Lockdown Term 2020
The momentous events at the end of March necessitated a huge change to the way that the Prep School worked, rested, and played. Our response needed to be innovative, flexible and robust. A combined effort of staff, parents and children enabled us to reinvent ourselves as a lively and colourful digital school, where children could still grow and flourish. The character of the children shone through and, to paraphrase Philip Larkin, the Prep School community made sure that they still found time to be kind. That kindness, energy and imagination is reflected in this vivid record of the life of the Prep School during a pandemic. Adam Edwards Headmaster, Fettes Prep School
A Note from the Editor
During the rollercoaster ride of the Spring term, pupils, parents and staff were catapulted into a virtual teaching and learning environment, not quite knowing where the next twist or turn was going to take them! For this issue of Busy Bee, we have chosen to focus on some of our community’s most memorable moments from that term, including unbelievable resilience; projects that particularly inspired the pupils; fantastic pieces of work; crazy tutor group times; events that did and didn’t happen; and photographs and videos that lifted our spirits. In the new year we will publish our ‘Bounce Back’ Term – Autumn 2020’s Busy Bee. Please see below all the ways of keeping in touch with us: www.fettes.com www.fettes.com/FettesPrep www.twitter.com/Fettes_College www.flickr.com/Fettes_College www.facebook.com/FettesCollegeFettesPrep www.instagram.com/fettes.college
summer Term
Community
From the 20th March onwards, our Prep community was spread far and wide
Pupils were located all over the world, including UK, USA, Australia, China, Cyprus, Russia, France, Hong Kong, Majorca and Italy. Not everyone that travelled was able get home straight away, so some intrepid Prep pupils and staff were challenged with learning in a variety of settings.
Journeys and Adventures
Mrs Brathwaite added an international dimension to our virtual staff meetings by flying back to Barbados to join husband, Jerome, in preparation for her maternity leave. The setting may have been idyllic, but this necessitated welcoming tutees at 4am Barbadian time! Anna and Jerome welcomed Jaycee Olivia Brathwaite into the world on the 7th September.
Tim had a marathon trip home to China which involved a period of hotel quarantine; time in hospital after feeling unwell; and a repeated quarantine experience followed by a long train journey home to Chendu. Despite these setbacks, Tim kept his spirits up and even managed to tackle his schoolwork. None of us at the Prep School will forget the tale of his adventure and resilience.
Community Spirit We kept our community spirit going with regular communication; teaching and learning new skills; being creative; and taking part in fun whole-school initiatives. We enjoyed online variations of familiar events like the Poetry Competition and Sports Day.
Prep Community Initiatives
The ‘Dress in Red’ theme was one of the earliest and these pictures show how uplifting it was to be united in colour.
Wider Community Initiatives
Clapping and Playing
We joined the Thursday night ‘clap for carers’ from our multitude of locations, humbled by the amazing job they were doing in looking after sick and vulnerable members of our communities. We joined the National Youth Orchestra in a nationwide performance of ‘Ode to Joy’ and sang ‘Over the Rainbow’ to honour all of those who work so tirelessly to care for others.
Mrs Scott’s son volunteered as a blood biker!
Baking and Cooking
Baking and cooking were recurring activities during lockdown. Some of us, like Calum, enjoyed doing this for our families and many, like Toby and Rosie, went further, making treats and cakes for others. Toby cooked a cake every Monday for five weeks for the doctors and nurses of St John’s hospital hand and plastic surgery team, whilst Rosie produced treats for families living at Fettes.
Granton Gardeners
A group of Prep School staff joined regular Granton Community Gardeners helper, Mrs Flett, to deliver lunches to the elderly, vulnerable and those struggling due to changes in circumstance caused by the onset of Covid-19. Staff donated to an appeal for extra delivery carts and pupils Archie, Angus and Calum helped with the deliveries.
Water Aid Access to clean water, vital for a healthy life, has always been of paramount importance. The Milburn family took part in a 26 mile bike ride to raise funds for Water Aid and highlight the plight of those living without clean, fresh water.
Teaching assistant Raphael was at home in Macau and, alongside his learning commitments, found time to help teach maths at his former school.
summer Term
Life
Tutor time was our chance to come together and talk through worries; share some excellent work; enjoy quizzes; and simply encourage each other! We shared breakfasts; baking sessions; and even our taste in hats and socks. Our pets joined us for some of the time and we came to realise, if we didn’t know already, how much of a source of fun and comfort they were to us all. Mrs Fletcher and Mrs Milburn found themselves hosting tutor meetings which included two cats, a dog, a guinea pig, a fish and a horse!
Tutor Time Fun
We were so proud of the way our pupils used their communication skills and the support which they gave to one another.
Assembly and Challenges
We continued to hold assemblies three times a week and spoke about the importance of being kind and looking after our families. We also issued a number of fun challenges!
Mrs Scott’s Skills We had online challenges aplenty from Mrs Scott who, together with the fabulous Fettes Catering Team, shared their top baking and cookery tips. Many of our pupils followed their recipes and proudly produced entire meals; delicious tray bakes; and novel popcorn flavours. Mrs Fletcher launched International Food Week and we learnt about cuisines from all over the world, such as Nidal’s Moroccan feast. Other skill sessions included ironing a shirt and making a face mask.
Mr Hall’s Sunflowers We’re used to seeing our sunflowers with their colourful waving heads bobbing around in the breeze outside William House, but this year the competition was staged in our own gardens. The greenhouse was in use for families onsite who took the opportunity to grow tomatoes and plant nasturtiums.
Mrs Muddiman’s Eco Modelling Mrs Muddiman set us the challenge to repurpose bits and pieces we have at home, including waste from our recycling bins, in order to find uses for everyday items before they are finally consigned to recycling. We made pencil containers; outdoor plant pots; games; storage for toys; and Kitty constructed a rabbit hutch for her pet rabbit, Lilly.
Awards and Certificates We awarded an avalanche of red stars during the term. The certificate totals were so large that we instituted a new Rainbow Certificate.
summer Term
Learning from Home Learning From Home taught us all to think creatively; adapt swiftly; work collaboratively; and carry on resiliently. From M Form to 2nd Form, our pupils had a timetable specific to their age group which was divided into 30-minute sections. A full day’s timetable provided continuity of structure, but we also built in flexibility to ensure that learning fitted around the family dynamic.
OneNote
Lessons were taught on OneNote and delivered in a variety of ways including demonstrations; PowerPoint presentations; quizzes; worksheets; and topic videos. As term progressed, we also moved on to a schedule of live lessons in Maths, Science, French and Latin.
Teachers were on email throughout the school day to check how their pupils were managing, marking work and giving lots of positive feedback and encouragement.
Our Teachers
Within the OneNote set up, the children had access to digital jotters and collaboration spaces where they shared ideas and fun pages, including photos of pets; book recommendations; and community initiatives.
Inspiring Projects Project work gave pupils the chance to research new and exciting topics in depth. Examples included mask and model making; scale drawings of dream homes; eco-modelling; poster making; virtual corridors; set design; reaction pieces; and creative fun with programs like Tinkercad. These, and many more, fuelled their imaginations and gave them the freedom to explore their creativity.
History The pupils enjoyed history topics which included Egyptian mummies; Mayan kingdoms; and medals, to name just a few. S and T Forms designed their own versions of VE Day medals to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of VE Day.
Our geographers didn’t have the opportunity to venture far from home. They only needed to open a map, get lost in an adventure story, or catch one of the many fantastic natural world programmes to escape from the confines of home and find themselves transported to Africa, Oceania, South America and the mountains of the United Kingdom.
Geography
Science
We looked at life cycles and processes using our gardens and nearby green spaces to see plant pollination and reproduction in action. We produced handmade ‘Top Trumps’ to illustrate types of energy and energy transfer.
We constructed models to help us with our French vocabulary; our ‘fruit et legume’ models were works of art! One of the favourite lessons of the term was a practical involving crêpe making.
French
Maths
Hegarty Maths Stats 217 hours of maths videos watched
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39,760 questions answered 35,107 correct 1,120 hours spent learning maths on the Hegarty platform
Maths lessons were held live with pupils working together in small groups. In addition to lessons, many pupils joined in the Hegarty Maths challenges.
We were certainly writing creatively during lockdown. The 2nd Form contributed to a virtual corridor of work, producing reaction pieces to the novel ‘Maggot Moon’ by Sally Gardiner.
English
Latin
We covered a multitude of topics from detailed projects about the Roman Army and theatre to drawing and making delicate mosaic art and masks.
summer Term
Music
It was a very different, but nonetheless productive and very positive, term of musicmaking in the Prep School. Over 120 individual music lessons took place remotely each week, with pupils making some fantastic progress on their instruments and with their singing. Our dedicated team of visiting music teachers were very impressed with the way that the children engaged with their lessons online and kept up their practice over the term. In class music lessons each week, challenges included learning action songs from around the world, including Israel, France and Australia, with some African music too. There were some body percussion patterns to get us all moving and keeping our co-ordination in tip-top shape!
Pupil comments from their Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony lesson “Triumphant and inspiring. When you understand the struggle Beethoven went through as he was losing his hearing, you can almost hear the relief in the exultant crescendo at the end; it is such a powerful and uplifting piece” Henry A “I think this symphony is dramatic, catchy and exuberant” James R “Symphony No. 5 lets you go to a totally different world - it gets you away from your worries and you just melt away with the music” Nimrat K
Our final Summer Concert was a wonderfully uplifting celebration of much of the vibrant musical activity that took place during the last few weeks. A fantastic array of engaging and characterful solo performances kept us enthralled, with our Trumpet Trio and Flute group leading the way, followed by a poignant rendition of ‘Language’ by our Chamber Choir singers.
We started the term with the National Youth Orchestra’s video performance of ‘Ode to Joy’, followed by pupils’ performances of ‘Over The Rainbow’ in support of the NHS and key workers. Our Form Concerts included amazing performances throughout the school. Special mention must go to Samuel, who broke his arm after half term, but thankfully he had already sent a video of his stunning drumming piece before his accident. With perseverance and an amazingly positive spirit, he managed to perform a quite beautiful, one-handed piano piece!
Pupils honed their rhythmic skills and musical literacy with fun games, including ‘Rhythm Wars’ and kinaesthetic pitch games. They also attempted composition using various music apps. The 2nd Form pupils shared their ‘Desert Island Discs’ with each other. We received over 100 videos of children’s performances and it was wonderful to share their playing and singing over the course of the term.
summer Term
Drama
Drama in lockdown presented some interesting teaching and learning challenges. Opportunities to be creative and collaborative were vital to wellbeing during this time, so we set to, doing our bit to help pupils and their families have fun! M Form developed some revolting, yet rather lovely, characters based on their study of Roald Dahl’s novel ‘The Twits’. Bella said “I decided to be Mr Twit. I could imagine him being quite grumpy, mad and a bit crazy. My brother Robert joined in and laughed. My mum loves the drama exercises and wishes she was in M Form. It’s really fun and you get to be creative.” S Form created fabulous set designs based on mystery books.
The 1st and 2nd Form worked hard on developing set designs for an immersive version of their ill-fated school play Bugsy Malone, with an imaginary, bottomless budget! They created models and even developed stop-motion animation sequences. They were encouraged and supported by industry professional, Victoria Johnstone, who also judged the set designs to find the Fettes Prep Set Design winner and perhaps a set designer of the future: Iona was the worthy recipient.
The 2nd Form and their families were invited on a virtual ‘theatre trip’ to see the National Theatre’s version of Frankenstein. Megan said: “I watched Benedict Cumberbatch as Frankenstein and Jonny Lee Miller as the creature. I thought this was great acting and, having never seen the play, it was a great first experience. The way the stage was set out to include all the different scenes was amazing; it was very atmospheric. I noticed that the lights hanging from the ceiling were a bit like neurons firing in a brain.”
summer Term
Art
Prep Art thrived in lockdown and our pupils were involved in a number of projects. M Form were inspired by robots and produced some unique works of art. Take a look at Hannah and Lottie’s examples. They also looked at the work of the famous Disney ‘imagineer’ and artist, Mary Blair. 2020 Student Art Exhibition
M, P and S Form searched for items around their houses to represent the colour wheel and put together 3D displays as examples.
S Form During the Summer Term, S Form produced pieces of work inspired by Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and some excellent outdoor installations inspired by Andy Goldsworthy.
T Form T Form created Dutch fabric inspired by Yinka Shonibare by looking at objects around their homes and using repeating patterns. They also illustrated pictures for the Ikabog competition.
1st Form The 1st Form created ‘steampunk’ animals using mixed-media collage and digital manipulation.
2nd Form The 2nd Form completed some stunning work whilst learning about artists Yayoi Kusama and Kate Malone. These fruits and vegetable mixed-media drawings were the result of observing and enlarging objects.
They also worked on artwork exploring how they felt about leaving the Prep School straight from lockdown.
summer Term
Sport
During lockdown, we aimed to provide our pupils with as much allround sport and exercise education as possible. In the final days of the Spring Term, we worked on routines and produced videos which our pupils would be able to use as a guide to help keep their fitness levels up. At the start of the Summer Term, we initiated our Fettes Fit programme, which ran every school day for the duration of the term. Each morning, Mr Mill and Mrs Fletcher posted a fitness video, followed by a skill challenge from Mr Mill. Our pupils also had access to drills and ideas to practise at home. Once these were established, we moved to live lessons for each age group, which proved to be fun and extremely popular.
Towards the end of the term our dynamic team began work on a virtual Sports Day! The competition was focussed on each pupil doing their best over eight challenges which were designed to test strength, speed, agility, and endurance. Valuable House points were on offer and commensurate with levels of performance over the range of activities. Events which sadly didn’t happen included the IAPS Swimming Championships which would have included our Under 12 Girls’ Relay Team of Chloe, Isobel, Niamh and Sasha. Rory had qualified for the Under 13 Boys’ Freestyle race and Chloe for the Under 12 Individual Butterfly.
Our virtual Lockdown Term was challenging and different but we were learning and having fun together throughout.
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