Godstowe news
Spring Term 28 January 2022
Two Can Tuesdays! After a plea from "One Can Trust" in High Wycombe, I have asked the girls to donate items to local families through the One Can Trust every Tuesday. These could be cans, packets, bottles, household items, toiletries, baby food, nappies, pet food and many more.
Form II time-tellers
A letter from the Headmistress
Please bring these donations to school only on Tuesdays and the contributions should be in Bags for Life or cloth bags (much more environmentally friendly) with your daughter's name and class on. Collection spots will be in Reception, Lodge and the three boarding houses so that all pupils can contribute.
Dear Parents, I hope you all had a restful Exeat weekend. It's been another wonderful week at Godstowe. I have had the opportunity this week to interview our Godstowe 11+ Scholarship candidates. It's always exciting to see the talents and understand the passions of the girls. Our sports teams have also been very busy. Over 110 girls competed over the last week in more than 15 teams. It's been great to see them representing Godstowe so successfully both at home and at visiting schools.
I am very excited by this new venture and have no doubt that it will be as well supported as all the previous charity drives have been. Next Tuesday, 1st February, will be the launch date. As always, you have my profound gratitude.
Rosie Lake
The Geography department is featured in the newsletter this week, with girls busily learning everything from plate tectonics to longshore drift. The Fourth's have continued with their exams and this week it was the 13+. Spring Common Entrance. All the girls in the Fourths are continuing to work hard for their exams and I wish them the best of luck. Lodge has been busy with a drama workshop and Beginners have been planning for Chinese New Year creating (and enjoying) their own stir-fry recipe!
Key Dates for next week 1st February Lower and Upper School Assemblies
Sports Fixtures 5th February 10.30am - U12A, U13A Lacrosse v Haileybury (away)
I wish you all a very happy, safe and relaxing weekend.
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Weekly Awards Artwork of the Week Tabitha L Gigi McD
Layla R Sara McG
Boarders of the Week Highlands Turner Walker
Zara McC Wendy J Tiffany Y
Typing Awards
Boarders Corner
Intermediate Nia B Advanced
With it being an Exeat weekend and the boarders all spending time with their families, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce two of our overseas GAPs and what they got up to over Exeat:
Annabella E Amina N
Accelerated Readers Tae Yeon K Essie J
"Being given the opportunity to relocate to work abroad seemed like a daunting yet exciting experience; a new country, job, culture, friends and life. That said, although being out of our comfort zones, we believe coming to work at Godstowe has been a positive experience. Moving from Australia to the United Kingdom has allowed us to experience a new culture, learn a few new languages, broaden our professional knowledge and meet new people.
Mercedes C
Friday Badges IC IH IM
Ai-Li C Cecily V Grace B
Sports Stars of the Week Vera N Zara O Kimberley Y
Eva McP Isabelle W Tae Yeon K
House Points 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Franklin Pankhurst Seacole Adlington
by Amie and Solai
We began the Exeat weekend in London, where we spent the day exploring. We saw Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye and Harrods. That night, we travelled nine hours north to Scotland by bus, where we were kindly welcomed by Amanda Young and her son George, who lived in the city centre of Edinburgh. During our four day trip, we visited the many beautiful lochs and glens that Scotland has to offer as well as Calton Hill, the Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle, Dean Village and the National Museum of Scotland. Edinburgh was a beautiful place with so much to do and explore and it was all walkable as the city centre is quite small. The overall move from Australia to the UK was long and tiring, but because there are many similarities to Australia, we have found it quite easy to adjust. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like we’ve left Australia because of the similar street names and suburbs. At first, we noticed the British accents and now we have accustomed ourselves, it sounds ‘normal’. Godstowe is in a really convenient location only 10mins from the Eden shopping centre so it has been easy for us to just quickly go and buy snacks, room decor and necessities. One of our favourite parts of being a boarding Gap is being able to partake in weekend activities and excursions, and so far we have been to the movies, ice skating, shopping at Guildford and the Rye. We are very much looking forward to Rush this weekend and celebrating Chinese New Year with the girls the weekend after. The girls have been so welcoming and helpful, and although at first, it was a struggle to learn all their names and which dorms they were in, it has become a lot easier. As boarding Gaps, our duties constantly change but some consistent jobs we do are waking the girls up, laundry and preparing snacks. We really enjoy working in the boarding houses.
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Claire Gillett, Head of Lodge
Hannah Smart, Head of Nursery
Lodge really enjoyed their Drama workshops this week, led by Hannah from Perform! She took all the children on a journey to the jungle by playing a variety of games, and developing miming and listening skills. This week has been the final week of our 'Space' topic. The children loved making yellow and gold star biscuits in cookery. They also enjoyed using a marble technique to create some planets. The sound of the week was 'r' this week, so in keeping with our theme, we made rockets. We had a go at counting backwards from 10 to blast off our rockets. We have also been matching numeral to quantity in our Maths sessions this week. Our week ended on Friday with a special visit from Perform! This week in Beginners we have been learning all about Chinese New Year, using this topic to inspire our learning in all areas of the curriculum. We have been writing about the Great Race and using our ordinal number skills to describe the order the animals finished in the race. We have learnt about the ways we can celebrate Chinese New Year, and we have been making decorations and cards, and some lovely dragon pictures too. Our week finished with us writing a recipe, then making and tasting our very own stir fry recipe to sample some delicious Chinese cuisine. What a fun week!
FoG Save the Dates Friends of Godstowe have confirmed some dates for events this year.
FoG AGM
In Literacy this week, Kindergarten created story trails and character descriptions inspired by Edward Lear's famous poem The Owl and the Pussycat. They are very much looking forward to acting out the poem using handmade shoebox puppet theatres next week! In RE, Kindergarten learned about the disciples of Jesus and went on to reflect about special and important people in their own lives. They also had good fun in Maths, identifying and grouping 2D shapes. Finally, the children got their hands messy, by covering them in a layer of fat and then dipping them into icy water, in order to investigate how blubber helps some animals living in Antarctica survive the extreme winter temperatures. This week, Transition has been comparing the traditional stories of Hansel and Gretel and Baba Yaga in their Literacy lessons, picking out differences and similarities in the main events. In their Art lessons, they have been creating collages of a Baba Yaga witch character, using a variety of fabrics and other materials. In our History lessons this term, we are focusing on the life of Florence Nightingale. Transition has been learning about what hospitals were like during Victorian times and how Florence Nightingale tried to improve conditions in them.
The FoG AGM will be held virtually this year on Tuesday 15th February at 20:00. We would love to see you there. Please see classlist for details on how to join and for the agenda.
Cake Sale Cake Sales are back! The first one will be Friday 25th March after school. More details to follow.
Summer Event - Saturday 2nd July The summer event will be an extravaganza for the whole family. Watch this space!
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We are going to include updates each week of our girls lessons in Main School.
This week in Geography... Tabitha and her coastal adventures "This week in Geography we have been looking at coastal features like spits and longshore drift. We've looked at lots of pictures at beaches and tried to identify the features. Mrs MacDougall does a lot of demonstrations for us which makes it easier to learn the facts. I like Geography lessons because they are fun!"
Oraia and Sofia have been using maps "We have been looking at OS maps. We had an actual map out in class and we were learning about the symbols. We know how useful maps can be to find our way if we get lost. We also looked at keys and copied them into our books."
Rachi and Isabella and the world's rivers "We are learning about rivers around the world and their features. We learnt about flood plains, deltas, mouths and sources. We looked at different rivers around the world which was exciting because there were so many. We also looked at where the source of a river was and then where it ended."
Macy's hands on "We have just started tectonic plates and effects of forces like volcanoes and earthquakes. We do active learning in Geography where we get to play games to help with our learning. We did demonstrations with our hands and had to work out whether people were describing an earthquake or volcano. I find it a really effective way of learning because we get to experience it."
Tasha has been debating "It may seem weird but we've been debating in Geography. We are learning how to be more environmentally friendly. It was fun being able to debate because we focused on the positive and negative impacts of every day actions. I found it interesting listening to my teammates points of view and understanding their opinion and even though we were debating, we often ended up in giggles."
Olivia and Lana's camel facts "We have been learning about camels and how they survive in desert conditions. We learnt that camels can drink a lot of water but don't store it in their humps! They also have long eyelashes to protect their eyes from the sand. It's been really fun because we learnt lots that we didn't already know."
Book Review from Tae Yeon K Book Name: I am Number Four Book Author: Pittacus Lone A.R Level: My rating:
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"First I read this book at the recommendation of two friends and I should say it was much better than I expected. The start might not be that powerful but the story gets very interesting, creating mystery. I would really recommend the series to people who like science fiction, fantasy and action. The powerful story creates thrill and excitement. One of the really famous series in the library is Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus, and if you read this, you should definitely try this series as well In the story the mystery moves on fast enough to get the reader's attention. This story has lots to recommend; if you're someone who likes mysterious endings.
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Sports Results What a fantastic week for Sports Results, Well done all girls who competed! Netball U11A vs High March: 11-11 (draw) U10A vs Maltman's Green: 8-5 (won) U10B vs Maltman's Green: 1-4 (lost) U10C vs Maltman's Green: 34-4 (won) U10D vs Maltman's Green: 7-2 (won) Swimming U9-U11 Division 10 League Gala: We won nearly every race!
Our Cross Country Superstars!
Follow us @GodstoweSport Speedy Swimmers On Wednesday evening, five of our strongest Year 7 and 8’s competed in Wycombe Abbey’s Invitational gala. Eleven other senior schools signed up for this gala and there were some very strong swimmers there. Being a Prep School we entered the Junior Section and, for the experience, some ‘Open’ events. Our girls performed brilliantly in both 50m and 100 races as well as the relays. The team came away with Gold medals having won their age group. We are so proud of our swimmers who train for hours on end both at Godstowe and with the clubs. Thank you for your commitment girls! WELL DONE!
On Saturday 22nd January Godstowe had their 3rd Cross Country match of the season at Lowndes Park against 15 other schools. All the Godstowe girls ran brilliantly and we were really proud of their energy and determination. The course was quite slippery and some girls had a few falls. It was lovely to hear stories of Godstowe girls helping their teammates up when they got into difficulties, sometimes sacrificing their own positions in the race. Individual medal winners are as follows… In the Under 8’s race the Form 1 girls was particularly impressive. Coco came 1st, Elodie 2nd, Ingrid 3rd, Isla 6th, Oli 8th and Mollymay 10th. This meant that we had 6 girls in the top 10! In the Under 9s race Mala came 2nd, Honor 5th, Hattie 6th and Xanthe 8th. In the Under 10’s race Juliette came 1st, Ella 2nd, Lottie 4th and Elodie 10th. In the Under 11’s race Ella T came 9th. We also achieved many excellent team medals which were awarded to the top 3 runners in each year. The Under 8’s – Coco, Elodie and Ingrid won the Gold team medal The Under 9’s - Mala, Honor and Hattie won the Gold Team medal The Under 10’s - Julliette, Ella and Lottie won the Gold Team medal The Under 11’s - Ella, Kiana and Poppy won the Silver Team medal Well done to everyone who ran!
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