years which apprerently after brief pleasantries just gave a list of requested tuck for leave day.

The only time I ever went home from school was on my Grecians when i went home on the first 2 sunday's of the autumn term to get my motorbike to tfinish my training course as I wasn't allowed it at school.

My youngest half brother even went to the nursery next to the tuck shop for 2 years and i never met up with my mum in all that time (I was in LHA so it was bit of a trek).
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by MidBMama »

Momto2 wrote:Well, it's 8.45pm on Sunday evening now.

Have just got back from a dire Grecians' parents' evening ... there just has to be a better way of organising those things :roll:

Hope you all had a lovely leave weekend - they fly by unfortunately.

x

I'm a bit worried by this comment, Mom2to! - what was so dire about it? should we be thinking of removing our offspring at 6th form to ensure good parent/school communication?

As I've only just seen all your comments about leave weekends, I have to add that I find leave weekends are VITAL! and I think they offer a decent chance to do something together as they start relatively early on the Friday... When I was at boarding school (here we go..!) we had just the occasional Sunday (apart from a 4 day half term) and it was terrible. I spent the whole day at home worrying about going back and had no chance to relax. In my experience, after the first couple of terms you really settle into a rythm of leave weekends and discover how best to make the most of them. We only had one or two 'don't want to go back's in the first two terms at CH and after that DS has waved me off with a big grin.

Good luck to everyone who's still finding this traumatic! I think it is partly a modern thing, as I'm sure my mother didn't miss me at all - but then there were three other girls at home. Even so, If you read Old Filth by Jane Gardam (highly recommended!), you will see how badly some (not all) people were affected by being separated from their parents by being sent back to Britain to school and in effect made 'empire orphans'. The more we can communicate with them, support, turn up to matches etc. and manage to have them home without upset, the more we can make boarding school life like real family life... am I getting a bit heavy here? sorry! joke, quick, someone! :)
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by Momto2 »

MidBMama wrote:
Momto2 wrote:Well, it's 8.45pm on Sunday evening now.

Have just got back from a dire Grecians' parents' evening ... there just has to be a better way of organising those things :roll:

I'm a bit worried by this comment, Mom2to! - what was so dire about it? should we be thinking of removing our offspring at 6th form to ensure good parent/school communication?
Oh God no! I just meant the whole set up of parents' evenings is dire! This one started at 5.30pm and officially ended at 7pm with prizegiving in the middle. It was held in Big School and was so packed that we only managed to see 5 teachers in 2 hours. There was so little room to move that we ended up with very little privacy when talking to the tutors. There just has to be a better way of organising these things.
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by ailurophile »

Momto2 wrote
Oh God no! I just meant the whole set up of parents' evenings is dire! This one started at 5.30pm and officially ended at 7pm with prizegiving in the middle. It was held in Big School and was so packed that we only managed to see 5 teachers in 2 hours. There was so little room to move that we ended up with very little privacy when talking to the tutors. There just has to be a better way of organising these things.
I couldn’t agree more! At least the Grecians' parents don’t need to see too many teachers – it’s worse still further down the school, when you can have a dozen or more teachers to fit in. Last year there was a permanent huge queue for one of my DS’s teachers, who apparently taught three sets; we found ourselves last in line beyond the 7pm deadline, and the poor chap would only speak to us ‘on the hoof’ as he made his way out of Big School, explaining anxiously that the senior staff were giving him the evil eye for staying beyond the allotted time!!

I wonder whether they could start by re-thinking the prize giving ceremony, which halts the whole proceedings for at least ten valuable minutes, and which half the parents in the hall can’t see or hear clearly! I’ve long thought that there must be a more efficient way of organising this, perhaps by simply displaying a list of the prize winners during parents evening, and giving the actual prizes out at another time?

It seems to me that this is yet another issue on which parents would like to feed back if the channels for communication were better! Does anyone know what’s happened to ‘Parent Net’ site which I seem to remember we were promised would be up and running by September?
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by fra828 »

Back to the subject of homesickness at CH-I think the main difference between then and now is how it's handled. Now you can communicate instantly by mobile, text and email; back in the day.....we had to stick it out till the next letter- no matter how much we were pining for contact with home! Plus these days there are many activities in the school eg discos, to take your mind off things and importantly, more sympathetic staff to help you settle in.
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by NEILL THE NOTORIOUS »

Three things ---

1. When Ireferred to "Geriatric" OBs --certainly didn't mean young damsels like Kerren !
2. Did you know that, in the 20s or 30s the Schcool Captain was --- a) allowed a CAR -- much less a Motorbike and earlier than that, was allowed to be MARRIED !!
I don't know if the old School Photos still exist, as they did in my time, situated on the ground floor, in the building to the West of Big School --- we were fascinated by the Moustaches !!!!
3. Letters home ??? I wouldn't have known where to buy a stamp !
When I was a Soldier --- my Mother sent me a letter, to be returned, which had "Tick Boxes" --- I am well/not well, Got your letter/ did not get your letter etc. etc. Years later we had a giggle about it --- and she suggested that I use it on my own un-communicative Children !
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by kerrensimmonds »

'Damsel'?
I'm apoplectic...............
Kerren Simmonds
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by dinahcat »

That's very funny Neil as I have used the tick box method of communication with my son. My eldest daughter phones me nearly every day and I know what the entire school said and idd and thought in their sleep. My son is required to phone once a week but not on Wednesday. He regularly complains that he phoned on Wednesday but I was not in. I say that 's right I am never in on Wednesday so why did you ring me . He says he thought it was Tuesday. Boys-don't ya just love 'em.
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by Eruresto »

Momto2 wrote:Well, it's 8.45pm on Sunday evening now.

Have just got back from a dire Grecians' parents' evening ... there just has to be a better way of organising those things :roll:
What have they done this time?
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Re: FIRST LEAVE WEEKEND

Post by Momto2 »

Just the usual endless wait to see the tutors Josh!

It's also very awkward queueing up and trying not to overhear what's being said to the parents already with the tutor and likewise when it's your own turn, you are aware of people breathing down your neck :roll:

I don't think Big School is really suitable for it unless the powers that be can arrange the tables differently. We have been to Parents' Evenings in Dining Hall and it all seemed to run a lot more smoothly!

Our youngest son's school is really on the ball and I've just received a note to say our slot is at 6.26pm next Tuesday evening ... nothing like being precise :D
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