When we began our summer term in May 1932 we increased our staff by having a music mistress, Miss Wyatt, who taught singing and percussion band and also country dancing. Our numbers had now increased to eleven and at the end of July we had our first Sports Day when there were fifty-five visitors. There were many anxious doubts about the weather but visitors who came prepared for rain were cheered by a sunny afternoon.

It says much for our English summers that only twice in twenty years was our July entertainment a wash-out. On this our first afternoon we were specially favoured for I met a friend in Guildford some days afterwards who knowing that particular day was our Sports Day said: 'Oh you poor dears, I felt so sorry for you.' There had been pouring rain in Guildford while we had been having tea in the garden. During the summer holidays we began one of our many building additions. I think I stated when describing The Spinney that it had originally been cow-houses that we gradually converted into human habitations as conditions required. Our first long schoolroom had a long narrow passage behind it with a door into the garden at the further end and a big window looking into the pond garden. A tall door with leaded panes of glass opened into the schoolroom nearest the hall. We had the outer wall of this passage built out cutting off part of the pond garden. The garden door was blocked up and a new door made giving access to the pond garden and thence through a gap in the surrounding wall into the main part of the grounds. The other end was made into a cloakroom with washbasin and lavatory and a door leading into the hall. The outer wall of the extension was specially firmly constructed so that when necessity arose and we had the necessary money to do it bedrooms could be built above overlooking the pond garden.

The autumn term saw the beginning of dancing classes with Mrs Cooper on Wednesday afternoons.

The Christmas entertainment in 1932 created a bit of a problem as the long schoolroom was not big enough to contain an audience and the performers which had considerably grown in numbers. In considering the matter I think I had rather a brain wave that we should have our play on 'television' which of course at that time was only just beginning to be talked about. The result was that the audience sat in the darkened schoolroom facing the door leading to the hall. The piano with Miss Wyatt as pianist was pushed into the hall with only the two piano candles for illumination. The hall door was taken off its hinges up as far down as the top of a child's head. A piece of gauze was stretched over the lower half with a big screen behind. The play was called 'Television' but actually it depicted Christmas in other lands as shown in Children's Hour. Sheila Robertson and Joan Fussell were the voices of the two Aunts such as they used to have on the wireless and they announced the various countries represented by each child in appropriate costume who stood behind the gauze lighted by a torch as he or she said their piece describing Christmas in their land. They represented Canada, Australia, India, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Africa, China. The description was supplied either by first-hand knowledge from the parent whose child represented the country or from what I had read in missionary magazines. At the close a tableau was formed by Colin as Joseph and Vera as Mary, nursing a baby doll, while all the children knelt before them singing 'Away in a manger.' It was a great success and at the end the show was stolen by the little two-year old sister of one of the children who crept up between the others to see if the baby was real.

During the Christmas holidays we repeated the performance at an entertainment at the Church House in which other schools took part in aid of the League of Pity. As a result we joined the League and several of the children had badges and collecting boxes.

In 1934 the school was large enough to form a branch of our own and from then on the school year took on a regular pattern.

We now had thirty children in the school divided into Upper and Middle Division and Preparatory. The staff consisted of our two selves with Miss Wyatt teaching singing and band and Mrs. Dibdin gym and games and a new comer MIle Girrebeuk who came from Brittany to stay at the school and teach French and help in various ways.

The highlights of each year were the Christmas entertainment generally a play which took place at the end of December and the Sports Day on a Saturday in July followed by the League of Pity entertainment on the following Tuesday. The Sports took place on the lawn beyond the house. At one end was the weeping willow, a noted land-mark and at the other end a high hedge against which the judges took their place with easel and blackboard to mark the scoring. Parents and friends sat each side of the length of the lawn bordered on the near side by the raised chestnut spinney and on the further side by a trellis of climbing roses through which grass paths led to the kitchen garden and beyond to the lower lawn with the big chestnut tree, the long jump, swing and climbing pole, and see-saw. Also to one side the fruit cage with gooseberries, currants and raspberries. Beyond was another chestnut tree and a tent near by and the orchard either side of a long walk.

But life was not all play and entertainment. Eleanor as visiting Art Mistress in a number of schools had gained experience in teaching children of all ages and specialised in children of kindergarten age. She gave them their first lessons in reading, writing and number and in training the habit of observation. When they could read sufficiently well to be a pleasure to themselves which we usually reckoned to be about the age of seven, they moved up from the preparatory into the middle division and then from nine plus to the age of eleven or twelve into the upper division. We had no system of marking and no prizes except that each child was presented with a book on leaving the school, (it became known as a prize for leaving). At the end of each term, the last fortnight except for such activities as gym and games and precussion band, was given over to Record Books. Each child had an exercise book in which from term to term he or she wrote and illustrated anything in history, geography, scripture, nature or any other lesson which they particularly remembered. This period set aside for Record Books was particularly popular and in many cases the books are still treasured from twenty, thirty or even forty years ago.

Quite early in the history of the school we began the custom of Parents Meetings for mothers once a term usually on a Friday afternoon, when dates were fixed for beginning and end of term, the Sports and Entertainment arrangements for any outings and any points of interest e.g. record books, health certificates, health insurance scheme etc were discussed. Later this was extended to an Open Day for parents when (usually) the mothers came to prayers if they wished and went from class to class as they pleased and the school carried on in the usual way. These Open Days were very popular with both mothers and pupils as the children loved showing their mothers what they were doing.

April 28th, the anniversary of the day when The Spinney opened was kept as Old Spinneyites Day and old pupils were invited to come either between 11 and 12 in the morning or to tea in the afternoon. Quite a number availed themselves of this. Eleanor was a great one for giving children's parties and they were always very popular. We had Apple-bobbing on All Hallows E'en and the children when they arrived left coats and shoes in the cloakroom and stepped into the gym over crossed broomsticks. At Christmas we had a fancy dress party and paraded in costume. When any of the boarders had a birthday we had a party for them, in the garden if the weather and the time of year were suitable. Eleanor was most ingenious in writing clues for a hidden treasure search and hiding them in various parts of the garden. Mademoiselle was helping one small child and they found a clue in a bed of nettles. On the slip of paper was written: 'What do you do if you get stung’ and Mademoiselle read it out to her. 'Tell Misselenor' was the prompt reply. In any sort of trouble Miss Eleanor was the one to turn to.