The Boarding Review
Welcome to the March 2026 edition of The Boarding Review. It is a pleasure to share this summary of the animated and energetic world of our boarders, capturing many of the highlights from the February half-term through to the end of the Spring term.
At the heart of our community is the desire to see every one of our students flourish. We strive to create an environment where boarders can truly enjoy their time, respect one another and their surroundings, and achieve their personal best in all endeavours. This term has been a wonderful testament to those values in action.
Our students have enjoyed a wide array of activities and celebrations, including:
Cultural Celebrations: A tremendous Chinese New Year feast featuring traditional dishes and zodiac bingo, as well as marking the end of Ramadan with Eid al-Fitr festivities.
Active Outings: Thrilling trips to Coral Reef Waterworld and Highsports indoor climbing centre, alongside a fantastic theatre production of The BFG in Chichester.
Community Spirit: The excitement of our annual "Masterchef" competition, the Great Easter Egg Hunt, and various tournaments ranging from Chess to FIFA
Leadership and Service: We were proud to witness our student leaders participate in our Easter Service at St. Andrew and St. Cuthman’s and celebrate the election of our new Boarding President and Deputies.
I hope these pages offer a wonderful glimpse into the experiences and smiles of your children over the past few weeks and illustrate the warm, active, and supportive community that is SGS Boarding.
Sarah Murton Head of Boarding
Chinese New Year
One of our regular boarding celebrations over the last few years has been the Chinese New Year meal. This year is the Year of the Horse, Fire Horse to be precise, and the dining room was duly decorated in festive yellow and red.
The meal, cooked by our chef Sil, was tremendous! Three types of rice, two types of noodles, sweet and sour pork, sweet and sour chicken and chilli beef strips. There were also pieces of battered chicken in case there was still room on your plate.
New additions this year were scratch card fortunes and Chinese zodiac bingo. The latter proved very popular with a number of small prizes being on offer.
The final treat of the meal were Biscoff swirls served with ice cream. There was a resounding round of applause for the kitchen staff for providing us with a meal to remember. Thank you Sil.
Pancake Day
Pancake Day this year was during our half term and so we had them after school for “Slogs”. (Slogs is an old SGS word that has survived from time beyond memory. Rumour has it that it is an abbreviation for “suppers left overs grilled”.)
Needless to say they proved very popular. Some tried the traditional sugar and lemon filling but Biscoff, and a variety of syrups, proved to be the most popular.
Year 13 Meal Out
Ms Oliver and Mrs Hammond took the Year 13 students out for a meal to relax after their trial exams. They went to a food court in Brighton which offered a variety of different styles and nationalities of dishes. Each student had a budget and could choosetheir favourite options.
Tanghulu
For a Friday night treat we had a go at making “Tanghulu”. These are skewers of fruit dipped in molten sugar then chilled rapidly in ice water. The students made up their skewers whilst the staff did the dipping in the high temperature sugar away from the crowd. It wasn’t quite the crispy candy shell that the recipe suggested would be produced, more a sticky sweet coating. Nevertheless they were well received and eaten with gusto.
Cooking Club
Tuesday Cooking Club continued to produce a variety of student-baked goodies Below are Churros made by a Year 12 and 10 combo of bakers using an air fryer. (Who even knew you could do that?) They were dusted with cinnamon and caster sugar and vanished almost at once.
Gooooaaaaall!
Well done to Marc in Year 10 for scoring his first goal for the school team. The match, against St Andrews, was not going well. Steyning were 4-0 down when Marc came on as a substitute. Just minutes from the end the St Andrews keeper made a save and Marc was perfectly placed for the finishing follow up shot.
Coral Reef Waterworld
When asked for ideas for a trip in the House meetings the most popular choice was a visit to a water park. So it was that a full minibus of keen boarding aquanauts headed off to Coral Reef Waterworld in Bracknell. The various attractions were great, but by far the most used and appreciated were the water tubes. The day was a great success and many thanks to Ms Oliver for leading the trip.
Ice Cream Sundaes
A popular evening snack in Boarding is the ice cream sundae. Students choose their flavour of ice cream, syrups/sauces, sprinkles and squirty cream. This time banana splits were the big winners served in a long tray and covered with everything.
Birthdays
There’s a high likelihood that boarding students will be away from home for their birthdays. In order to make them feel more at home, staff will decorate their room doors and, if not provided by parents from home, will magic a birthday cake up for them. The favourite cakes that we bake are chocolate fudge cakes and toffee cakes with a vanilla cream filling.
Trip to Kenya
Ms Murton took the great news of our Outstanding OFSTED inspection with her to Kenya on a five day trip.
The visit provided the opportunity to visit some local schools and attend a busy education fair. She shared the exciting opportunities available at our school, highlighting one of Sussex’s “best kept secrets”; an excellent, affordable British boarding education set in a safe and inspiring environment. The visit sparked great interest, strengthened international connections and helped to spread the word about the unique experience our boarding community offers.
BFG Theatre Trip
Ms Oliver took a group of our students, mostly Years 11 & 12, to see a production of Roald Dahl’s “The BFG” at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
The play scaled up and down between huge giant puppets, each operated by several people, and more normal scale “giants” with smaller puppets and dolls to keep things in scale. The production was absolutely fantastic with a
few damp eyes at the end. Naturally the boarding bear was there to watch as well.
Masterchef
Four groups of aspiring chefs, having bought their ingredients the day before, prepared to do battle in the yearly boarding Masterchef competition. Each group was given an induction hob as well as access to a variety of cooking equipment.
And so it began. Each team had one hour, though “Team 7” had stolen a march by marinating their steaks overnight. Team “MTM” can be seen here preparing “Spike Bruschetta” using a TESCO finest ribeye steak.
“The Spice Boys” busied themselves with cooking a traditional seafood curry based on an old Antiguan recipe for “Mama Dupe’s Shrimp Curry”. The smell was amazing.
Meanwhile Team Seven had cubed their steak and had it in the air fryer whilst they made their cheese sauce and added it to the macaroni.
Quietly working away on their “Big Bang Dragon Noodles and Spring Rolls” were team Asian King.
Above “Big Bang Dragon Noodles and Spring Rolls” by team Asian King. Top right “Flemmings Steak and Mac” by Team7. To the right “Mama Dupe’s Shrimp Curry” by the Spice Boys. Bottom right are Team MTM’s slices of “Spike Bruschetta”. Tension mounted as the judges gathered their forks and spoons. There were a lot of them!
Soon it would be time for the judges to assess each dish. The categories were taste, presentation, originality and the skill level involved in the recipe and cooking of the finished product.
The very first thing to be assessed was presentation.
Notes and scores were scribbled on sheets and then the tasting began in earnest.
Congratulations to this year’s deserved winners, The Spice Boys.
Competition Time
Boarders play many indoor games during evenings and at weekends with a lot of discussion as to who is better at each. In the second half of term a number of competitions were launched to see who was best and would have bragging rights. Competitions included FIFA, table tennis, pool, chess and table football. (The table football is still ongoing.) FIFA on the PS5. This was the most popular tournament and was played as a knockout rather than a league. After the initial three rounds, the final was between Marc in Year 10 and Alden in Year 13. It was too close to call before the match and both agreed to let the other share in the prize. The final score was 41 to Alden due to careful choice of team and players. He chose pepperoni & meat feast pizzas, with Häagen-Dazs ice cream to follow, as his prize.
Pool Competition. This was a tournament and Nathan looked all set to win before following in with the cue ball after potting the black. This caused a complete reset as everyone had equal wins.
In the end Dom won by beating Nathan in what was essentially a final as they both had equal points.
The game, as all the best do, went down to the black.
After shaking hands Dom received his prize, a full-sized two piece pool cue with case and extra tips.
Chess. Chess is regularly played in the common room, with two games often taking part at the same time. Though less popular in numbers than the other tournaments, this was a highly contested competition. The winner of the “amateur” rounds, and the prize of a chess set, was Odein. He will be playing our chess champion, Alden, later.
Table Tennis. Slightly delayed, due to participants being on leave, this knockout tournament was another hotly contested one. There were six players with a good chance of winning and all eager to gain the bragging rights, as well as a great quality bat, that would be the prize for victory.
Congratulations to Alden who won a 5 star carbon table tennis bat.
Eid al-Fitr
With the ending of the month of Ramadan comes the festival of Eid al-Fitr. Eid is one of the most important Islamic celebrations and people greet each other with the phrase “Eid Mubarak” meaning “Blessed Eid”.
In Boarding this was celebrated with dates and also gift bags containing halal sweets.
Indoor Climbing
Ms Oliver led a group of students to Highsports indoor climbing centre at Withdean Sports Complex, near Brighton. After the safety briefing, and a change of footwear, it was straight up the walls.
Students said that it was “Fun and inspiring” and would like to do it again.
The Great Easter Egg Hunt
Boarders eagerly went looking for hidden egg hunt cards to exchange for a chocolate egg. Some were easy to find whilst others a little more tricky. There are actually a few still out there.
Boarding Easter Service
St. Andrew and St. Cuthman’s, our local parish church, hosted our Easter service with student leaders, new and old, reading from the Bible and various poems. The message was given by Fr. Mark Heather.
Student President Election
Each year students have elected a Head Boy and Head Girl for Boarding. This year the title has been changed to President with two deputies also being appointed.
Mr Timmons, Head Teacher, came into “Names” in the Bolton Common room to make the announcement. Congratulations to Phoebe, as our President for the next year, and to Fiyin and Archie as her deputies.
