The end of the Autumn term was, as always, jam-packed full of fun Christmas celebrations to get us all into the festive spirit.

We started with the Sixth Form's Snow Ball on the 3rd December, which saw beautiful outfits, sparkling decorations and plenty of dancing. A brilliant way for the Sxith Form and their guests to celebrate the end of a successful term.

The following day saw the return of our annual Christmas Fair, this year with a 'White Christmas' theme. Having not been able to hold this in 2020, it was wonderful to see the School buzzing with a huge variety of stalls, spread out through the Quad, Maths corridor, Library, Main Corridor, Cloisters and Dining Wing. The students showed amazing creativity in producing so many attractive stalls with lovely gifts to buy and fun games to play. The day raised an incredible £9,092 for our School charities - Raystede and the Brighton Hummingbird Project. Particular congratulations go to Year 11 who raised over £820, and the Parents' Guild for managing an incredible range of stalls, and the all-important cafe!

The celebrations in the final week of term started with the House Christmas Spirit Competition. The Houses were provided with a number of categories in advance, and they all did an incredible job of rising to the challenge, the category winners are:

• Best performance of a carol: House 2
• Best looking Christmas tree: House 4
• Best House Staff Santa: Dr Del Campo for Lawrence
• Best Christmas-themed cookie: House 3
• Best atmosphere of Christmas spirit: Keswick
• Best home-made Christmas cracker: House 1

The standard was incredibly high, so well done to everyone who took part. The overall runners-up were Houses 2 and 3, and the overall winner, for their brilliant story-telling was .... Lawrence.

Wednesday was our traditional Carol Service of Nine Lessons. One of the highlights of the School calendar, it was wonderful to hear our singers and musicians performing so beautifully, and our readers also deserve to be congratulated. It was wonderful as well to be joined by ORs and Former Staff for the morning service, and by Parents in the afternoon service. Our community is so important to Roedean, and so it is wonderful to have been able to open the School site to visitors for these occasions again.

On Thursday, we held our Christmas Jumper Day, with the girls and staff all sporting an incredible array of festive jumpers and accessories, which really helped get us all in the mood for our delicious Christmas Lunch. Thank you to our wonderful catering team for looking after us all so well! As a special end of term treat, the girls spent Thursday afternoon in various year group activities. Year 7 watched Elf, Year 8 could choose to do crafts and a quiz or also watch Elf, Year 9 made Christmas Cards for our local community, including St Mark's Primary, the Blind Veterans, and Down's View School, Year 10 and 11 had discos and the Sixth Form crafted in Keswick Hall.

The end of term then of course culminated on Friday with Final Chapel, and 'Hand-waving' our socially distanced adaptation of our traditional Hand-shaking.

We wish everyone in our community all the very best for the festive season, whatever that means for you, and we look forward to welcoming many of you back to Roedean, and to events over the next year.