Prep for the Week Issue 1856

Prep for the Week Issue Number 1856 – 24 March 2017

In this week’s issue…

Headmaster's Blog Bugsy Malone Kingfishers, Lower, Middle and Upper School news Cinderella Ball Pupils Fly into Final of STEM Competition Girls' and Boys' Sports Notices

rsal, a e h e r s of h t n o lly a n After m i f e lon a M y s ad e R Bug ! p e Pr e h T t a stic a t n arrived a f the t u o b a 4. e g a more p on s e c n a perform

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Headmaster's Blog Dear Parents The importance of drama in this term was never more obvious during this past week.

Four stunning performances of Bugsy Malone by a talented, hardworking and resilient cast, lifted the atmosphere in a very tired school.

Led by some outstanding performances from members of Year 8, the large cast offered us all two hours of innocent, amusing and foot-tapping entertainment and, in doing so, learnt a lot about themselves and about being part of a different sort of team. My thanks go to them and the large crew of staff, especially Ms Douglas and Mr Perona-Wright, who guided the company in their endeavours and gave them, and us, memories that will be treasured.

The school community has had to work hard through these past two weeks, demonstrating resilience and determination as it dragged itself over the finish line. As I always say, this is a challenging term and, for most of the time, the children have worked well together. There have been some obvious exceptions and we still have to improve the children's attitudes when it comes to responding pro-actively and decisively when confronted with anti-social behaviour.

To stand by and witness such behaviour without reporting it, is to condone it. Often, my question to the children is what would happen ‘if the boot is on the other foot’? They would hope for support, so why not offer it when appropriate?

For most, these holidays are a time for rest and recuperation. However, for some, especially Year 8, there is revision to complete.

As always, the secret to success is planning which achieves a balance between work and play. Small and frequent periods of targeted revision, interspersed by rest and relaxation is perfect and all children should take the weekends off during the holidays. I do hope that all families are afforded the chance to take some time together, my thanks as always for your continued support and I look forward to welcoming you back in April.

Read on to find out more about e our production of Bugsy Malon Individual Achievements Well done to four of our Year 6 boys (Tom Shaw, Harry Mills, Ethan Feinson and Cody Watts) who, as part of the Cheltenham Hockey Club U11 team, were in the U12 County Cup on Sunday.

The team had a fantastic run in the tournament making it all the way to the final, narrowly losing to the Cheltenham Hockey Club U12 team. The boys showed real skill, spirit and determination and fought to the very end.

Jon Whybrow Prep for The Week Issue Number 1856 24 March 2017

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Cinderella's Ball

Prep for The Week Issue Number 1856 24 March 2017

Once upon a time... the children in the Nursery decided to hold a Ball to celebrate the end of their topic this term. They talked about what a good party would need. Some thoughts were: lots of food, loud music, fun games and special guests. So staff went to work to make their dreams a reality! The children had to think of a special guest that they could invite. There was no hesitation - the VIP had to be the gingerbread man himself! He had been spotted on camera the previous week frolicking

in the garden with his friends and had not been seen since. Together they composed their invitation to him and waited in anticipation. The excitement mounted as the afternoon went on. They arrived at their Ball and had a dance with their chosen partner before proceeding to the dining table. There was great delight and joy when they realised that the gingerbread man and his friends had indeed accepted their invitation. A wonderful time was had by all and... they all lived happily ever after!

Reception class also enjoyed a Grand Cinderella Ball! Invitations to this event were coveted by children and staff alike and the children sent out invitations to the lucky few: all invitations were accepted! After much debate this week about what they would wear, the class all brought elegant and glamorous outfits.

The general consensus was that they all looked amazing, and certainly fit for such a high class event. The 'champagne' flowed as they waltzed

and boogied the afternoon away, with disco balls and balloons to set the scene. Delicate cupcakes were consumed as polite discussions were held on whose outfit was the best and whose shoes they would like to try on. Mrs Carson, Mr Theedom, Mrs Conner and Miss Kent, who attended on Mr Whybrow’s behalf, enjoyed the afternoon tremendously! Ludo said "I liked dancing with Zandra" and Bobby said "I liked weraing my bow tie!".

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Show Stolen by Gangsters with

Splurge Guns!

The final week of the Spring Term has seen the Assembly Hall transformed into a professional theatre – with the help of Blue Parrott (an Edinburgh production company, owned and run by two OCs) – complete with staging, lighting, sound and a huge video wall! This is all to enable the pupils who form the cast of Bugsy Malone the chance to experience high quality theatre productions whilst at The Prep. The pupils have been working incredibly hard during this academic year (in amongst everything else they

Prep for The Week Issue Number 1856 24 March 2017

do!) to put the show together, and they will have performed it six times before the end of term: two dress rehearsals to pupils from The Prep, one performance to pupils from Naunton Park Primary School and Airthrie, and three evening performances to our own parents! They have been fantastic throughout, have obviously enjoyed the experience of ‘treading the boards’ (as well as all the splurging that takes place in the show…), and it is incredibly important to be able

to offer the children the creative opportunities that something of this scale entails. Of course, these things are always a huge team effort, and we are immensely grateful to all the staff who have helped us in some way (with costumes, make-up, supervision, etc) – almost too many to mention. We will, however, mention those staff who have been integral to the running of the show and without whom it simply wouldn’t have happened – Miss Jones, Miss Anderes, Mrs Parsley, Mr Webber, Mr PeronaWright and Mrs Douglas. The school is lucky to have such talented pupils and dedicated staff. Bravo to all!

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Well done to all the wonderful cast members and support crew of

Bugsy Malone

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Kingfishers Congratulations Kingfishers on a term well done.

We have welcomed many new children into the Cottage, tracked down a missing gingerbread man in Reception, performed our assembly to parents in Year 1 and begun our transition activities in Year 2. As we welcome the Summer Term, we look forward to dressing up as our favourite famous person, Speaking and Listening Week, visits to castles, farm parks and the seaside, sports days and of course our summer productions. All of this is, of course, in addition to the hard work carried out and progress made, by the boys and girls in the classroom. Thank you to our parents and carers for your ongoing support, enabling us to deliver our exciting curriculum and we wish you a Happy Easter from Kingfishers.

From Mrs Buttress

Special Tea for Mummies Year 1 have pulled out all the stops to spoil their Mummies this week. They invited them to afternoon tea, where they served their Mummy specially made sandwiches and scones, which they had made during a visit to Lower School.

The children had drawn and coloured pictures of their Mummy to decorate the ‘tea room’ and, after a video show about why their Mummies are so special, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house! Happy Mother's Day to all Mummies everywhere, from our Kingfishers boys and girls.

Those of you who have been following the adventures of the missing gingerbread man will be pleased to hear that Reception class boys and girls found the sneaky biscuit hiding in the Headmaster's office. Sorry about all the crumbs, Mr Whybrow...

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Lower School “It was really fun, I liked looking at the history as well as decorating the boxes.” - Emma Critchley “I liked working with my team, I had a good time with them. I could discuss ideas to get a good solution.” - Lawrence Young

Last week, Year 3 had a cracking time finding out all about Easter Eggs. We looked at the history and symbolism behind the egg and how Easter Eggs are made. Did you know that one well-known chocolate company makes nearly 50 million eggs a year? We then had great fun looking at how the eggs are advertised and packaged so that we could design and create our own branding and packaging in class. Great ideas, teamwork and enthusiasm were in abundance as everyone worked on their team’s egg.

Maths As part of a data handling project, children in Year 3 were asked to investigate which colour sweet there was more of in a packet of Skittles or Starburst. First they made a prediction and decided there might be more red or green sweets. The next step was to draw a frequency table to count the numbers of sweets carefully. A tally was a quick way of doing this and then it was easy to work out the frequency. In the next lesson, Year 3 will be creating a bar chart from their information.

The results showed that there are

more green and red Skittles and more red and purple Starburst.

Luckily, these are Mrs Mackman’s favourite colours! Interestingly the pupils' predictions were correct.

Year 4 Enrichment: Bridging The Gap Year 4 came to the end of their Bridging the Gap project this week. Having investigated the different kinds of bridges there are, such as beam, arch and suspension, they tried different ways to join and strengthen the materials we were going to use.

The challenge was to design and build a bridge that would hold a specified weight, was a certain length and a minimum height, built only from straws!

The class members worked really well together to meet the design brief and had lots of fun testing and demonstrating what they had created.

After lots of fun and learning, we had 9 newly packaged Easter Eggs.

We finished up by presenting our ideas and eggs for everyone to view. Easter Eggs will certainly be looked at in a different way next month. It’s not all about the chocolate!

“I think this helped with my learning, it gave me a boost of confidence to show my egg to Year 3 - It made me hungry!” - Octavia D’Orazi “ I learned that Easter Day isn’t just about fun, it is about Jesus and when he died.” - Monty CampbellBlack Prep for The Week Issue Number 1856 24 March 2017

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"In the Net" The Year 4 pupils of Lower School were treated to a fantastic drama production to teach them about Internet safety. The Internet was brought to life through a story about Dotty who had been unkind to a friend online. She learned what happened with the information that she sent and how it couldn't be taken back. The main lesson the pupils learnt was that being unkind to someone online is exactly the same as being unkind to someone in real life. The story also explained what we should do if we encounter inappropriate, unsafe websites or anything that doesn't seem right. The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the production, but at the same time have learnt some very valuable rules for using the Internet safely.

Perhaps you could test them to find out exactly what they know!

Here are some of our pupils finishing Gymnastic Club for the Spring Term with a few sports acro balances! Gymnastics Club will be back next September for Years 3-8.

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Middle School Year 5 and Year 6 Science lessons this term have given pupils a chance to try their hand at a variety of practical investigations. These included: testing different brands of indigestion tablets, separating salt from rock salt, growing peas or building and testing parachutes.

Year 6 Build Mosques Year 6 concluded their study of Islam by building and annotating mosques in class. This term, they've been very busy honing their research skills and asking investigative questions about the beliefs and practices of Islam.

This also included creating informative brochures for pilgrims going to Mecca (some of which are on display in Room 20).

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Upper School

Fantastic Second Place Finish for Maths Team Last week two of our strongest Year 8 mathematicians joined with two Year 9 pupils from College to compete in the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust team competition at Wycliffe School.

Competing against 30 other schools, the pupils had to work as a team to solve a variety of mathematical problems. The team performed superbly, and finished in a highly impressive second place position, ahead of our local maths competition, Cheltenham Ladies' College, who came third.

Library Monitors Appointed Well done to Phoebe Channing, Georgia Turner, Honor Hardie, Maria Cowing, Josie Grounds and Jemimah Kayode (all right), who have all been appointed as Library Monitors. The Prep's Librarian said " These 6 girls were chosen because of their ongoing commitment to the Library and unfailing willingness to assist me. They have been admirable in all that they have done so far to help in the Library and will, no doubt, continue to be."

Eldest and Youngest Pupils Meet!

Members of the 1st Rugby Team and the boys and girls from the Nursery enjoyed spontaneously spending some time together this week! The Nursery children were just leaving their reading session as the Year 8 boys came in for an hour prior to their big games! Everyone enjoyed getting to know one another, and the little boys and girls particularly enjoyed showing off all their favourite toys to the bigger children!

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Aiden flew their glider along the runway in the Museum hangar. The flight was less successful than the Regional round but to reach the National Grand Final was a huge achievement in itself. It was a brilliant day and the pupils were great ambassadors for Cheltenham Prep.

They enjoyed exploring all of the uphill along a zip wire was the final planes (particularly Concorde) and challenge, using only elastic bands, lolly sticks, paper clips and tape! Very helicopters and learnt so much about the huge range of aircraft on display. tough, but the boys worked very effectively together and applied lots STEM Club members look forward to of the principles of lift, drag, yaw and competing again next year. roll they have been learning during STEM sessions. Matthew, Jasper and Drew were hugely successful and came first, second and third in their groups in the engineering competitions.

Pupils Fly into Final of STEM Compeitition!

The Grand Final of the Flying Start Challenge was held at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton. This was the National stage that our pupils had qualified for, having come in the top three of the Regional round on 1 March.

The competition involved a number of engineering activities and presentations. The day started with an exciting presentation by the 'Bloodhound SSC' team, a supersonic car designed to go faster than the speed of sound and break the land speed record. This led on to the pupils designing and building their own air powered car using limited equipment. Later they used the principles of flight they had been introduced to in the STEM sessions to design a helicopter rotary system that would support a pilot teddy and guide him safely from the second floor of the museum to the ground.

This then had to land accurately at the centre of a target. Designing the carriage that would travel Prep for The Week Issue Number 1856 24 March 2017

The qualifying team of Willoughby, Archie and Aiden also had to present their design to the Chairman of Safran, the aircraft engineering company, and some of the lead engineers from Rolls Royce and Airbus. The boys were confident and explained their designs clearly using lots of the technical terms they had learnt over the last two terms.

They were given quite a grilling about their design and I was hugely impressed with their calm approach.

The day was bought to a close when Willoughby, Archie and 11

Boys' Sport For news, fixtures and updates, follow us on Tw itter! @cheltprep_boys

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Unlike last week's wonderfully sunny afternoon of sport, this week saw a wonderfully wet afternoon of sport, with a little hail storm to keep everyone on their toes! Up on the astros we had a super afternoon of U8 hockey. A mixed ability festival with St Hugh’s and Dean Close saw plenty of hockey taking place on Cotswold and Linton – a great end to the season. The Middle School boys charged out in the rain for the annual House Football tournament: there were plenty of goals, super sliding tackles and lots of mud – with an overall win for Rome House. The Upper School boys began their preparation for the Summer Term with an afternoon of cricket nets in The Barn.

in the country at the Down’s 7s, we headed off to the Sibford 7s.

This tournament involved a lot of grammar schools, who were selecting from year groups of well over 100 boys. We, selecting from just 32 Year 8s, headed into the event with plenty of confidence and it showed right from the off.

The boys are playing the game with such width, depth and patience that we were close to unstoppable. The boys had a small scare from the Kenyans in the Group stage, but came through top of the group, scoring a lot of tries in the process. Their physical approach to the breakdown put them past Warriner School in the quarter finals and their handling and width put them past Cotswold School in the semi-final. This meant the team headed into the Along with College, The Prep has final against Bredon Hill, who had been hosting the Kenyan IAPS 7s only lost one rugby match in two side this week. This is a ‘Barbarians’ terms of rugby, so the boys knew side made up of the best players they had to be on top of their from each of the Kenyan Prep game. They went out and played Schools who have come over as near to perfection as possible! for the National 7s. They have In a ten minute game, they won been staying in College boarding the final 42-0. I am not sure I have houses and joined our boys in the adjectives to describe the way their tournament on Tuesday. the boys played the game, all I can They managed to find some space do is remember it with a smile. between the hockey and the football and got some 7s training The boys now head off to the under their belt... although the National Finals at Rosslyn Park hail was quite a shock for them! firmly placed as a team to be looked out for and later in There was one group doing April the boys will be playing absolutely nothing (which is very at Franklin’s Gardens – the unlike Cheltenham Prep boys on Northampton Saints’ pitch – in a Wednesday afternoon!), but a Champion of Champions with good reason. The 1st VII tournament, made up of other 7s rugby boys spent the afternoon tournament winners. sitting in a classroom resting and catching up on their missed work. Have a great break and practise After their incredible win against your bowling! some of the best Prep Schools Mr Duncan Simpson 12

NOTICES Happy Birthday to the

Uniform Shop

their birthday during the

Easter Holiday Opening Times

following pupils who celebrate Easter holidays!

Martha Keene 6 Eva Tabatabai 6 Jasmine Walker 6 Kitty Corbyn 7 Daisy de Quincey Adams 7 Orlando Gledhill 7 Beatrix Thomson 7 Benjamin Arnold 8 Zac McCarthy 8 Hector Evans 9 Jules Hazeldine 9 Charlie Maclean 9 Lily Ropner 9 Craig Simpson 9 Paras Aggarwal 10 Harriet Keen 10 Charles Mills 10 Teddy Bennett 11 Maddi Gill 11 Dawson Berkey 12 Eva de Quincey Adams 12 Eliana Hale 12 Claudie MacInnes 12 Angus Wragg 12 Ross Broughton-Johnson 13 Dorothea Peterken 13 Prep for The Week Issue Number 1856 24 March 2017

Please note that, during the Easter Holidays, the uniform shop will be open on: Wednesday 29 March 1:30-4pm Friday 31 March 1-3 pm The shop will then reopen on Wednesday 26 March at the usual opening times (1:30-4pm).

Keep up to date!

Stay up to date with Cheltenham Prep during the Easter holidays by following us on Twitter (@cheltprep) or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ CheltenhamPrep).

Summer Term 2017 Key Dates Tues 18 April - Boarders Return Wed 19 April - Summer Term starts Fri 28 April - Monday 1 May - Exeat Fri 26 May - Sunday 4 June - Half Term Sat 1 July - Summer Term ends

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