New Hall Preparatory School Newsletter 24 05 2013

Friday 24 May 2013 IS S U E 24 2

What’s New? Weekly Newsletter from New Hall Preparatory School

In this issue, Story Competition P.2 Jazz Evening P.2 Kwik Cricket P.3

Forthcoming Events

SAT 25 MAY—SUN 2 JUN Half Term SUN 2 JUN All boarders return MON 3 JUN All pupils return TUE 4 JUN 12.30—3.30pm U11A/U11B Girls & U11 Boys Chelmsford Sports Partnership Kwik Cricket Finals THU 6 JUN 2.00—4.00pm U8/U9 Boys & Girls Athletics v Elm Green, Widford Lodge, St Cedd's & FKS School (H) FRI 7 JUN 2.00—4.00pm U10/U11 Girls & Boys Athletics v Elm Green, Widford Lodge, St Cedds & FKS School (H) SAT 8 JUN 12.00—2.00pm Teddy Bears' Picnic for prospective families interested in Pre-Reception entry

Mathematics Challenge Last week, New Hall Preparatory School took part in the Littlegarth Preparatory School Mathematics Challenge. New Hall successfully outperformed the hosts, which was very commendable. Last year, New Hall came 5th out of seven high performing preparatory schools. This year, the pupils secured an outstanding 4th place.

There were eight rounds of open ended tasks, each lasting 20 minutes each, involving 2-D shapes, 3-D shapes, number families, brain challenges, memory and communication games, loop cards and puzzles. The work was set at level 6, 7 and 8, covering the type of skills usually expected at Key Stage 3 (Year 7 -9) - this gives you an idea of the level of challenge that they faced!

The team; Callum Westwood (6M), Samantha Whetstone (6M), Samuel Jones (6M) and Rebecca Jeffrey (6M); were great ambassadors for the school and worked exceptionally well as a team. Mr Shah was very impressed with the Learning Habits and Scholarly Habits that they all displayed.

PRE-RECEPTION POLICE VISIT The Chelmsford community support police visited the pupils in Pre-Reception this week as part of their topic 'people who help us'. They caused much excitement as they arrived in a police car and parked outside Pre-Reception. The children were given the opportunity to sit inside and were even allowed to turn on the blue flashing lights!

Afterwards, they learnt about what the police do, how to stay safe and were also shown some of the police uniform. Many thanks to the police for their time in making it such an enjoyable and informative event for everyone.

STORY WRITING As previously published in What’s New?, pupils from Years 5 and 6 entered the Radio 2 Chris Evans Breakfast Show Story Writing competition recently and all did brilliantly to write such engaging short stories. In addition to Helen Burnett (5S) being chosen, from over 90,000 entries, to be entered into the second stage of the competition, Sylvie Smith (4D) was also in the top 3000 stories. Sylvie did very well to reach this stage and should be very proud of her achievement. Sylvie’s story ‘The Life of a Tree’, which is about a tree at New Hall School, can be read below: ‘The Life of a Tree’ by Sylvie Smith (4D) The things I have seen, the things I have heard. People happy, people upset, they come to sit under my branches. I rustle, try to comfort the sad and angry, but they do not listen. They don't understand.

My home is beautiful. When I was just a little sapling, it was a palace; now, a school for modern pupils. Back in Tudor times, Princess Mary Tudor came to read under my shade. She read her bible, under the watchful eye of her Ladies in Waiting who were doing their embroidery. I now know the Old Testament off by heart! Occasionally, Princess Elizabeth Tudor came to study under my shadow.

She was a good little sapling, amazing at her Latin and Greek. Nowadays, all the little saplings want to talk about is video games, who has the best pens and scratchy school uniform. But there are five little saplings that I am proud of. They stay after school to learn Latin just like Mary and Elizabeth. I know they will tell everyone how important Latin is.

Several times, I saw the palace dogs going for a walk. They were friendly things, always chasing rabbits or butterflies, licking everything they see, I enjoyed their company. I do not see any dogs in the present. Perhaps they are not aloud.

Oh, but there are two times of year I love most. The coldest days of winter, when all the little saplings come out to play in the snow. One special day of summer, when all the little saplings come out to play sports. Their families come and fight over who can sit in my shade. There are refreshments of all kinds!

I do not like it at all when people come and scratch messages on me! Especially as they are almost always mean ones. Also, they throw snowballs at me and it hurts. I try to shout, and jiggle about, but that seems to make them throw bigger, stronger snowballs higher and harder. I keep praying that they will climb me instead. But they never do.

May hap they cannot do it for they are told not to. I have never been climbed. Mary and Elizabeth had such long gowns that they had no chance of climbing me.

I wish people could understand me. Then I could tell them the truth about history. I must now comfort this young sapling who is bawling under my branches. Even though they can't make out what I am saying, they seem to calm down after a few minutes in my company. I will try to spread my word to the world later.

RK ASSEMBLY

On Thursday afternoon, RK welcomed everyone to their ‘mini-beast garden’ assembly. The children proudly wore their mini-beast masks and quickly got into character.

They performed the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

RK also delighted everyone with words to describe a snail.

To complete the performance everyone sang a song to explain the lifecycle of a caterpillar. The children spoke loudly and clearly. Well done to everyone involved!

Music JAZZ EVENING On Wednesday 22 May, the annual Jazz Evening took place in the North Room. With an array of performers it was an joyous evening of music. Congratulations and thanks to all our performers who gave us so much to enjoy and admire. It was wonderful to see students from Year 6 through to Year 13 joining with professional musicians to create a unique musical event.

Notices GYMNASTICS CHANGE Advanced Gymnastic will not take place on Thursday 6 June 2013 as per the letter dated 27 March 2013.

TENNIS There will be no tennis lessons on Saturday 25 May. CLASS PHOTOS Class photos have been sent out this week. All orders must be returned to Class Teachers by Tuesday 4 June.

PARENT VOLUNTEERS We would be grateful to any parents who would be available to help at our swimming gala on Tuesday 11 June. Volunteers are required from 9.00am -4.00pm.

Please note that this will require getting into the water!

SPORTS DAY This year’s Preparatory School Sports Day will be on Monday 1 July. Please ensure that pupils have all of the required sports kit in advance of this day. The Uniform Shop can con contacted on newhall@stevensons.co.uk or 01727 815 203. Thank you.

YEAR 7 DESTINATION SCHOOLS A polite reminder to our Year 6 parents that we are currently receiving information about Induction Days at local secondary school for June and July. Some schools are still listing our Year 6 pupils on their register for September, even though we are aware that they will be attending a different school. Please could parents check that they have informed maintained and independent schools, to which they applied, that they no longer wish to accept their offer.

SAILING BEN & TOBY COMPETE AT IAPS REGATTA

LOST PROPERTY  Isabella Sidwell—unnamed purple leotard

Sport CRICKET U11 KWIK CRICKET On Friday 17 May, the U11 kwik cricket team went to a Partnership event in Chelmsford. In the group stage, New Hall played three matches.

They won two convincingly and only lost the other match by three runs.

This meant that New Hall came second in the group stage and went through to the 3rd place play off. Once again they had a convincing win, batting with confidence, bowling tightly and fielding intelligently.

Felix Ruiz (5T) made a very good captain throughout the tournament and congratulations to the rest of the team: Theo Clark (5T), Jack Cooper (4B), Ben Hutton-Penman (5T), Ella Phelps (6M), Kieran Scully (5S), Cameron Searle (5S), Ben Splisbury (5T) and Samantha Whetstone (6M).

It should not go without mention that New Hall fielded one U9 player and six U10's in this event, and that the two young ladies in the team were selected on their cricketing expertise for a traditionally boys' competition.

Well done to you all.

On Thursday, Ben Hutton-Penman (5T), and Toby Warren (6M) made the trip to the National Sailing Academy in Weymouth to compete in the annual IAPS Regatta. The event had attracted 40 crews from schools all over the country as the event continues to grow in popularity. The weather played a key role, with very strong winds making even rigging the boats on shore a challenge. Less than 75% of the fleet launched for the first race, and very quickly further boats returned to the shore through retirement. The New Hall sailors showed skill and determination by staying out and completing the first race in 9th position. The weather continued to worsen, and eventually the Race Officer abandoned the rest of the day’s racing. This was a major disappointment to Ben and Toby, as they suffered a similar fate last year when in 2 nd place.

The pupils should be congratulated on their resolve, determination, and above all good spirit on a long day.

U11 V ELM GREEN The U11 cricket team enjoyed a trip to Elm Green Preparatory School this week. Batting first, Aidan Turner -Wallace (6S) made some nice shots, cutting the ball past the fielders at gully and running down to the third man boundary for four runs. Charles Murray (6S) and Raphael Langford (6M) both enjoyed the conditions and were retired on reaching 25 runs each. The New Hall total was respectable 137 runs in 20 overs. In reply, the Elm Green batters started confidently playing the balls away and finding a couple of gaps in the field. However, the strength in depth and accuracy of bowling began to tell as the game progressed, with Elm Green struggling to accumulate runs, giving New Hall a good victory.

What’s New? is issued every Friday during the school term. If you have any news which you would like published in an edition of What’s New?, please contact Miss Emma Powell by email to e.powell@newhallschool.co.uk by 1.00pm on Thursdays.

Prayer Corner

Golden Book Awards 6M

5S

4D

4R

3R

2E

1D

RS

Lara Clark Ramis Ibrahim Samuel Jones Toby Warren

6S

Jack Daly Daniel James Eloise Winsor

Abbie Jackson Myles Coyne Gregor Wilson Mia Southgate Daniel Day Aamish Ibrahim

5T

Felix Ruiz Daisy Theakston Niamh Rayment Benjamin La Rocca

Jake Adams Maisie Cussen Alfie Wiseman

4B

Renee Horwitz Abigail James Szara Shahril-Rauz Michael Pettett

Amy Jones Oliver Clayden Niamh Wright Freddie Christopher

3RE

Harry Harle Tor-William Fisher

2K

Fredrick Searle Frankie Christopher Isobel Haresnape Oluwademilade Olanrewaju Olawoyin

Aishani Sengupta Harry Turnbull Coco Wilkins Toby Brown Anish Nikam Lily Ulyatt

1G

Ruark Hornett Oscar Burton Callum Barber David Affram

Isobel Beddoe Dylan Castro Francesca Burrows

RK

Olivia Bentinck Arian Tolia-Shah Maximilian Pietrzak Joshua Ulyatt

PR

Cilian Chambers Camille Adams Lois Dennison Ariyan Patel

Zak Dennison Sophie Kingston Felicity Jeffrey Alisha Manikam

Preston Taylor Joseph Sidwell Lydia Perry Maxwell Tombs

Gospel Values

Darcy Courtney-Cook Rebecca Jeffrey Mia Ramage Sarah Coxon Roberto Ronco

To view the full list, visit the website here

Brain Challenge The solution to last week’s brain challenge was: Ton. There were two winners this week: Danielle Sirett (4R) and Callum Westwood (6M).

This week’s brain challenge is: A man is looking at a picture of a man on the wall and states: Brothers and sisters I have none, but this man's father is my father's son. Who is the man in the picture in relation to the man looking at the picture?

Submit your answers to the Preparatory School Office.

newhallschool.co.uk New Hall Preparatory School, The Avenue, Chelmsford, CM3 3HS Tel: 01245 236 192 Fax: 01245 451 671 Email: prep@newhallschool.co.uk Headteacher: Mrs S H Conrad BA(Hons) PGCE NPQH