NEWS FROM MRS KNIGHT, HEAD OF PRE-PREP
15th March 2024
I was delighted to be greeted by a Year 2 boy on arrival last Friday with, ‘Happy International Women’s Day.” I was pleasantly surprised, both by this child’s interaction with me and with the fascinating discussion that then ensued. At Mowden we believe that integrating general knowledge into education enhances children's holistic development by broadening their perspectives, fostering critical thinking skills, and promoting cultural understanding. Exposure to diverse topics beyond the curriculum prepares them for real-world challenges and cultivates lifelong learning habits. Overall, it equips children with essential skills and perspectives for success in an increasingly interconnected world.
Last week Year 1 gave a fabulous insight into their learning, with an energetic Assembly full of music, poetry and facts. Their enthusiasm showed how much they were inspired by their teaching and their thirst for learning more. Reception children visited Seven Stories yesterday and will perform their Assembly today, such a busy end to the term! These activities help bring learning to life for our children –read more about these events later in this newsletter.
In addition to all this, we have been busy exploring experiments focused on the subject of ‘Time’ to celebrate Science Week. We have been making rubber eggs, watching Skittles diffuse, setting jelly, and creating art using the sunlight and colour dying flowers, almost! The idea behind the programme is to raise awareness, spark enthusiasm and celebrate science, engineering, technology and maths with people of all ages. I hope the children have enjoyed sharing their knowledge and findings with you at home.
A massive thank you to the Parents’ Association who organised an Egg-citing Easter Egg Hunt for the children today, we appreciate the fun activities they prepare for us all to enjoy.
I would also like to thank Freddie’s family who took time out from a busy working farm, lambing 500 sheep to talk to us about the whole process and allow us the pleasure of playing with some pedigree future show winners!
I hope you will all take the opportunity of entering the School Council’s Easter Egg Decorating competition. There are some eggcellent prizes!
Wishing you a hopefully Spring like weekend! Kirsten Knight
NEWS FROM MRS KNIGHT, HEAD OF PRE-PREP
Nursery has thoroughly enjoyed learning about Spring this week. They have loved walking around school and have spotted lots of different signs of Spring from daffodils to blossom trees as well as spotting shoots growing from the ground and eggs in the chicken coop. Alongside this, we have enjoyed reading Rosie’s Walk in preparation for our trip week, with a particular focus on positional language. Everyone enjoyed a trip to Tiddlers’ play area discussing positional language as they played.
Ali Mackie
Reception had the most wonderful trip to Seven Stories yesterday. We listened to ‘Oh No, George’ by Chris Haughton and then wandered around Ouseburn picking litter and deciding if we could recycle it, or if it had to go in general waste. Then we sorted some recycling, tried to make pulp from shredded paper, and finally explored the galleries. This was a wonderful learning experience which shored up our discussions about deforestation, recycling, and looking after our planet.
Tessa Fairclough
NEWS FROM MRS KNIGHT, HEAD OF PRE-PREP
Year 1P
In Maths this week we have been learning all about tens and ones! We practised representing numbers to 50 using groups of ten. In Science, we have been looking for signs of Spring, which we then linked to our poetry work in English, creating an acrostic poem as a class.
Singing birds
Plants start to grow
Rain falls
In Spring, lambs are born
Nights get lighter
Growing daffodils
Lucy Pemberton
Year 1B
We have been enjoying Science Week, this week. We have carried out a variety of different Science activities. The children have made predictions, talked about what makes a fair test and asked lots of questions. Some of our experiments haven’t been successful but we have used this as an opportunity to think about what might have gone wrong and why. We have also talked about what we could do next time to improve our experiments. Victoria Bulman
Year 2 ‘s highlight this week was visiting the Sikh Gurdwara in Newcastle. Audrey wrote in her thank you letter, “I thought the Gurdwara looked lovely when I first saw it and I liked the flag called a Nishan Sahib. Thank you for showing me what I needed to do when I first entered the building, for example I had to take my shoes off, wash my hands and cover my head with a scarf. My favourite part of the visit was when we sang a song and gave God our happiness and worries.” Kirsten Knight
