Godstowe News - Spring Term 2021 23/03

Spring Term 23 March, 2021

Dear Parents, It has been wonderful to end the term on such a high note. The Lodge children entertained us with the traditional Easter Bonnet Parade this morning, parading around the courts outside rather than in the JK Theatre. What a marvellous selection of bonnets were on show!

After break the Uppers and Fourths enjoyed their belated Christmas Crosse and the girls had great fun playing in their costumes, including a Brussel Sprout, several Christmas Trees and at least one ballerina. Hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream was a great way to end this and I thank Mrs Reynolds and Miss Hearnshaw and indeed the whole PE department for making sure that the girls could enjoy this Godstowe tradition, having missed it at the end of the Autumn Term.

This afternoon we held our Final Assembly and it was quite moving to actually have the Fourths in the Recital Hall in front of me, whilst at the same time beaming the assembly out to all of the other classes in their rooms. It was also fitting to mark this National Day of Reflection with a minute’s silence during this time. Well done to everyone who received an award and I would especially like to congratulate all of the Fourths who have been awarded Scholarships and Exhibitions to their Senior Schools. Always a challenge, to achieve this over such an unusual year is really a remarkable achievement.

As this extraordinary term draws to a close I would like to thank you again for your support over the last twelve months. and to wish everyone a Happy Easter and a relaxing and safe break.

A team of young musicians from Godstowe recently competed in the Haileybury Prep School Strings and Pianist of the Year 2021 to great acclaim from the adjudicators. Read more here.

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Artwork Ruby B Boarder of the Week Highlands - Annointed Walker - Michaela Turner - Mini

House Shield Seacole

Accelerated Reader Honours Readers: Aliza K & Alexandra L Reader of Week: Last week: Emily S This week: Libby S .

Weekends at Godstowe are getting busier and livelier again as many more boarders have now returned to all three houses. The weekend of 13th & 14th March was a creative and colourful one! Read more here. .

Although it's been a very different year with no teams, clubs or matches, this term our amazing sports department has managed to fit in Christmas Lacrosse for Uppers and Fourths and an Inter-house netball competition for the Middles and Fourths. Read more here!

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Claire Gillett, Head of Lodge

Hannah Smart, Head of Nursery

Congratulations to everyone at Lodge for a wonderful end of term, as we have focused on Easter and the start of Spring! We really enjoyed wearing our Easter bonnets and going on our parade through the grounds. We also celebrated the achievements of some of the children in Lodge, who received Perris Knight Awards at our year group presentations.

Everyone deserves congratulations for settling back into school this term so well, and for their hard work and good motivation during the last few months.

It has been a very creative couple of weeks in Nursery. The children have embraced our Easter theme with such enthusiasm. They made bunny hats, bunny wands and a lovely bunny Easter card each too. As well as lots of crafts, the children really enjoyed some Easter themed colour matching and counting games. Our cookery continued our theme too with some nest cakes with chicks. One of the highlights of the week for the children was also enjoying a session of physical activity on the big playground, with scooters, bikes and space

The Kindergarten children completed the term with the same enthusiasm and hard work that they have displayed throughout.

They ended our Space topic by applying for work as an astronaut, with examples of their suitability including an enjoyment of floating and a desire to converse with aliens!

In Maths, they applied their knowledge of addition and subtraction to word problems and in Art, they collaborated as a class to make a beautiful mosaic inspired by Van Gogh's Starry Night. They spent the last week learning about the Easter Story and how Christians celebrate this religious festival, and they rounded off the term with an Easter egg hunt! The children are definitely ready for a well deserved rest!

The Kindergarten teaching staff wish the Kindergarten families a happy and healthy Easter and thank you for your support during this term.

Transition children have been comparing the traditional stories of Hansel and Gretel and Baba Yaga in their Literacy lessons, looking at similarities and differences between them, and picking out the main points. We have acted out the stories in groups and have produced wonderfully scary collages of Baba Yaga in our Art lessons, which we then described using similes. We have also enjoyed making Easter cards and baskets in our craft sessions, and have been focusing on the Easter story in our RS lessons.

Thank you again to all the parents for your support this term, and we hope that everyone enjoys a relaxing Easter break.

hoppers. It was so much fun and great to be able to practise our gross motor skills with a large space.

The focus for this last week in Beginners has been around celebrating new life and learning about the celebration of Easter. We have been looking at the lifecycle of a chick and talking about the stages of development, learning new words to describe what is happening. We read the story of Chicken Licken and enjoyed saying all the character names and thinking about how the story could have ended differently. We talked about the different ways we can celebrate Easter and how it means different things to different people all over the world.

We made Easter cards for someone in our family showcasing our best handwriting and bunny making skills. We have explored lots of egg -citing activities both inside and outside and we have enjoyed playing and working together as one big group. We have hopefully impressed the Easter Bunny enough for him/her to pay us a visit. The learning never stops and the fun always continues. Happy Easter to everyone from Beginners!

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Heartfelt thanks to all parents, staff, and pupils who contributed to this fundraising. After Lodge's Welly Walk, the current total stands at £3117. What a magnificent achievement! You have undoubtedly changed many children's futures for the better through your efforts.

Our Lower Third pupils got creative in the lead-up to Mother's Day, putting their messages of appreciation in poem form. Here are a few of their verses.

Thank you to everyone who generously supported the FoG Easter Raffle. It raised a total of £415 which will go to funding icing on the cake items for the Godstowe children.

Congratulations! to the four lucky winners of the Easter Crates: - Jessica Erskine (Clement in Kindergarten G, Sybil Form IC, Elsie Lowers LIII L) - Penny Ladkin-Brand (Marina Transition H, Domino - Form IIL - Lucy Sharma (Poppy Middles MIII E) - Emily Smith (Amber Beginners W, Evie Kindergarten G) – Pictured collecting their crate.

Perform is offering a Free Trial Session and a special introductory discount of £40 for Godstowe families if they sign up by Saturday 9th May. Parents should quote GODS090520 when they book their free session by going to perform.org.uk/try or calling 020 7255 9120.

On behalf of FoG Committee, we wish you all a very Happy Easter.

Mr Rau's wife designs bottle top portraits and would be very grateful if you could collect any type of bottle tops over the Easter holidays.

The more and diverse they are, the better! Thank you!

The volume of EDIBLE food wasted each year in the UK would fill 38 million wheelie bins or 90 Royal Albert Halls. This week’s Young Climate Warriors challenge encourages children to do some detective work to work out which food types are most often binned at home, weigh their food waste, and find out how they can reduce this. The LOVEFOODhatewaste campaign has a great A-Z list of tips and ideas on storing/using up excess ingredients at https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/article/food-storage-a-z .

This is one of the most simple and powerful ways we can play our part - by wasting less food, we are helping to tackle the biggest challenges this century – feeding the world while protecting our planet. Marcus Gover, Chief Executive of WRAP

Please remind children when they have completed the challenge to HIT THE RED BUTTON! (via the website https://www.youngclimatewarriors.org, or via the weekly blog email – sign up here.)

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