Most improved rugby player

There is high excitement in our house after Nicholas got the trophy for the most improved rugby player in year 1 for the 2013 season.  So maybe it was a good thing that he wasn't in the 1st team which gave him the opportunity to truly shine and stand out.  They played 3 matches against other schools and it was amazing to see how the whole team went from strength to strength especially Nicholas.  He put on a particularly fine performance in the last match where he scored 4 accepted tries, another 1 that was disallowed because he 'dived' with another 2 or 3 near misses not to mention the umpteen tags he took.  I'm not sure who is most excited about this fantastic achievement!

Action shot 

Team work (good to see the whole team going for it)

Excellent runs (good vision makes all the difference)

Satisfaction

The funny thing was that Isla's brother was in the opposing team.

Nicholas knows Liam so it was rather amusing!

Here's a gif of one of the tries that he just missed

Rugby fever is addictive

Danny and Ernie having fun with the rugby ball

That's it for the 2013 rugby season ... bring on cricket ...

Winning Streak

Do you remember the Photography Competition that Nicholas entered at his school?  He had the winning photo in his age group!  It wasn't one of the photos I would have picked but Nicholas insisted that he wanted to enter it because it showed that 'he was looking at things differently'.  He was obviously on the same wavelength as the adudicator.  It is nice that he got a real prize for it as well!

Nicholas was also one of the coupon winners in year 1.  Donhead has an ongoing coupon system to encourage the boys to behave nicely and to work hard.  The pize is a £10 gift voucher from a book shop.  Semper magis ... always more!

Ealier this month Nick got the 'Star Award' for his performance in the World Education Games on the Mathletics website.  He showed true dedication and worked really hard during the first week in March when the competition was running.  Mathlectics is like a game to him and he absolutely loves it.  Overall winner for the 4-7 age group in his school was a pleasing result indeed!

Unfortunately he didn't get the chess trophy this term.  He was runner up though and there was only 1 point in it.  I guess you can't win everything all the time!

The London Transport Museum

Nicholas' history topic this half term is 'The history of transport'.  So I thought it was about time we went to The London Transport Museum.  The boys had great fun exploring all the displays covering transport in London through the ages: the very first omnibus, the horse drawn carriages, the steam trains, the tubes and the great hall with buses as we know them today.

The part Dad and I enjoyed the most was the poster display.  It was like going to an art gallery.  There were some really impressive tube posters in the old days, much more so than those of today, in my opinion.  Nicholas quite liked this tube map from the future ... with an extention to Mars and the Moon!

The clever part of the tour was providing the children with a 'treasure hunt' type of map which lead you around the displays to get different stamps. Clever because it ensured that you did everything in the correct order and it kept the kids engaged. They also got a lovely little activity book which they are still enjoying now!

Afterwards we enjoyed wandering around Covent Garden enjoying the sights and sounds of the street artists.  The boys especially liked this little ensemble that played loads of popular classics that they recognised!

The HMS Belfast

Nicholas' year group went on an outing to the The HMS Belfast last week.  One of the other Mothers went with as a chaperone and sent me some of her photos.  It looks like they had loads of fun and Nicholas can't stop talking about all the facts he absorbed on the tour!

Rugby

A couple of weeks ago Nicholas played his first official rugby match against another school.  You can imagine the excitement in our house as the day drew closer and when we found out that he was in the second team out of four.  At this age they play tag rugby so it's very gentle and loads of fun, kind of like a game of British Bulldog, just with a ball and some tags.  Nicholas put on a fine performance - he took loads of tags - and scored three tries.  Most of all I liked the fact that he played like he meant it!

Warm Up

Team Talk

Starts

Defense

In trouble

Going for it

I managed to get a sequence of photos on one of his tries.  So I tried to make an animated gif out of them but had to split it up into three parts because of the size limit.  It gives quite a good idea of how it happened: almost the whole length of the field, a dummy and a side step, some speed, a bit of vision and most importantly determination to finish it off.  Each photo on it's own makes a great shot too that's why you will notice a couple of my favourites repeated above!

First Part

Second Part

Third Part

This was the next match, which took place this morning, against a different school.  This time it was the whole year group and Nicholas was in the third team out of six.  Once again Nicholas played really well and scored three tries again.  Hopefully this is a sign of more good things to come!

Waiting (im)patiently to start the match

And away he goes

Good support

Making a run for it

Phew ... that was close