Well, loads and loads has been happening recently.

The disco was last Friday. It was great fun! There was a really long queue to get in at the beginning and the cars stretched down the driveway. When I went in there was a big clump of boys at one end trying to be cool and a group of girls at the other end talking to each other and silently flirting. The boys all had their phones out and were pretending to text and they all had Justin Bieber hair which must take a long time to style. It makes your hair stick to your head and makes you look a bit mutant. The music was quite current and the DJ didn't try to be funny which I appreciated. The sixth form were dancing along too and served us a free drink of coke or juice.

I have just eaten my Christmas dinner. We had turkey, stuffing balls, bacon, sprouts, cranberry sauce, roast or mashed potatoes, bread sauce and gravy. The pudding was a choice of mince pies or chocolate crispies. I now feel as stuffed as the stuffing!

Secret Santa is in full swing now and I am finding it hard. I sit next to my Secret Santa person and it is really hard hiding this from her. I haven't worked out who my Secret Santa is yet...it's sooo exciting!

The snow is really good. It looks like the trees are covered in icing sugar. One of my friends fell over but as she was being silly it serves her right. The school nurse had to come out and check she was ok but she was fine, just a bit embarassed.

Got to go - registration bell has gone and we have a science test next. Yikes!

Hi everyone,

Well, Founder's Day was AMAZING! I was woken up at 8 o'clock (a lie-in yipee!) by my alarm clock which switches to Heart Radio AND projects a picture of the time on the wall. My mum was coming to Founder's Day so she took me in the car and we had quite a long time stuck in traffic, but it was great to see all the Red Maids making their way into the centre. Lots of them were holding Starbucks which was just as well as it was pretty cold. Apparently it has never rained on Founder's Day - 376 years!

The service was a bit long but the singing was really lovely because you could hear the choir coming from behind the choir stalls and even though the sun was in my eyes, it seemed really mysterious and exciting. The Dean spoke and we all thought he did a really good job and made some funny jokes too.

After the service we got a free afternoon. We had lunch at Browns and then we went to see Harry Potter. The cinema was full of Red Maids. We could have all sung the Te Deum together! I think this Harry Potter is the best of all the series.
Talk soon!

Hello again!

Well, I've got a red gabardine hanging in my bedroom at home so every Red Maid will know that means Founder's day is near. I am really excited about marching through the centre and I am in row 6! We were measured for our gabs the other day and it was really cool because I am the same height as four of my friends. It will be good to see myself growing as the years go by and one day I will be at the back wearing a red carnation in the sixth form.

I had a brilliant lesson today. We were translating some paragraphs and at the end we compared what we had. It was really interesting to see how different people had interpreted things. One of my friends got the latin for peacock right!

Only three days to go until Founder's Day and then we get the afternoon off. Thanks John Whitson!

Hi again!

Sorry I haven't been in touch for a while. Loads has happened recently. Before half term we went on our Kilve Court trip which was three days away in cabins in Devon. We had the best cabin of all because it had no bugs. My friend had an earwig in hers!

Outside our cabin there was a welly box which we never filled with wellies but we did put someone's pants in there for a joke! We woke up at seven o'clock every day when Mrs Gupta came knocking. My sleeping bag had a hood so I looked like a slug when I opened the door. It made it really warm. The food was really nice and all the spare food is put out in the garden for the badgers. We saw a badger on our first night eating baked beans and everyone shone their torches on it. It ran away after a few minutes because I think it got a bit scared.

We went on a night walk on the second night and we scared each other because it was really dark. While we were still listening to the bats our guide told us all to turn off our torches. He looked like Matt Baker from Strictly. During the day he showed us places we could see from the top of the hill. He showed us London, Weston and Wales.

On the last day we were meant to have a camp fire but it was too wet. We did a quiz on the teachers (which was really embarassing for them!) and we sang songs.

The bell has just gone so got to go. Talk soon!

Today has been a really fun day. First thing, we took part in a Red Maids' tradition - being measured for our Red Maids' gaberdines for Founder's Day. I was a centimetre taller than my mate from the Junior School - mint!

Founder's Day is when the traffic in Bristol is stopped for us to walk to the Cathedral. John Whitson, our founder, was a mayor of Bristol in Shakespeare's time and when he died he left the money for our school in his will. Mrs Tobias gave us a tour of the old bits of the school and we saw his fireplace (one just like it is in the Bristol museum) and his portrait in the conference room which is majorly posh - like a mini-museum. It made me feel like a governor just being there.

In science today we used copper sulphate and alcohol which I got on my hand and it dried really quickly. We drew random faces (don't worry - we were meant to) on a glass to see which liquid would remove it. The experiment worked, luckily.

Only four days to Kilve - really excited to be going on a trip with everyone but scared about the spiders that are supposed to live around the cabins. There's going to be loads of activities like mountain boarding, high ropes, abseiling and climbing. Will let you know how I get on when I get back. See you soon...

Hi everyone!
Today was our Harvest Festival Service. We sat at the front with our blazers on and the rest of the hall was crammed full of everyone from the Senior and the Junior Schools. The sixth form had to go onto the balcony bit at the back. Everyone had their money with them for the collection at the end and it was quite funny that you could hear pennies dropping on the floor at different times. The Juniors sang 'Carry the Crops' really loudly and they all looked really cute. They stood at the front and they were quite squished for space. They turned aropund when they sang and their mouths went really wide when they sang.

The radiators are making a really sinister noise. It sounds like a toilet being flushed.

In Food Technology we made cupcakes. While we were writing up our recipes we could smell them cooking... they smelt of vanilla and butter. We were allowed to eat one at the end. Mine was like a mini-mountain and had blueberries in. Yum!

We've been here a month now! And its only two weeks to half term. And we get the Friday off!

Bye for now!

Well, week three has been really wet! The heating has gone on at school. I sometimes walk to school and when I walked with a friend in Year 9 this morning we nearly stepped in loads and loads of puddles and every Red Maid we met was covered in scarves and hats. When we got to school everyone in the form room had rosy cheeks and pink noses. Our form room is up three lots of stairs so that may be a reason for the pink cheeks!

I am getting to know people now but its still quite hard work to keep getting to know people, especially the ones not in our class. I am better at knowing my way round the school and I have my planner to help me. Today we went to the wrong science lab but it was ok because we were early so we could sort it out. I suppose all Year 7s round the country feel like this too.

Singing practice was good today. Some people sing much louder than others. It is quite freaky being on the front row. You are being watched from behind. Everyone tries to sit down first so they have enough room.

I made up a joke today. Someone in my class asked me what time it was and I said to them "Time you got a watch!" It was funny at the time!

See you soon.

Well, the first two weeks are over and everyone is starting to settle in more. The teachers are getting better at knowing our names although one girl gets called the wrong name by one teacher all the time and she doesn't want to remind him! I know all the names of the girls in my class now. We usually discuss our favourite bands, favoutite sweets (mine are toxic waste) and what we did at the weekend.

We had a really awesome History lesson today. William Duke of Normandy, Harald Hardrada and Harold Godwinson were the three contestants in our 1066 'Blind Date' to decide who should be king! It was really fun asking them questions. The teacher called himself Cilla de Black. We had the chance to have a really good giggle and learnt a lot as well. At one point the powerpoint didn't work. The teacher was really funny, though, he just said that we had to interrupt this tv programme for a slight technical hitch.

Got to go - PANDAS (Performing and Dramatic Arts School) is on and we are rehearsing a play to show everyone tonight.

My first week has been really busy. We had our first drama lesson today. That was really good because we played lots of drama and we had to think of a noun for ourselves using our initials. The teacher's example was funny. She was a kayaking monkey!

I am spending much more time doing homework and it has been quite a challenge for me to organise myself with the whole locker situation. I find it really hard to undo the lock because you have to turn it three times to the right, then left with the first number, then right to get to the second number and I keep forgetting and turn it three times by mistake. That's ok to do before lunch or something when I have lots of time but its a bit stressful when I have a lesson to go to and there are loads of people around you trying to do the same thing.

I think I've become hungrier because it is longer to wait for lunch than it used to be in the Junior School. We had lunch at 12.20pm then and now we eat around 1 o'clock. Queuing makes you hungrier too but you can chat to your friends while you are waiting so its quite fun. I always go for the cold food except for Fridays when it is fish and chips.

The barbecue on Friday was a bit chilly at first and when it started to rain I ate my burger really quickly so it wouldn't get wet. Our old Junior teachers were there and I said hello to them and my mum spoke to them for a bit. There were some QEH boys playing on the astro turf and some of the girls reactions to them were really funny! I think some of them have crushes!

On the first day I was really nervous walking into Denmark Hall with everybody milling around. I was shown to a table where there was a sheet with my name on it and as I looked down and saw my name I thought...this is me, here I go. I really am a Red Maid now! A sixth former came up to me and I noticed she had really nice turquoise eye shadow on which made her eyes really stand out. As she talked to me she told me that she was my Big Girl's sister so I smiled at her even more.
The first assembly was quite nerve-racking looking back and seeing loads of bigger girls and when everyone stood up to sing the noise of it echoed round the room. The hymn was a sort of welcome back hymn and everyone you looked at was smiling and singing. There were loads of eyes looking at us and it felt quite weird.
Lunch was very tasty. I had salad with tomatoes and cucumber and some French stick bread. Pudding was called Melba sponge and it had a fruity flavour. I sat with four other Year 7s and we talked about all sorts of things. Lunch break is really good because you can choose whatecver you want to do, such as going outside, chat, go into the library or a club like Chatterbox or Netball.
The lessons went really quickly. We had History, PE and English. My favourite thing was doing a murder mystery in history. I had loads of new books and stationery and my bag was really heavy by the end of the day.
We went bowling with our tutor and a sixth former and it was great to relax with everybody and I got half a strike which was really cool.
I went to bed early after all that but I couldn't sleep very well at first because I was so excited. I really couldn't wait for the next day!

Welcome to The Red Maids' School blog. The blog will be a collection of anonymous posts from girls giving their insight into school life.