Spring Term in Campbell
13 February 2026 - Campbell
This term, Campbell House have turned our attention to our Family trees. An important part of the Boarding system, the House Mother-Daughter combination is a carefully considered one and pairs are chosen to help each girl transition into Campbell, whether she joins us from Junior House or elsewhere.
The Family tree board makes sure that everyone who comes into Campbell sees the importance that we place upon these relationships: all L4s attend a training session before becoming House Mothers, where we consider the qualities that they need to display, and we enjoy seeing them look after their charges and make them feel part of the family as soon as they arrive. Our older girls (the House grandmothers, great-grandmothers and beyond!) are there to help and guide the younger members of their family.
One thing that each family works hard for is our Spring Term House Family Cup. Mr Russell runs a hugely varied and interesting programme of challenges every week; each challenge is designed to bring forward different skills and strengths, and we love seeing the results.
This term so far, we have seen Family fruit sculptures and a very competitive Just Dance competition. So far, Marta and Vanessa’s family trees are leading the pack, but Yimika’s family is not far behind and there will be many more opportunities to gain points before the end of term!
The Spring Term House Family Cup gives points for skill, enthusiasm, participation and support, and a snapshot of the points to date is announced with great suspense in House Order each week. There are also double points for Day Boarders who come to contribute for their family tree, which helps them to realise how vital they are to family total!
Alongside concentrating on the inter-year relationships created by our family trees, Campbell House have given their all in every other aspect of School life. We have seen some truly excellent dancing in Spotlights during the first weekend of term, where Hazel, Yihan and Chelsea shone brightly in their respective dances. Charlotte and Serena battled on the Lacrosse pitch in a challenging tournament, Ava enjoyed her time with the Ski racing team on the slopes in Flaine, and our netballers worked tirelessly at House Funals, winning every game until the very final where they were beaten with a final score of 6-7 (a phrase we have all had to get used to this half term!).
Alessia, Isla, Sia, Eletta and Marta enjoyed the MUN conference, including all the research beforehand learning about their countries’ position in different international affairs. They all greatly enjoyed the ball on Friday night with the other schools as part of the event.
As part of Global Celebrations week, Mrs Strange visited House and we created flags to represent different countries using biscuits. In an odd turn of events, there were not a lot of biscuits around to photograph as they were being eaten so quickly! Through the week, we considered Campbell’s global awareness and Freya (with a lot of willing helpers) created a beautiful display of all our backgrounds for the inter-House competition.
The final week of this half term has been a busy one. The UIV enjoyed their ‘Cooking with Mons’ evening, creating their very own chicken burgers. All were very impressed with the taste and we were even more impressed with how well the kitchen was tidied afterwards. On Tuesday, Mrs Leong visited to reprise her ‘More Crêpes, less prep’ evening, which is always enjoyable.
On Wednesday evening we had the first of what we hope will be many Lunar New Year events, where Mrs Liu organised an evening of Chinese food and learning about the Year of the Horse. We are incredibly grateful to Laura, Mabel, Elsa, Clodagh, Amber and Hazel’s families, who each contributed to the evening, and it was lovely to see our Campbell family enjoying celebrating together. We learnt from Audrey and Gabby how their families celebrate the New Year, and everyone was very complimentary of Mrs Liu’s egg-fried rice dish. The final activity of the evening was a traditional Chinese song which we all learnt the dance to.
The final event of this half term was the London Concert, and we would like to congratulate all the performers on a fantastic evening! It was also lovely to see Judy, part of our Campbell Clarence crew, perform a beautiful piece.
On behalf of all the Campbell staff, I would like to wish you a prosperous New Year and a restful Long Leave!
