This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
It left as quickly as it came on Tuesday morning, but for a brief few hours, Rossall was blanketed in snow, creating a wonderfully magical scene for the children. It has been a remarkably cold week and we do insist that the children wear their School coats at break time – when they have remembered to bring them!
On Tuesday, we launched our parent lunches for the term. It was wonderful to welcome the PreSchool and Reception parents into our historic Common Room and I know that everyone enjoyed sampling the food that is on offer to the pupils in the Dining Room. We still have places available for the upcoming lunches, starting with Year 1 and 2 parents this Tuesday. Please complete this form if you like to attend.
I am always proud of our pupils when they take part in fixtures and tournaments against other schools. The way in which they conduct themselves and display such sportsmanship is heartening. More than that though, they compete against much larger schools with huge intakes. This was once again on display at the local athletics meet, held in our very own sports centre on Thursday afternoon. The Prep pupils displayed incredible running, jumping and throwing, beating opposition from a number of larger schools, progressing to the regional finals. Huge congratulations to our team – a full report will appear in next week’s newsletter!
The under 11 footballers are out today, competing in the Lancashire Schools Finals, after winning the Wyre & Fylde tournament earlier this year. A report will be in next week’s newsletter.
It all has to start somewhere and on Wednesday, our Under 9 footballers played against St Pius X. The children were superb, scoring a great many goals but never losing sight of the right way to play, as they displayed genuine respect for the opposition. Congratulations to all of our pupils who have participated competitively this week.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Emails
Dear Parents
We have been made aware that a number of School emails have been finding their way to Spam/Junk folders. This is due to an issue with the cloud server and we have asked for the service provider to rectify the problem as soon as possible. In the meantime, please do check your other folders on a regular basis.
Kindest regards
Mr Turner
Elmer Day & Movie Night
We are excited to announce that Rossall Prep School will be participating in Elmer’s Big Parade in Blackpool supporting Brian House. This involves the children designing and decorating our own Elmer statue! Schools around the local area will be joining in and all the Elmers will be on show around Blackpool from April-June.
As part of the arrangement, we will be celebrating ‘Elmer Day’ on Friday 2nd February – a mathematical patterns activity day! The children can wear non-uniform with a patterned, shape or colour theme. We will be having different Maths activities focused around patterns and inspired by the Elmer books. We are asking for donations of £2 to wear non-uniform, which will go towards our Elmer fund.
Additionally, the day will end with an exciting Movie Night, which will run in conjunction with our friends from Rossall Rose Society! This is an event for children in Reception to Y6 who will pick one of two available films to watch in School. The event will run from 4:30 after School ends, with collection at 6pm from the usual location. A Jotform will be circulated next week to sign up for this fun event. The evening will be charged at £5 per child, including snacks and drinks.
We are positive that the children will all be hugely excited for these fun events!
Crazy Creatures Writing Competition
Before Christmas, the pupils in Years 3, 4 and 5 participated in a writing competition called ‘Crazy Creatures’. The challenge was to write a story in only a hundred words all about a crazy creature of their creation. We had some wonderful wacky monsters – slimy ones, invisible ones, flying ones, you name it! The stories were incredible and demonstrated the breadth of the children’s imaginations. A winner was selected from each class: congratulations to Arla, Emma and Ben. Well done to them and to all our creative writers!
Goals Galore for the Rossall U9 Footballers!
It was wonderful to see the U9 Footballers begin the new year with a fine display of free flowing football this week. We welcomed our good friends from St Pius, Preston, for two matches, and the supportive crowd were treated to a sparkling display of teamwork and plenty of goals from the Rossall players.
Well done to all the children who took part for representing Rossall splendidly on and off the field.
Year 6
This week, we have witnessed mother nature at its finest with sprinklings of snow, glorious sunshine, and some rain (of course!) but alas the evenings are gradually extending their reach showing us that spring is on its way.
The world of Louis Sachar’s “Holes” continues to capture our imaginations both during our English lessons and during our class reading sessions. We have delved into the intricate lives of the characters, forging connections and gaining a richer understanding of the plot’s twists and turns. The magic of literature is truly unfolding in our classroom!
Exploring the various time differences across North America in our Geography lessons, we applied our mathematical skills to calculate the time disparities in different countries compared to GMT. We were surprised to learn that as we are packing our bags for home at the end of a school day, there are students on the west coast of the USA just beginning their days!
Thursday afternoon brought a wave of creativity during our first Rossall Rotation of the term. With the beach as our canvas and high tide as our muse, we immersed ourselves in creating sea-themed artwork.
In PSHE this week, we had important discussions about internet safety. In an increasingly digital world, equipping ourselves with the knowledge and tools to navigate the online landscape responsibly is of utmost importance.
Our energetic week extended beyond the classroom as well, with our students showcasing their talents and sportsmanship on various playing fields. From indoor athletics to netball and boys’ football, our young athletes represented the school with pride and enthusiasm.
The students have worked incredibly hard, not just this week but throughout the year so far, to prepare for their Senior School Entrance Exams. They have risen to the challenge of new learning alongside revision, taking part in additional revision sessions and understanding the importance of being exam-ready. Mrs Kenmare and I (Mrs Scott) are incredibly proud of how hard they have all worked and we are sure that they will showcase their abilities in the exams over the next few days.
Year 5
Our new book “The Lost Happy Endings” has captivated the class this week, and we have created some beautiful pieces of writing using similes and metaphors to describe our main character and the setting of our enchanting story. The class thoroughly enjoy sharing their creative work, and the encouraging feedback from their classmates instils a wonderful sense of support and positivity in the classroom.
Year 5 love their Science lessons each week and our investigation into different materials and their properties led us to design our own experiments to test for thermal conductors and insulators. Armed with thermometers and ice cubes, we have been testing materials to design the perfect insulating lunchbox for a hot summer’s day – we certainly have plenty of time to finish our designs!
Year 4
We’ve had a great week in Year 4 this week and have loved the return of Rossall Rotation whereby this term we visit the Astronomy Centre!
In English, we have continued studying the book, “Escape from Pompeii”, by Christina Balit. We have focused on the character Tranio and used our senses to describe the beautiful city of Pompeii. We also typed a diary entry in the role of Tranio to cover his daily routines and activities before we move on to the main event of the story next week.
This has linked well with our ‘Romans on a Rampage’ topic as we have been busy learning about the ancient Roman army. The Romans never fail to stimulate our imaginations with a plethora of interesting facts, legends and traditions. We focused on generating a timeline to discover how the Romans came to invade Britain under the rule of Roman Emperors Julius and Claudius.
In Science, we looked at ‘states of matter’ and discovered that everything in the physical universe exists in one of three states: either a solid, a liquid or a gas. We also discovered how materials can change from one state of matter to another by melting or freezing. To engage with this concept, we enlisted the help of the humble chocolate bar, which the children had no difficulty in appreciating the properties of in both solid and liquid form. We experimented to see the reaction of chocolate when heat was applied. We planned the experiment and together wrote a detailed method. Conducting a fair experiment is complex but the children were able to discuss all the different variables and decide which ones they had to keep the same.
Year 3
Year 3 have had a wonderful week keeping warm with the snow and frosty weather!
We are fully entrenched in the Stone Age and are enjoying exploring this period of ancient history. This week in our Topic lessons we learnt about historical timelines and how BC/AD works. We ordered Stone Age events into our own timelines.
In English, we are really enjoying our book Stone Age Boy, and we reflected on how it is a fiction story with non-fiction elements. We learnt about different Stone Age activities like hunting, knapping flints, making tools, using animal skins and we built a new vocabulary list. We used dictionaries to find definitions of these words and made our own Stone Age glossaries. We also learnt about past tense verbs and used these to write comparisons between the Stone Age and the modern day.
In Science this week we learnt about the rock cycle and conducted rock observations, using magnifying glasses to closely observe rocks and describe them.
In Maths we consolidated our learning about multiplication with 2- and 3- digit numbers, and extended ourselves with dividing 2- and 3- digit numbers. We learnt how to use partitioning to help with division and also a new strategy called the bus stop method. A challenging week but we have persevered!
We had our first Rossall Rotation session of 2024 – Forest Schools! It was fantastic to do some outdoor learning even in the freezing cold. We learnt some campfire songs, played outdoor games and made an outdoors poster.
We finished off the week with some Stone Age art, creating our own cave drawings using dry pastels and smudging techniques.
Well done for a fabulous week Year 3!
Year 2
It has been another fabulous week in Year 2, we have been getting our teeth into lots of different areas of the curriculum this week and the children’s desire to share their knowledge and further their learning has been really impressive.
In Mathematics we have moved on from our topic of shape to focus on money and the children have demonstrated an excellent understanding of this.
In English, the children have been completing some fabulous writing. They have written a diary entry focussing on using the past, present and future tense, I was delighted to read such fabulous pieces, well done Year 2!
In Science, we have continued learning about materials and the qualities that make them suitable for the construction of various items. The class thoroughly enjoyed the hunt around our classroom for articles, thinking about the material they are made from and why.
The highlight of the week was definitely our new Rossall Rotation activity, the class thoroughly enjoyed golf and I hear the children listened well and worked hard to develop their swing.
Year 1
This week, we have had the perfect weather for our Science topic: ‘Freezing and Melting’. We have embraced the crisp weather, taking our learning outside to investigate the snow and ice. We made observations and found ways to melt it. We even learnt about the water cycle and where snow comes from.
In English, we have started to read our class story, where we have discovered what happens in a museum during ‘the magic hour’. We have completed some excellent work on describing settings and used this to write our own sentences about what we have found happening in the museum. We are looking forward to our own visit to Blackburn Museum next week so we can see some wonderful artefacts before our own eyes.
In Maths we have started our next topic, Place Value, and have begun to look at the value of tens and ones in teen numbers, learning number names and counting within 20.
In our Topic lesson we have been creating timelines of our firsts – first tooth, first steps, first cuddle, first birthday. We have looked at photos of these special times and shared them with the class. Thank you to the parents who shared these memories with their child to share with our class.
We also had our first Rossall Rotation visit to the Rossall Farm this week, it was very cold but lots of fun! We enjoyed learning how to handle and care for our Rossall animals.
Reception
There is something magical about the snow. It blankets the world in beauty and has this way of making you feel happy. There is something about snow that makes children want to go out and play while making the adults feel like children again themselves. Playing in the snow is not only fun, but it is also beneficial.
Getting exercise during the day by playing in the snow helps develop a child’s gross motor skills by building muscle and promotes better sleep. Children need to engage in “heavy play” to work their muscles and properly develop. Playing in the snow is a great way to do this. It won’t take long in the snow for children to tire out. Walking in snow is no easy chore. We love playing chasing games through the snow so we all get a workout! That’s a win-win.
When the outdoors is covered in snow, you can’t play in the same way as when it is clear. This means that playing in the snow forces children to use their imagination to come up with a way to play in these new conditions. They have to solve the problem of just HOW to play in the snow. It is so much fun to see what they come up with!
The children have learnt all about snowflakes this week, introducing new vocabulary such as dendrite and hexagonal. We have even made our own snowflakes using our cutting skills and watercolours. We had so much fun this week in the snow, that we cannot wait for more to fall!
Nursery
“Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics” – Dean Schlicter
This week in the Nursery we have focused on Mathematics.
The Sanderlings
The Sanderlings have been learning 2D shapes by using the shape sorter to find the correct hole for each shape. The babies have also been counting whilst building towers and structures using wooden bricks. The Sanderlings have extended this learning by creating patterns by arranging objects such as cars, shapes and bricks into their own patterns and picking certain shapes for the space on an inset puzzle board. This week the babies have been involved in trial and error as they tested if objects can fit into different sized spaces. They even tested this out with their bodies to see where they could place themselves; The Sanderlings love crawling and exploring through the cube storage unit and under our slide. Finally, the babies have been practising nursery rhymes and songs, looking at those in particular that have numbers in, and joining in with repeated actions.
The Sandpipers
The Sandpipers have also been looking at numbers and shapes. There have been lots of activities planned to support the children to learn whilst being active, for example, by going on number hunts, shape hunts, completing jigsaw puzzles, singing number songs and number games. Miss Chapman has taught the children about how a dice is used in a game and how the dots can be counted to decide how many steps can be taken on a board game. The Sandpipers then played “The musical dice game”: when the music stopped the children threw the dice, and counted the dots before jumping up and down to mirror the number on the dice. The Sandpipers have been on a walk around the Rossall grounds to look for numbers and shapes. The Sandpipers have also been learning prepositions in Key worker time and have been asked if they can place an object under, behind, on top, inside and in front of the chair. To end the week, the children have been looking at their book of the month “The Gruffalo’s Child”, talking about the mouse’s shadow and what makes the mouse so big, which was then enhanced by looking at shadows in the sun like the “Big Bad Mouse”.
Pre-School
At the beginning of the week, the Pre-School children had a new visitor Mr Crombie who came in as the “Mystery reader”. The children sat so well and enjoyed listening to the two stories Mr Crombie brought in for them to enjoy. On Tuesday the snow created lots of excitement in Pre-School, the children went outside as soon as they could and enjoyed exploring the garden in the snow. The Pre-School children were wrapped up in gloves, scarves and woolly hats and were excited to be joined by the reception class. The children loved creating snowmen, making marks in the snow and experimenting. Some of the children even set up their own outdoor snow shop and could be heard asking “Does anyone want to buy a snow drink?”
In the Library Classroom, the children have been learning alliteration with Miss Ward; the children used different pictures that had alliteration in the initial sound that had to be matched with a partner. The children worked together in teams to listen to the sounds of the words before deciding which letter sounds the same.
Awards
Year 6
This week, our certificates go to Archie for taking feedback on board to improve his writing, Skyla for challenging herself in maths with tricky topics, Sophie for excellent participation and ideas during PSHE and Ahill for excellent contribution and work during English lessons.
Year 5
Our certificates this week have been awarded to Eryn for outstanding effort and progress in creative writing and Billy, for outstanding determination and effort in everything you do!
Year 4
Our certificate winners for this week go to Ryan for creating a fantastic diary entry in the role of Tranio, and Emma for her excellent effort and focus in Maths.
Year 3
This week the Year 3 certificates go to Khaled for his wonderful sharing about Islam in Religious Studies lessons, and to Starsky for challenging himself in Maths with division of large numbers.
Year 2
This week, our certificates have been awarded to Lexi for sharing her wonderful home learning with classmates, and Jaxon for outstanding understanding and contribution in Maths lessons.
Year 1
This week certificate winners are Theo, for fantastic engagement and contributions during Dance and Chika, for demonstrating excellent skills in PE.
Reception
This week’s certificate of achievement go to Athena and Celia. Celia has tried so hard with her reading this week and is making more progress as a result. Athena was very kind and caring this week when she helped look after a little boy on a taster day in our class.
