Visit to Hillier's Arboretum

The whole year group visited the Arboretum, near Romsey, on Friday 13 March. We learnt about the way the leaves and flowers of plants are adapted to conditions and the strategies they use to ensure pollination and seed distribution. We were also able to look at adaptation in animals too as Southampton University led a workshop on skulls.

The photos show a horse's skull and one of the activities where we used light meters to investigate the way that plants must be adapted to survive in different conditions.

The other photo shows the rare Leaf-Boy Orchid which originally came from mountain forests in Tibet. It is thought that it was collected by Sir Harold Hillier on an early plant hunting expedition in 1910 and is the only known example of th especies to be seen outside of the Himalayas.

It's started

Work on our end of year production, A Tangled Web, has begun!

Twenty-five writers have signed up to form the writing teams who will create the script of our play. Each writing team has two or three members and each scene of the play is written by a single team in after-school sessions lasting up to 5 pm.

The first two teams started work on 28 February and we finished our first scene tonight, 6 March.

We think the play will be as long as the productions in the last three years - and that means over 75 typed pages and over 20 scenes. Mr Mullard hopes the script will be finished by summer half term so that the actors can start rehearsals as soon as the holiday is over.

Come back later and see how work on the script is progressing. Details about the storyline of the Production will be posted much nearer the time . . . . at the moment it is confidential!