Godstowe News - Summer Term 2021 14/04

Spring Term 14 May, 2021

Weekly Awards

Headmistress' Letter Dear Parents, The first wave of Common Entrance Exams started this week, with French and Spanish Listening and Speaking and Mental Arithmetic and I wish all the girls the best of luck. They have all worked very hard and I would like to congratulate them on their mature and conscientious approach to preparing and sitting these papers.

Our music department has been busy this week, preparing a fantastic pre-recorded concert which I do urge you to watch, and launching the inaugural Inter-House Music Competition - a brilliant initiative from Music Scholar, Georgina. This competition will be explained in more detail in Monday's assembly.

the choices we make and, although the weather has not been kind to us, we have been getting outside as much as possible. I have seen lots of fieldwork and outdoor activities taking place, and you can read more about how our Boarders have been spending time in the great outdoors in this week's Boarders' Corner. I am reminded of how very lucky we are to have a spacious school site in such beautiful leafy Chiltern parkland.

Sports fixtures have started again and the Sports Department are getting ready for Sports Day events and hoping for some better weather soon!

Preparations are underway for next week's Art and Design Exhibition, and I look forward to seeing many of you there. We also look forward to welcoming prospective families to school for our first onsite open morning of the year!

Wishing you a relaxing weekend,

The assembly theme this week was 'Making Good Choices' and for World Mental Health Week, the focus has been getting out into nature. So we have been thinking about

Artwork Xanthe Mala Clemency Accelerated Reader Reader of the Week: Princess Honours Readers: Florence M, Victoria S, Rose G, Sofia M

Boarders of the Week Highlands - Scarlett Walker - Paulina Turner - Mini Sports Stars Georgina W Alissia W Sage

Lexi P Tomi Lexi T

Friday Badge Olivia D Josephine B Naomi B

School House Shield Adlington

Inter-House Music Competition launched!

Georgina E, our excellent Music Scholar, has conceived and created an Inter-House Music Competition. Not only has she outlined the rules and regulations for the Competition, which Ms Green has approved, but she has also prepared an exciting video. promoting the Summer 2021 competition.

Click here to read more and watch Georgina's launch video!

/GodstoweSchool

@GodstoweSchool

@godstoweprepschool

www.godstowe.org

Claire Gillett, Head of Lodge Hannah Smart, Head of Nursery

This week, Kindergarten took great delight in making jam sandwiches as part of their Literacy topic on instructions. They went on to use this first-hand experience to write clear instructions, using time conjunctions and 'bossy' verbs. In their Science lesson, the children tracked their

This week Nursery have enjoyed a week based on Superheroes. A favourite activity was making some very glittery superhero night vision goggles! On Tuesday they also loved making superhero smashed rice crispy treats.

The sound of the week was z for Zebra.

This week, Transition has been studying the technique of pointillism in their Art lessons, looking at the work of Georges Seurat.

They were then able to create their own

growth of their sunflowers and designed a garden filled with common garden flowers. This

pointillism picture, and there were some wonderful designs including butterflies and turtles! In our RS lessons, we have been looking at the Hindu religion, particularly focusing on some of the different gods and goddesses.

week has also given Kindergarten the opportunity to learn more about the layers of the Rainforest and the multitude of creatures which live there.

This week in Beginners, we have continued our exploration of minibeasts and this week we have been focusing on ladybirds. We enjoyed reading a story called 'The Bad-Tempered Ladybird' and we enjoyed making a 'feelings ladybird', talking about how different things make us feel. In Maths, we have been continuing our exploration of the teen numbers, and we have also learnt how to read 'o'clock' on the clock. We have been learning some more tricky sounds in phonics, and we have also enjoyed finding out all about Eid this week - Eid Mubarak everyone!

We enjoyed having our class photos taken this week, and next Friday we will be joining with Main School in having an animalthemed Mufti Day in aid of Mares Farm.

Mental Health Week parent resources

A few photos from the week...

Wycombe Abbey hosted a friendly and well-run athletics event for us. The girls loved it. It’s good to be back competing with such a lovely school.

Lodge pupils have been enjoying getting back in the pool this term. One fantastic benefit of Godstowe Pre-Prep is the access to amazing onsite facilities and specialist staff for subjects such as PE and Music.

On Mental Health Awareness Week 'They are the Future' have sent us some brilliant resources and information, and we wanted to share their website with all parents: https://www.theyarethefuture.co.uk/

Our LIII girls have enjoyed developing their fieldwork skills this week. Great data interpretation skills by everyone and lovely Geographical thinking!

Some of our brilliant Form I musicians in assembly today with Director of Music Mr Serpetti who is embracing his new role as piano cleaner in between items!

/GodstoweSchool

@GodstoweSchool

@godstoweprepschool

www.godstowe.org

Boarders' Corner written this week by Turner House 2021 Mental Health Awareness Week Very much at the centre of every boarding staff‘s psyche, is a genuine concern for the mental health and well-being of the girls under their care. Several staff have completed mental health first aid training, to assist in detecting those displaying the telltale early signs of needing some additional support.

With this in mind, all three houses set aside last weekend to launch 2021 Mental Health Awareness Week. Using an umbrella theme entitled ‘Flower Power’, each house provided age-appropriate activities designed to engage with nature, reduce stress and improve children’s moods. Whilst the activities given to the girls were broadly similar, each house had their own individual spin on how to approach them. This led to some spectacular and beautiful results!

With Saturday‘s weather forecast being less than clement, the girls were all tasked with producing a canvas portrait of a flower. As one can see from the photos, the results were varied and impressive. Later in the afternoon, every girl had a go at tie dying their own Tshirt, socks and face mask combo. These were all lovingly processed by the Gap Assistants in the various houses and worn proudly for Monday’s dinner, in front of a very impressed Ms Green. Girls were also given the opportunity to press flowers, to decorate cards for letter writing this weekend.

With the rain holding off on Sunday, each house headed outside for a day of outdoor / gardening activities. Walker focused their attention upon designing and subsequently creating a Magical Fairy Kingdom in their garden, complete with fairy lights so that the inhabitants can see where they are flying at night!

Highlands opted for some outdoor exercise, walking across countryside to the National Trust property Hughenden Manor, where they played games in the meadows, filled up their Wellingtons with water from the River Wye and were treated to an ice cream at the end of the afternoon.

Turner‘s spin on the brief was themed around an environmental area, with wildflower seeds being sown in all the beds, a sunflower growing competition set up between the girls, with bird tables and nesting boxes assembled and put out. A production line to manufacture fat balls to feed the bird population was instigated, a varnishing station meant that the new wooden bee hotels should last for many a season and informative blackboards were designed and put up to educate the Form I and II girls, whose playground area sits adjacent to Turner’s garden. Lastly, every girl was sent into the woods to forage for sticks, leaf litter and other suitable materials: from that, an enormous bee and bug mega-resort was created adjacent to our garden, to encourage wildlife to set up home near what will soon be a plentiful food supply.

All the boarders went to bed on Sunday night tired, but we are sure happier, more relaxed and in a better frame of mind!

WEEKLY QUIZ! 1. Which family pet will have to be microchipped as part of new animal welfare laws being introduced in the UK? 2. What do the letters RSPCA stand for?

Last week's answers: 1. Eid Ul Fitr 2. The Qu'ran

If you’ve not yet had the opportunity to look at www.youngclimatewarriors.org please follow this link and consider signing up. As a school, we are encouraging your children to undertake the weekly Young Climate Warriors challenges so that they can be part of a national team of young people learning about and helping to tackle climate change. As next week is Walk to School Week, this week’s challenge focuses on fun that can be had whilst walking at the same time as helping combat climate change!

74% of children spend less time outdoors than the 60 minutes recommended for prison inmates www.outdoorclassroomday.org.uk

Please remind children to HIT THE RED BUTTON when they have completed the challenge.

If all 1,000 children who have signed up to Young Climate Warriors cut their car use by a mere 5 miles this week, we would have reduced our carbon emissions by 2 tonnes! – and that’s just in one week!

/GodstoweSchool

@GodstoweSchool

@godstoweprepschool

www.godstowe.org