Issue 2 30 September 2016

Junior, Infant and Pre-School Newsletter Issue 2 Friday 30 September 2016 Dear Parents The Autumn Term is now well underway and there have been many highlights in the last two weeks which you can read about in this newsletter. However, I must single out the J3 children who enjoyed a very successful trip to learn Bushcraft skills, living outdoors in the woods for 3 days! Their attitude and behaviour was a credit to them all.

Thank you to all our parents who joined us for our Infant Information evenings. We hope that you found them informative and helpful. If you did not manage to attend, please speak to your child’s class teacher who will be happy to arrange a mutually convenient time to discuss the information that was shared with parents. Thank you also to everyone who joined us for our Macmillan Coffee Morning today; I hope you enjoyed the delicious cupcakes made in house by our catering manager, Mr Ian Vevers, and his staff Please may I remind everyone about children’s hair length; boys’ hair should be off the collar and out of eyes and girls’ hair must be tied back, if longer than shoulder length. Thank you for your co-operation.

Next Friday morning, we have our Harvest collection and our special assembly led by Reverend Bunday. This is followed by our Open Afternoon on the Sunday. The children and staff are very proud of KGJS and we always look forward to showing it off whenever we can.

I do hope that you are able to join us and have a look at parts of the school you are not familiar with, including the Senior School. Open Afternoon is also a great opportunity to bring extended family and friends to see the school.

May I wish you all a relaxing weekend.

Mrs AS Roberts Headmistress Follow me on Twitter: Annette Roberts @KGJShead

On Saturday 17 September, a team of 11 teachers from Kirkham Grammar Junior School and an Old Kirkhamian, took part in a ‘Pretty Muddy Run’ to raise money for Cancer Research UK. To complete the run, the team had to run 5 kilometres with a variety of muddy obstacles to get through along the way! Although at the start there were a few nervous faces, the team worked together and helped each other with the challenging parts of the run, such as crawling on the muddy grass and going down a big mud slide. By the end, they all reached the finish line holding hands and wearing huge smiles on their faces. With all of the teamwork and effort that each and every one of the teachers had put in, they found out they had raised £850 so far.

By Siôned Jones-Blanco (J4)

To donate please visit; www.justgiving.com/KGJSMuddyTeam Thank you for your support.

This year’s Harvest Assembly will take place on Friday 7 October and will be led by Reverend Bunday.

Please could children bring in items which will be sent to the Salvation Army to help the homeless in Blackpool.

Items can include tins, toiletries and clothing.

Thank you in advance for your support.

On Wednesday 21 September, thirty one J3 children travelled to Cheshire for a three day Bushcraft trip. At Bushcraft we learned how to make fire using wood, cotton wool and Vaseline. We also learned how to make shelters, had a go at archery and made survival bracelets.

When it was light we played games like 21 and Chicken in a Hen House but at night in the pitch black we played Catch the Lantern without torches! After the games in the dark we had hot chocolate with marshmallows! On the first night it rained a lot and some people got completely soaked! The food was amazing; one morning we had pancakes for breakfast, for lunch we had lamb kebabs and salmon and for tea we had pizza and pasta bolognese. Before we left, the Bushcraft leaders elected a Bushcraft King and Queen. The King was Raphael and the Queen was Rebecca. Everybody had a great time and would love to go again.

By Rebecca & Raphael

Henry Taylor in J4 will take on 22 miles over 12 weeks between 12th September and 5th December to raise money for Aspire and help change the lives of people who have been paralysed by Spinal Cord Injury. To donate to this worthwhile cause please visit Henry’s Just Giving page at; https://goo.gl/yXgL6J

In J2 Science, the children are learning about 'The Animal Kingdom' and how it is split up into two main groups - vertebrates and invertebrates.

Mrs McGregor's class have worked really hard on a mini homework project about invertebrates and have produced some outstanding leaflets that are full of interesting and informative facts. The standard of work has been amazing!

Well done, J2!

In Design Technology, I3 children have been cutting wood to build a frame for the vehicles they are constructing. This is linked with their Science work on forces and when they are completed the children will be testing their vehicles.

Watch this space!!

As part of the continuation of our Book Week project on Monsters, the I3 children have experimented by dripping paint onto paper and blowing it to create some very interesting monsters. They are bright and colourful and inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock, an influential American painter.

Mr Gardiner, Head of Art at the Senior School, thoroughly enjoyed looking at their artwork. Well done, I3!!

We have been making clay houses in I2 as part of our cross-curricular work on ‘Homes in the Past’ in Humanities and DT. After learning all about different types of houses, we made our own design. Once the clay was soft and moulded, we rolled it out and made a square base and a triangular roof.

Finally, we made the finishing touches by putting numbers on the doors and tiles on the roofs, adding window panes and flowers growing up the walls. We think they look wonderful! Next step…varnishing and garden designs.

Watch this space!

U11 Rugby Tournament On Saturday 10 September, Kirkham Grammar Junior School hosted the first U11s rugby tournament of the season. In the first game against Grasshoppers Greens, Kirkham drew 1-1 with a try by Oliver Greenwood. Kirkham’s second game v Preston Grasshoppers Whites was evenly matched with a try by James Stacey. Unfortunately the match ended 2-1 to Preston Grasshoppers Whites. Kirkham’s final game against St Mary’s Hall ended 2-0 to SMH.

Under 11s Rugby Tournament Saturday 10 September U10s Rugby Tournament On Saturday 17 September, Kirkham Grammar Junior School hosted their second tournament of the year. This week it was the turn of the U10s who were joined by Preston Grasshoppers, Fylde and St Mary's Hall. All teams played three matches in glorious conditions and the standard of play was excellent. All the players were a credit to their schools and clubs, not only by the way they played, but more importantly by their fantastic sportsmanship.

Under 10s Rugby Tournament Saturday 17 September U9 Rugby Tournament On Saturday 24 September, Kirkham Grammar Junior School hosted their third tournament in three weeks! On this occasion the teams involved were Preston Grasshoppers, Fylde Rugby Club and St Mary’s Hall. All teams played three matches, with this being their first experience of full contact rugby. The matches were played in tremendous spirit with all children benefiting from the experience. Kirkham won two out of their three matches but ironically probably played their best rugby in the game they lost. This highlights how the result doesn’t always reflect the performance. Thank you to all the teams who came along and made it such a very enjoyable morning for the local Rugby community as a whole.

Under 9s Rugby Tournament Saturday 24 September

KGJS I1 children have been hunting for dinosaur footprints. They worked out which numbers were missing, found them and then put them in number order. Well done, I1!

As part of their ICT and English lessons, the J1 children have been using Roald Dahl’s ‘Three Little Pigs’ to produce some ‘poetry’ performance videos.

This will also involve them learning how to edit the videos to be able to produce their final pieces!

The coloured socks

With two socks it is possible to have one red and one blue.

But with three there is always a matching pair since either you will have chosen three of the same colour, or a matching pair and an odd one out.

Solution: Three socks.

Ten red socks and ten blue socks are all mixed up in a dresser drawer.

The 20 socks are exactly alike except for their colour. The room is in pitch darkness and you want two matching socks. What is the smallest number of socks you must take out of the drawer in order to be certain that you have a pair that match?

As part of a Maths/Art cross-curricular activity, the I3 children took a creative approach and made symmetrical butterflies in Art using jewels. To reinforce this knowledge they went out onto the playground and recreated the butterfly design using sports cones. Their work will shortly be on display in the I3X classroom so please do come in and have a look!

On Sunday 25 September, Isabel Tuck from J1 took part in the Fleetwood Triathlon. Isabel competed in the Tri Start race completing a 50m swim, 1500m bike ride and 600m run. She came 1st after finishing in a time of 0:11:49.

Well done, Isabel!

Anyone visiting the J1 classrooms on Monday may have wondered why they were working in the dark....they were, in actual fact, creating cave paintings! Fortunately, Mr Smith allowed the lights to be turned on for a short time to be able to take a few photographs! The paintings will shortly be on display in the J1 corridor.

The Jolly Roger Pirate ship has arrived in Pre-School and we have been getting ready to turn into pirates. The anchor has finally been lowered into the deep sea, treasure maps are being drawn at the moment, pirate flags are blowing in the wind, the telescopes are ready to explore unknown territories and we are tasting a variety of pirate foods. Our speciality so far is Pirate Pancakes with chocolate on.

They were ooo..arrrr!!!!!

The annual AJIS Cross Country Championships were held at Rossall School on Wednesday 28 September.

Training had gone well and spirits were high for our 32 athletes, although everyone was a little nervous. The U10 boys were first to run and the team performed very well indeed. Any position in the top 50 is commendable and every single athlete managed to do just that. Next up was the U10 girls who all performed very well and were well supported by the U10 boys. The U11 boys were anxious to get their race started and possibly too keen as we had a false start!!!. This was a very competitive race and they all gave 100%. Finally the U11 girls race got underway and this again was a very quick race with everyone performing to the best of their ability. In every race there were over 120 competitors from 20 Independent Schools across the North West of England. The U10 boys managed to come third overall and only missed out on second place by one point! Well done to all our teams who gave everything and were a credit to the school, and thank you to Rossall School for hosting a fantastic afternoon of Cross Country.

The full results are listed below: U10 Boys 10th Harry Case 14th Harry Marsh 21st Harvey Barber 38th Jensen Stott 40th Oliver Kollard 42nd Alex Davies 47th Charlie Wiltshire

U10 Girls 12th Alexa Anderson 22nd Anya Kiely 37th Eva Berry 38th Lilly Jones 52nd Claudia Allison 66th Nikita Murthy 68th Rosie Helliwell

U11 Boys 9th Alex Maude 12th Wills Gut 16th Oliver Greenwood 31st Austin Clutterbuck 60th Alexander Kane 71st James Stacey 73rd Edward Thompson

U11 Girls 45th Hennie Thompson 61st Pippa McGregor 82nd Jessica Cole 97th Emily Marsh 112th Daisy Gibbs 115th Heidi Aldeen

U10 Boys

Well done to everyone who represented the school; you should be very proud of yourselves whatever position you finished.

J1 have been finding out about rocks in Science. They melted chocolate chips and talked about this being similar to rocks melting in the heat of the Earth’s core. When the chocolate cools and hardens they shall eat and enjoy their igneous rocks!

Following on from this, J1 had fun making a ‘sedimentary’ sandwich!

They used lots of different ingredients to represent the different layers in rocks, such as limestone. They used brown bread to represent dust, white bread for sand, red jam for decaying plants, purple jam for old bones and the remains of animals, raisins for big rocks, cream cracker crumbs for clay and cream cheese for slimy mud….!

They didn’t eat their sandwiches but they enjoyed creating them, and they certainly learnt a lot!

Today’s Macmillan Coffee Morning was a huge success!

The cupcakes were both stunning and delicious! Everyone enjoyed looking round the jewellery and card stalls, as well as having a catch up with friends over a cup of tea or coffee! The children all enjoyed a cake and a drink during the morning, too. Thank you to parents and friends for supporting this very worthwhile cause.

The book fair raised a fantastic £849.42 for school. This money will go towards r e s o ur c es to e n h an c e th e En gl i s h curriculum.

Thank you for your support.

Sport/Event Photographs If parents take photographs at school events/sports fixtures we would love to see them!

They may even get used in school newsletters, on the website and in press releases.

Please email them to Michelle Tickle at m.tickle@kirkhamgrammarjnr.co.uk Thank you

Kirkham Grammar Junior School Facebook news is now on the Kirkham Grammar School Facebook page….we hope this will make the ‘whole school news’ easier to follow!

Please visit and ‘LIKE’ the KGS page for all the latest news, photographs and information.

The Facebook page name is ‘Kirkham Grammar School’ and can be easily identified from our KGS logo above.

Please follow us on Twitter for the latest news at KGJS!

House

Sub-total

23.9.16

30.9.16

Total

Fylde

333

355

356

1044

258

397

982

251

490

1120

253

317

906

Please could we kindly ask parents/carers not to park on Kirkham 327 twitter.com/kgjs_ the yellow lines within the school car park and keep these 379 clear at all times in case of an emergency. Preston Thank you

School

336

Monday 3 October - FKGS AGM & Committee Meeting, Old Hall 7.00pm Tuesday 4 October - U9, 10 & 11 Swimming v St Mary's Hall (A) 4.00pm Thursday 6 October - U11A & B Netball v Westholme (A) 3.15pm U11A & B Rugby v Westholme (A) 3.15pm J1-J4 Author Visit 1.30pm Friday 7 October - Harvest Assembly St Pius Netball Tournament (A) 12.30pm at Leyland Saturday 8 October - U11 Rugby v Kings Macclesfield (A) 10.15am U11 Netball v Birkenhead (H) 10.00am Sunday 9 October - Open Afternoon Junior School 1.00pm - 3.00pm Senior School 1.30pm - 4.30pm Monday 10 October - Online Safety Day for I2 to J4 pupils J4 House Cross Country 1.30pm Tuesday 11 October - J2 House Cross Country 1.30pm Wednesday 12 October - U11 A & B Netball v St Mary's Hall (A) 3.00pm Thursday 13 October - Infant & Pre-School Cross Country/Fun Run 11.25am J3 House Cross Country 1.30pm Friday 14 October - J4 Trip to Quarry Bank Mill depart 8.30am, return 4.30pm J1 House Cross Country 1.30pm Monday 17 October - U10 A & B Rugby v St Mary's Hall (A) 4.00pm Wednesday 19 October - U9 A & B & U11 A & B Girls Hockey v Sedbergh (A) 2.00pm Parents Evening 4pm-6pm - No Infant or Junior Late Room Thursday 20 October - Parents Evening 6.00pm-8.00pm Friday 21 October - Half Term begins at 3.45pm Monday 7 November - School reopens KGJS Bake Off - 1st Round U10 AJIS Rugby (A) Tuesday 8 November - U11 A & B Netball v St Pius (A) 3.00pm Thursday 10 November - Senior School Open Evening 7.00pm-9.00pm School closes at 1.45pm, Coaches depart 2.00pm, Pre-School remains open Friday 11 November - Remembrance Assembly 11.00am U9 Netball & U11 Football v Buchan School (H) 1.00pm U9 Boys & Girls Hockey v AKS (A) 4.15pm Saturday 12 November - U11 A & B Girls Hockey v AKS & Stockport (A) 9.30am U9, 10 & 11 Rugby v Merchant Taylors (A) 10.00am Monday 14 November - AJIS Swimming (A) Salford 1.00pm ABRSM Examinations Tuesday 15 November - KGJS Bake-Off Final Thursday 17 November - J2 Residential Trip to Castle Head departs 8.30am (returns Fri 18, 3.30pm) St Mary's Hall U11 Boys & Girls Cross Country (A) Friday 18 November - U11 Boys A & B Hockey v Altrincham Preparatory (H) 4.00pm KGS Celebrate Sport Ball, 7.00pm Summerlee Hall Saturday 19 November - U9 & U11 Girls Hockey v St Mary's Hall (A) 1.00pm Monday 21 November - Speech Day Holiday Saturday 26 November - Governors' AGM