St Teresa's Prep Weekly Bulletin 20 November 2023

Issue 9

Autumn Term

24th November 2023

Prep School Carol Service Invitation Thursday 7th December 2023 The Headteacher, staff and pupils have great pleasure in inviting the Prep School parents to our Prep School Christmas Service on Thursday 7th December at 6.30pm in the Mairlot Hall Festive refreshments will be served following the performance.

Key Diary Dates: Wed 29th Nov

4CR Class Assembly, Henderson Hall

8.30—9.00

Thu 30th Nov

Year 4, Viking Workshop

All Day

Fri 1st Dec

Mufti day—wear own clothes to school and bring a bottle or chocolate donation All Day

FOST Christmas Fair (see letter for full details)

16:15

Wed 6th Dec

Whole School Advent Evensong, Chapel (parents & girls are welcome to join us) 17:30

Thu 7th Dec

Prep School Christmas Service, Mairlot Hall

18:30—19.30

Mon 11th Dec

Christmas Music Celebration—Choirs and Music Ensembles, Chapel

17:30—18:30

Tue 12th Dec

Year 3, Visit to Felbury House Residential Home (further details to follow)

Afternoon

Tue 12th Dec

Prep School Santa Dash (further details to come) PLEASE NOTE REVISED DATE AM

Fri 15th Dec

Wear a Christmas Jumper (optional)

All day

Prep School Christmas Lunch

Lunch Time

Prep School Christmas Pantomime—Cinderella

Afternoon

Term Ends

16.15

No After School Care—Study will run as usual until 16.15 Mon 8th Jan

School Closed—Staff INSET

Tue 9th Jan

School Resumes

Mon 15th Jan

Year 6, Lifelab commences

4CR—Class Assembly Parents of girls in 4CR are invited to join us for their class assembly On Wednesday 29th November 2023 At 8.30am in the Henderson Hall Refreshments will be served in the Henderson Hall from 8.15am

Christmas Celebration Invitation Monday 11th December All are welcome to attend our informal Christmas Celebration, where the choirs and music ensembles will be performing a variety of festive pieces. on Monday 11th December at 5.30pm in the School Chapel Festive refreshments will be served afterwards.

Message for Year 6 Parents If you wish to accept the place for your daughter to join the Senior School in September 2024, please return your completed Form of Acceptance to Mrs Charles as soon as possible but no later than Monday 4th December 2023 in order to guarantee the place.

Christmas Jumpers—Friday 15th December We would like to invite the girls to wear a ‘Christmas jumper’ with their school uniforms (if they would like to) on Friday 15th December. This is the last day of term, so it should help us all to get into the festive spirit for our Christmas lunch and end of term panto!

Christmas Post Box We will be running a Christmas post service for the children from 4th December. If the girls would like to send cards to their friends they should write the name of the recipient and their class clearly on the front of the envelope. The cards will be delivered at the end of term.

End of Day Collection from the Prep School Now that it is so dark at the end of the day, in order to keep the girls safe, we will only release them to you when you reach the turning circle outside the Prep School. Please could you ensure that you have a name sign on the dashboard as additional staff may help with dismissal. Thank you for your understanding.

This week you should have received: Whole School

Christmas Fair information

Whole School

Prep Christmas Service letter

Year 6

Lifelab letter

Please contact the School Office if you need copies of any of this information—prepinfo@st-teresas.com

Effingham Reading Challenge This week, girls in Year 5 and Year 6 have been introduced to the Effingham Reading Challenge 2024. If they wish to participate, the challenge involves reading five books by May half term.

There is one member of staff allocated to each book who will quiz the girls once they have read the whole book.

Certificates and a prize will be awarded to all the girls who manage to complete the challenge by May half term.

We have a small number of each book stocked in our library at school. However, if there are a large number of girls wishing to participate, it may be useful to borrow copies from your local library.

Polar Visit This week, the girls had a fantastic visit from Mr Josh Braid, who is planning an expedition to Antarctica in a few weeks time to raise money for two children’s charities; Rocking Horse and Kidscape . Josh spoke to the whole school in assembly and then stayed on to answer questions from our Year 6 who are currently learning all about Ernest Shackleton and his adventures.

Josh is running a competition for the girls to design a sticker to go on his specially designed expedition sledge, complete with rocking horse! See the poster below for details of the competition.

You can find out more about Josh’s trip or donate at www.joshbraid.co.uk

COMPETITION . COMPETITION . COMPETITION. COMPETITION Art & Photography Competition The Rotary Young Photographer and Young Artist are well-established and successful annual competitions promoted by Rotary International in Great Britain.

Last Year we were extremely proud to have a runner up and a national winner from the Prep School and we hope to be successful again this year!

Entries are submitted in age groups for fairness.

Please see details below.

Art Competition— ‘Rebuilding’ The competition aims to encourage young people to be creative and develop skills in using traditional, contemporary or digital media.

The girls should submit a 2-dimensional, up to a maximum size of A2, unframed, piece of artwork based upon the theme, ‘Rebuilding’, with a sentence to explain the relationship to the theme.

The judges will be looking for technical merit, content and composition, and imagination and style.

They welcome artwork in any medium: For example – pen & ink, paint, collage, printmaking or digital formats.

Plagiarised or 'close-copied' images are not permitted.

At all stages of the competition, competitors will receive a certificate of participation and there are prizes for the winners of the age groups for the National Final.

Photography Competition— ‘Rebuilding’ The competition aims to encourage young people to experiment with photography, use digital and/or traditional methods of photography, demonstrate interpretation of the topic and express personal ideas through the medium of photography.

The girls should produce one photograph based upon the theme, ‘Rebuilding’ with a sentence to explain the relationship to the theme. Mobile Phones or cameras may be used. The photograph must be submitted via Digital Format and be at least 1500 pixel in size on the longest length. The entries and supporting information sent electronically must not exceed 15Mb per email sent.

The judges will be looking for technical merit, content and composition, and imagination and style Plagiarised or 'close-copied' images are not permitted.

At all stages of the competition, competitors will receive a certificate of participation and there are prizes for the winners of the age groups for the National Final.

Entries should be submitted to the School Office no later than Tuesday 16th January 2024, accompanied by a completed entry form. Any entries submitted after this date cannot be accepted.

Entry forms are available from the School Office.

Please ensure that all entries are carefully labelled with your daughter’s full name and age.

Golden Book Well done to all of the girls in our Golden Books this week: 3RN

Liel G for her excellent effort this week in all areas of the curriculum. Liel is listening carefully and contributing her answers, particularly in English when creating a playscript between two bronze age traders.

Ottilie H for her excellent work this week in English, creating a playscript using fantastic vocabulary and then turning it in to a detailed comic strip! Well done Ottilie.

3KC

Mikayla O for creating a fabulous playscript for a Bronze Age trader, working together as a team and performing it to the class confidently.

Flossie H for always trying so hard in her reading both at home and at school and for sharing some wonderful ideas for her group's playscript.

4LH

Cecily P and Beatrice St-G for their excellent teamwork when devising and testing code that would make their robots move forwards, backwards and diagonally; turn; play music and lights; and write with a pen. Fantastic work!

Zoe G for her investigation skills during science this week. She made some interesting observations and asked additional questions following her finding.

4AB

Primrose L for being on fire in mathematics week. She has been fabulous and enthusiastic when learning about different types of triangle.

Ania S for using wonderful description in her battle scene writing Esme S for her super contributions during our egg experiment lessons

4CR

Ava-Skye N for her fantastic use of imaginative language when writing her battle scene.

Mary J for her fantastic effort to write clear, detailed description.

Rosalind D for her use of personification in her descriptive writing.

5HC

Serena O for her super focus and detailed written instructions on mummification in English.

Summer C for her excellent focus and participation in in English this week working on new techniques to use in creative writing.

Jena W for her fantastic examples of a variety of sentence starters in English.

5KH

Natalia for her enthusiasm and hard work during Maths Week Emily and Lottie for their detailed instructions on how to mummify a body

Maths Week After a fabulous week, Maths Week has come to an end. It has been a week of problem solving, application of mathematics and fun. Kicking off with a reminder to notice Mathematics all around us, we then all launched into activities using the theme, '3 is a magic number'. The girls have been participating keenly. They have entered estimating competitions, completed a Maths Trail and even cracked the emoji codes. Well done for all of the effort on Battle of the Bands where the girls have been earning points completing their times tables on Times Table Rock Stars. Certificates and prizes will be handed out once the entries have all been collected.

One highlight of the week was our assembly led by Dr Daniel. Dr Daniel gave a fascinating talk about the use of Mathematics by psychologists. After sharing some of her adventures with Maths and Science in school, Dr Daniel showed how statistics and graphing allow psychologists to show exactly what is happening within the brain. She ended on a super message that key qualities required to be a successful mathematician are being conscientious, having perseverance and being positive. Thank you so much for coming in to speak to the girls.

On Wednesday, Subject Revolution were back with another superb escape room. All of the girls were trapped in the castle by Queen Crow and had to solve the different puzzles to crack the code and escape. There were puzzles using Roman numerals, time zones, place value, measurement and even semaphore. Perseverance, team work and application of knowledge were all essential when solving these challenges. You will be pleased to know that all of the girls were let out of the castle dungeons.

Huge thanks to Mrs Ridulfa for her hard work in organising all these exciting mathematical activities.

Year 4 Science In Science this week, Year 4 have been looking at the impact of various liquids on our teeth's enamel. Taking some boiled eggs, we submerged them in various liquids such as coke, coffee and tonic water and one week later took a look to see what had happened. There were a few surprises when we came to analyse the results!

Year 4—Art The girls in Year 4 have created some fabulously creative coral-themed designs. They looked at the work of Yellina James, as well as carefully observing the many different shapes of coral. Their process included painting a watercolour background using a variety of techniques and then included overlapping coral, which had different heights and patterns.

Eco & Gardening Club Eco and Gardening Club planted loads of daffodils and pansies to brighten up the raised beds in the Prep School playground. The girls were amazing at planting the plants and bulbs in semi-darkness especially as there were over one hundred in total. Also, they loved seeing all the kale starting to sprout up. Well done girls, your enthusiasm is never ending!

Music News Musicians of the Week Year 3 – Molly W for being very brave and for her amazing singing!

Year 4 – Thea B-H for enthusiastic and beautiful singing!

Year 5 – Eva M for wonderful part singing in Chamber Choir – well done Eva! Year 6 – Tessa M for always being ready to learn and singing like an angel!

Christmas Performance—FOST Fair Reminder! – The Prep School carol singers will be serenading our parents and visitors in the Mairlot Hall at the Christmas Fair next Friday at 4.15pm. We hope to see you there!

Message from Mrs Harris: I would be very grateful if you could help your children to remember their instruments on the following days; Monday – Y3 recorders, Orchestra, Assembly Band Tuesday – Wind Ensemble Wednesday – String Group Friday – Guitar Ensemble, Assembly Band

Sports News Netball—On Saturday, St T’s U9Bs travelled to Hoe Bridge School for a tournament. The girls played 6 matches in total over the morning. They demonstrated their secure knowledge of the positions throughout. Well done to everyone who participate and a special mention to Electra B, who was awarded St T's player of the tournament for her ability to exploit space in attack to win herself the ball.

The U10 netball teams took on Manor House in a friendly netball match on Tuesday. It was great to see the girl implement the skills they have learnt throughout their games afternoons and in netball club. Their movement on court was great and the defence from the B team outstanding! All 3 teams won!! Keep up the hard work girls.

Hockey The U8's travelled to Feltonfleet school for an exciting year group hockey fixture! Everyone worked their socks off, some great goals were scored and there was some terrific defending on show. The girls worked well in their teams and made the school proud. Despite 3 losses and 1 win overall, all the teams had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the hockey, improving in every quarter we played.

The U9s travelled to Notre Dame for a hockey match on Friday. The girls were filled with excitement as they left school.

They showcased their fantastic skills and were fighting for the ball the whole time!! A team-won, B team-won , C team-drew, D team–won. Well done to the girls!

Well done to the U9A hockey team who had a fun filled morning of hockey on Saturday. Everyone worked hard and displayed fantastic team spirit. A special mention to Thea for scoring a well earned goal! Well done all.

Swimming This week, the U8-U10 had a home swim gala against St Hilary's Prep. The girls had been working hard on their backstroke during lessons and amazingly we came 1st and 2nd in every backstroke race. They fought hard and made vast improvements from the previous gala narrowly missing out on victory. We look forward to the next gala against Notre Dame where the U11 will be joining us.

Fixtures (week commencing 27th November) Monday 27th November—U9 Christmas Hockey Tournament @ Downsend 2-4pm Tuesday 28th November– U10A-D hockey V Feltonfleet (A) 2:30pm Tuesday 28th November—U11A-D Netball V Danes Hill (H) 2:30pm Friday 1st December– U9A&B Netball V Manor House (H) 2:30pm Friday 1st December—U8 Interhouse Hockey (during games)

This Week This week saw the celebration of Thanksgiving, an annual secular feast, ostensibly celebrated in America, but with increasing resonances across the globe. Most of us will be familiar with the traditional account of how a group of persecuted individuals, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, left England on the Mayflower and other ships, and travelled to the New World - what we now know as the USA - in search of religious freedom and new, unknown opportunities. Following their arrival in 1620, and after a perilous journey where many died, they then faced challenges of weather, famine, disease and strained relationships with the indigenous population. However, after the hardest of winters, where the new colony continued to mourn the loss of many members, the group, supported now by compassionate original inhabitants, gather to give thanks, with a meal of local fare. And so the tradition of Thanksgiving arose.

We have a local link to this foundation story with one of the original travellers on the Mayflower being William Mullins, who lived in Dorking and whose house, on West Street, now a delightful café, stands to this day. However, a careful read of the details in the house shows that in fact Mullins was not actually a Pilgrim Father.

Rather than fleeing persecution, we was just ceasing the opportunities that such a trip would present.

Delving a bit deeper, we find that perhaps the celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts was not the first ‘Thanksgiving’ There are account two years earlier in Virginia of a similar celebration of thanksgiving. At about the same time, in New England, there are records of a weekly thanksgiving service. And, to trump them all, 50 years earlier, in 1565 there is the record of the first Thanksgiving on American soil as Spanish Catholic settlers in Florida celebrated the first Mass on the continent in Thanksgiving for their safe arrival.

It is clear that the origins of Thanksgiving are contested, what is not is that those earlier settlers immediate response to their arrival was to stop and give thanks to God. This, more than any other, is surely the point of this feast. It serves as a timely reminder that we all to often take God’s free gifts for granted. Perhaps this week we can take time to give thanks for what we have received and join in with the spirit of the original Thanksgiving, wherever that may have been.

Please follow us on FOST instagram account: @fost_st_teresas_effingham

PRE-PURCHASE

RAFFLE

BOOK SANTA’S

FAIR TOKENS

TICKETS

GROTTO

E-mail equestrian@st-teresas.com Call

Visit our website www.st-teresas.com/ equestrian

01372 750257

Or find us on Facebook “St Teresa’s

Booking System st-teresas-equestrian.ecpro.co.uk

We hope that you have had a good week.

We are aware of some school trips and sporting events over the next week or so. If your child cannot attend one of their lessons, then please let the office know by phone or by email, or the lesson can be cancelled on the booking site. If you wish to cancel a lesson, we do require 48hrs notice or more in order to offer credit.

Topic of the week: Colic When a horse doesn’t eat for a long period of time and doesn’t have enough food going through their intestines, the gas builds up inside them and, if its not treated, it can get more severe and move the horse’s large intestine out of place. The signs of colic are: pawing the ground, trying to roll, an increased heart rate, lack of gut sounds and trying to bite their flanks. It is important to know what the symptoms of colic are so that you can call the vet. ~ Libby C

Menu—w/c Monday 27th November 2023 Hot lunches include a selection of family favourites and suitable alternatives for children with allergies and intolerances.

Items in Italic - Sourced from F Conisbee’s, our local butcher