This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
The children are becoming increasingly excited by the closeness of Poppins Jr., with our performances less than a month away. The culmination of much of their efforts in dance, music and drama in the Prep School, is one that they very much look forward to but also with a sense of nervous apprehension. Performances at this age group provide such a wonderful opportunity for children to grow in confidence and self-belief and I know that they are working hard to remember their dance moves, lines and acting skills. Please do support them by purchasing tickets for one of the shows that are available here:
As we ramp up our World Book Day series of events, the joy of reading is being celebrated in so many ways. Whether it be the recent opportunity to send in pictures of some extreme reading, the visit of our book fair, or the upcoming World Book Day dressing up as a Disney character event, the children are enjoying sharing experiences that are involved in the lifelong love of all things reading!
It was wonderful to see so many of you at the first of our Parents’ Evenings on Thursday afternoon. Having an opportunity to discuss academic and pastoral progress is one that the staff very much look forward to, as we endeavour to ensure a joined approach to supporting the children in all that they do at School.
Finally, the craziness of our annual House Pancake Race was not diminished by the horrendous weather that swept in on Tuesday afternoon – Big School was easily able to accomodate us at short notice! Albeit a week after Shrove Tuesday, the children willfully ran their hearts out as they tossed their pancakes to rapturous applause from whoops of support from parents and fellow housemates. There is a real sense of camaraderie and belonging amongst our houses and I know every one of the children are huge advocates for their house. We look forward to some better weather as we prepare for the suitcase races and tug-o-war in the Summer term!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
U11 Lancashire Hockey Tournament at St Mary’s
The torrential rain did not dampen the spirits of the Rossall Prep hockey squad this Wednesday. We competed against many teams from across Lancashire and played some superb hockey. We even managed to keep smiling as the rain poured! Our final results were: one win, two draws and two losses.
Well done to all the girls that took part, and for remaining so positive. What fantastic ambassadors for Rossall Prep!
Year 6
As we begin the second half of Lent term, our History lessons have transported us to this illustrious Victorian era. We have delved into the lives of remarkable monarchs, with a particular focus on the indomitable Queen Victoria. Through research and engaging discussions, we have begun to gain an insight into her reign and the profound impact it had on shaping society. In our Reading lesson, we have marvelled at Queen Victoria’s astute strategies in managing her public image through the early use of photographs, a skill that resonates even in today’s world of social media!
In our English lessons, we have begun reading ‘Island’, which tells the story of the Galapagos Islands. We have also read ‘Jemmy Button’ this week, the story of the young boy who was brought to England to learn to ‘become civilised’ during the early 1800s and then returned to his homeland on board HMS Beagle, which the esteemed naturalist Charles Darwin was a main passenger. We considered different viewpoints in this story, and shared these in a marketplace style before we examined how authors use cohesive devices in texts. Our next step will be to use these cohesive devices to write our own opinions on whether it was right for the young boy to leave his homeland and travel to England. These books link seamlessly to our History topic as Charles Darwin’s publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’, inspired by his discoveries in the Galapagos Islands, took place during the Victorian era. Our science topic of Evolution and Inheritance also seamlessly links, and we look forward to exploring how species have evolved and how fossils give us clues about the past later in the term.
In Mathematics, with the successful completion of our first fractions unit, we have laid a solid foundation for future mathematical endeavours. The week finished with the challenge of problem-solving with coordinates across all four quadrants, fostering critical thinking and analytical skills.
Amidst the academic success, preparations for our upcoming production of “Mary Poppins” are continuing. Students are eagerly immersing themselves in rehearsals, both during lessons and after school, honing their theatrical and musical skills. Three weeks until showtime!
Year 5
The class have returned after the half term break delighted to be back, and full of enthusiasm for the exciting activities that lie in store. Our English and Science units have captured our imagination on the theme of space, and our new book ‘The Darkest Dark’ has inspired some wonderful creative writing about the Apollo 11 moon landing. This also links perfectly with the Rossall Rotation, which is Astronomy this half term, and we will relish the opportunity to learn from the great Dr Lister about our Solar System and the Universe.
We have been busy writing an assembly script to deliver to the other classes and Year 5 parents on Friday, March 1st at 8:45am. We are in the early stages of practising our lines, and a couple of catchy tracks to share our learning, so be ready for a voyage of historical discovery! We are also fine tuning our dance moves for ‘Poppins’, just three weeks away-it’s going to be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Year 4
In the blink of an eye, we are half way through Year 4 and still have plenty of exciting topics to squeeze in!
In English, we have delved into our new book ‘When the Giant Stirred’. As always, discussing, predicting and investigating a book by its clues before starting it enables us to get our curious minds ticking. We have been writing excellent expanded noun phrases to describe different scenes from the book: the rainforest, ocean and tropical island. Using a Thesaurus and exploring many synonyms has also been the focus of the week.
In Science, we have started learning all about ‘Living Things and Their Habitats’. Whilst questioning what living things need in order to be ‘a living thing’, we investigated the 7 life processes – we loved learning about the meaning of the word excretion!
Having experienced rain, wind and sun this week, we began our Topic for the term – Natural Disasters. In order to understand how these events are created and why they happen, we have looked into how the Earth is structured and the many layers that reside beneath our feet. We have examined the world’s tectonic plates and we were surprised to find out that the UK is tectonic plate free and that 75% of the Earth’s volcanoes are found in the Ring of Fire. We learnt about the different ways tectonic plates move and depending on this, found out the repercussions they can cause such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
Year 3
Year 3 have had a wonderful and enjoyable first week back after half term! Firstly, we welcomed two new members to our class: Anna and Fynn who have both settled in beautifully and made lots of friends already.
A new half term of course means a new book! In English we started reading Big Blue Whale. This is a non-fiction book we are really excited about reading and learning about blue whales. We started by sharing what we already know and writing questions that we would like to find the answers to. We then learned about sentence types: statements, questions, commands and exclamations, and related these to our book.
In Maths we finished off our unit on measuring length by learning about perimeter. We measured and calculated the perimeters of lots of different complicated shapes. Next stop: fractions!
The Science unit we have started this week is a long 11-week unit on Plants. We started this week looking at the parts of plants and what their jobs are, using real plants to observe.
Our new Topic this half term is ‘Protect the Planet’ where Year 3 are going to learn how to be Eco-Warriors. We started this week learning about climate change and listened to one of Greta Thunberg’s speeches – really inspirational to see a young person taking action! We learnt new vocabulary about climate change and also conducted an experiment using ice blocks to demonstrate how the atmosphere is heating up. The children are really motivated to find out what we can do to tackle these issues!
We also had our first Rossall Rotation of this half-term, this time on the Farm! Related to our Science unit on Plants, we did some planting of vegetable seeds! We also got a chance to see the animals on the farm.
Of course, we had a flipping-good time at the Pancake Race, great fun!
Well done for a fabulous week, Year 3.
Year 2
It was fabulous to share holiday news with the children on Monday morning and discover all the interesting activities families had been up to over the half term break. However, it didn’t take us long to get back into the swing of a busy Rossall week.
We have continued our work on multiplication in Mathematics and materials in Science, and have begun to find out about The Great Fire of London in Topic lessons. In English, we have not yet discovered the title of our new book, but the children have loved the opportunity to bring in their favourite toys.
On Thursday the children had their first session in Rossall Kitchen as part of Rossall Rotation. Making cookies was a highlight of the week for the children, though Mrs Payne was a little worried the children were going to repeat the bakery antics of Pudding Lane!
Year 1
This week we have started our new topic ‘Down in the Jungle’ and our new story in English, ‘The Lion Inside’. We have made predictions, talked about the characteristics of the animals featured on the front cover and used descriptive writing to share our ideas about the setting. It’s been interesting hearing the predictions we created when thinking about what might happen to the lion and to the mouse in the story, and the journey they may take.
In Maths, we have been learning about number bonds to 20 and doubles. We had lots of fun playing the dice doubles challenge, and as it was our first Rossall Rotation session, we had lots of fun continuing our Maths learning on the beach. We collected objects and worked with partners to show number bonds to 20 and doubles. We also took the beach cleaning equipment so we could collect any rubbish we found on our visit.
On Tuesday we took part in the annual Rossall tradition of the pancake relay race. The weather meant that we had to take it indoors but the rain didn’t dampen our team spirit. The children still had lots of fun, racing and cheering on their house. Well done to Assheton house, who were the overall winners!
Reception
This week the children entered the classroom and found out that they had ‘visitors’. The visitors had left a suitcase. This gave the children a great opportunity to discuss with each other and ask questions: What has happened? What have you found? Who could have left this here? When do you need a suitcase? Shall we look inside?
The suitcase was packed with various travelling themed items that the hen in our new story ‘The Journey Home’ may need e.g. a map, an egg, big keys, an umbrella, seeds and our new book. We opened the suitcase together and explored what was inside. This again prompted a great discussion with questions and links to their own experiences: What would you need a map for? Would you pack this if you were going away? Who might pack these items? Where could they be going?
We found our new book and used the front cover to discuss and predict: Why was this book in here? Who is this bird? Where might the hen be going to? Why? Although I think the egg provided the most excitement, as the children began to help the animal in the egg to hatch out! The predictions of what would hatch varied from a chick, a crocodile, a shark, a dinosaur, a snake and even a turtle. All very sensible guesses and super examples of animals that lay eggs.
We used our floorbook to record what the word ‘journey’ meant to the children and if they had ever been on one. We discussed if maybe the hen went on a journey like one of theirs? This led to the children creating their own maps of a journey that they had been on. Maybe you could go on a journey this weekend?
Nursery
This week in the Nursery we have focused on communication and language.
The Sanderlings
This week The Sanderlings have taken part in ‘Taste Education’. During these sessions, the children have explored a variety of different fruits using all of their senses to learn and explore. This provides a great opportunity to expand and develop the children’s language and communication skills, as well as a variety of taste experiences. In addition, it gives the children the opportunity to learn new words relating to different topics, such as colours, shapes, numbers and textures. During the activity, the children explored the shapes of the fruits and noted that many of the fruits were shaped like a ball. The children appeared to really enjoy this activity and showed engagement throughout.
In addition, The Sanderlings explored playdough containing a variety of scents to build on their sensory exploration.
The Sandpipers
This week The Sandpipers have read lots of stories during circle time to enhance the children’s vocabulary. Our favourite story has been ‘The Tiger Who Came for Tea’ by Judith Kerr, this story is also the book of the month. Linked to this the children then took part in a tiger’s tea party; the children made their own hats and enjoyed singing and dancing pretending to be a tiger. The Sandpipers have also enjoyed singing lots of songs such as ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ and ‘Miss Polly’.
The children have also taken part in a Taste Education activity. They had a variety of fruits such as oranges, apples, limes and lemons to try and the children had different opinions as to whether they liked each fruit. The children used lots of describing words such as sour, sweet, tangy and juicy.
The Sandpipers have also been focusing on listening skills and have played listening games in the environments around the Nursery and wider grounds to see what they could hear such as cars, trams, horns and the wind.
To end the week, the children took part in their own puppet show. They Used lots of different teddies and hand puppets and their imagination to build a story using communication skills.
Pre-School
The Pre-School children have enjoyed exploring the Rossall grounds on a listening walk. They walked around using their listening ears to identify different sounds. They heard birds, cars, trams, laughter and the wind. The children loved taking part in the listening walk and are already asking when their next adventure walk will be. Some of the children helped put the first aid boxes together at group time as they needed to make sure everything was in there and followed the list of items required, this involved teamwork. The children talked about all the different people who help us, for example, doctors, dentists and teachers. Some of the children noticed the cross on the first aid bag, and when looking at pictures of people who may help us, they also noticed many of them wear this cross too.
On Thursday the children took a trip to the Rossall farm to visit the animals to identify the sounds each animal makes, this linked to the listening walk at the beginning of the week. Finally, the children talked about how we can look after the animals and how they require food, water, shelter and warmth just like humans.
Awards
Year 6
This week, certificates for class 6S have been awarded to Cara for demonstrating greater leadership with her own learning, leading to good progress, and Annabel for showing excellent leadership and dedication in a variety of situations. For 6R, certificates have been awarded to Rhiannon for excellent work during History lessons and Mia for working hard and showing perseverance during Mathematics.
Year 5
Well done to our award winners this week, Evelyn for outstanding progress in creative writing, and Aaron for outstanding confidence and leadership.
Year 4
Our first certificate winners for this half term go to Stanley and Hope for excellent improvement with their presentation and handwriting along with creating imaginative expanded noun phrases.
Year 3
Our certificate winners this week go to Fynn and Anna for a fantastic first week in Rossall!
Year 2
This week, our certificates have been awarded to Yuha and Max for excellent effort and application in dance.
Year 1
This week’s awards are for Joshua, for increased contribution to class discussions and Francis, for being a good role model.
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Eliza and Ted. Eliza’s confidence has grown in Maths as she tackles all new concepts. She has even helped her friends to complete their Maths activities this week. Ted has made fantastic progress with his phonics and has demonstrated a confident grasp of new sounds.
Mary Poppins Musical Tickets Available
Join us on Wednesday 13th, and Thursday 14th for a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious time as our Preparatory School present Mary Poppin’s Jr. So, don’t invest that tuppence at the Dawes, Tomes, Mousely, Grubbs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank – buy your tickets now!
