Godstowe news
Spring Term 3 February 2022
WDSC Awards Congratulations to all the swimmers who won awards at the Wycombe District Swimming Club Awards yesterday. Also congratulations to Ms Green and Mr Clarke who were recognised for their unwavering support to the club.
Key Dates for next week 7th February Revision week for Fourths Cheltenham Ladies' Scholarship assessments
Lodge enjoying Chinese New Year
8th February Revision week for Fourths 9th February
A letter from the Headmistress
Lodge Open Morning ISEB Pretests for Headington Revision week for Fourths
Dear Parents,
10th February
We are splitting our assemblies at the moment and this morning I led a celebration assembly with the Lower School. There were so many wonderful awards to present including for gymnastics, music, cross country and many more. What wonderful things our pupils achieve every week!
I attended the Wycombe District Swim Club awards last night and it was a pleasure to receive an award for Godstowe, thanking us for making the pool available for training wherever possible during Lockdown. It was wonderful too to see so many of our own girls there and also receiving awards.
We have enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year throughout the school and I am particularly looking forward to joining our boarders on Sunday for the traditional Chinese Feast and celebrations.
We have received many positive comments about the video message from our Headmistress Elect, Kate Bailey, and we are all looking forward to a wonderful celebration on the evening of the 25th March when we hope that many of you will all be able to join us for drinks and have the opportunity to meet her in person.
Sport has figured largely on our calendar too. Today the Middle Thirds are taking part in the IAPS tournament and tomorrow the Fourths will be doing the same. Last Saturday saw some wonderful fixtures at home with Uppers and Fourths playing netball and lacrosse, many parents watching and a fantastic match tea. Thank you to the Sports Department for such a feat of organisation.
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Main School Open Morning Revision week for Fourths 11th February ISEB Pretests for Headington Revision week for Fourths 4.30pm Student Recital, Recital Hall
Sports Fixtures 7th February U9 2 teams Netball vs Heatherton House (home) 9th February U12/U13 Swimming at Wycombe Abbey (away) U11 A-D Netball vs Lambrook and St Pirans (away)
Wishing you all a very happy and relaxing weekend,
@GodstoweSchool
12th February 9.30-12.30pm - USA Lacrosse Squad Training with England players (home)
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Amazing Artwork
Weekly Awards
Paintings of Mrs MacDougall by Wendy J (left) and Ms Green and Meg by Sula M (right).
Artwork of the Week Sula M
Wendy J
Boarders of the Week Highlands Turner Walker
Sophia Z Sula M Sadie B
Typing Awards Beginner
Eleanor H Hattie C-S
Accelerated Readers Grace C Friday Badges IC IH IM
Lucille D Ingrid B Alice R-M
Sports Stars of the Week Beatrix M Kiana K Jasmine S Alice B Tiffany Y Toni B-A House Points 1st Franklin 2nd Pankhurst 3rd Seacole 4th Adlington
Boarders Corner
Highlands House
It's a Godstowe tradition, but sadly one that we've not been able to celebrate since 2020: the boarders’ celebration performance for Chinese New Year. However over the weekend, practice and rehearsals were in full swing. Amazingly, the whole presentation and celebratory dance is almost entirely organised by the Fourths; from the music to menu design and poetry to programme. With some choreographic assistance from Miss Kingston and musical direction from Miss Robinson, the girls are preparing traditional and contemporary Chinese dance routines and musical pieces. The performance on Sunday 6th February will involve girls from all year groups and it stands to be testament to each of their individual talents but also to their abilities in IT, team-work and problem-solving. We are looking forward to sharing the girls' performance with you next weekend! On Sunday, boarders enjoyed well deserved break from their hard work in rehearsals and were taken to Rush Trampoline Park. The active hour included girls showing off their gymnastics skills on the tumbling lanes, balancing on the battle beams and getting lost inside the foam pit. Be sure to view this week’s boarders’ video to catch a glimpse of the action! See you next week!
Boarders Video 29-30th January 2022 /GodstoweSchool
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Claire Gillett, Head of Lodge
Hannah Smart, Head of Nursery
It was lovely to have an assembly from Ms Green this week, talking about Chinese New Year and the different festivals that are celebrated by pupils at Godstowe. Each year group has spent time thinking about this festival in class. This week in Nursery we have enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year. The children worked together to make an incredible dragon display and also enjoyed making some smaller dragons to take home. During Music and Movement we learnt a dragon dance. Our role play area was transformed into a Chinese restaurant and it has proved extremely popular! We have explored different foods that you may eat in china and during cookery we made our very own vegetable spring rolls. In Beginners we had so much fun learning about Chinese New Year that we extended our topic for a couple more days. We had fun pretending to run our own Chinese take away and enjoyed some lovely art activities. The children enjoyed the opportunities to create their own dishes, write their own menus and became skilful waiters and waitresses. It was a fantastic learning experience and good to see all the children so engaged. Midweek, we started our introduction into dinosaurs by finding out what the children already know and what they would like to learn. It appears that, we already have quite a number of experts and there is great excitement about what is to come! We continued to develop our understanding of numbers by solving simple addition problems and in phonics we worked hard to learn and remember new digraphs. Our brains certainly had a work out in!
Kindergarten children have worked hard to complete a number of topics this week. In Literacy, they brought their analysis of the poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" to its conclusion by writing it as a story instead of a poem, and it was lovely to hear so many children trying to recite the poem. In Maths, the lessons on 2- and 3-D shapes culminated with the children creating some quite complex repeating patterns, using a variety of coloured shapes. History was based on the exciting story of Ernest Shackleton's heroic rescue of his crew, when his planned expedition became impossible to continue. To join in with the first week of the Chinese New Year, the children created some delightful bamboo paintings and lanterns as well as learning about the traditions associated with this ancient celebration. They were lucky enough to receive red envelopes, containing treats, from their Chinese classmates. "Gong hei fat choy" from everyone in Kindergarten! This week, Transition pupils have been exploring temperature in their Maths lessons, measuring the temperature of different cups of water, using thermometers. In Food Tech this term as well as learning about food hygiene, Transition have been learning to use a bridge hold to cut food safely and have had fun making a flower out of bananas and melons. In their ICT lessons, Transition have been coding which they are loving! The children are learning to create algorithms using block coding to make characters move in different directions and to disappear and reappear on screen. Each week when they have finished the set steps, they move on to create their own backgrounds, choose their own characters and apply everything they have learnt from the lesson to make a simple game. When they encounter a problem, they are so much better at debugging - going back to check what they have 'told' the computer to do and to see why it doesn't do what they think they have asked it to do! Thank you for all the food brought in by Lodge children for our first 'Two Can Tuesday'. It is much appreciated.
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We are going to include updates each week of our girls lessons in Main School.
This week in ICT...
Amaya and Gracie have been creating mazes
Elizabeth's coding and typing week
"In ICT, we have been using a programme called 'Scratch' to create a maze. We have been doing it by coding so we have to move characters around with step-by-step instructions. We have been working on our own but we might get to play our friends games and even Mrs Smith will play some. It's been really fun using laptops."
"I have been coding in my ICT lessons as we are going to make an animated story. At the moment we are learning how to move characters around. I have also been typing on chromebooks too, they give us words and we have to type them out. I'm on the advanced level and the words are quite tricky. I do like doing it though as I'm learning new words at the same time."
Rhea's been quizzical
Clover's been creating animals
"I have been using Python coding and learning how to use it to direct the computer. I've also been using some courses on Discovery Education. We've been making quizzes to show how we use the programme. It's been really fun and the best thing about our ICT lessons is that we get to work together."
"I have been doing some HTML coding this week and creating animals. We have to put certain texts to get the animals created. It's been really fun to see what words create what animals. I'm looking forward to getting onto harder coding as I'm really enjoying it."
Arabella's fairytale
Lucille and Isabelle work together
"Our ICT project is to create a stop-motion activity of a traditional fairytale. My group have chosen Hansel and Gretel so we are making them out of plasticine. It's funny because Gretel's hair is the same height as Hansel so we are having to work on that. We are making figurines until half term and then we get to make the film. We do it by taking pictures and then joining them together to make the film. It's been really fun and great for teamwork."
"We only get one ICT lesson a week so we do a mixture of typing and coding. There are levels in the typing that give us different words. Mrs Smith likes us to type with all our fingers but that's tricky. On our coding we have been learning that a line of code is called an algorithm and we have been putting together block coding to see how they fit. We sit next to each other so can help when it's a bit tricky."
Book Review from Essie J, MIII Book Name: The Roman Mysteries Book Author: Caroline Lawrence A.R Level: My rating:
Our first Two Can Tuesday A big thank you to everyone who donated for our first Two Can Tuesday. Can't wait to see what you donate next week.
"The Roman Mysteries are so thrilling. They all have a big plot, with loads of plot twists. There will not be a single moment when it is boring. If you are looking for a book, I highly recommend 'Roman Mysteries', because they are a 17-book series and they will last you quite a while. When I read them, I learnt so much about Roman life and what Roman Cultures are! I even learnt about Greeks in the Collusus of Rhodes and the Egyptians in the Scribes of Alexandria! They are the most actionpacked, thrilling books I have ever read. So please, read these books today and you won't regret it!"
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Sports Results
Follow us @GodstoweSport
Rachel Hearnshaw, Director of Sport
On Saturday 29th January we hosted St Albans High School for Girls for an U12 & U13 joint lacrosse and netball fixture. The weather was kind to us and over 150 girls from both schools relished the competition and also enjoyed the delicious match teas kindly provided by the kitchen team. It was great to see so many spectators back in school and enjoying all of the great sport on show. Players of the Matches: Gigi McD Gabi D Chizuru Y Morife M Evie vR Ottillie S Annabel H Poppy H Haoyin T
Our Cross Country County Champions!
Nina Sloggett, Head of Cross Country
On Wednesday 2nd February 35 Godstowe girls from years 5 - 8 took part in the Buckinghamshire Schools Cross Country Championships at Stowe School. This is a very important fixture in the Cross Country calendar and many schools from the whole of Buckinghamshire took part. We were really lucky to have good weather however the route was challenging with a very big uphill stretch just before the finish line. All of our runners ran brilliantly and we were very proud of them. As these were the County Championships, there were 100 or more runners in every race and the competition was very strong. The results were as follows: In the year 5 race Juliette ran brilliantly and came 1st, Lottie 8th, Elysia 9th and Elsie 10th. In the year 6 race Katie came 5th. In the Year 7 race Emily ran brilliantly and came 1st overall, Lucy 6th and Sofia 9th. The 4 fastest runners in the Godstowe year 5 / 6 team were Juliette, Katie, Lottie and Elysia. Their times were added together and they won the team gold medal for Godstowe making them Buckinghamshire County Champions. The Godstowe year 5/6 cross country team have now won this five years in a row! The Godstowe year 5/6 ‘B’ team achieved the Bronze medal. The 4 fastest runners in the Godstowe year 7 team were Emily, Lucy, Sofia and Isla. They also won the Team gold medal making them Buckinghamshire County Champions too! The year 8 team had to race against the year 9s and therefore competition was very strong. They also did really well and were placed 4th in the County. Following this race many of the Godstowe girls were selected to represent Buckinghamshire at the National Cross Country Championships in March. Well done to the following girls who will take part: Juliette, Lottie, Elysia, Elsie, Osara, Theodora, Katie, Kiana, Ella T, Emily H, Lucy, Sofia
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