Dover College

Our newly trained Peer Mentors visited Priory House this morning to introduce themselves to our Shell (Year 7) pupils. They struck up some good conversations and look forward to visiting the House each week to offer advice, encouragement and companionship to our youngest Senior School pupils.

Our Priory A and B hockey teams played The Duke of York's Royal Military School at home this afternoon, on our newly resurfaced astroturf. Our A team (pictured) won 2-0, and our B team lost narrowly 0-1. The players of the match were Olivia Hilder and Lorena Rodriguez Lopez, but there were strong performances from all the players.

Tim (Remove) took part in his first men’s match for Canterbury Hockey Club last Saturday. He played really well against some bigger players and contributed a goal to the team's 8-0 win over Folkestone. It was a big moment for Tim to play alongside his father.

Beautiful light at drop-off time this morning.

A new purpose-built Performing Arts Centre is planned for next Autumn on the site of the old Medical Centre, and the ground has just been broken! Our Prep and Senior School Heads of School donned hard hats this morning, to join staff and governors and our architect on the construction site.

Thank you to the parents and pupils who supported Priory House's Macmillan Coffee Morning on Friday. An incredible £398.01 was raised from this event, meaning that we've made a great start fundraising for our school charity this year - Macmillan Cancer Support.

Fifth Form geographers braved the elements to complete their coastal fieldwork at Reculver today. Fieldwork is a compulsory element of their GCSE course. They used a range of equipment and data collection methods to produce primary data to help them assess whether the coastal management strategies in place are effective. The group leaders led their groups to compare two different sites along the coastline. Next stop is urban fieldwork in London!

Pancakes were on the menu today in Cherry Tree House. A group of girls have been hard at work this afternoon, making enough for the whole House to share this evening. 🥞

Last week in Art, Prep 3 pupils incorporated the theme of plastic and sea pollution into their own piece, using recyclable materials.

Whatever you have planned for your Sunday - relaxation, training, homework or something else - we hope you have a good one and that you enjoy these photographs of a majestic sky over The Close this morning.

Here is a different view of the College site, shared by a former teacher living on Priory Gate Road. The building in the centre is the medieval gatehouse building, once the living quarters of the Prior of the Priory of St Martin and St Mary of the New Work at Dover.

The activity for boarders this weekend was a trip to The Panic Room Gravesend. Here are some of our younger boarders with staff member Mr Higham, after completing the 'Whodunit: Hotel Homicide' escape room.

On Saturday, Joseph (4th Form) was at Dover Priory station to witness iconic steam locomotive 34046, affectionately known as "Braunton," make a stunning appearance. Built in 1946, 34046 is part of the famed Battle of Britain Class and is a beloved symbol of British railway heritage.

Our Priory House Macmillan Coffee Morning was extremely well supported today, by parents at drop-off time and by Senior School pupils at break. Thank you to all who donated. We will update you on Monday as to how much was raised for our school charity this year - Macmillan Cancer Support.

On Wednesday, our Under 11 Priory team travelled to Canterbury to take part in the Shapira Cup tournament. The highlight was a victory over Northbourne Park, with Will Ball (Remove) our player of the tournament.

Geographers in Shell were challenged with creating postcards from a mystery location. They had to provide clues about the location in the form of physical and human geographic facts. During lesson time, the geographers then had to swap postcards and try to determine the mystery location.

Geographers in Remove spent their time in prep creating top trump cards for a range of different countries. They researched different development indicators such as GNI per capita and literacy rate. During lesson time, they battled with their cards to determine which country was the most ‘developed.’

Today it is European Day of Languages 2024! Dover College is very proud to be a multilingual school with more than 20 nationalities represented, and not just European ones. Pupils come from all over the world, and we are lucky that they can share with us their language and culture. Following an assembly on Monday to explain the purpose of the day, today we celebrated it through a variety of different language-related activities.

The Peer Mentoring programme provides younger pupils with an older, relatable, supportive and positive role model. Peer mentoring has been evidenced as having a positive impact on the emotional health and well-being of children and young people. Our volunteer Peer Mentors, newly trained in providing advice, support and guidance, will be dropping into Priory House Time and will be available around the school for any pupil who would like support. All of the trained mentors are committed to the development of their relationship with our pupils.

We were delighted to receive a copy of a letter written by Old Dovorian Leslie Butterfield to his mother in 1916. Leslie, aged 15, reported news of four bombs landing on the College grounds!

"Suddenly there was a terrific explosion. Enormous, greater than any I’ve heard. I was standing by a window. The window blew inwards all over me. I cut my feet walking away but was otherwise unhurt. One chap sitting on the mantelpiece was blown off and beastly fumes filled the place."

Well done to our U15 boys football team who played their first match of the term this week, drawing 3-3 with Claremont School. Jonson Foster (Fourth Form) was selected as player of the match for his two excellent goals and outstanding commitment to the team.

We wish all of our Upper Sixth leavers all the best in their introduction to university life.

We are delighted to report that former Headmaster Mr David Cope plans to be in attendance at the 50 Years of Girls Celebration on 23rd May 2025. Dover College was one of the first English Public Schools to become co-educational, and this was under David's leadership. We still have some tickets remaining: https://bookwhen.com/dovercollegemaincampus

Beautiful light on The Close yesterday afternoon, just before pick-up time.

Yesterday morning, Mary Cloake ACCA chartered accountant and senior finance business partner for CH&CO came in to talk to Sixth Form students about careers in accountancy, finance and business and the various pathways they can take.

We were pleased to have photographers from Gillman & Soame with us today, to take individual portraits of Prep and Senior School pupils. Please look out for an email in due course with details on how to preview and purchase these.