This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
Earlier today, we were delighted to welcome Early Years Foundation Stage Practitioners and Headteachers from across the North West to our regional conference that was held at Rossall in conjunction with Early Excellence. The sessions focused on our youngest learners and how best to provide an explorative learning environment that allows children to flourish. I was delighted to welcome so many colleagues to Rossall and that we have made positive connections with practitioners from across the North West. Rossall really is a regional hub for Early Years Excellence – my sincere thanks to Mrs Trippier for organising such an informative and well-attended event.
Our Harvest festival was a joy for both children and parents. We were delighted to welcome Reverend Ayoma back to Rossall who gave a wonderful address to the congregation, following a fantastic assembly from Year 6S. Our oldest pupils spoke with clarity and confidence, delivering some wonderful harvest stories from around the world. Food donations have already been transported to the local food bank, The Pantry, for those hungry in our local community. This was followed by many of our parents attending our MacMillan Coffee morning, another great cause being supported by Rossall.
We unfortunately had to postpone the AJIS Cross Country due to Storm Agnes, which was a great disappointment. However, undeterred, many of our pupils still managed to conduct their exercise as the staff set up some circuits indoors – there is no getting out of ensuring exercise is completed – healthy body = healthy mind!
We look forward to welcoming so many of you and the pupils to our Open Day on Saturday. I hope to see you in the morning!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
School Council
Last week our new School Council was elected! So many of the Prep children put themselves forward and presented speeches to their peers. We are so proud of everyone who went for it! After a very close election process our new School Council were selected by voting in classes. We have our badges and have already had our first meeting. We are very excited for the year ahead! Reception class will be joining in the Lent term.
Our representatives for 2023-24 are:
- Tabitha
- Ares
- Olivia
- Jessica
- Arla
- Starsky
- Matilda
- Sophia
- Ben
- Lara
- Skyla
- Monty
- Nilanth
- Grace
Year 6
As September draws to a close, it is a good time to reflect in Year 6 on what we have achieved this month. We really have started our learning this year at a blistering pace.
In English, we have finished reading ‘Star of Fear, Star of Hope’ and started to discuss our predictions for what might have happened to Lydia from the story. We used evidence from the text and details we inferred when giving our answers. In our other text, ‘Friend or Foe’, we are reaching a crucial point in the text and our writing next week will be based on a difficult decision the characters need to make. Watch this space!
In maths we have completed our place value unit and begun addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The children have impressed us with their calculations skills and we will build on those over the next few weeks as well as tackle some tricky problem solving.
Science has seen our investigative work move to the next level. We have used mirrors to demonstrate how periscopes work, and tested which materials reflect light best. This has helped us to eliminate a suspect in our investigation. We have been using a variety of scientific investigative skills so far in our Light topic, including forming conclusions, representing information in tables and graphs.
And our week finished with 6S leading our Harvest assembly in the Chapel. We were grateful to see so many parents attend, and we enjoyed celebrating this special time with you.
It is hard to believe just how much learning we have packed into September in Year 6, but we are very proud of the progress we have made so far.
Year 5
‘O say can you see…’ From Columbus stumbling across the New World to the pioneers crossing the Western Frontier on the Oregon Trail, our Year 5 historians have enjoyed learning about the early American settlers and the impact they had on the land and its indigenous people.
Our Topic work has linked perfectly with our Art lessons in Senior School, where the children have been using their artistic skills to design and create their own three dimensional Totem poles. The children love the opportunity to further their learning across the campus and were treated to a cello demonstration in the Music lesson this week, with the opportunity to begin classes.
This first four weeks of term has flown by, and it has been rewarding to see the class working hard to develop their ability in all aspects of their learning, but most of all see the friendships that have formed so quickly. Well done, Year 5!
Year 4
It’s definitely feeling more autumnal this week with the blustery winds and heavy rain! We haven’t let that stop us though as Year 4 have still powered through with all of their different lessons and activities.
In English, we have put ourselves in the role of Hannah and have thought about how she has felt so far in the story. Year 4 used fronted adverbials to vary their sentences and also included expanded noun phrases to add description to their diary entries. We will continue to revisit both writing features throughout this term.
Linking with our English, the children’s art project was to draw and paint a gorilla. We continued to base our artistic skills on Henri Matisse who is well known for his use of vivid colours and shapes. Year 4 first sketched their gorilla to show the real animal but then added different coloured oil pastels and paint to portray an unrealistic version.
In Science, we ended our experiment with our final observations on how the eggs had changed and concluded that the lemonade and orange juice had the worst effect on the shell of the eggs. Year 4 were shocked and disgusted to see how mouldy they had turned! We have also moved onto looking at the different types of teeth and their functions.
Year 3
Another awesome week for Year 3 as we reach the end of September.
In English we finished reading our book Seal Surfer. The children are already planning the sequel! We learnt about the skill of inference when reading, and we made inferences from the text to describe the main character from the book, the boy. We also looked at the other main character, the seal, and wrote in paragraphs chronologically about her life.
In Maths this week we finished off our unit on three-digit place value, and reflected on our learning from the unit. We then made a start on applying those place value skills and knowledge to addition and subtraction in our new unit!
For Science, in our bid to be healthy and work towards becoming personal trainers, this week we learnt all about muscles! We learnt that muscles work in pairs and that when one muscle contracts, its partner muscle relaxes. We made our own moving models of arm muscles (biceps and triceps) to demonstrate how they work. At the end of the week we also had a fun workshop run by a real Personal Trainer! Mrs Shaw came in and spoke to the children about healthy lifestyles and how important it is to keep fit. The children designed their own Wellbeing Plans and had a great time!
In topic this week, we started learning about Coastal Wildlife. We talked about how animals have adapted to living on the coast. Each child picked a focus animal and started researching facts about it.
We also had our Rossall Rotation for Beach Schools which we thoroughly enjoyed despite the weather!
Well done for a super week Year 3!
Year 2
We are now over half way through the first half of term and the children have truly impressed over these initial weeks of Year 2. Our theme in assemblies this term is inclusivity, the children were able to discuss the importance of being a part of a group and feeling like you belong. The PSHE concept of inclusivity initiated some wonderful discussion in the classroom, including a very interesting conversation about diversity and acceptance. This fed beautifully into our topic, we have been finding out about Mary Seacole and her significance in history. On the discovery of the fact that she faced discrimination we were able to make lots of links between this and the learning we had been doing in our PSHE sessions.
Elsewhere, in Mathematics we have been completing our work on place value, this week we have been ordering numbers and objects. I was incredibly impressed in the manner in which the children silently ordered themselves from the tallest to shortest! The children are thoroughly enjoying “Troll Swap”, the letters they wrote from the perspective of Tabitha’s parents were brilliant. Two more weeks till half term, and so very much left to do!
Year 1
We have been working really hard in English to find out about and write about penguins. We have had some excellent discussions about what we already know, and have asked some fantastic questions about what we would like to find out about them. We have used information books, videos and the Internet to help us. Some of the things we wanted to find out were:
Is a penguin a bird?
Does it have fur or feathers?
Why can’t a penguin fly?
We have also read some more of our class story. We have written sentences about the storm that the boy and the penguin have to travel through to get to the South Pole and return the penguin. We are becoming excellent writers in Year 1!
In Maths, we have been learning about comparing groups and using lots of Maths vocabulary to identify which groups have more, fewer or are equal. We have also been introduced to ‘Greater Gator’ who loves to chomp on the biggest numbers.
We have had our second session of Golf this week where we have had the chance to practise our putting skills and our big swings.
Reception
Helping children learn about the world around them and the environment is so important. One of the ways in which we can do this is to help them learn about the changing seasons. The advent of spring, summer, autumn and winter each brings with it its own unique natural characteristics and the ideal opportunity for helping children learn. Young children are usually keen to learn and improve their understanding of the world around them and the chance to gain new knowledge can be incorporated into a variety of activities.
One of the best ways of helping children get an idea of the changing seasons is to get outdoors and explore. In the autumn there’s the excitement of crunching through autumn leaves or finding the first conkers as they fall from horse chestnut trees. We thoroughly enjoyed our walks around the school campus and the activities in the ‘Secret Garden’ as we looked for signs of Autumn, observed the different colours we could see, collected leaves and looked for conkers.
To enhance the children’s learning experience even more, we have read several books and stories that are related to the different seasons, especially Autumn. We loved the story about the ‘Leaf Thief’ and had fun stealing leaves from the ‘Secret Garden’ to make wonderful leaf collages with. We also used some of the leaves to print with, using Autumnal coloured paint.
Our wonderful collection of autumnal objects is growing by the day and causes great interest for the children as they use tweezers to prise the shiny conkers out of their shells and use the magnifying glasses to look for bugs on the leaves. We have even used all the conkers collected for our Maths lessons! So, if you are out and about over the weekend, we would love more exciting things for our collection please?
Nursery
“Roots of understanding grow deep when curious minds are nourished in nature ”
Nell Regan Kartychok
This week in the Nursery we have focused on Outdoor learning.
The Sanderlings
The Sanderlings have been trying to get out and enjoy all weather when possible (in the Sanderling room this can involve lots of planning ahead). The babies have been getting wrapped up in our puddle suits and wellies to enjoy the mud and puddles. Miss Schofield, Mrs Beddis and Miss Heatley have encouraged the children to explore new as well as familiar experiences in nature. On Wednesday, the babies took some time out of their busy days to do some yoga and made their own Sanderling’s Spa. This involved nice, relaxing music and encouraging the children to take some time for their well-being.
The Sandpipers
The Sandpipers have been talking about the seasons with a focus on autumn, the children have been looking closely at the changes of colours in trees, the weather and the animals that may appear more in autumn and the wildlife around us. The Sandpipers have been on walks around the grounds collecting natural resources to make collages and using their imaginations to create anything they wanted. The children explored our secret garden with magnifying glasses and bug catchers before talking about everything that they had found. The Sandpiper classroom has also been taken outside the children have been mark making, reading, participating in yoga and have held circle time in the trees. The children’s choice of book this week was “The Gingerbread Man”. The children have been engaged whilst listening to the book, they have also created their own gingerbread men, decorated biscuits and tasted them, and used their senses to smell the spice ginger. The children described ginger as “spicy” and like “gingerbread men”. Finally, The Sandpipers have created their own gingerbread men using arts and crafts and talked about the different colours they may see on him.
Pre-School
The children have enjoyed getting messy using the diggers to create marks and patterns on large scale paper. The children were asked which colours they wanted to use so they chose the colours green and brown to create a “muddy “ picture. The children have been in the garden moving in different ways to strengthen their gross motor skills, this included taking big steps, stretching their arms and throwing and catching skills. Pre-School have enjoyed sitting in the sensory den listening to rain sounds and relaxing with the sensory resources. The children were fascinated with how it sounded like it was “raining inside“. At the end of the week, the children worked together as a team to make play dough with Miss Ward by mixing flour and water and taking turns patiently to use the spoon. The children then took part in the fine motor activity ‘Dough Disco’.
Awards
Year 6
6S – Sebastian for being a role model in all the choices that he makes. His choices positively impact his progress in lessons and demonstrate his respect for the entire school community.
6S – Cara for working extremely hard and demonstrating excellent independent learning skills, especially in English.
6R – Huxley for excellent showcase of skills in his diary writing in English this week
6R – Karan for including a variety of skillful and advanced features in his English writing.
Year 5
Darcey – Outstanding determination in Creative Writing, and love of learning.
Spencer – Excellent confidence in his own ability, and communication skills.
Year 4
Our Year 4 certificate winners for this week go to Emma for showing excellent effort and knowledge in Science and Ryan for excellent focus, concentration and perseverance in all learning.
Year 3
Our certificates in Year 3 this week go to Fox and Josephine for their wonderful work learning about place value in Maths.
Year 2
Tiffany for Making a Fabulous Start to Year and Rossall.
Lena for Outstanding Written Work.
Year 1
This week’s awards go to Xander, for being kind, caring and respectful to his friends, and to Clark for good listening, being more independent and adapting well to new routines.
Reception
This week’s certificate of achievement go to Athena and Robbie. Both children have completed superb work at home linked to the topics covered in class.
