Prep Newsletter Lent 2022

Prep School

Newsletter

LENT 2022

Sensational sum raised by the Luxury Hamper Raffle WPSA and WSSPA would like to thank everyone who bought tickets in the Luxury Xmas Hamper Raffle last term.

The draw took place on 11th December and you can see some of the winners in the pictures. Vijay Patel beat the odds winning 2 prizes! He has never won a raffle prize before! We're not at all jealous!

We raised just short of £1600 net which will be split between the two PTAs. All monies raised will be invested in initiatives that add value to the school life of our children.

A massive thanks again!

Lower Prep Super Heroes They listened carefully whilst Mrs Randle read the letter the Superhero had amazingly managed to put on top of the box. When they were brave enough to lift the lid off the box the children found Superhero masks for them to make and a special Supertato story.

The children have made their own superhero mask, they have given themselves some amazing names reflecting that they fully understand the qualities a superhero has. We now have, amongst many other names: ‘Super M’, ‘Ice King’, and ‘Super Speedy’ in the Butterfly class. They have also made their own Supertato having listened to the story. I am so looking forward to learning more about Superheroes in the next few weeks.

Hedgehogs update Hedgehogs are really busy working on their class play, no spoilers here! They too have started a new topic, A to B, and are very excited about making a wheeled vehicle in DT and exploring the different types of transport that we have. The children shared their knowledge and thought of questions they would like to research. We were all amazed by the huge variety of transportation there is and we are looking forward to finding out more about flight. .

Pirate Experience Owls are now studying a unit on non-chronological writing, the focus of which is pirates. At the start of the week the children were taught the elements of non-chronological reports. On Thursday, in order to enthuse and engage the children with the amazing amount there is to learn about pirates, they had a Pirate Experience Day. The photographs really speak for themselves, the children made pirate hats, for their snack they had Ships Biscuits (aka dry cream crackers) and grog (aka ginger beer). As the expressions show, not everyone liked the food and drink on offer for pirates!

The children learned how to talk like a pirate, to sing sea shanties and having read about the jobs pirates did the children chose which job they would prefer to do.

Lunchtime fun

Our focus this week was what makes us happy and something that I think has definitely contributed to levels of happiness at lunchtimes this week in school, is our new playground equipment. As you can see from the photos, there is a variety of items from which to choose.

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Nursery Fire Station - Now Open !

The Fire Station opened this week and the children have had lots of fun putting out fires and attending emergencies.

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Static Electricity

Owls study of static electricity is so exciting. We thought magic was happening when the children’s hair was standing on end! They used cling film, plastic rulers and balloons which they rubbed against their hair and look what happened! Literally, the children’s hair stood on end and pieces of paper jumped to stick to balloons.

The excitement and amazement at how the paper and hair responded stimulated lots of high-level conversations about what was happening. Children always bring a raft of experience and knowledge to our lessons and we, as teachers, are privileged to help move this forward.

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Early Years Curriculum

I am aware that a lot of what I show on the newsletter is what happens in the classroom, and I want to balance this with activities the children choose for themselves. This is a fundamental part of the Early Years Curriculum because it demonstrates to us each child’s interest and we can focus and develop this. But I would also like to share with you how creative the children are on the playground. This is a time when the children are in control of their own choices. We have a rocket going to the moon – I’m reliably told they will be back in a week!

RSPB School’s Birdwatch

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Everyone in Lower Prep is so excited to be taking part in the RSPB School’s Birdwatch event. We have spent the week preparing for the Birdwatch event and the children have been learning to identify some of the more familiar garden birds.

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Nursery have a bird hide in their garden, fully camouflaged and equipped with chairs, binoculars together with pumpkins and fat balls positioned carefully to hopefully entice birds to visit on Friday.

Butterflies wanted to feed the birds, so they have threaded Cheerios onto string. This is a great fine motor skill activity especially as they used a darning needle to thread the Cheerios. Each string started with a lollypop stick as a perching place for the birds.

Owls who are part of Gardening Club set off with me on Monday lunchtime to the spinney in the outside learning area. We positioned feeders, mealworms and fat balls along the hedgerows hoping these will encourage birds to visit us. We know that it is important to keep feeding birds once started and this will be a weekly task for my Owl Gardeners until Spring starts!

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Design Technology Update The Prep School pupils in the DT Department were very busy last term, and at the end of the term the Year 4 pupils created chocolate cookie boxes and enjoyed baking cookies for the Chocolate topic. The Year 5s for Going Global loved learning about different festivals around the world and produced wonderful pop-up cards. The Year 6s looked at technological developments in cars and created a rubber band buggy.

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Aerozone at Stansted Airport Year 3 on their trip to the Aerozone at Stansted airport.

We had a wonderful time, watching the planes take off and land, speaking to one of the security guards and hearing how they have only 20 seconds to look at the x-ray of each piece of luggage to decide what is contained within it. We tried to identify items on the x-rays and I have to say the children were much better at it than me! There were many other activities including science tasks, geography challenges to identify different countries and flags along with their flight time from the UK, not to mention paper aeroplanes, the history of Stansted and dressing up as firefighters, police officers and cabin crew. The pupils behaved impeccably, and I know that Mrs McDougall and Mrs Driver enjoyed the trip as much as the children did! This was another example of bringing an IPC topic to life and really engaging the pupils in their learning.

Owls enjoyed football with Mr Hilton.

Go with the Flow, Year 5 As part of the Go with the Flow topic, Year 5 have been studying poetry and have written some wonderful poems based on rivers and seas. They have also written some fantastic stories with a 'storm at sea' theme encompassing all the new skills and techniques that the children have learnt this year. In Geography the children have carried out some independent research on the major rivers of the world and completed some fantastic double page spreads to demonstrate a river’s journey from source to mouth.

School of Rock

Many of the staff as well as some pupils with their families, made the short journey to Milton Keynes where former Prep School pupil (currently in Year 9 in the Senior School), Angus, was starring in the stage production of ‘School of Rock’. We were all so impressed, not only with his acting, singing and dancing but by the fact that he was playing the keyboard live on stage at the same time. Well done, Angus!

Dragon Dance Here are a few photos showing the amazing dragon dancing Butterflies enjoyed. They danced with their own dragon and then worked together to perform a collaborative dance, it was very impressive. The children also made some fabulous lanterns, they were shown how to make them but then had to make them independently, they are justifiably very proud of them.

Real Life Super Hero

Dr Verma, a real live superhero, came to visit Butterflies this week. She talked to the children about her job and showed them some of the items she needs to use to help people when they are poorly.

The children’s listening skills were very impressive, and they asked thoughtful questions. Their independent craft activity was to make their own doctor’s bag.

If you know any superheroes, people who help us, who would like to come and talk with the children, please let us know.

Year 5 Frogs artwork on display

Think Tank Owls had a fantastic trip to The Think Tank in Birmingham on Wednesday. The photographs show how engaged the children were with all the activities.

They looked at so many different things from fossils, animals around the world, to inside the human body and electricity.

The displays were all interactive and captured the children’s interest. They enjoyed the construction site in Mini Brum and were enthralled with the Electric Light Show. I was very impressed with the children’s knowledge and understanding of electricity. It really was a very successful trip and the children behaved wonderfully, enthusiastically approaching every activity on offer.

I was fortunate enough to be able to join the pupils and staff for the last part of their visit to Stoke Bruerne, and I was delighted when Adrian, the volunteer guide who had been with them for the day, made a point of coming to say to me how impressed he was with the style and level of questions that the children had asked.

This is precisely what we are encouraging as part of the IPC (International Primary Curriculum), enabling pupils to have ownership over their learning and to develop a real curiosity about the topics they are studying. I know, having spoken to various Heads of Department in the Senior School that this interest in a subject and love of l earning is what they are looking for as the pupils make the move into Year 7 at the start of their Senior School careers Mrs Owen, Head of Prep

Storm Eunice & Franklin

Unfortunately following the battering of Storm Eunice and Storm Franklin, one of our poplar trees was felled.

The children in Butterflies were intrigued and having checked with Carl Spruce our Grounds Supervisor, that it was safe for them to get a closer look, they eagerly marched across the field. The conversations generated by the children watching the team working on the tree were amazing. The sense of the size of the tree was really apparent as it lay on the ground. The greatest fascination was with the hole the tree had made as it toppled.

‘How deep is the hole?’ many children asked – it was hard to estimate as the hole was full of water. One child suggested we could put a stick in it then measure the wet part of the stick. Moments like this literally take your breath away, such high-level problem-solving skills from a 4-year-old are most impressive. I hasten to add that despite it being a fantastic proposal, we didn’t do it!

We, including Carl, were interested in knowing how old the tree was. When Carl and his team have time, they will count the rings and let us know the age of this amazing tree.

Games

The focus for Games this half term for Hedgehogs and Owls is netball. This week Owls have been taught and practised three different passes: a shoulder pass, a chest pass and an underarm pass.

World Book Day

After first break we got together to create a Lower Prep rainbow; red, including pink, was the most popular colour. But we had all seven colours of the rainbow represented and you have probably guessed it – we then sang ‘I can sing a rainbow’ – an opportunity we couldn’t miss.

In the afternoon Hedgehogs performed their amazing production of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. This was their final performance; each one had been amazing. The costumes were so colourful, the children remembered their lines both spoken and for the songs as well as actions. It was a very special 20 minutes – well done, Hedgehogs!

The entire Upper Prep was taken off timetable for the day to complete a range of magical wizard and witch focused activities. We started the day with an assembly led by Mrs Simmons which was very well received by staff and pupils alike. It was wonderful to see the children in a wide range of fantastic costumes - so many of them really embraced the theme of the day (the latex nose on one of our Year 6 pupils was particularly scary!). Throughout the course of the day, every child made their very own imaginary wizard card like you would find inside a Harry Potter chocolate frog box. Our younger pupils transformed a humble stick into a magical wizarding wand.

Our older pupils completed some magical science activities including Slytherin Slime, Hufflepuff enchanting bubble lamps, Ravenclaw incredible static creations and Gryffindor secret letter writing. The Maths activities included potion making and probability activities with Bertie Botts Beans - for obvious reasons these sessions proved extremely popular. The day also included with a drama session based on all things magical, where the children wrote their own words to 'Double Trouble' and performed them to the class. This was a truly wonderful day, and I would like to thank all the staff involved for their extensive planning and resource making, the children for their boundless enthusiasm and the parents for embracing the theme of the day.

Tadpoles Carl from our Estates team was joined by the Year 3 pupils to release some frogspawn into the pond in the Science garden. Hopefully we will be able to spot some tadpoles and subsequently frogs over the coming weeks.

Ranger Kate

This has been a week of trips for our children in Early Years. On Wednesday Nursery went to Irchester Country Park to look for signs of Spring. We went on the School minibuses which was very exciting and Ranger Kate showed us the buds growing on the trees and explained that the hole the children found was an abandoned badger set. Badgers had lived there last year but hadn’t returned, we wondered where they might have gone.

The children collected leaves and twigs which they used to decorate a hedgehog and built a den for their own hedgehog. The sun shone for us and the time just flew by. We will definitely go again but think we will go in the morning next time.

Nursery in Space

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Butterflies continued their topic on Space with a trip to the Space Centre in Leicester. The children were amazed to meet Astronaut George, he was very grateful to them for finding his missing space ship. The children were stunned by the size of the Thor Able rocket, it is 27 metres tall! Exploring inside a replica space capsule was great fun, so many buttons to press. All the adults were very proud of the children, they had remembered so much information about space, this is a truly inspiring topic. I have had many wonderful letters from the children this week asking me to let the aliens stay in Lower Prep. When I was told the aliens are excellent at tidying up and are very friendly I was persuaded, so we now have two new additions in Butterflies, Bob and Jim the aliens!

Spring Flowers

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The gardeners are justifiably very proud of the planters they have worked on, the Spring flowers are looking beautiful. They are also delighted with the two water butts WPSA have purchased for us. The children continued studying Materials and conducted a survey of the playground to identify different materials and what they have been used for. In DT they are making replica picture frames using different types of pasta these will be painted gold and the children will be painting portraits to go inside the finished frames.

History of Flight

In Upper Prep were treated to 3CM’s assembly this morning which was all about the history of flight. We were entertained with tales of tragedy and comedy, some superb acting and everyone remembered their lines.

Perhaps the highlight was the singing of ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’, first of all by 3CM and then joined by the rest of the Upper Prep pupils, staff and Year 3 parents, complete with actions. Well done to all the pupils and thank you to Mrs McDougall, Mrs Driver and Mr Garfirth for all their rehearsing!

Global Water Crisis

Yet another busy week for the Upper Prep. Children in Year 3 completed a sponsored Water Walk where they walked a mile around the school grounds carrying water on their heads - just like the children do in some underdeveloped countries. This complemented their learning about the global water crisis. The children are very pleased to be able to raise money for the Toilet Twinning association and they hope to raise enough money for a tap and a block of toilets for a village in Africa.

Year 4 Science Year 4 have been studying solids, liquids and gases by using cereal hoops to represent the particles in a 'particle model'.

The Year 4 teachers took their creative classroom to a whole new level by letting the children experiment with cornflour and water to make oobleck - which is classed as a non-neutonium liquid.

At this point, I should pass on a huge thanks to our wonderful cleaning staff!

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