This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
It has been another incredibly busy week in the Prep School. The hard work and enjoyment being displayed by the pupils in their learning, has been wonderful to hear about.
I know that the staff thoroughly enjoyed meeting with many of you at the first of our parents’ evenings on Thursday. The parent-teacher conversations that take place at these events form a key element of the home-school partnership and I was delighted by the feedback I have received.
Wednesday provided an opportunity for some more sport to take place, this week against our friends from along the promenade, AKS. The rugby and hockey matches that were played were done so with excellent spirit and I would like to congratulate all involved in some fantastic games.
The excitement was tangible in Monday’s assembly, as I announced our Prep production for this year through the children listening to a rather famous song from the show. The Year 6s have already begun auditioning and learning some dance moves.
In a seamless link… I have also been taking a spoonful of sugar to help my medicine go down! It has been a somewhat frustrating week, not being in school as I recover from ankle surgery, but my spirits have been kept high through regular check-ins with the staff. Thank you for all the kind messages – I will be back in school after half term!
Have a relaxing weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Rossall Rhinos and Rams in Rampaging Rugby Action Against AKS!
Congratulations to the Year 5 and 6 rugby teams for a fantastic team performance in our first fixture of the year against AKS.
There were tries galore on both pitches with the Rams battling to an impressive 25-25 draw, and the Rhinos claiming a superb 50-30 victory.
Not only did the teams battle the opposition but also a hurricane wind that blew last week’s Storm Agnes out of the water. Fortunately the sun shone, and the back drop of Chapel and the Senior House Cross Country made it a memorable afternoon of rugby!
Well done, Rossall!
Rossall Prep v AKS Hockey
On Wednesday, all of our Year 6 girls ventured down the Fylde coast to AKS to play two hockey fixtures. The first matches of the season are always a massive learning curve for all the players, and this was no exception. The progress each of the girls made in defence, attack, and also tactically was fantastic to see.
Well done to all the girls for two very gutsy performances. As always, the sing song in the mini bus both there and back was like any top West End Show!
Year 6
Vergil was indeed right when he wrote the phrase, ‘Tempus Fugit’. This half term is certainly flying by!
Mrs Scott and I (Mrs Kenmare) have thoroughly enjoyed our book, ‘Star of Fear, Star of Hope’. I felt quite emotional as I read the end of the story to the children this week. Their thoughtful and mature responses to the book have really impressed us both. As a result of what we read and discussed, we decided to think about our hopes for the future. Again, the children astonished us with the level of maturity that they showed. They hoped for happiness and health for their families and friends, an end to wars and suffering and that they would be part of the solution to the environmental problems that the world faces.
The responses reminded me of a quote from a remarkable young woman whom we have talked about in our Topic, ‘Peace and Conflict’:
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
These words were written by Anne Frank in her famous diary. Our children certainly have every intention of making the world a better place.
We have also been learning about the Blitz in Topic, and the children used their IT skills to showcase their knowledge of the towns and cities affected by the bombing on a Jamboard.
Every child in Year 6 now has a Century account. Century is an AI-powered personalised learning tool for English and Mathematics. The children have all successfully logged on and have already begun their learning journeys.
Year 6 were all involved in the Sports fixtures on Wednesday. Mr Condon and Mrs Santamera were incredibly proud of the effort and skill shown at both fixtures.
Year 5
As we come to the end of the penultimate week of half term, it is rewarding to reflect on the progress we have made as a class in such a short period of time. The new friendships made and the bonds between those who have been at Rossall previously are extremely strong, and this connection in the class creates an excellent environment for learning. The positivity, encouragement and support of one another has been most heartening, and this has reflected in the standard of work produced every day.
We have completed our fascinating class novel ‘The Queen of the Falls’, which the children have loved, and the main character Annie Edson Taylor will be a beacon of inspiration to the class as we progress through the year. ‘Determined, courageous, fearless and motivating’ are some of the words the children have used to describe Annie, as she travelled over Niagara Falls in a barrel for fame and fortune at the age of 62! This has certainly been a book where we have agreed we won’t try this at home, and we all agreed we will be finding our fame and fortune in a far more sensible manner!
Year 4
It has been another jam-packed week in Year 4 and we can’t believe it’s coming to the end of half term!
In English, we have been continuing with a focus on grammar, punctuation and presentation within our writing lessons. We have had a further focus on expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials to up-level sentences. They created descriptive paragraphs based on the gorilla in the story being at a café with Hannah eating lots of delicious sweet treats.
In Maths, we have come to the end of our place value unit and will be moving on to addition and subtraction before the term ends. Their brains have been working overtime to find solutions to rounding problems. We have looked at rounding lots of different numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. They all responded well to our whole class discussions and problem-solving questions and I have been so impressed with their efforts.
In Science, we moved on to learning about the digestive system. We looked at many different organs in our body and they were really surprised to hear that skin is the largest organ of the human body! They looked at the digestive organs in detail and even added them to a life size model. They included details of their functions and worked in teams to complete their human size diagram.
At the end of this week we are also going to do our second experiment of the year to show how everything moves in the digestive system – little do they know that bananas and a pair of tights will be involved!
Year 3
Year 3 have had a wonderful week filled with challenge and learning!
For our English this week we start looking at letter writing, as a letter will be our final piece of writing for the Seal Surfer unit. We investigated the features of a letter and then wrote plans for the letters that we’ll write next week. These incorporate some of our main learning objectives from the term such as prepositions, interesting verbs and paragraphs.
In Maths, we have been continuing our addition and subtraction unit this week focusing on exchanging – which can be a challenging concept! We looked at how to exchange 1s and 10s when crossing to the next place value column, and the children did really well with this, showing lots of perseverance.
In Science, we reflected on our amazing Personal Trainer workshop from Friday – photos attached here as we didn’t have them in time for last week’s newsletter! We finished off our wellbeing plans and workouts and used this to extend our learning about muscles. We now know that our muscles will hurt a bit when they are growing and building – but that is a good thing!
We did a lot of Topic this week, finishing off our coastal and sea wildlife research with loads of interesting facts (did you know that Octopuses have three hearts?!). We also learnt about erosion and how weather breaks rocks down and eventually becomes sand.
Finally, we started our last project on the topic: children chose an area of British coast to research and next week we will create our own coastal posters!
Well done for a fabulous week Year 3!
Year 2
The penultimate week has been yet another busy one! We are reaching the end of various topics, in Maths we have come to the end of place value, and I have been incredibly impressed with the work and the understanding the children have demonstrated. We will now be moving on to addition and subtraction.
We are also reaching the conclusion of our book “Troll Swap”, and as part of this we completed some drama. The children acted as either Timothy (the troll) or Tabitha. Not only did it aid our writing, but it was also a great deal of fun. The manner in which some could easily step into the shoes of a troll was spectacular, the nose-picking did come quite naturally to many!
October is black history month, and on Tuesday Mrs Roberts led a PrePrep assembly on this theme, and Mary Seacole was one of the role models that she discussed. The class’s knowledge was so impressive that she was eager to inform me of their participation and rewarded them all with the much-coveted dojo points!
One more week to go until half term, and guess what, it is going to be another busy one!
Year 1
In Phonics this week we have been learning Phase 5 sounds and working as sound detectives to spot alternative graphemes. We are continuing to try hard to use and apply our phonics, not only in our English work but also in other curriculum areas like Science and Topic.
In Topic, we have made paper boats to investigate how they float, how we can get them to move faster and how much they can carry.
In RS, the children have enjoyed discussing how we care for each other and how we look after each other. We also learnt about the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, where brothers and sisters celebrate each other. We learnt that they make bracelets, say special prayers, and give sweets and gifts to each other. We talked about our own families and our brothers and sisters and how we can show them that we care for them.
We have been working so hard in our Maths that we have completed our first unit, Place Value. We have continued to compare and order numbers and learnt about number lines and how to use them to help us with finding more and less.
Reception
Patterns are central to maths and children have an instinctive idea of patterns.
Research shows that children’s ability to see patterns forms the basis of early mathematical thinking. When you teach children to become aware of patterns, they will build up the skill of spotting patterns for themselves, they will see how patterns change and notice irregularities.
This week we talked about and identified the patterns around them, so we could learn the words that describe different patterns.
As children have become more confident in making patterns and seeing connections, they have been able to talk out loud about what they have noticed.
The weather this week has allowed us some time to create patterns in the classroom and outside in nature, using a variety of different resources. We have even made patterns at snack time with our fruit kebabs!
I wonder if the children could make any more patterns this weekend?
Nursery
“Creative people are curious, flexible, persistent and independent with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play” – Henri Matisse
This week in the Nursery we have focused on Expressive Art and Design.
The Sanderlings
The Sanderlings have been enjoying getting very creative this week with lots of arts and crafts, colouring, glueing, sticking and painting. The babies have done some large scale colouring and painting which has allowed all of the children to be involved, they have been using different media and tools as well as their whole bodies. Miss Schofield, Mrs Beddis and Miss Heatley have been talking about colours and shapes encouraging the babies to repeat the names and with support identify the shapes. Our Sanderlings love the mirrors in the home corner and on the wall, especially our younger Sanderlings who enjoy playing peekaboo.
The Sandpipers
The Sandpiper’s have been talking about the season of Autumn. The children were given a challenge to go on a nature walk with their families to see what they could find that would indicate a sign of Autumn; so far the children have found acorns, leaves, pine cones, tomatoes, berries and shells. The Sandpipers have also been talking about Halloween, the children have been introduced to their new book of the month ‘We’re Going on a Pumpkin Hunt’, and have been really engaged with the story. Continuing on with the Halloween theme, we have been very crafty and made ghosts, bats, pumpkins and spiders.
The children have also been experimenting with primary colours to see what colours they can make, and have made orange, green, purple and brown, while offering their own thoughts whilst mixing, saying “it’s orange again” and “it’s a pumpkin”.
Finally, the Sandpipers have been listening to different animal and Halloween sounds, which helps them to recognise the sounds and allows them to focus on their listening skills. Finally, the children have been playing with sounds by making noises with musical instruments and have discovered how to make fast and slow sounds.
Pre-School
The Pre-School children have been practising their scissor skills alongside their friends by using scissors to cut wrapping paper. The children then used glue sticks with one hand to glue it all down.
The new Pre-School book of the month is ‘Room on the Broom’. On Monday, the children went into the garden to have a go at riding fast and safely on their trikes pretending to fly on their broomsticks like the witch in the story – “and whoosh they were gone”.
Towards the end of the week, some of the children painted Autumn trees with the colours red, orange, yellow and brown with Miss Southern. The children then talked about the seasons and what colours of fallen leaves they may see at home or at nursery.
Awards
Year 6
Our award winners this week are: Poppy for showing an excellent attitude towards all aspects of school life; Rio for showing fabulous resilience and hard work in Mathematics; Jasper for promoting excellent discussion in Mathematics and Eleanor for applying herself to problem solving in Mathematics.
Year 5
This week, our certificates have been awarded to Lara for outstanding creative writing and conscientious approach towards all subjects, and Harriet for outstanding enthusiasm, focus and listening skills.
Year 4
Our Year 4 certificate winners this week are Marcel and Isla for working extremely hard and showing independent learning throughout our Maths lessons.
Year 3
The certificates this week go to Beau for fantastic effort in his handwriting and to Darius for challenging himself in his learning!
Year 2
This week, our certificates go to Hugo for outstanding contributions in classroom discussion, and Lexi, for fantastic work ethic and attitude.
Year 1
This week’s awards go to Chika, for fantastic effort with her Home Learning, and Joshua, for fantastic progress with his letter formation. Well done!
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Rafferty and Stefan. Both children have made super progress with their sounding and blending in our phonics activities.
