This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Message from the Preparatory School Headmaster
Dear Parents,
The weeks are rolling by at an incredible rate; already we are looking forward to the final two weeks of term! Two weeks that will contain our Oliver Jnr rehearsals and performances (don’t forget to book tickets now) an assembly music concert, sports fixtures, a Back2School Phonics session for parents of PreSchool and Pre-Prep children, a Reception trip, as well as Easter Egg rolling and hunting! Never a dull moment at Rossall Prep!
This week, our School Council presented their plans for our playground. Pupils from Reception to Year 6 delivered a wonderful ‘Apprentice style’ pitch in which they outlined their plans for equipment, funding and design. Alan Sugar would definitely have been hiring rather than firing! Opportunities such as these, really do present a wonderful chance to step out of comfort zones and improve public speaking and self confidence. Well done, School Council!
Our Open Day was a wonderfully attended event last Saturday. To welcome so many families to our School is always lovely and I was able to speak with great pride about our Preparatory School and Nursery. A special mention to our Year 5 and 6 tour guides and activity helpers, who were commenced on the day for their outstanding communication skills.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Highfield Priory 1 Rossall 2
We travelled over to our friends at Highfield Priory on Wednesday afternoon to play hockey. This was the final hockey fixture for Year 6 in the Prep School, so we were determined to put on a fine performance. We adapted to the pitch well and played some fantastic, flowing hockey. The girls tackled, passed and ran superbly. The team spirit was, as always, exemplary.
Well done to all the girls that played, and also to the rest of the Year 6 hockey squad, for showing such commitment and dedication to your sport!
Rugby For All at Rossall Prep School!
Congratulations to all the rugby players in Year 5 and 6 for a wonderful team performance against Highfield Priory this week. It was extremely rewarding for all the teachers, parents and grandparents to see the children enjoying competitive matches with their teammates and wearing the Rossall jersey with pride, especially for some of the boys making their debut for the school team.
The wet and windy weather did not deter the boys from playing valiantly, and the standard of rugby from both teams was extremely impressive. The Rossall teams hosted Highfield superbly, and we look forward to welcoming them back to Rossall for an afternoon of cricket in the summer sun next term.
Well done Rossall!
Year 6
If the end of last week was exciting with our visit to The Science and Industry Museum, then the children were equally enthused by the visit of Professor Chas from Sublime Science, we learnt all about the properties of air.
The interactive experiments we took part in involved fires, explosions and the children were thoroughly entertained by the practical and enjoyable activities.
The staff also had the opportunity to be taught by Professor Chas, we were lucky enough to have a session of Sublime Science after school on Monday, being as inspired as the children we decided that learning about the characteristics of DNA through the creation of slime was a great idea, though the inclusion of glitter and food colouring were not necessary and the mess was clearly effecting Mr Rund’s wellbeing, though there were only a few successes we soon came to realise that the process is far more important than the end product!
Mixed in with all this fun we have also completed our assessments this week, the children’s application and effort was most impressive and their hard work over the course of the year has really paid off!
Year 5
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
Yeats
This week in the Prep School the emphasis has been on Science. The children have not only had their timetabled Science lessons but have also taken part in a wide variety of Science activities throughout the week.
The week began with a ‘BANG’ quite literally when we were treated to a Science lesson with the amazing Professor Chaz. He amazed the children with his range of experiments. They all enjoyed joining in and were fabulous in both their knowledge and enthusiasm when asking and answering questions. The lesson came to an explosive conclusion when Professor Chaz launched a lemonade rocket high above the Museum Theatre, much to the amazement of the class.
The excitement did not end there! We have also taken part in two live lessons this week. The first was all about ‘Life Cycles’ and the second was about climate change. The children met a British farmer tackling climate change and found out what they could do to make a difference.
Year 5 were introduced to Jess, a dairy farmer and animal science student who is researching new ways of reducing the methane emissions of her cows, or in other words, how much her cows burp! We also discovered why healthy soil is so important and the children were encouraged to get hands on and conduct their own investigations into the soil heath in their area.
Finally, we learned the shocking statistics around food waste and what we can do to ensure we minimise our own.
It was fabulous to talk to the children after these live lessons and hear their enthusiasm and passion to make their world a better place for everyone. Fires have most definitely been ignited!
The world is full of wonders, but they become more wonderful, not less wonderful when science looks at them.
Sir David Attenborough
Year 4
The important thing is to never stop questioning
Albert Einstein
What a nonstop Science Week we have had! There is so much activity to report that I fear some editing of even the highlights will be necessary!
The week certainly began with a bang due to the arrival of Professor Chas. Early on Monday morning, our Year 4 scientists were first to experience the magic of his science workshop. The children took part in a wide variety of experiments involving air cannons, disappearing water and antigravity machines (or leaf blowers to you and I)! The favourite experiment of the day involved the creation of lemonade-powered rockets – which I can report the seagulls weren’t too happy about due to a litre bottle of lemonade hurtling into their airspace! Our inquisitive children also discovered answers to questions such as how do people breathe fire? Why does melted polystyrene smell like nail varnish? And why no one can hear you scream in space?
From one bang to another, it was finally time for our big volcanic moment – the eruption. After previously constructing the volcanoes, the children carefully added washing up liquid, vinegar and water followed by the magic ingredient – baking powder! They were certainly surprised and delighted by the reaction created when their volcanoes began frothing with ‘lava’!
The children have also been busy furthering their knowledge of ‘Living Things and their Habitats’ by going on an invertebrate hunt. Much to the children’s delight, we found a wide variety of creepy crawlies including ladybirds, worms, slugs, ants and beetles.
We also expanded our search to vertebrates and headed to the farm where we met the latest additions to Rossall’s animal collection – the lambs named Clover and Cloud. It’s safe to say all hearts were well and truly melted and I have been asked every day when our next farm visit will be.
Year 3
Year 3 have had a wonderful Science Week! Starting of the week with our workshop with Professor Chas was certainly explosive! We really enjoyed learning about vortexes, chemical reactions, aerodynamics and fire. Many of year 3 also competed in the School Science competition and we had some imaginative edible models, including DNA, plants, volcanoes and planets.
We also teamed up with Year 5 to participate in a live lesson run by the NFU all about carbon emissions and climate change – which of course links to our Topic! Our current Science unit is all about plants, this week we learnt all about the different parts of plants and what their functions are. Loads of great Science this week!
In other news, in Maths we have continued our learning about fractions, including fractions on a number line, mixed fractions and fractions of amounts. In English, we have continued reading Big Blue Whale, and have learnt how to use the conjunction ‘therefore’. We have also practiced research skills to write our own non-fiction paragraphs using headings. We finished off the week with a fantastic Rossall Rotation at the farm with our adorable new lambs!
Well done for a fabulous week Year 3!
Year 2
This week has all been about SCIENCE!
We kicked off our Science week with an assembly of British Science Week. The theme this year is growth and we thought carefully about how we grow, how different organisms grow and even how non living things grow!
On Monday, we loved meeting Professor Chas, our visiting Mad Scientist Expert. He ran a super engaging workshop where we learned about the importance of air. We watched fire experiments where different materials were set on fire, created tornadoes in a bottle, watched as Professor Chas made a ball hover in the air and we even watched a homemade rocket fly over the top of the music department!
We also enjoyed learning about mini beasts in a live lesson by Encounter Edu. We learned about what a micro habitat was and that cow poo is one of the best micro habitats for min beasts! We also were taught some super interesting facts about mini beasts such as: worms have hair, butterflies can fly all the way round the world and that some mini beasts as babies look completely different to the adult version of themselves.
Throughout the week, we also completed our own experiment, investigating the stretchiness of materials. We use our measuring skills to help us conduct a fair and reliable experiment. Our results told us that socks and swimming costumes are made out of very stretchy material.
On Thursday, some of Year 2 competed in a MultiSkills tournament against some local primary schools. The children all tried so hard and it was so impressive to them working together as a team!
Year 1
What an exciting week we have had. On Monday we took part in a science workshop full of mysterious and marvellous wonders of Science. We saw fire, explosions and how powerful air can be. The children were mesmerised with Professor Chaz and his scientific illusions.
On Thursday we went on a visit to Blackpool Zoo and got to see some of the animals from our Language book ‘The Lion Inside’ for real – lions, zebras, giraffes, meerkats and even a little tiny mouse hiding in one of the monkey enclosures. We met Harry, the zookeeper, who let us watch him feed the giraffes and ask all of our interesting questions. We were really surprised to see the giraffes eating brambles, and found out how they don’t hurt the giraffe’s tongues. We found lots of information about where the different animals come from and what they eat.
To finish off the week we visited the beach, and Larkholme Nature Reserve to look for living things in the beach grasslands.
Reception
This week, we have taken part in British Science Week – a 10 day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths, with the theme ‘Growing’. We had an explosive start to the week with a visit from Professor Chas and his fantastic experiments, from fire explosions to a rocket launch!
We strive to inspire our scientists of the future. So everyday we have done new Science activities to keep our young scientists inspired through the whole week. This week we have looked at floating and sinking, discovered where our food comes from, enjoyed pizza making, hunted for minibeast and have even made a wormery, amongst other activities but most of all had lots of fun!
We have used British Science Week as an opportunity to link STEAM to other curriculum subjects and to the children’s own backgrounds, lives and interests, we now have some budding scientists in the class!
STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art and maths. STEAM learning during the early years helps children develop vital skills like critical thinking, curiosity, collaboration and creativity, and this week we have seen these in abundance!
To support our learning, we have also watched a live NFU lesson ‘Fantastic minibeast and where to find them’. We learnt all about minibeasts, their habitats and the important jobs they do for British farming. We also watched Kit and Pup at the beach, where they discovered which objects would float and which objects would sink. This led the children to investigate floating and sinking for themselves with a range of classroom objects.
Once British Science Week is over, this doesn’t mean the exploration and curiosity have to stop in Reception! The children will continue to take part in weekly Science experiments and investigations, based around the topic we are studying.
Nursery
Our youngest Rossalians have really enjoyed channelling their inner scientists for National Science Week!
The topic this year was ‘growth’ which we have encompassed in a variety of ways. Mrs Taylor helped the children create a height chart, where they measured themselves to see how tall they had grown, it was lovely to hear the children highlight their understanding “my three soon I get bigger and bigger,” one child was excited to say.
In Preschool the children have been observing how their planting has progressed from the seeds they started with, to the cress that is beginning to sprout. Miss Ward challenged the children to predict how tall the cress would grow and to use comparative language.
With our new additions of two lambs joining the petting farm, this was a perfect time to look at growth over time, in reference to animal’s life cycles. We enjoyed looking at all the animals on the petting farm and provoked discussions of how the other animals have changed over time too, “that goat bigger than my dog,” one child exclaimed.
Our highlight of the week was definitely Miss Preston’s experiments in ‘bubbles that go BOOM’.. the children used their fine motor skills using pipettes to combine the secret ingredients, they then watched closely as the ingredients combined and all of a sudden BOOM our tuff tray was almost overflowing with giant expanding bubbles it was very exciting!
Award Winners
Year 6
In Year 6 our award this week went to:
- Henry, Jasmine and Ruby for outstanding contribution in all activities
- Charlotte for being a fabulous role model
Year 5
Congratulations to our award winners this week: Joseph & Roman for excellent perseverance in Mathematics.
Year 4
In Year 4 our award winners are – Caitlin for always being helpful and considerate towards others and Thomas for being kind and respectful towards the farm animals.
Year 3
This week’s certificates go to Ethan and Aaron for being curious and critical scientists this term.
Year 2
Our award this week go to Sophie and Stanley for being super curious in our Science lessons.
Year 1
This week’s awards go to Junior for making good choices and having a positive attitude, and Oskar for improved concentration and commitment to completing his work. Well done!
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement awards go to Lexi and Olivia.
Lexi always places 100% effort into every activity, both in and out of school.
Olivia is trying so hard with her new phonic sounds and is keen to practise them at every opportunity.
Activities List
