Seven Morgans children: Daniel, Harry, Elenor, Katie, Alysia, Ash and William all took part in the County Mega-Final for chess at Cheshunt , where chess becomes a very serious business indeed! The standard of chess was very high and our children enjoyed the experience greatly.

Over 80 children took part in this year's chess challenge at Morgans, with each player playing 7 games. As you can imagine, this all takes rather a long time. Many thanks to Mrs Voss for overseeing and organising this chess marathon and to Miss Hanham for keeping the resulting points. Very well done to our Mega-Final representatives and to all pupils who played chess this year at Morgans.

Congratulations to all members of the Morgans' Gardening Club, who harvested a 'Hertford In Bloom' award over the summer break. Pictured are Sam, Luca and Shana receiving the award (and a rather snazzy new toolkit!) from the Mayoress of Hertford. Thank you once more to all parents who assisted in running this club in the last academic year.

For the fifth year in a row the school is taking part in the British Schools Land Chess Challenge. This starts with local competitions within schools and graduates through area finals (Mega-finals) and semi-finals (Giga-finals) to the national final (Tera-final). The competition attracts around 74,000 children from 2,200 schools nationally!

This year 92 children entered the school tournaments, one for boys (48) and one for girls (44). It is pleasing to see that nearly as many girls took part as boys.

The matches were played at lunch time. Each child plays 7 matches, with a match winner awarded 3 points, a loser 1 point and a draw is worth 2 points to each player. From the second round onwards matches are organized between children with the same number of points, where possible. This allows for an even competition - those doing well competing against each other whilst those whose chess skills are not as well developed playing against children of a similar standard.

Once a player reaches 3 points he/she is awarded a badge, with gold stickers being added to the badge for every further 3 points gained. Also players who reach 11 points select a mascot and those with 15 points are awarded a pencil with a furry thing on the end!

Those players who gain 17 points or more plus those who gain the highest number of points in each year group (boys and girls) even if they have not attained this total, are given the opportunity to attend the 2010 Mega-final.

It is a very positive way for children to develop their chess playing skills. After seven weeks and 320 games many of them fiercely fought battles, the champions and Megafinal qualifiers have been decided.

In the girls' tournament, Becky is the overall champion having won all her matches, obviously a tremendous achievement. The year 5 champion is Louise whilst Laura and Sophie are the Year 4 and 3 champions respectively. Monica, Year 6 and Karys, Year 5 also qualified for the Megafinal.

In the boys' tournament, Josh (Y4) having won his first six games, but ending on 19 points the same as Alex (Y5), is the Boys' champion by having a higher sum of his opponents scores than Alex who is thus Year 5 champion.

James is the Year 6 champion beating Harrison in the same way as Josh won. Ben is the convincing Year 3 champion. Harrison qualifies for the Megafinal along with Rees (Y5) and Adam, Dan and Toby all from Year 4.

Mr. Cordingley

At Morgans, we see extra-curricular activities as an important aspect of schooling. As such, the staff run a wide range of clubs and sports activities for various age groups at different times of the year.

These include: Chess, Gardening, Science, Football, Netball, Tag Rugby, Kwik Cricket, Cross Country, Sailing and Woodwork.

Morgans plays regular fixtures against other schools in several sports and usually fares very well in district sports competitions. The children appreciate the time and effort the staff put into these opportunities and gain greatly from their experiences.

In the arts, the Morgans' Choir perform in two concerts per year; the first is a Christmas concert at All Saints' Church and the second is a spring concert at Castle Hall.

The gardening club enter the annual 'Hertford in Bloom' competition to celebrate the fruits of their labours.