This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All
There are weeks at Rossall where I genuinely wonder how we fit everything into five days! This week has included: two Matilda shows, an AJIS Football tournament at Cheadle Hulme, our IAPS swimmers went to St Mary’s Hall, a Y2 Multi Skills event, Y1 visited the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the House Swim Gala, the Music Concert Assembly and NSPCC Number Day. Phew!
We have had some very tired little people in School and half term is most certainly a welcome break for them all. Congratulations to all children across the Prep School, who have represented the School magnificently over the past week.
We often write about the various sporting successes and participation across our newsletters, mainly because of the array of activities, competitions and opportunities that are on offer. However, this week I must focus on the most wonderful and talented Prep School pupils, as they delivered some quite stunning and incredibly professional performances in the musical, Roald Dahl’s Matilda Jr.
The children were simply amazing and it was with great pride that I congratulated all of them on such a wonderful effort. To have all pupils from Years 3 to 6 on the stage at the end, provides such a clear example of the inclusion we cherish within our School, the nurturing environment that develops such confidence within the children, and the depth of talent that can be unleashed if pupils are taken outside of their comfort zones.
My thanks to all of the staff that helped to create such a memorable two evenings at School. My thanks also go to the parents who provided costumes and listened to line after line and song after song at home! Of course, my appreciation also goes to the children, who time and time again give their all in order to be the best that they can be, to strive for success and to almost literally, reach for the stars!
Have a wonderful and well-deserved rest over half term.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Matilda Photo Gallery
Please follow the link below, browse the embedded gallery or scan the QR code in the programmes for all the photos of our fantastic show!
NSPCC Number Day
Prep School pupils dressed up as their favourite rock stars for NSPCC Number Day. Everyone got together and played a variety of maths challenges, such as ‘Bingo’ and ‘Who Wants To Be A Mathionaire?’
Rossall Swim Team Make a Splash at Stonyhurst!
Congratulations to the Year 6 Swim Team who competed impressively at the IAPS swimming championships this week at St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst. Our team represented the school admirably against schools from across the North West of England with a number of first place finishes. We now wait to see if our swimmers have achieved the qualifying times to compete at the London Aquatics Centre later this year.
Rossall Footballers Hit the Target at the AJIS Finals
Well done to our Year 5 and 6 Football Team who represented the school heroically at the Independent Schools finals this week. As defending champions, they played with passion and skill to reach the semi-final stage before going out on penalties to Stockport Grammar.
The team showed wonderful commitment and played superbly throughout the day. Well done, Rossall!
Year 6
“Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable…
Roald Dahl, Matilda
The children in Year 6 have certainly followed Matilda’s advice, they gave the performances on Tuesday and Wednesday night everything they had and a little more! The result was most definitely UNBELIEVABLE!
Mr Condon and I are so proud of the children, they have worked incredibly hard over the course of the Term and have achieved so much in the classroom, in the sports field and of course on the stage.
We are both looking forward to the next half term which will be just as exciting and action packed!
So, have a really good rest Year 6, there is more to come!
Year 5
Wow! What a way to end a half term. The children have been so busy with rehearsing and performing Matilda, and all the staff are extremely proud of how well they did. We still managed to find some time to squeeze in a few lessons too!
In English, we have continued to follow Arthur on his quest to save his town from freezing to death, where he has arrived at Asgard, Land of the Gods, and been sent on an important challenge by Thor. We have looked at a clip from ‘The Avengers Movie’ and used this to write a narrative for the Thor VS Loki scene we watched. We used lots of the writing features that we have learnt in class to turn a 27 second film scene into a detailed story.
Today, not only have we had Number Day and dressed as our TT Rockstar avatars, but we have also had the opportunity to visit the Science Department. With all the hairspray and bunsen burners it’s a surprise we didn’t set alight! With the help of Mrs Cohen, we carried out experiments involving reversible and irreversible changes using filtration and evaporation, and even made elephant toothpaste.
In Topic, we have discussed our visit last week to Turton Tower and added extra detail to our work on Tudor houses. We have been amazed by the efforts this half term with the topic related Home Learning. Just this week we have seen an array of Tudor Houses, a collage of Henry VIII, a cooking demonstration, and tried Tudor Bread and Tudor style biscuits. Well done for all of your hard work.
Year 4
What a busy final week of term! Musical extravaganzas, a swimming gala, Rossall Rotation and Number Day all jam packed into one week!
Our Prep School musical ‘Matilda’ enthralled and entertained a rapt audience in Big School. The performance yielded a tremendous bank of talent. Year 4 did everyone proud with the energy, joy, colour and light they radiated.
The drama activities continued with the children designing and creating their very own spa experience in a Roman bathhouse. They were a bit put off by some of the treatments which consisted of olive oil and sweat, however the children quickly overcame this to put together a full Roman spa experience complete with workout routine, massage and sauna.
Science has taken us to the water cycle and we addressed the question: ‘How old is water?’ We were amazed to discover that we are drinking the same water as the dinosaurs did! The children created their own water cycles and labelled them with the correct scientific processes and are now all masters in anything water related!
The children have not only been busy on stage but also in class as we have completed reading our class book and finally discovered how Tranio and Livia ‘Escaped from Pompeii’. Using the information, the children have been working on their final piece of writing by becoming 80 years of age and retelling Tranio’s story.
Have a wonderful and restful half term break.
Year 3
What an exciting end to this half term! Of course a lot of our energy was dedicated to the fantastic production of Matilda, and the Year 3s were spectacular with their performance of ‘Miracle’. To be part of such a large-scale production was a truly special experience and has given them a taste of what’s to come for them in future years!
We have also done lots of great learning this week. We finished our unit on Stone Age Boy in English, by writing our own Stone Age stories. We created our own drafts and then wrote beautifully neat and careful final copies. In Maths we have started our new unit which is all about Money, this week looking at pounds and pence, We also wrapped up our Topic and Science for the half term. Of course we had our final Forest Schools session for Rossall Rotation, where we did a scavenger hunt and observational drawings.
Have a well-earnt half term break Year 3!
Year 2
We have had an absolutely fabulous final week to the half term, both in and out of the classroom. The children thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to watch the dress rehearsal of Matilda on Monday afternoon. The wonderful performance of the Prep School has all the Year 2 children thinking it is acceptable to “be a little bit naughty”! Tuesday saw a group of ten children represent Rossall Prep School at Cardinal Alan in a brilliant Multi Skills Festival. There were lots of very red faces by the end of the day.
In the classroom we have been working incredibly hard to get everything finished in time for half term, in Mathematics we have finished our work on measurement and have now moved onto statistics. In English we completed our final written pieces related to the book “The Dragon Machine”. The class was focussing on including adjectives and subordinating clauses in their stories. If that was not enough we also completed our Science assessments on Materials. The children demonstrated a fabulous understanding of the properties of various materials and how this makes them useful for various purposes. This week the final few castles have been brought in to share with classmates, this was literally the case with Valencia, whose castle was a delicious cake! You’ve been fabulous so far this term Year 2!
Enjoy your well-deserved break!
Year 1
Well what can I say, Year 1? Haven’t we had an amazing week?!
We started our week with plenty of writing and preparation for our story writing later this week and then this was followed by the fantastic opportunity to watch our school’s production of Matilda. Wow, we enjoyed it so much!
Then we went on our trip to Liverpool and what an exciting day it was! We all got to school early and left on our buses straight for the World Museum. We visited the prehistoric floor and we saw lots of fossils and extinct animals. It was fantastic, especially the dinosaur skeletons and the huge fossils of footprints too. We really enjoyed reading that there were dinosaurs that lived in England.
Following this we went next door to the Walker Art Gallery where we took part in a creative workshop all about storytelling. We looked at many contemporary pieces of art but also some gigantic paintings that were nearly 300 years old! Our children were so curious and intrigued by everything they saw and it was truly inspiring to see. We represented our school so well too, and I am so proud of how sensible we were.
It’s been a jam-packed week with Rossall Rotation and even a dress up day, I think our children will be ready for a well-earned break.
Reception
Whether at home or at school, naming numbers and counting is at the core of EYFS Mathematics. It is the beginning of the development of number sense. Giving your child a solid foundation in number sense is more than just naming numbers and counting. Number sense encompasses a broad understanding of the concept of numbers, it refers to a child’s fluidity in numbers.This week w
e are delighted to be supporting the NSPCC by taking part in Number Day. Number Day is a great way to make maths fun and bring about a positive, ‘can-do’ attitude, as well as helping the children develop number sense.
On Friday, we took on several Maths Challenge in our houses, with a whole school Bingo game, Battle Dice and Who wants to be a Mathionaire. We had a fun day of maths activities including, decorating numbers, making chains longer, shorter and the same, singing various number rhymes and tackling a fun problem solving activity using minibeast, spring flowers and Numicon.
We have really enjoyed all the fun of Number Day, and we really appreciated your support. All the money we raise at school will make an enormous difference to children today and help the NSPCC be there for children tomorrow.
Nursery
“A child’smental health is just as important as their physical health and deserves the same level of support”
Kate Middleton
This week the whole nursery has been taking part in Children’s mental health week.
The Sanderlings started their week with a gloop (a mixture of cornflour and water) activity, the babies were encouraged to make marks using their hands and use the wooden bricks to construct their own interpretation of a building. Next, the babies were encouraged to use their whole bodies and senses to touch the gloop. It has been an exciting week with the much loved ‘small world’ table having a creative revamp to allow the children to use the area for imaginative play. Animals were added to shaving foam for more messy play, the children were supported to find the animals and use words or noises to identify them. As this week is Children’s mental health week, The Sanderlings took part in wellbeing Wednesday. The children participated in mindfulness exercises to relax their bodies and minds and enjoyed their first yoga session. Finally, the babies were excited to have their own ‘Sanderling Spa’ where they had mini pedicures with warm water, soft sponges and bubbles – how lovely!
The Sandpipers began the week by investigating water to see which items float or sink – there were some surprises such as paper – paper floats when on top of the water but eventually sinks. Linking to the book of the month ‘Acceptance is my superpower’ by Alice Ortego the children were encouraged to discuss their similarities and differences, before talking about what makes us unique and how it is wonderful that we are all perfect in our own way. The children were given the opportunity to use a real microscope to explore DNA and enzymes whilst talking about how some people, called scientists, look at objects under a microscope for their job. In the Tuff Tray the children took part in a science themed mark making activity where they used paint brushes, washing up liquid and a space themed picture to create their own pictures. For Children’s mental health week the children were taught a counting technique to help them become calm when feelings overwhelm them, the children know they can breathe slowly and count “5…4…3…2…1”. Mx Preston set up the Tuff Tray with technological items such as tv remotes for the children to explore technology we see everyday in our homes. Finally, on Friday the children made volcanoes using baking soda and vinegar, followed by mentos and Coca Cola to see which objects created a more reactive lava. This activity encouraged the children to think about what would happen, create a hypothesis and find out first hand what happens.
The Preschool has officially started their book of the month ‘In every house on every street’ by Jess Hitchman. The story is a celebration of everything that goes to make up a home and is a lovely way for children to learn about families and cultures. Linked to this the children used building blocks and shaving foam to create their own houses. One of the learning intentions this week was to talk about what is important to us and our families, this was partnered with wellbeing Wednesday as part of Children’s mental health week. The Preschool came up with some wonderful ideas such as being happy, having cuddles and days out with their families. The Preparatory school has worked hard to put on a production of Roald Dahl’s story Matilda, some of the children from Preschool had the chance to go and see it earlier in the week. It was clear that the children had worked so hard in their rehearsals and we had a great time watching their hard work pay off. We came away from the production with a few songs stuck in our heads. Mrs Gaynor has taken the musical lead again this week with a number book set to a music based background, the children counted the animals as they went through the story and used actions to create an active storytelling experience. Finally, with the brighter but cold weather upon us coupled with a few new pieces of equipment created by the maintenance team the Preschool has enjoyed exploring the garden.
Awards
Year 6
This week our certificates go to Michael & Jack for commitment and dedication, and also to Dawood & Jacob for resilience and teamwork.
Year 5
5R award winners are Rhiannon, for fantastic work in English and always working hard, and Ahill, for always being eager and ready for learning.
5S award winners are Millie and Jude, for excellent independence and efforts during Matilda.
Year 4
This week in Year 4 our certificate winners are Jude and Oleg for excellent writing in English.
Year 3
Our certificates this week go to Anthony for creativity in his writing and to Marcel for great participation in Maths.
Year 2
Certificates go to Rex and Kaxshaan for outstanding effort and enthusiasm at the Multi Skills Festival.
Year 1
Our certificates of Achievement this week go to:
Aria for being superbly enthusiastic during our Art Workshop and for participating so well.
Millie for following instructions to the best of her ability on our trip, setting a great example for her friends.
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Vova and Rupert.
Vova has been very creative this week and persevered to make a variety of models with junk materials.
Rupert has grown in confidence during class discussions and is taking a more active part, sharing his ideas and opinions.
