This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All
Human faces respond differently to different sounds. Your face muscles show different reactions depending on the nature of sound received. Laughter is one of the sounds that influence human emotions. When you hear someone laughing, your brain receives the sound and triggers positive reactions.
There is no better sound than that of a child’s laughter. During Monday’s assembly, I played the above clip without any introduction. The response was a school of children all spontaneously laughing together. The power of laughter should not be underestimated and it is absolutely my desire to have a school where one of the key components of every day is the chance to laugh and smile as the pupils go about their educational journey. Learning should be fun and the tonic of listening to the children enjoying their school days is always music to my ears.
Pre-Prep enjoyed a wonderful afternoon last week at Poolfoot, as they took part in a KS1 football skills event. They finished in 3rd place overall from 14 schools, winning 2 and drawing 1 of their three matches. Huge congratulations to all involved.
On Monday, Reception listened to a brand new book ‘That’s My Leaf’ read by the author, Alice Hemming, and learnt how to draw the main characters with the illustrator, Nicola Slater.
Our character dress up day proved to be another great event, as the children (thank you parents) went all out to acknowledge some of their favourite book characters. Compliments for the varied imaginations and to the staff for taking part – there very few better moments than those of the double takes at the traffic lights!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
World Book Day
We had a great day dressing up as some of our favourite characters from books we love. You can see some of the wonderful costumes below. The pupils also got involved with plenty of activities across the day including: book bingo, a story scavenger hunt, bookmark origami, and making their own comic book strips based on their characters.
Rossall Prep Girls Finish on a High at St Mary’s Hall Hockey Tournament!
Wednesday was the final hockey event for the Year 6 girls this season. This annual tournament is always one of the highlights of our hockey calendar. This year did not disappoint, with some gutsy performances from the Rossall squad. We managed to concede only one goal all afternoon. Our final results were; two wins, one draw and one loss. It has been fantastic to witness the superb progress each member of the squad has made this year, both on and off the ball, not to mention the exemplary attitudes displayed at all times. Well done girls!
Year 6
To see the excitement on the children’s faces as they set off on their bicycles for the final part of the bikeability course was extremely rewarding this week. Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed learning about road safety, as well as demonstrating a few tricks and skids to each other when riding around the campus; I wish I had brought my old ‘Diamondback’ BMX so I could join in!
In class, we have relished the opportunity to create some amazing art pieces in the style of ‘Banksy’ for a national competition, and our creative writing on Charles Darwin and the Galapagos has given the class a chance to develop their knowledge and skills in literature, Science, Geography, History and Art.
However, the highlight of the week had to be our annual Book Character Day. From ‘Gangsta Grannies’ and ‘Where’s Wallies’ to ‘Bruce Bogtrotters’ and ‘Willy Wonkas’, Year 6 was full of fun and frolics! Our love of literature was apparent throughout the day as we led our Houses in a range of book activities. As the day ended, it was tinged with a little nostalgia with the class recollecting all their costumes from years gone by. With just over a term left in Year 6, we all agreed that we need to make the most of every day as Prep School truly is a special place to be.
Year 5
Our week in Year 5 began focusing on our theme for this term ‘Internationalism’. We have entered the ‘Young Artists’ Summer Show’ and have first researched the famous artist (Andy Warhol) who was from America and notorious for his pop art creations. Year 5 recreated Andy Warhol’s space themed pop art (for the competition) – looking at many different shades of colours and sectioning their piece into quarters to show a repeated picture.
During PSHE this week, learning about our digital wellbeing and which social media platforms we are aware of have been the point of our important discussions. We have talked about how to manage risks if they arise to ensure we all stay safe, happy and healthy.
In Maths, we have continued to investigate fractions including equivalent fractions, comparing and ordering them and adding fractions with the same denominators. We have looked at fractions in many different ways such as pictorially, through diagrams and as an abstract form.
During our English lessons, Year 5 have continued to revisit parenthesis alongwith applying this to their writing. They have also looked more closely at Chris Hadfield (the astronaut) in The Darkest Dark to think about how his character and feelings have changed during the course of the story.
As it comes to the end of the week, there has been no better way to end it other than seeing all of the fantastic costumes for ‘character dress up day’! We have thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone transform into their different roles whilst taking part in a book scavenger hunt, book bingo and making their own bookmark.
What a great week we’ve had!
Year 4
The week certainly ended in a unique way with round two of World Book Day – ‘Rossall’s Character Day’. An assortment of famous book characters entered the Year 4 classroom from Harry Potter to Cat in the Hat, all of whom were excited to discover the variety of story related activities planned for the day.
In English, we finally found out what happened to the characters in our book. The children were surprised to find out not only was their Pacific Island subjected to a volcanic eruption but also a tsunami. The children used these findings to practise their letter writing skills with the challenge of including as much emotive language as they possibly could.
Our topic in English linked seamlessly to our Geography lessons, as the children were learning all about plate tectonics and how their movement can cause all manner of natural disasters. They were fascinated to learn that due to the movement of the Earth’s plates, we are slowly drifting further away from the USA and one day, 250 million years into the future, the planet could once again become one giant supercontinent – ‘Pangea Ultima’.
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, woodlice and earwigs.
Our Maths lessons have seen another week of fractions which involved a continuous array of imaginary pizzas and chocolate bars to support the children’s learning. Little wonder we were always ready for lunch each day this week.
Year 3
It’s hard to believe we are almost at the end of a busy and fun-filled Lent term!
In English this week we have been preparing to write our blue whale magazine articles by learning about the features of persuasive writing. We also learnt about new sentence starters called fronted adverbials.
In Maths we have been continuing to learn about fractions, now looking at fractions of amounts.
In our Topic we are wrapping up ‘Protect our planet’ and this week we explored different ways that we can take action to help reduce environmental issues.
For Science this week we looked again at parts of flowers and looked in more detail at their functions.
In Art we learnt about the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. He loved to paint sunflowers which lends itself perfectly to our science unit! The children loved creating their own original versions of the famous flowers in a vase picture.
We loved ending the week with our Book Character Day, everyone came in fantastic costumes and we all loved the rotation of book-themed activities in the afternoon!
Well done for a fab week Year 3, can’t believe we only have one more week before Easter!
Year 2
At the end of last week we had the opportunity to take part in a Football Skillz festival, 5 boys and 5 girls went to Poolfoot where we completed
a number of activities and finished the afternoon with three football matches. There were 17 schools at the event, after all the scores were calculated and combined we finished 3rd overall.
The penultimate week of term has been as full as ever, though the classroom hasn’t. A number of children have been off over the course of the week, there has definitely been a bug doing the rounds. Regardless of this we have still managed to pack a great deal in. We have completed our end of term assessments in English and Maths, had the pleasure of Miss Thomas joining us to create some fabulous artwork for the upcoming competition .We our hoping that one of our Picasso inspired creations make it to the exhibition in London, if not Miss Thomas has promised to include some in a Prep School display.
The highlight of the week has to have been our character dress up day that took place on Thursday. This obviously caused a great deal of excitement, especially for Mr Rund, who was delighted to see one of the children had chosen to dress up as Captain America. It was a little bit like looking in the mirror!
Year 1
Year 1 have had a creative week in school with lots of splashes of colour and dashes of imagination. We have been looking at the Austrian artist Hundertwasser and we admired his colourful pieces of art. We tried to create our own using lots of dark lines and colours with oil pastels and we were so proud of what we made. We have also explored our skills using watercolours and we found it so interesting that we had to be careful with how much water we used with the paint. Our creativity didn’t stop there though!
This week we have also celebrated Book Day by dressing up as fantastic characters from some of our favourite stories and we had such a great time seeing what our friends chose. Well done children! In the afternoon of Book Day we went on a book scavenger hunt, we created mini comic books and we even made some scary bookmark monsters. It’s been a fantastic week, Year 1!
Reception
The definition of a ‘family’ changes according to your experience and culture and, as new social dynamics emerge, family structures everywhere have transformed significantly, redefining the notion of the family and its members. But, while the definition of family may have evolved, its value remains as important today as it has ever been. In our book ‘The Journey Home’, Hattie Peck has collected eggs from all over the world, hatched them , and raised her blended family of cockatoos, storks, owls, anything from an egg – even reptiles.
For children in particular, caregivers in a family unit are essential to their development, their sense of security and their ability to create and sustain healthy relationships in the future. It is after all family members who provide basic needs like food, shelter and nurturing. But the role of the family extends beyond those basic needs too, helping to create a sense of belonging and community, a support system, security, and especially at the moment, an education! The children will look closely at families and differences, learning how to make hard decisions, letting go, and inclusion through this term’s storybook.
Children whose families support their learning and take a keen interest in their education do better at school and in later life. Working in partnership with parents and/or carers is central to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). We believe in consulting parents about their children’s experiences to help us plan for effective learning in class, and help us support parents in continuing their child’s learning development at home.
We encourage and welcome all contributions from parents, sharing interests or information about your culture, but also by informing us when your child achieves something new or wonderful. We are therefore reintroducing our Wow Moment cards, and ask you to record these moments and pass them onto myself. The Wow Moments are added to our class display and support assessments throughout the year. Feel free to send in as many as you would like, parents/guardians usually complete a page of wow moments each half term.
Nursery
“Without Mathematics there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is Mathematics. Everything around you is numbers”
Shakunatala Devi
This week we have focused on Mathematical development including number recognition and shape, space and measurement.
The Sanderlings
The Sanderlings started the week with shredded paper for a different sensory experience. Some of the babies enjoyed using spoons to scoop up the paper to fill various sized cups whilst being encouraged to use Mathematical language of measure such as full, half and empty. The babies have also enjoyed playing with our new inset boards, trying to work out where each piece should be placed looking for its corresponding shape. The weather hasn’t been too kind this week, however, The Sanderlings were able to go for a lovely walk around the Rossall School grounds where they looked for cars, birds, dogs and aeroplanes. The babies had a go at counting all the cars they could see. Some of the older babies were able to use mathematical language to count “1,2,3”. During one rainy afternoon the soft play was brought inside and the babies enjoyed climbing, balancing and sliding as well as fixing the different shaped equipment together to create new structures.
The Sandpipers
The Sandpipers have been focusing on Mathematical development with a particular focus on shape, size, weight and numerals. The children counted spots and then worked together to match the number of spots to the written numeral. Linking to the interest in other cultures, The Sandpipers have also been learning to count to one, two, three, four and five in German, French and Spanish alongside English! The children did so well even when they were faced with some tricky pronunciation. Finally, the children have also explored weight, using scales to investigate which pot is the heaviest. The Sandpiper’s team used lots of mathematical rich language for the children to use such as light, heavy, more, less, equal and even.
Preschool
Preschool the children have been learning about numbers, quantity and counting. In the home corner Preschool have enjoyed looking at different currencies from around the world linked to the places they may have visited with their families. This play experience was further extended when the children used their knowledge to create their own Bakery using a cash register to pay for the delicious items they had been buying. Preschool have also engaged in number games on the interactive whiteboard, this included feeding the teddy bear the correct amount of cupcakes for the corresponding numeral on the teddy’s body – it was challenging at first but the children soon developed how number quantity and numerals match. At register time the children have practiced counting and finding out how many children are in the room. Finally, on a walk around the grounds the children noticed multiple numbers in different areas such as on speed limit signs and numbers on doors.
Awards
Year 6
Our award winners this week are:
In 6S – Hugo for outstanding determination in Sport & Xanthe for outstanding effort in all activities
In 6R – Roman and Alfie both for excellent effort and ability in Hockey.
Year 5
The certificate winners this week in Year 5 are:
5S: Amelia and Seluleko for showing fantastic effort and contribution in Spanish.
5R : I Reuben and Tommy for excellent engagement and effort in the Spanish Armada interviews in Topic.
Year 4
In Year 4 our certificates this week go to Florence and Spencer for outstanding effort in Maths.
Year 3
The certificates this week go to Emma for fantastic work in Art and to Sophie for brilliant effort across her learning.
Year 2
Certificates of achievement go to Arabella and Fox outstanding attitude, application and effort at Football Skillz. Well done to both of them.
Year 1
This week in Year 1 our Certificates of Achievement go to:
Darcey for being super responsible and reliable as well as working hard in all of her lessons.
Teigan for trying her best and hardest in all of her learning this week.
Reception
This week’s certificate of achievement go to Ares and Rupert.
Ares has produced some excellent and very detailed drawings of book characters, after carefully following a set of instructions given to the children by a real illustrator, Nicola Slater.
Rupert has tried very hard to improve his handwriting this week. We have been practising writing on a line and reducing the size of our writing.
Well done to both children!
