Godstowe News - Summer Term 2021 28/05

Summer Term 28 May, 2021

Weekly Awards

Click here to take a look at our Art exhibition Happy Godstowe girls after the athletics at Queen Anne's last week

Headmistress' Letter

Reader of the Week: TaeYeon K

The final week of this first half of the Summer Term has been as full as always!

There has been a reassuringly high number of sports fixtures taking place, both real and remote, and it was a pleasure to hear one of our Tennis Captains, Luisa, read out some match reports in assembly today.

that, their fun and celebrations will start with a vengeance as they embark on the Leavers’ Programme. Our annual Art and Design exhibition was a great success and it was lovely to see so many of you coming to enjoy it last weekend. As a school this is always a busy time of year and we are beginning to plan for all of the exciting events that take place towards the end of this term. At the moment we are planning with the present restrictions in mind and as soon as we have more information we of course will let you know more details.

As our own internal assessments and exams come to a close for girls up to and including the Uppers, we can be proud of what the girls have achieved both within and outside of the classroom.

I do hope that you have an enjoyable, fun and relaxing half term break and I look forward to seeing everyone back on Monday 7th June for the final few weeks of this school year.

Dear Parents,

The Fourths will be finding a balance of relaxation and revision over the break, in preparation for Common Entrance, but after

Metamorphosis in Action Lowers have been observing the Butterfly metamorphosis in their classroom, and today released their hatched butterflies into the wilds of the Walker Lawn!

/GodstoweSchool

Accelerated Reader

@GodstoweSchool

Boarders of the Week Highlands - Clementine Walker - Sofia Turner - Georgina Sports Stars FI Isabel C FII Elena K LIII Olivia C

MIII Molly R UIII Annointed IV Chloe F

Friday Badge Hallie J Xanthe G Clemency D

School House Shield Seacole

Music Certificates Felicity A - Initial Classical Guitar Merit Amelie L-W - Grade 2 Oboe Merit Sara M - Grade 2 Classical Guitar Merit Annabella E- Grade 2 Classical Guitar Merit Annabel I - Grade 4 Classical Guitar Merit

Honor's big charity walk for the Royal Marsden Last weekend, Honor (Form I), three friends from her last school (High March) and their mums, walked 5 miles on the Thames path near Marlow for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity who are fundraising to build a brandnew cancer research and treatment centre.

Honor and her friends have raised an incredible £15,000 so far! Their JustGiving page is here if you’d like to donate.

@godstoweprepschool

www.godstowe.org

Claire Gillett, Head of Lodge Hannah Smart, Head of Nursery This week Nursery have been learning about space and aliens. The children really enjoyed making cheese muffins and had lots of fun creating our volcanoes for the V sound of the week. We have also started learning songs which we hope to sing for our parents later this term and are doing really well remembering the words already! Our hospital role play area has been very popular this week and the children are pretending to be doctors and nurses with great imagination.

To end this half term, Kindergarten had a fantastically chocolate themed week! In their topic lesson, the children learned about the History of Chocolate and participated in obligatory taste testing. Then, as a special treat, they whipped up a batch of mouth-watering rocky road to complete the chocolate extravaganza! As the weather improved, Kindergarten took the opportunity to explore the grounds of Godstowe, in search of various wild plants. They also started multiplication in their Maths lessons; practise of counting in 2s, 5s and 10s during spare moments in half term would be very beneficial!

This week Transition children have been looking at another artist in their Art lessons, Henri Matisse. We have been focusing on his use of colour, and Transition had the challenge of trying to complete one of his pictures, matching up colours and shapes. We are very impressed with the results! In DT, Transition are practising their sewing skills to make a soft toy elephant, and have been creating their own designs to decorate it.

Well done to Transition for their good behaviour at lunch time, reaching the top of the lunch ladder this week and being rewarded with a Mufti Day. We hope everybody has a lovely half term break and we look forward to an actionpacked second half of term.

What an exciting week in Beginners! We had our brilliant trip to Mop End and we all had a great time. We went pond dipping and minibeast hunting, and we found lots of different creatures. We looked at them carefully, noticing how many legs each minibeast had and what colours they were, and we talked about their habitats. We also had a lovely walk through some beautiful bluebells and we made woodland bracelets using the natural materials in the woods. We then enjoyed writing recounts, drawing lovely pictures, and making thank you cards too. What a super outing!

Sports Results Over the course of the last 6 days, 48 tennis players, and 90 athletes have competed in live fixtures or Virtual fixtures!

On Wednesday our U11 tennis team played against Maltman’s Green, who are renowned for their tennis as they have year round coaching. We put up a good fight and the final results were 7 sets to Maltmans and 2 to Godstowe.

Last Saturday our U12 and U13 Tennis players travelled to Queen Anne’s.

Having lost a whole term of tennis last year, the squads had worked hard this term, to prepare for the doubles matches. Our Godstowe teams once again did us proud with some convincing wins. The finals scores were: U12 won 10-1 U13A won 6-0 U13B won 6-1 U13C won 7-1

Our U12 and U13 athletes also travelled to Queen Anne’s last Saturday and the overall results were: U12 Godstowe = 63 points QAS = 43 points U13 Godstowe = 50 points QAS = 49 points Fantastic results everyone!

Second half of Summer Term Field Finals: This year, for the first time, every single main school pupil will compete in the ‘Field Finals’ in the week after half term. Read more here.

/GodstoweSchool

@GodstoweSchool

Click here to see an overview of the fixtures for next half term

@godstoweprepschool

www.godstowe.org

Boarders' Corner written this week by Walker House

As this half term draws to a close, we take the opportunity to reflect on what has been a hectic six weeks since the Easter break. As ever, in accordance with government guidelines and the gradual easing of lockdown, all boarders have enjoyed time in the great outdoors over the past month, whether it was falling off a paddle-board on Bray Lake or enjoying a yummy ice cream in the Hughenden parklands!

As one would expect at this time of the year, summer examinations have been on all our boarders’ minds – extra revisions slots and last minute questioning of staff regarding Physics have very much been the order of the day! We trust that all our girls will reap their just rewards when they receive their results. We would also like to wish the Fourths all the very best with Common Entrance and any outstanding scholarship papers.

Godstowe hosted its first ‘real’ Open Morning since the start of the pandemic on 22nd of May and we were delighted at how all boarders involved were very enthusiastic, not to mention eager to show off their school. Most of the Uppers were involved in a sporting extravaganza with Mrs Western-Kaye, while the Middles and Lowers showed off their baking skills in the Food classroom with Mrs Olliver and Mrs Whitley: there is no doubt that we have a few budding Prue Leiths in our midst!

Wishing all our boarders and their families a very restful half term break and we look forward to seeing them all again on Sunday, 6th of June for the final furlong of this academic year.

WEEKLY QUIZ! 1. What is the watery theme of events around the world on 8th June?

2. Which is the smallest of the world's oceans?

Last week's answers: 1. Florence 2. London and Birmingham

Everything is connected.’ ‘When you see how thin that atmosphere is… you think we really have to take care of it NASA astronauts talking in the documentary film, ‘Down to Earth: The Astronaut’s Perspective’ January 2021

According to the pioneer astronaut, John Glenn, the most powerful quality in an astronaut is curiosity. This half term we are encouraging all Young Climate Warriors to explore a tiny patch of nature close to home and see it through different eyes. Where will their curiosity take them? If your child would like to join in, please go to https://www.youngclimatewarriors.org and click on This Week’s Challenge to discover an activity sheet as well as video links to get a glimpse of how astronauts see the Earth from the International Space Station.

/GodstoweSchool

@GodstoweSchool

@godstoweprepschool

www.godstowe.org