Parsons Green Prep | Autumn 2023 Newsletter

Newsletter Autumn Edition - December 2023

Carol Concert Parsons Green Prep

Art

Out and About

In The Classroom

Events

HEAD’S MESSAGE

FROM THE HEAD As I reflect upon this very busy Autumn term, I start with a huge thank you for the strong collaboration between home and school that has enabled the children to achieve so much. They have excelled in the classroom, participated with skill and enthusiasm in sport, performed with confidence in assemblies and enjoyed an array of activities, clubs and trips. Reception enthralled us with their Nativity, the Christmas Concert featured strong performances from all year groups and Year 6 have approached their 11+ examinations with maturity and composure. The school’s focus on the children’s wellbeing, and the children’s love of learning, create a wonderful ethos for all to thrive.

SCHOOL COUNCIL Elected by their peers to voice their views at meetings, the School Council brings ideas and recommendations for development to the Head. The school has now purchased the play equipment requested following the Enterprise Day and changed the routine at lunchtime to speed up the service. They have also been asked to provide a wish list for the refurbishment of the school's play areas, which is planned for completion over the summer break.

Dr Edmonds

HEADS OF SCHOOL

FRIENDS OF PARSONS GREEN PREP FOPGP kicked off the year with its annual Movie Night.

In the run-up to Halloween the kids enjoyed watching films, including Monsters vs. Aliens and Hocus Pocus 2.

The beanbags and snacks were a popular way to end the week. December was a busy month, with holidaythemed cookie decorating and crafts. The season concluded with a cocktail party for parents and staff. Next term’s highlights include Quiz Night, the children’s disco and a uniform sale on 12 January 2024.

Kate Forrester Parsons Green Prep

Our Heads of School were selected from our very strong group of Year 6 pupils. At Open Days and school events they have impressed their audiences with their thoughtful manner and articulate speeches and it has been wonderful to hear from them about why they love PGP so much. Both have been exceptional role models and ambassadors for the school, reflecting PGP’s core values of kindness and respect. We are very proud of them.

HOUSE CUP RESULTS Earhart came 1st with 67.7 points per pupil this term. Congratulations! Attenborough came 2nd with 59.5, Shackleton 3rd with 58.5 and Williams fourth with 57.8 house points per pupil.

THE ARTS

BALLET The 15 dancers worked on establishing the fundamental positions of the ballet technique and the steps covered in the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus. We progressed on introducing rhythms and different dynamics qualities in their jumps and ballet steps. We worked with props and with peers in some of our dances and steps. Miss Alice was amazed to see their positive and enthusiastic attitude to learning and how this has allowed them not only to grow in their ballet but also in understanding class management, spatial awareness and working and dancing in a group.

ART The children have created a range of fabulous work this term. Year 3 have been especially busy drawing and making chocolate wrapper prints and Pop Art portraits. Years 1 and 2 studied different artists like van Gogh and Georgia O’Keefe and produced some wonderful artwork inspired by them. Year 4 learnt about Roman mosaics, Year 5 produced a William Morris-inspired lino print and Year 6 analysed artwork alongside some 10-minute drawing challenges. All in all a super term’s work.

MUSIC This term we have been busy keeping the pulse and preparing the nativity in Reception. In Year 1 we have been exploring music from around the world and Year 2 have been writing their own mini compositions. In Year 3 the children created their own string instrument, while Year 4 have enjoyed a detailed look at Peter and the Wolf. Year 5 took very well to the tin whistle and Year 6 delved into the classical orchestra with Britten. Well done everyone.

Parsons Green Prep

OUT AND ABOUT

KIDZANIA Reception had such a wonderful day at KidZania.

The children were able to earn a salary and spend their KidZos in a variety of different experiences.

They became vets, firefighters, surgeons, pilots and much more. The children really immersed themselves in and thrived in their role play. Their favourite area was definitely putting out the fire with the water pistols. On the way home, one of the children said ‘that was the best day ever’. It really was a wonderful first trip.

SCIENCE MUSEUM As part of their Journeys topic, Year 1 visited the Science Museum. Pupils were eager to explore the space gallery, where they caught glimpses of spaceships, spacesuits and even a piece of moon rock. Pupils were in awe of the 3D globe that projected images of planets taken from real satellites. During a workshop Year 1 were enrolled in astronaut training to prepare for an upcoming trip to space. Pupils learnt how astronauts eat, exercise and even how they use the toilet in space.

Parsons Green Prep

THE MITHRAEUM MUSEUM Year 4’s expedition to the London Mithraeum Museum was fascinating. The children delved deep into the world of Ancient Rome, marvelling at various artefacts and learning about their historical significance. The interactive experience offered an insight into the worship of the Roman God Mithraeus and provided a unique glimpse of life inside a Roman temple.

THE BRITISH LIBRARY In Year 2 we enjoyed a brilliant trip to the British Library. The children enjoyed storytelling workshops, which helped them to use their imagination. The hands-on activities and unique library collection made learning fun and deepened our love for storytelling. The staff at the British Library commented on the children’s enthusiasm and their excellent behaviour.

THE ROALD DAHL MUSEUM Pupils delved into the legendary author's life, unravelling the creative threads that wove his brilliant works together. Immersed in Dahl's techniques, they fashioned their own fictional characters, which was fantastic to see. The day brimmed with interactive learning as pupils donned costumes portraying iconic Dahl characters, fostering a vivid connection to the imaginative universe he crafted. This immersive experience not only celebrated Dahl's legacy but ignited the sparks of creativity in young minds.

Parsons Green Prep

STEAM SUBJECTS

MATHS This term PGP took part in the Barvember Challenge. Barvember is organised by White Rose Maths to encourage children to use the bar model.

The bar model is a useful tool in helping children visualise and then solve maths problems. Even some of the most complex problems can be seen much easier when represented visually. All the children gave this problem-solving style a go and in doing so learnt a new skill to apply within maths lessons.

STEAM OVERVIEW Year 3 have immersed themselves in the world of the Aztecs this term, linking to their humanities topic. They designed a floating city, which was based on the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.

They had to consider different materials that would make their city float and also had to think about their design, to make their city look realistic. In Year 5 STEAM lessons the children learnt about how DNA influences appearance. They then analysed what genes we share with other organisms.

CODING CLUB In Pre-prep Coding Club, the children have learnt that coding follows algorithms. Using the ‘collision’ and ‘when clicked’ blocks, they have raced snails, turned frogs into princes and managed airports. The children have made good progress with both programming and debugging. This term in the Prep Coding Club the pupils enjoyed using Scratch resources to develop interactive animations. They learned to make objects disappear and reappear and created two animated characters that converse with enthusiasm.

Parsons Green Prep

COMPUTING This term Year 1 have learnt about the real-life uses of technology and how to use a range of applications on Purple Mash. Year 2 have learnt about responsible online behaviour, emphasising kindness and privacy. They also developed skills in evaluating information, using keywords for searches and identifying appropriate websites. Year 6 have developed their coding skills and applied their learning to create a number of games and simulations. They also have built their own adventure games.

CHESS Chess Club has expanded! Mr James is now teaching chess to Years 1 and 2. This lively and fun afternoon club has provided a great introduction to the game. In our morning club, we have been working on gaining the middle of the board and castling. The Autumn term is where it all starts for some; for others it is a time to revise the point-value and the development of pieces.

We have also been writing down moves in Chess Notation.

Parsons Green Prep

YOUNG ENGINEERS The Young Engineers used their Lego to discover how things worked by building a variety of models. They were able to see how elastic energy worked with the race car and watch centrifugal force at work on the carousel they built. A lot of fun was had with the dreidel as they competed to see who could keep their dreidel spinning the longest and try to figure out how to make it spin longer. Another fascinating model was the laundry machine - everyone enjoyed running their laundry machine and watching it spin.

IN THE CLASSROOM

RECEPTION

YEAR 1

Panda class have had a fantastic start to their PGP journey. They have taught each other about themselves and shared their learning with their parents in the All About Me topic. They have discovered important jobs within the community and taken a trip to Pizza Express and KidZania in their People Who Help Us topic. They finished the term off with a Christmas STEAM morning with Year 4 and their excellent performance of The Twinkly Nativity. Keep up your wonderful learning.

The class has taken on the challenge of increased teacher jobs. In English pupils enjoyed drama activities based on the books Astro Girl and I Want My Hat Back, which has led to impressive writing in a range of styles. In maths Year 1 have developed their understanding of place value to 10, addition, subtraction and shape. Pupils enjoyed learning about journeys and superheroes through topic lessons and showcased their knowledge about space in a spectacular assembly. What a fantastic first term.

YEAR 2 This term has been a wonderful time in Year 2 and the children have risen well to the challenge of entering a new year at school. They have leant on their friendships and worked together to deepen their thinking in new areas of the curriculum. As a class, the children have created a supportive and encouraging learning environment, listening to each other and having the confidence to express their opinions. In the Spring term we will continue to enjoy learning together and will always try to work towards our next goal.

Parsons Green Prep

YEAR 3 From travelling back in time to the Aztecs to teleporting to the magical Place Between, it really has been an adventure. Year 3 loved creating their Aztec floating cities in STEAM, tackling difficult new maths concepts and developing their mastery skills. In science we have learnt all about our bodies and have carried out investigations to determine the different properties of rocks. We are so proud of all the hard work Year 3 have put in - have a restful festive break.

YEAR 4

YEAR 5

The class have delved into Roman history and they thoroughly enjoyed their trip to the London Mithraeum Museum. The children explored the story of Pompeii in English, writing poems with figurative language to deepen their understanding of this historic event. In maths they enhanced their skills in place value, addition, subtraction and coordinates. Science sessions focused on different states of matter, while computing covered online safety and journalism.

We learnt about what life was like during the Victorian times in Britain within humanities lessons and we explored what DNA is in STEAM lessons, as well as researching animal life cycles in science. In maths we learnt a range of mental and formal strategies for all four operations and applied these to word problems. In English we continued to develop our comprehension skills, grammar knowledge and writing technique while studying Street Child.

YEAR 6

LE FRENCH PROGRAMME

This term we have enjoyed taking on extra responsibilities such as Heads of School, Sports Captains, House Captains, Art Captains and Librarians. We have also been preparing for our 11+ examinations with great determination. We’ve worked steadily through many exam-style questions for verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths, creative writing and comprehension. We have also been getting ready for senior school interviews with Miss Martha, Dr Edmonds and outside agencies to brush up on our interview technique. Well done on all your efforts Year 6.

What a wonderful first term at Le French Programme. The children in Pre-prep have been working hard in their exercise books and learned to appreciate French handwriting. The children in Prep have settled in well with even harder grammar and comprehension. We all love our after-school sessions, where we work on all topics: history, geography, maths and literature. We studied the classical Le Petit Prince this term and everyone was fascinated by it.

Joyeux Noël!

Parsons Green Prep

SPORT

SPORTS CAPTAINS This year’s Sports Captains have been excellent role models at promoting sport throughout the school. They have shown excellent teamwork and leadership skills and have led warmups during lessons and match practices. They have been outstanding ambassadors for the school during fixtures and tournaments against other schools and have led by example during matches. Thank you for delivering the assembly match reports and well done to you all.

NETBALL Mixed netball has continued to be popular with Years 3 and 4, who have enjoyed taking part in many netball matches. They have had some impressive wins, with the highlight being wins against Kensington Prep and Falcons School. It was also great to see Year 5 take part in a mixed netball tournament run by Kew College, where we had two teams playing that came second and third. Next term Year 6 have their eyes set on the ISA London West Qualifier and IAPS regional.

GYMNASTICS The main part of the indoor programme across the school, in Pre-prep Reception have been looking at individual balances and different ways of moving and other year groups have applied the core skills of balancing, rolling and jumping to create movement phases. The Pre-prep children have also enjoyed using the indoor climbing wall.

The Prep pupils have developed their gymnastics skills further by creating group gymnastics routines using partner and group balances.

Parsons Green Prep

SWIMMING

FOOTBALL The Prep children have had fantastic fixtures and impressive wins against Wandsworth Prep, Brighton College Prep Kensington, Finton House School, The Roche School and Kew Green Prep.

It was great to see Year 2 take part in football festivals at Roehampton Playing Fields. The U11 girls football team had notable successes this term too, a highlight being their participation in this year's ISA football festival at LVS Ascot, where the girls reached the plate semi-finals after a spectacular win on penalties. A big thank you to Chelsea Foundation for delivering outstanding after-school lessons to all year groups.

This term Year 3 and Year 4 have had swimming lessons at Virgin Active Fulham Pools. They have made excellent progress with their stroke technique. We also entered the ISA London West Junior Qualifier at ACS International School Cobham. Our top swimmers in Years 4, 5 and 6 competed in the disciplines of backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle, with 4 x 50m freestyle relay to finish. The performance of the day goes to Maeline for coming 1st in her freestyle heat, whilst also producing a time of 44.18 seconds and coming 4th in the overall competition.

NETBALL HOUSE MATCHES In the Year 3/4 Netball House Matches Earhart were the overall winners following three impressive victories. Attenborough came 2nd with two wins. Shackleton and Williams drew each other, but Shackleton took 3rd place on goal difference.

In the Year 5/6 Netball House Matches, Earhart completed the double with another three wins.

Attenborough came second, with Williams and Shackleton placing third and fourth respectively.

Parsons Green Prep

EVENTS

ECO COMMITTEE The Eco Committee has identified three key areas that we are going to focus on this year in order to maintain our Green Flag Status: litter, marine pollution and energy. It has already got to work by running the November ‘Cut Your Carbon’ campaign. The Prep children led an assembly on the importance of cutting our carbon usage and the whole school was encouraged to complete the activity checklist at home.

Well done to all those who took part.

CHARITY ROUND-UP CHRISTMAS CAROLS CONCERT After an excellent nativity and music assembly the term was rounded off nicely with the Christmas Concert. We had some new repertoire choices this year including the lovely French carol Quelle Est Cette Odeur Agréable, Shoulda Been A North Pole Elf and Frosty the Snowman. The children worked very hard to prepare for the occasion and gave us excellent poetry recitations and lovely singing. It was a wonderful concert to begin the last week of term. Well done everybody.

Parsons Green Prep

For Children in Need the children wore spotty clothing and PGP raised a total of £555. Amelie in Year 5 ran 7km and helped raise funds for Fulham Reach Boat Club, a sports development charity in Hammersmith that aims to utilise the power of sport, particularly rowing, to positively impact the lives of disadvantaged and marginalised communities in London. In the penultimate week of term we enjoyed Christmas Jumper day for Save the Children, raising £333. A big thank you to everyone who donated and took part. Have a very Happy Christmas!