Upton Update Spring 22

Upton SPRING 2022

Update @UptonHouseSch

STEAM WEEK • FORM 6 RESULTS ART INTERVIEW • HOUSE MUSIC COMPETITION • SPORTS NEWS

Welcome from Mrs Thornton As I sit writing this Spring 2022 Upton Update, the sun is shining down on the garden area and the Form 2 children are playing football happily, cheering and shouting with enthusiasm alongside Mr Phillips. It is a privilege to spend my days with your wonderful children. We expect a lot from them and they certainly deliver!

STEAM was a fun informative evening, with parents in the school and over 250 parents watching online.

Whilst those in school were touring, those online were treated to pre-recorded clips of the Upton STEAM team and a live broadcasting experience.

Both audiences enjoyed an insight into how embedded and successful STEAM is here at Upton and how innovative we are with our planning and curriculum.

This term has been a busy and exciting flurry of success and fun here at Upton with sporting fixtures, including football matches, swimming galas, IAPS netball in Dorset, our rugby master class with Mr Brooke, LAMDA exams, trips and even the Form 4 sleepover!

Form 6 demonstrated our academic excellence this term, obtaining 41 offers between the 19 girls and 14 scholarships. Offers included: Wellington, LEH, St Mary’s Ascot, St George’s Ascot, St George’s Weybridge, Heathfield, SWIPS and more. Our Prep Virtual Parents’ Evenings, with our Upton carousel approach, allowed Prep parents to talk to many of their child’s specialist teachers and are proving a big hit. It has, of course, also been a real treat for parents to visit classrooms again and view the beautiful work in books and around school.

Teamwork and kindness permeate through all our events, showcased beautifully in our form assemblies, this term presented by all forms from Transition to Form 6.

It is such a delight to welcome parents back into school whilst still ensuring those at home and around the world can enjoy our events. We certainly don’t want to lose the grandparents watching in far distant countries! The Form 1 Grandparents Tea Party welcomed grandparents from the UK, Italy, India, Cyprus, Morocco, USA, New Zealand, Israel, Spain, Australia, Germany, Canada, France & Belgium. It was personal, emotional, cheerful and uplifting for all those watching.

Our youngest Uptonians thoroughly enjoyed Basil & Crew and it is such a joy to spend time in Little Upton, watching the children discovering and learning, playing and blossoming. All the children have worked so hard and most certainly deserve a wonderful holiday. I wish you all a very happy Easter from myself and all at Upton House School.

Mrs Rhian Thornton

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Form 6 Results Congratulations to all our Form 6 girls who have secured places at their choice of senior schools. They worked extremely hard and sat their assessments confidently. It is always a tense time waiting for the email or letter to arrive but there was no need to worry.

The hard work they put in, the scholarship preparation, practise interviews… all paid off.

This is near the end of the Upton Journey for these girls, most of them started with us in Pre-Nursery and Nursery and this is the moment they were aiming for. They are confident, well-rounded children who thoroughly deserve the success they have achieved. We are very proud of them and we look forward to seeing what happens next.

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee We are proud to be part of the Windsor community and will celebrate the Platinum Jubilee in true Upton style! May 23 marks Schools’ Jubilee Week in Windsor. We are working closely with James Manwaring, Director of Music at the Windsor Learning Partnership, planning a week of events hosted at Upton. Each morning we will broadcast live to the schools involved. VIPs are booked to join us! We have a huge Big Band Music Concert on Wednesday 25 May and James will also be leading online master classes teaching the children the new song written for the Jubilee and broadcast live from Upton. Several of our Form 6 children were invited to the castle this term to assist in writing the song. In addition to the collaborative events, Upton will be holding a black tie VIP Art and Music Evening on Thursday 26 May, our own Platinum Bake Off and the Kings and Queens Picnic for every child on Friday 27 May where parents are invited.

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Science Technology Engin STEAM Week

This term the whole school has been immersed in STEAM in all subjects from English to Maths, Art and Humanities.

Upton House enjoyed celebrating STEAM week in school with a series of lunchtime challenges.

How many drops of water can you balance on a penny?

Who can build the tallest free-standing tower using 30 lolly sticks and 30cm of tape? Who can build the strongest bridge, using only 30cm tape and 30 lolly sticks? Who can fire the water-powered, stomp rocket at the targets to get the highest score?

We also entered the Logo Lift Off Competition run by the UK Space Agency. Children were asked to design a logo to go on the side of mini-satellites that will be launched into space from the UK later this year. The logos needed to reflect the role of small satellites that are being sent into space to monitor climate change, for example. The children made so many impressive and creative logos which have been entered into the UK Space Agency’s competition.

Everyone who took part will receive a certificate and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will have an Upton winner watching their logo being blasted off into space! Form 6 also designed and built water-powered rockets which they launched to incredible heights on the netball courts!

Upton also runs a very popular STEAM club. The children have been busy designing their own electric circuits and steady-hand games. They used electro-dough (electrically conductive dough) and wires to connect LEDs, buzzers and batteries to build their circuits. They thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of building and then playing with each other’s working games. They also designed and built turbine-driven model cars, which they raced. They had to consider the aerodynamic shapes of the cars, the effect of weight on speed and how they could hide their electrical components for a slick design.

Maths Mathematics underpins all the design calculations and measurements in science, technology and engineering.

In Maths, Form 6 have been studying algebra, learning how to form algebraic expressions, use substitution and are moving onto solving one-step and two-step equations. Form 5 are in the middle of an extensive fractions block. Recently they have been learning about equivalent fractions, converting between improper and mixed numbers, comparing up to five different fractions less than and greater than one and are now working on adding and subtracting fractions, improper fractions and mixed numbers. Form 4 have been learning methods for dividing by up to 3-digits including short division and using part-whole models. They are moving on to learning about the area of rectilinear shapes on a grid.

Launch Lift Off Competition Winners

neering

Art

Mathematics English The English department was brimming with exciting STEAM focused activities all week. Form 4 had the challenge of creating a new dragon roller coaster for the Isle of Berk inspired by our focus text for the term How to Train Your Dragon. For this challenge, they had to ensure that their roller coasters included a 45-90 degree drop, a loop, a section at least 30cm height above the ground and finally, be more than 30cm in width. To prove they achieved this with their design, a marble had to successfully roll from the start of the roller coaster to the end with minimal help. Form 4 had so much fun designing, building and evaluating their original ideas and all of the groups successfully achieved the challenge.

Science Form 6 designed their own investigations to find out more about light, creating rainbows with glass prisms, exploring periscopes, discovering what refraction is and debating if That Dress really was gold and white or blue and black. Form 5 have been exploring materials, changes of states and chemical changes. They were fascinated at how they made carbon dioxide using white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, and even created their own plastic balls using milk and white vinegar.

Form 4 have been learning about different states of matter, properties of materials and the water cycle. They really enjoyed learning how to use thermometers and looked at the measured temperatures of different places around the world.

Finally, Form 3 have been learning about what light is.

They created a colour wheel to watch how the colours of the rainbow can combine to create white.

They have investigated the reflection of different materials and surfaces and made shadow puppets to explore how opaque materials can create shadows whose shape varies depending on the position of the light source.

Art & Design Technology See our work on pages 7 and 8.

Form 5’s project was inspired by the aeronautical designs of Leonardo Da Vinci. They had to plan and create an aerodynamic aeroplane which could fly the furthest possible distance. In lesson one they tried out a prototype of their own. In lesson two, they were all given the same instruction sheet and guidance and for the final lesson, they had to decide on a finished design which they would test out in the playground. After a lot of tweaks and changes, each plane did a great job but the winning aircraft managed to travel an impressive 13 metres. A huge well done to all who took part!

Over a series of three humanities lessons, Form 5 designed, created, and presented a mobile app illustrating everything a tourist would need to know about the Alps. The children worked collaboratively and used a variety of software programs to bring their creations to life.

The STEAM Team

Upton House Sport Pre-Prep House Football Our Form 1 and Form 2 boys and girls took part in the House Football just before half term at the York Club. Both Form 2 on Monday afternoon and Form 1 on Thursday, were grouped by houses and took part in different matches against each other.

There was great football on display and many goals scored.

After all the matches St Georges were the overall winners of the tournament. Form 2 have also played several fixtures this term with great results, they are on fire!

Rugby Masterclass with ZinZan Our Form 4 boys had a rugby masterclass led by ZinZan Brooke in our school garden. The boys learnt passing, catching, field positioning and teamwork in preparation for the rugby season. They all had a great time and were very lucky to have this exclusive lesson with an ex‑professional rugby player. Given the recent results in our fixtures, it looks like it really helped! Huge congratulations to all our boys who are trying their best in every rugby fixture.

Prep Gala Swimming After two years waiting, we managed to host our popular annual Prep swimming gala. The event took place at the brand new pool at St George’s School Ascot. All the children from Form 3 to 6 took part in front and back stroke races and we also had very exciting mixed and freestyle relay races. It was very nice to see so many parents cheering on the children who competed by houses. St Andrews were the overall winners.

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IAPS Netball A group of girls from Form 6 were selected to take part in IAPS netball.

They travelled to Port Regis School in Dorset to play the qualifiers.

They finished in an amazing fourth place which is the best result the school has ever achieved. They had a great time spending two nights away playing games, having pizza and hot chocolate, and watching a movie. Surely a great memory for the girls and a great sporting result!

Let girls play!

On March 9 Upton House took part in the campaign #LetGirlsPlay in favour of girls having equal access to play football. Organised by England Football, a total of 90,000 girls took part around the country. Mr Phillips gave an amazing Assembly talking about girls in football and we also organised a fun session and recorded a video. Fun, teamwork, and equality are very important. We have now passed the ball to St George’s School Ascot for them to continue with the campaign. Don’t miss the video shared by Mrs Thornton in her Twitter feed!

IAPS Swimming A total of eight girls from Forms 5 and 6 went to Crosfields School in Reading to take part in IAPS swimming. There were four individual races per year group and two relays, one mixed and one freestyle.

Upton competed against seven other schools and we had some outstanding results on the day. Whether we can progress to the final will be known in a month’s time. All the swimmers in our swim squad have also taken part in several other galas this term and have done incredibly well. Keep up the great work!

House Netball Tournament Our new edition of the house netball tournament was a huge success. Forms 5 and 6 played at Upton on a very sunny afternoon. Organised by houses, there was a great team spirit, and everyone was cheering from the sideline. There were lots of goals and great passing. As this took place during the last week of term, it was really encouraging to see how much each and every girl has improved during this term. Congratulations to St Andrews for the overall win!

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Form 4 designing castles

Form 3 designing boxes

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Meet Mrs Sandy Lewin, Head of Art What role does art play within the school?

Art and creativity are at the heart of everything we do here at Upton, in our thinking, our interactions, our problem solving and development.

What forms of art do the children learn while in Upton?

Our art curriculum gives the children the opportunity to learn about other artists and to learn to paint using various types of media such as acrylic paints, water colour and inks. They also learn drawing skills, using pencils, charcoal or fine liners, printing, sculpture, textiles and design technology.

Form 6 designing with textiles

What was the focus this term?

Following the STEAM theme, we have focused on design technology projects and textiles. Form 3’s brief was to design a magical box with a rigid frame that was able to open. They had to think about how to add hinges and a lock and how to play music when it opens. Form 4’s brief was to design and make a castle with a drawbridge and portcullis that could open and shut.

Form 5’s brief was to design a night light using a simple circuit with a bulb and a switch and incorporating a buzzer. Form 6’s brief was to design and sew a cape and make a mask in the style of the Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh. They improved their designs by adding pockets to their cape. During the creating process, children have learnt to accept making mistakes, finding solutions, building confidence, and resilience. Their finished products were evaluated to see if they met their design criteria.

What do you hope the lasting memories will be for children leaving Upton?

As children develop, art and design technology are an outstanding basis for self-esteem and self-expression. Children will not only have fun creating and mastering new skills, but they will also learn to express themselves in new ways, gain confidence, resilience and perseverance; skills that carry over into future life and so have lasting memories from Upton.

What inspires you to teach art?

My inspiration to teach art is down to my love and passion for the subject and having this amazing opportunity to be able to teach these wonderful skills to children with the hope that they will also gain a similar passion for this subject.

Best thing about being an art teacher?

My favourite part about being an art teacher is seeing the artwork the children produce and seeing the delight on their faces when they have created something stunning.

See all our artworks on Twitter @UptonArt

Form 5 painting in the style of Paul Gauguin

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Wellbeing Upton continues to have a strong focus on mental health. The theme for Mental Health Week this year was Growing Together. Mrs Hewitt led a whole school assembly and throughout the school we took time to focus on how we can help each other as a big family in difficult times. In wellbeing lessons, we have been focusing on key skills to help the children navigate through worries in everyday life. We have been talking about emotions and how they manifest themselves and more importantly how we can all work together to manage them. Upton Minds continue to support the school community, led by Miss Hester and Mrs Strong who have both recently completed an accredited Mental First Aid course.

Our Day for Ukraine was a huge success and we all wore the yellow and blue colours to help raise money for the Disasters Emergency Committee.

Empathy brings us together.

The Upton Minds Team

Pre-Prep Music Assembly The Pre-Prep Music Assembly was a morning of musical variety, personal triumph and great joy. For many children this was the first time they had ever performed in front of a live audience and the nerves were palpable. However, thanks to an audience of supportive friends and teachers, it was not long before butterflies disappeared and the music took over. There were huge smiles of happiness at the end of some performances and a sense of real accomplishment, having sung or played a piece from start to finish in front of a hall full of people. We were treated to a variety of pianists, a violinist, solo singers and some singing duets covering songs and instrumental pieces from across the years. The event was also live-streamed so that friends and relatives could watch the performance from the comfort of their own homes. It was a wonderful morning and it was so lovely to see so many young children enjoying the experience of performing music live to listeners.

Well done Pre-Prep!

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House Music Competition This year’s Prep House Music Competition took place with a live audience of Prep children and staff once again. The event was also livestreamed to friends and family at home. The competition was led by our Form 6 Heads of Performing Arts - Mawuena & Georgie. Our adjudicator, Mr Milner, provided comments after the performances which were supported with great accompaniments from Mrs Brogan and Miss Lviu.

The event had the air of a professional BBC production thanks to some wonderful technical support from Mr Thornton. Our Head of Maths, Mr Cook, treated us all to some maths challenges whilst doing the scoring.

There were incredible instrumental performances on piano, guitar, violin and cello that ranged from Beethoven, Burgmuller, Häßler and traditional Hungarian and Irish melodies to the tunes of Lionel Bart, Osvaldo Farrés, Ed Sheeran and the Beatles. The singing section was particularly strong with some incredible performances of songs by Mariah Carey, Dua Lipa, Leonard Cohen, Bastille, Billy Eilish and Lewis Capaldi as well as songs from musicals and films such as Annie, Frozen, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Wizard of Oz and Six. The grand finale was the House Songs: Hall Of Fame (by The Script), Waterloo (by Abba) and Fight Song (by Rachel Platten), all fantastically choreographed, arranged and performed by the children themselves. The triumphant house on the day was St Georges!

I am extremely proud of the high level of musicianship here at Upton.

Well done everyone and thank you for participating.

Prep Music Performance The Prep music performance afternoon provided another opportunity to showcase more of the incredible musical talent we have in the Prep department at Upton, with performances from violin, piano, flute, cornet and a host of wonderful singers.

The performances ranged from American show tunes and jazz standards to Ed Sheeran, Lukas Graham, Adele and Keane. The standard of music was high and the live audience helped to create a very special atmosphere. The afternoon was live-streamed so that friends and relatives could watch the performance.

Mr Craig McEvoy 10

Wisley Outing A very excited Transition set off to Wisley on a cold but sunshiny day in March. We were greeted by swathes of bright yellow and orange daffodils, fields full of delicate crocuses and trees just beginning to blossom, such a joyful start that really put a spring into our step as we made our way to the education centre. A hands-on workshop taught us a lot about plants and we put our newly found knowledge to the test as we went on a plant discovery trail through the beautiful grounds using our senses to smell, see, feel and appreciate all the plants around us. Lunch was another highlight, much excitement opening the boxes to see what goodies had been packed by Mr Kingston, delicious! Our fun-filled day was rounded off by a trip to the back to nature inspired play area; I think all the teachers wished they could be five again! What a treat it was to visit RHS Wisley at this beautiful time of year.

Mrs Susi Broad

Basil & Crew Basil and Crew brought the farm experience to Upton this term! The children enjoyed having the opportunity to touch, see and learn about each animal group as they spread joy and happiness on a beautiful sunny day here at Upton.

We met a donkey, chickens, lambs, ducks and more. There was such excitement as the children enjoyed engaging with the goats, called Chutney and Pickle, caring for and brushing Nina the horse and learning a little more about how to care for some of our smallest farm animal friends, the bunnies and guinea-pigs!

Miss Jessica Shaw

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Nursery to the Forest School The children in Nursery had a fabulous time on our trips to a local forest school. We had sunshine and rain which didn’t stop the children embracing the experience. This outing gave the children some freedom and space to explore; learning how to use a saw safely, venturing through the forest in search of insects. The children particularly enjoyed using the magnifying glasses. You could see in their little faces the joy of seeing everything so large.

Lots of laughter and joy playing hide and seek, catch and many other games. A lovely morning spent outdoors for an adventure in the woods.

Mrs Jennie Phelan

Easter Hunt The Pre-Nursery children enjoyed walking to the tellytubby hill to see if the Easter bunny had visited Upton. They showed good investigative skills whilst looking around for eggs. Once we had collected all the eggs in the basket, we decided to look for natural objects and found pinecones hiding all around the tellytubby hill.

When we returned to the classroom it was interesting to hear the children's comments about what they had observed such as plants, animals, birds, natural and found objects.

Well done team Pre-Nursery for such an exciting adventure!

Mrs Zainab Adnan 12 12

Clubs This term all clubs are up and running. We offer a variety of extracurricular clubs including Cookery, Fencing, Coding, STEAM, Debating, Spanish and Chess to name a few. Clubs provide opportunities for the children to have fun with others and to develop new skills and knowledge.

An exciting, new Prep club is Broadcasting led by Mr Thornton and Miss Smith. It enables the children to explore another side of technology before they leave in Form 6 and this may help them in selecting their future school or even career.

Upton children love performing and now, as well as presenting, the children can try out other roles including script writer, editor, director, camera operator and vision mixer. Most of our events are live-streamed giving the children from the Broadcasting club opportunities to support these live events. Children are now assisting behind the scenes with form assemblies and whole school assemblies online acting as the camera operator, vision mixer or audio technician.

LAMDA Exams

In March all our children, from Form 1 to Form 6, sat their LAMDA exams (The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) here at Upton. We are very fortunate to include this as part of our curriculum and we have a 100% pass rate.

Performing for an examiner can be quite a nerve‑wracking experience, but the children had the opportunity to practice before they went into the exam and they all came out with big smiles. It was a wonderfully positive experience for the children and really helps to develop their confidence. The examiners commented on how polite and well-presented the children were. We will receive the results in a few weeks time.

We are now focused on our end of year performance which is Seussical. Form 6 girls play the main parts and all children from Form 2 will perform to our live audience on 22, 23 and 24 June.

Miss Jessica Duncan

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UHF Upton House Families organised entertaining Easter fun discos. They took place with three different groups: Transition, Pre-Prep and Prep and all the children enjoyed themselves dancing all the songs from Just Dance. We had winners for the best dancers in each group. The teachers showed great dance moves too and everyone had an amazing time!

UHF has also organised two uniform sales this term. In total, they have raised £3,200. The target this year is to raise £15,000 which will be used to buy new play structures for EYFS and improve the sound technology equipment. Upton wants to include broadcasting/streaming and post-production into the curriculum.

Thank you to all our parents for their contributions.

Grandparents’ Virtual Tea Party This term saw the long-awaited return of the Grandparents’ Tea Party. In normal circumstances grandparents would be invited into school and treated to a delicious afternoon tea prepared by our in-house chef. Whilst still not back to its original format, grandparents from around the world were able to join us virtually for an afternoon of wonderful entertainment. Thanks to our green screen, they may have been fooled into believing we were performing at The Ritz!

The children had prepared a variety of songs and poems and had chosen some beautiful words to say why they loved their grandparents. In addition, they had painted some exquisite (very true to real life!) pictures of their grandparents.

It was a really magical afternoon enjoyed by all.

Well done Form 1!

Mrs Emma Pritchard 14

Easter Assembly Forms 3 & 4 told the Easter Story, The Passion of Christ, in our Easter Assembly, in which Jesus was arrested, put on trial and then crucified. The story, though extremely sad, ends with Jesus’ resurrection and a message of hope for the world at Easter. It was lovely to have childrens’ parents in the audience to watch this powerful event. The songs were moving and included Said Judas To Mary (by Sydney Bertram Carter), The Servant King (by Graham Kendrick), Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?

(Traditional), He Is Risen (by Mark & Helen Johnson) and Easter Story (by Rob Stroh). The children read beautifully and sang with passion making the assembly the perfect way to end the term.

Thank you everyone for such a wonderful performance!

Key Events Summer Term F2 Parents and children football match Monday 25 April 2pm

Kings and Queens picnic Friday 27 May

Senior Choir Choral Competition at Heathfield Tuesday 26 April

F4 to F6 Frozen Musical Thursday 16 June

F5 Residential trip to Phasels Wood Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 April

Performance Seussical Wednesday 22, Thursday 23 & Friday 24 June

F6 Residential trip to Kingsbury Water Park Tuesday 3 to Friday 5 May

Trans and Pre-Prep Sports Day (TBC) Tuesday 28 June

Schools Jubilee Week with daily broadcasting Monday 23 to Friday 27 May

Prep Sports Day (TBC) Wednesday 29 June

Big Band Music Concert Wednesday 25 May

Pre- Prep Prize Day Tuesday 5 July

VIP Art & Music Evening (Black Tie) Thursday 26 May

Prep Prize Day Wednesday 6 July

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