Prep School Weekly Round Up

November 13th 2020

Our first week back has been incredibly busy. Preparations for Christmas extravaganzas are now well underway and without giving too much away, I am hoping that you will be (virtually) entertained with singing donkeys, signing choirs and Mr Partridge in the 12 Days of Christmas as well as a more traditional Carol Service towards the end of this term.

All of our pupils were involved with learning about Remembrance on Wednesday, watching some wonderful power points and videos and the school Remembrance service together in bubbles. Could I take this opportunity to say a huge well done to Joe Roberts for singing such a beautiful solo. If you haven’t managed to watch this yet it is certainly worth a look. Friday was Children in Need day and children were asked to give a donation up to £2 in order to enter a Pudsey design competition, take part in a socially distanced workout, bring in a cake donation for their own snack and accessorise their uniform with anything spotty, yellow or Pudsey themed.

In PS this week they have been learning about how light is used in festivals and celebrations. We have been making Diwali Divas plus amazing firework pictures and 3D rockets. They also made yarn poppies during forest school for Remembrance Day and on Friday taken inspiration from Pudsey bear and

In Reception class, I saw a really enjoyable lesson on finding things that were shorter and longer than a ruler. Children were most excited that they would be allowed to take their specially made ruler home – I hope you all enjoy measuring around the house!

In Year 1, twins Rex and Cameron brought in a wonderful display of their grandfather and great-grandfather’s war medals as well as mum’s dog tag and badge. They were able to talk to the class about this and were very knowledgeable. They have been talking about Autumn and how we can tell we are in this season by the colour of the leaves, length of days, weather, migration and hibernation. We looked at the different colour leaves near our playground and found some seeds and conker husks.

Year 2 now have a ukulele band. I was impressed with the number of them joining this lesson and with their eagerness to learn this amazing instrument. I look forward to hearing some pieces being played. In the classroom, they are turning into budding architects, some wonderful maps drawn from aerial views.

Year 3 are going Roman for the next week or two. Isabel had a fascinating display of many Roman buildings and artefacts from her half term visit to Bath. She didn’t stop there and made a rather impressive model of a Roman temple. Year 3 have also become much better at telling the time this week and have enjoyed experimenting with different light sources in Science. I hear they are very excited about their Roman day next Monday.

Year 4 have been busy learning about Henry VIII and his wives in History. I know this is always a topic that they thoroughly enjoy. In English lessons, they have been looking at newspapers and articles to see a different style of writing and I saw the start of a wonderful art lesson where they were using watercolours to paint a lighthouse inside a bottle. There really are some very able artists in the year!

Year 5 have also been working well in Art and Design. Their tea lights made from clay are really coming on, I think they quite enjoyed getting their hands messy! Again, there are some really impressive designs and beautifully crafted products. They are also getting excited about the Victorians in History as we are working towards the Victorian Christmas.

Year 6 have been working on statistics in Maths. They have combined percentage, fractions and angle skills worked on before half term to interpret and construct pie charts. They then collected current data about themselves and the school community to produce some pie charts on excel. They found out that 47% of pupils are girls and 53% of pupils are boys. Nearly a 50/50 split! I was impressed with all the graphs and a copy of Lily’s excellent work can be seen in the album below.