Godstowe News: 14th October 2022

Godstowenews

A letter from the Headmistress

Our Harvest Festival at Main School went well today with a large collection of every food and household good imaginable The Charity Monitors did a fantastic job of collecting up all the food donations and arranging them on the stage in the JK Theatre Thank you for your generosity and the One Can Trust will be delighted with our contributions We then took a journey around the globe to celebrate harvests across Thailand, Indonesia, China, Taiwan and even Papua New Guinea, which was fun. The overarching themes of thankfulness and gratitude were embraced by all and this has certainly been a positive end to the week

Pupil voice is something we embrace at Godstowe and I was pleased to hear how well our first Student Council had gone week before last The girls had lots of practical and inspiring ideas and we will aim to discuss and champion as many of them as we can I also look forward to attending my first Boarding Council shortly and hearing their opinions and views. Whether the girls are making suggestions for our food service, sport, sustainability, trips, activities or any other aspect of school life, their opinions are valued and form a large part of our decision making at Godstowe Thank you also for your contributions to FoG which formed a central part of our SLT and FoG meeting this week It was good to be able to update you all on many aspects of the school and our team enjoyed seeing you and taking the time to value your feedback

I wish you all a very good weekend and see you next week. I hope as many of you can make the Autumn Concert on Wednesday 19th October as possible it looks set to be an inspiring line up of performers

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

In Nursery this week our letter was ‘i’ for igloo and the children really enjoyed going outside in the garden to search for items beginning with ‘i’. We've been sharing lots of our photos in Instagram, so make sure you follow us there Our Number Zoo number was 3 and the children painted one wing of a butterfly, making a mirror image on the other wing by folding the butterfly in half In Music the children used scarves to open like flowers to the accompanying tunes

This week in Beginners we have learnt all about the Funny Bones family We talked about all the different bones in our bodies and how to keep ourselves healthy. In Maths, we made beautiful repeating patterns and also practised forming our numbers 1 5 We’ve been outside a lot and have spotted different sounds in our environment as well as collecting natural materials to use in our play. We also learnt the tricky words ‘ no ’ and ‘ go ’ Please help us to spot them in the books we read at home!

Kindergarten and Transition enjoyed an assembly about 'Following your dreams' this week. They learnt about the life of Bessie Coleman, the first African American female pilot, who is an excellent example of not giving up, despite facing difficulties

Having investigated using their senses in Science last week, Kindergarten children prepared and wrote a Senses Poem in Literacy. Our Maths focus this week has been based on addition stories and constructing number sentences using the correct symbols

Transition children have been working on addition and subtraction in their Maths lessons this week They have been solving two step problems, working within 20 and have been looking at different strategies to add and subtract when crossing a ten In their DT lessons, Transition have been using spaghetti and marshmallows to make structures, trying to find ways to make their structure strong Transition had fun using clay in their Art lessons to mould a Diwali lamp, and they are looking forward to painting them next week.

WeeklyAwards

Boarders

Artwork of the Week

StudentRecital

Our second Student Recital of the term took place on Friday 7th October With almost 20 girls taking to the stage, there was a wide variety of performances.

A big congratulations to all those that took part; you really are a talented bunch!

Our next recital is Wednesday 9th November and we can't wait to see who performs

HarvestFestival

A big wow and thank you to all of our wonderful parents for your donations to both Lodge and Main School Harvest Festivals. Miss Bailey reminded us this morning to be thankful and grateful for all food we may receive The donations are on their way to the One Can Trust to help local families

SportsSnippets

Rebecca Turner, Director of Sport

MeetourNetballCaptain

Saturday 8th October

What a glorious morning of netball for our U10 girls! Our A and B team played in a BEE netball Festival hosted by Berkhamsted. Each team had 5 matches in total and with each game that they played their skills improved As it was a Festival the scores were not taken and there was no winner but there was an award for player of the tournament Congratulations to Skye and Annabelle who were awarded a medal for being player of the tournament Well done girls!

Wednesday 12th October

It was an incredibly busy day On Wednesday we had U11A E at Guildford High, an U11 internal lacrosse match and an U12 and U13 netball tournament. The girls who travelled to Guildford had a great time Mrs Martin would be impressed with the amount of Choir songs that were sung on the bus to and from the venue! We had some really competitive matches with the A's drawing, B D's narrowly losing and the E team with a win! Thank you Guildford for hosting us!

Our internal lacrosse fixture was also really successful! It was an end to end game with neither team allowing the other to have the upper hand Finally the deadlock broke with both teams showing off their silky skills to score lots of goals. Well done Middles on a great day of sport!

Our U12 and U13 girls took part in Wycombe Abbey's season opening netball tournament Both teams played brilliantly and it was great to see what we need to work on going forward. Well done to the U12's who came in 5th place overall We are looking forward to our matches that have been scheduled after half term

SportsFixtures

We have been adding more and more fixtures to our Sporting Calendar

Our Fourths are looking forward to their Netball Masterclass this afternoon and will no doubt put their skills to good use versus Piper's Corner in a couple weeks time

Our Uppers are here there and everywhere playing netball, lacrosse and even some swimming Lowers, Middles and even some Form II will be representing Godstowe both home and away

Please make sure you check My School Portal for any upcoming fixtures as it's always great to have parents there supporting our girls

I'm Gigi M, I'm in Fourths and I am this years Netball Captain

As Captain, I really want to encourage every girl to try netball No matter what team they are in or if they don't usually like sports.

Three years ago, no one would have believed that I would be Netball Captain, but over COVID, I wanted to get fit and I also wanted to use netball as my focus for that I started with ball skills, then shooting and, over time, I could see slow, but definite, progress I started playing with my sister and I joined a netball club call "Royals" and started to be coached further.

My best advice for girls at Godstowe is to sign up to as many things as possible and try everything! You need to believe in yourself. I went from being in the D group to the Netball Captain in 3 years!

Sport is so important! It teaches you how to work with others and how to share ideas. It also helps you learn how other people think in certain situations You have to believe in the process though. We all work really hard and have overcome setbacks within the team We now know that whatever is thrown at us, we would be able to overcome it.

Be Kind! Be Powerful! Be brave!

Boarders'Corner

Highlands House

We started off our victorious weekend with the excitement of a Netball Festival at Berkhamsted School We warmly welcomed Miss Turner into our home for breakfast before waving some of the girls off on the school minibus!

The afternoon saw us celebrate National Yarn Day 2022, and what better way to celebrate than to create our very own pom poms! We were super excited and, after much fiddling with the template, we created fluffy and multi coloured pom poms. We loved them so much that those pompoms followed us everywhere

To end our Saturday, we had our very own Highlands movie night, complete with tuck! We watched ‘Secret of Moonacre’, which was a favourite childhood movie of Miss Niczewska. Throughout the movie the girls dissolved into giggles as the DVD was quite old and kept sticking!

On Sunday after our breakfast, we got ready and in no time at all we were on the coach heading to the Copper Box Arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic park to watch the England vs Uganda netball match. It was a tense game, but after much cheering and supporting, we were victorious and won!!

Overall, a great weekend filled with fun activities to celebrate a much loved material and an amazing outcome for the Vitality Roses!

FriendsofGodstowe

The Godstowe social calendar got off to a great start on Friday 30th September with Race Night. Parents and staff came together to have fun, socialise, eat and raise money for our school

A great time was had by all and £1199.15 was raise to go towards the FoG Wishlist

The next event is the Christmas Fair and Market on Saturday 26th November. It'll be a fantastic event with real reindeer, lots of food, and maybe a visit from the main man himself!

If you would like to book a stall, please email Mrs Reynolds, freynolds@igodstowe.org. For sponsors, advertising and prizes, please speak to Clare Wiseman-Clarke, 07790 871254.

We look forward to seeing you there!