This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
Last Sunday I was delighted to attend the Rossall Rose Christmas Markets. To see so many adults and children from our community and to welcome members of the public into Rossall, was great to be a part of. The event was excellently organised and I am sure it will be the start of many more to come.
Congratulations to the girls’ football team who were magnificent at their tournament at Poolfoot on Monday. Unbeaten in the group stages, they followed the boys team with a narrow loss in the quarter final. Well done, girls!
Year 3 were out on Monday on their trip to Hoghton Tower. Mrs Payne brought some Sirs and Ladies back to School later that same day, telling me how wonderfully behaved and interested they had been during their visit! Well done, Year 3!
A big well done also goes to Year 5R for their Chapel Assembly this morning. Mr Condon has reliably informed me that you all spoke with excellent confidence and clarity!
This afternoon’s Prep School Christmas tree light switch on is always a lovely occasion and marks the official start of the Christmas run-in for our youngest pupils. Well done to all the children (and parents!) for the hard work on their baubles – school is looking very festive!
Next Friday we have our seasonal concert in Big School. Christmas Around the World should provide an opportunity to enjoy some music and drama in a relaxed environment, in what will be a change to the more formal offering!
I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.
Have a great weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Rossall Prep U10 v AKS U10 Hockey
The hockey squad were in fine song on the Rossall mini bus heading down the promenade to AKS on Wednesday afternoon! We had many of the girls making their Rossall hockey debut in these friendly matches with our neighbours.
Team morale was excellent in both of the Rossall teams. Rossall Reds and Rossall Whites more than held their own, making the most of this competitive opportunity. Rossall Reds played superbly in a very tight game, and managed to win 3-2. Rossall Whites showed a great deal of promise and remained determined until the final whistle. They kept smiling even in defeat. These performances bode well for the future, giving us a clear vision of areas of the game we need to develop to further improve.
Well done to all of the girls for representing Rossall so admirably, and thank you to AKS for hosting the matches!
Football Frenzy at Poolfoot Farm!
On the Wednesday 22nd of November, a Rossall Prep squad travelled to Poolfoot Farm to compete in the annual U11 Wyre and Fylde Girls Football Tournament.
Twenty three primary schools from around the Wyre and Fylde coast took part. We had a team of ten keen footballers, and we also had two amazing goalkeepers in net, ready for action.There were five teams in our group, and we managed to remain unbeaten after this stage, drawing two matches, and winning two. These brilliant performances meant we qualified in first place for the quarter finals. We were up against a strong Northfold Primary School team. Although this was probably our best performance of the afternoon, we were unable to capitalise on our opportunities. Northfold managed to score two superb goals, which meant they were through to the semi finals. All the girls played with true Rossall grit, determination and team spirit. It was late when we arrived back at school, everyone had an amazing time. As we entered through the Rossall gate we sang the Rossall anthem and the Carmen feeling proud of what we achieved that day!
Floreat Rossallia
by Amelie and Xanthe (Y6)
What a Score for Years 3 and 4!
Congratulations to all the boys and girls in Year 3 an 4 who represented the school admirably this week when we welcomed children from AKS in a mini football festival.
The Astro-turf was full of children displaying their footballing skills and teamwork in front of a packed Rossall balcony full of cheering parents.
It was a wonderful afternoon of sport, and the four Rossall teams excelled not just on the pitch but also as hosts to our visitors.
Well done, Rossall!
Year 6
“Deck the halls with boughs of holly, tis the season to be jolly!”
The excitement is mounting in the Preparatory School. We may not have decked the halls but we have most certainly decorated our Christmas tree this week. We all enjoyed singing carols and drinking hot chocolate, a super way to begin our festivities.
We have also done some work this week. The children continue to be fascinated and on occasion outraged by our book, “Can you save the tiger?” The title is a little misleading, the book explains how many animals are facing extinction. The common cause, man. We have had some fabulous discussions about conservation and extinction and these have led to some brilliant writing.
Our Topic on Biomes continues to inspire the children to produce excellent collaborative work and has allowed them to showcase their presentation skills.
In Mathematics we are honing our knowledge of fractions and have been grappling with simplifying, comparing and ordering fractions. It has reminded the children just how important rapid recap of times tables facts is.
We are looking forward to our trip to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester on Monday. The children do not need to bring their school bags, just themselves and a coat.
Have a lovely weekend.
Year 5
This week has been another busy week in Year 5. As well as completing our assessments we have been busy practising for our chapel assemblies. 5R hope you enjoyed their chapel service this morning and we hope you found out about some Christmas traditions around the world. It was the perfect warm up for the Christmas light switch-on this afternoon. 5S have also been busy preparing for their turn, next Friday.
In Topic lessons this week we have continued to learn about Scandinavia, thinking about the weather, climate and landscape. In Art we have found out about different patterns and animal artwork that the Vikings created. We completed some of our own serpents, dragons and horse heads based on examples from Viking art.
Year 4
This week saw the children energetically trying out dances from various decades as part of our Topic module, ‘The History of Entertainment’. As can be seen in the picture below the boys were as enthusiastic as the girls trying out different dance styles. Perhaps you can guess which dance move they are emulating from ‘Saturday Night Fever’. The children also enjoyed learning about music and dance styles from previous time periods including, the Charleston, the Moonwalk by Michael Jackson and the Twist by the Beatles. Even Tom Jones got a look in with ‘It’s not unusual’ and the current Carlton Dance.
In English, the children have been expanding their approach to writing in the first person. This is a very effective technique to encourage the children to analyse the character they are portraying in depth. The book we have based our story around is Abdul Kazam’s magical circus show and has really captured the imagination of the class. The children wrote in the first person to create imaginative recounts describing a magical toy of their choosing from the book. In addition to using the correct first person pronouns the children have really got to grips with adjectives including snapping crocodiles and rustling tigers.
In Maths, this week we have been putting our detective hats on and undertaking lots of problem solving – including analysing if there is enough petrol in our vehicles to travel hundreds of miles or enough ingredients to ensure no one left our bakers shop without a cake. This may outwardly seem quite straightforward but it involves the children being able to understand the problem, see what processes are needed to solve it and lay out their working and answers clearly. Quite an undertaking!
Year 3
This week in Year 3 has been all about Topic! We of course had our wonderful school trip to Hoghton Tower on Tuesday. This old castle has lots of connections to the Tudors and many historical kings and queens. We were guided round by wonderful characters and pupils got involved in acting out some scenes. It was great to do some learning outside of the classroom and the children had a wonderful time! Thank you to Mrs Morton, Mr Rund and Ms Smith for accompanying us.
We also had another Topic lesson this week learning about Queen Anne and the Act of the Union.
In Maths we have started our new unit on Multiplication and Division and started learning about the 3 times table.
In English we have continued reading Winter’s Child and we did some writing using similes, the children were very creative in their descriptions.
For our Science this week we learnt about different types of magnets and experimented to find out which was the strongest. We tested this by making chains of attracted paper clips: bar magnet turned out to be the strongest magnet across the class.
We also had Rossall Rotation in the Astronomy centre, and we learnt all about exploding stars with Dr Lister.
Finishing off the week with our Christmas Tree lights switch-out with singing and merriment really marked the start of the Festive period at Rossall Prep!
Year 2
It may well still be November, but the Christmas festivities have already begun. With Nativity practices going from
strength to strength and the light switch on this Friday we are all beginning to get a little excited. However, we are trying to balance this with some hard work in the classroom. This was easily achieved at the start of the week with Year 2 completing their Autumn Assessments. Mrs Lawton and I were incredibly impressed with the children’s attitude and effort regarding these.
My highlight of the week has definitely been the arrival of some of the children’s dinosaur board games, Monday morning was extremely exciting. Rupert brought in a wonderful game that is based on the famous Frustrated, and Fox’s circular volcanic game brought in a bit of mathematics (which pleased me). Later in the week Alicia brought in a dino dominos game and Rocco a very bright board game based on Snakes and Ladders. The children thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate their hard work when explaining their games to classmates. However, it has always been said that the best way to learn is by doing and that’s exactly what we did on Friday when we got to play these fabulous creations!
Year 1
What a busy week in Year 1 it has been and our children have certainly earned their weekend! We have really put all our effort into practising our Christmas Nativity and we cannot wait to ‘WOW’ our families when they watch us.
With all the singing and acting that has taken place this week, we have also been using our scientific minds to sort through materials in our classroom. We know that there are lots of different materials for different uses and we worked hard to categorise and sort them. We found plenty of man-made materials but also some natural materials too. We decided on different categories to sort the objects and it made us think about objects that may have multiple features that could sit in both sorting rings. Well done Year 1!
We have also started our scary monster hand puppets and we are so excited to see how they turn out next week. It’s been a fantastic week Year 1, I’m so impressed by all of you and by all of what you can achieve!
Reception
This week we read ‘This is Our House’ by Michael Rosen.
George wanted to keep the cardboard play house all to himself. He doesn’t want to share it and makes up lots of instant rules to justify why others can’t enter e.g. no glasses, no girls, no twins allowed…
A resolution is found when George finds out for himself what it’s like to be excluded. It’s a valuable lesson for George and a good opportunity to empathise with this common childhood (and human) experience.
So, you can guess where this led the children … Yes, they wanted to make their own cardboard play house, which in fact didn’t stay as a house for long! The story also allowed the children to demonstrate how they thought George should have played with his friends in the cardboard play house.
A big empty box is a great starting point for creative and imaginative play. Children can decide how to change the box into something they can use for pretend play, like a castle, shop, cave and so on. Then they can use their imagination and problem-solving skills to turn ideas into reality.
Cardboard boxes can also encourage physical play. Often the first thing children want to do with a cardboard box is to climb into it – and perhaps jump out to surprise you!
Boxes of any size are fun to play with and will get your child’s imagination working. This weekend see if you can find a really big cardboard box that your child can fit inside and create something amazing. You might be able to get cardboard boxes from local supermarkets and other shops.
There’s no ‘right’ way to play with a cardboard box, so why not let your child decide what they want to do and follow their lead. You could start by just talking about the box together and as always have fun!
Nursery
The Sanderlings have focused on fine motor skills this week, using different sized crayons to colour on paper. Miss Schofield, Mrs Beddis and Miss Heatley supported the communication skills of the children by giving words to give meaning to what the children have drawn. It has been an active, outdoor week with lots of chalking, sand and water play in addition to safe climbing by practising on our soft play. The Sanderlings have been using their senses whilst feeling raindrops falling on them, it was very fun and the all weather suits helped us from getting too wet. All of The Sanderlings fine motor skills have also been strengthened with the use of their favourite book theme using the books entitled ‘that’s not my….’, this week the book focus was ‘That’s not my snowman’. Mrs Beddis created cloud dough and helped us to create our own snowmen. The small world farm has been set up with animals and tractors, this is a particular interest in The Sanderling room due to the fact tractors can often be seen from our windows on the school field. The Babies have been preparing for Christmas by helping to decorate their Christmas bags. Finally, the babies have danced and moved their bodies along to the Tumbletots soundtrack of action songs.
The Sandpipers began the week with a wet, welly walk where the children explored how to use their bodies to create a BIG splash. If you have managed to have a glance into The Sandpipers room you will see that the children have been busy decorating the room in preparation for Christmas, the children have also been learning Christmas songs and discussing the Christmas traditions they take part in with their families at home. In keeping with the festivities the children have written their own letters to Santa and used this as an opportunity to start to develop their pencil grip. The Sandpipers have also been on a walk around the school grounds to search for resources they may be able to use for their Christmas decorations. Finally, continuing the Christmas theme the children have been talking about their ‘dummy tree’ with which the children can donate their dummy to Santa to give to a baby who may need it. The book of the month in The Sandpipers is ‘Julian is a Mermaid’ by Jessica Love, the children have been discussing what makes them and their families unique. The week was rounding off with the first Sandpiper’s council meeting where the children were encouraged to talk about what they would like to do in nursery to celebrate Christmas time.
The Preschool children have been extra busy this week preparing for their Nativity. The children have been rehearsing in the drama studio, learning their lines and practising all of the wonderful songs to make the show magical for their families to come and watch it in a couple of weeks. As with the other nursery rooms, The Preschool were tasked with sourcing natural resources from the environment to decorate the Christmas tree in the Preschool room. Mrs Loy, the Head of Pre-Prep school, came in for the secret reader as part of the Senior Readership Team. Mrs Loy read a story called ‘Star Girl’ by Karin Littlewood; we enjoyed this lovely story about how stars only shine when we are surrounded by our friends. Preschool’s book of the month is ‘Goldilocks and The Three bears’, Miss Ward has used the story to discuss the mathematical language of size supporting the children to use bigger than and smaller than in teacher time. Finally, Preschool have been creating their own artwork in the tuff tray using bright coloured paper, pompoms and flaked paint. This type of artwork is called Transient art; it involves using loose parts for a creative experience by placing open-ended resources together on a surface.
Awards
Year 6
Emily for excellence in English.
Joshua for independence and curiosity in maths.
Jack for outstanding creativity.
Mohammad for outstanding enthusiasm.
Year 5
Well done to this week’s award winners. In 5R, Grace and Huxley received the award for fantastic work in Art, and in 5S, Monty and Nick for fantastic independent learning.
Year 4
In Year 4 our certificate winners this week are Dolly and Archer for outstanding effort in Topic.
Year 3
The winners of the certificates in Year 3 go to Felix and Stanley for their curiosity during our trip this week.
Year 2
Fox and Rupert for Amazing effort and creativity when developing their board game.
Year 1
Olivia for trying her best in Maths and for setting out her work neatly.
Yuha for trying his best to speak in full sentences, ask questions clearly and for always doing so with a smile on his face!
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement are awarded to Xander and Tabitha.
Xander has demonstrated an excellent knowledge of his phonic sounds this week and is making great progress with his reading.
Tabitha has been very kind and helpful this week. She has been helping her friends to fasten their coats.
