This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
Welcome back to the second half of the Michaelmas term, my favourite half term in the Prep School! The run up to Christmas is magical, however that is a long way off and there is a lot of learning to be done before we embrace the festivities!
It is a joy to be back in school. Being away from Rossall for 4 weeks (albeit two of them were half term) has taught me some important lessons – yes, every day is a school day! Firstly, lying down with your feet up is most certainly not everything that it is cracked up to be. I was immensely frustrated about two days into my recovery from ankle surgery. Secondly, anyone who uses crutches over a prolonged period of time has my deepest sympathies – they are painful! Finally, but most importantly, the sound of children is a tonic. Listening to the excited chatter in corridors and the laughter and joy around School – it is most certainly a medicine I have missed. Thank you for all your kind messages and wishes – it is great to be back!
Our Year 5 and 6 children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) in their Spanish lessons. Learning languages is so much more than language acquisition. Having an understanding of cultures and traditions is a key element of forging a love of language. Some very scary looking faces Year 6…
Speaking of scary faces, take a look at Mr Condon and some of the Year 5 children dressed as Vikings from their trip this week. Our warriors voyaged to Martin Mere Village to experience life as Vikings in order to support their History learning. I am not sure I would have messed around with these fearsome foes!
Sport continues to play its part in our weekly events. On Wednesday, our girls played hockey against Sedbergh, despite some atrocious weather that forced us inside. Congratulations to all Year 5 and 6 girls who took part in some victorious and entertaining matches. Our boys’ football team is out this afternoon at a tournament at Poolfoot Farm – good luck – news to follow next week.
We are very often on holiday on 31st October, but this year Halloween provided the monsters from Reception with an opportunity to enjoy some crafty work. I was incredibly impressed with their glow-stick monster bottles!
I wish you all a wonderful weekend and hope that everyone stays safe at any bonfire events.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Prep U11 Indoor Hockey v Sedbergh School
On Wednesday, all our Year 5 and Year 6 girls enjoyed an afternoon of Indoor hockey matches. We played host to Sedbergh Prep. The inclement weather meant there had to be a quick change of plan to play inside instead of on the astroturf pitches. Luckily, at Rossall we have superb indoor facilities and were able to continue this fixture. The girls performed superbly, and adjusted well to the indoor game. Rossall and Sedbergh each won 3 out of the 6 games. For the Year 5 girls, many of whom were making their Rossall debut, it was their first team fixture of the year. There were many goals scored and some crunching tackles too! Well done to all the girls for approaching this challenge with such positive attitudes. Once again Rossall provided scrumptious refreshments and a well earned hot chocolate!
Year 6
“Humans have changed the world a lot over the years – to make room for ourselves and to produce the things we need. Some of the other animals and plants we share the earth with have coped with the changes very well. But some haven’t….”
This is the summary on the back of our new English book, ‘Can We Save the Tiger?’ and, as you can imagine, the statement has given rise to a great deal of discussion. The children have already produced some incredible work using this book as a starting point. They have written poems about tigers using inference and some fabulous work showing how they felt watching an advert about tiger poaching. Some impressive writing about a powerful but increasingly helpless beast. I am already looking forward to delving deeper into this thought-provoking, challenging book.
We have made an excellent start to our Topic and Year 6 enjoyed working in small groups to become experts in one of the seven biomes we are studying. Mrs Scott and Mrs Kenmare are looking forward to the presentations next week.
The ‘who done it’ investigations in Science reached an exciting conclusion and you will be relieved to hear the culprit was unmasked due to some excellent research into how shadows are made.
The weather has bared its teeth several times this week and we have found ourselves dodging heavy showers on more than one occasion. Please do encourage your child to bring their coat. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Year 5
With swords at the ready and dressed in Viking attire, Year 5 set sail for Southport in search of knowledge, and returned battle scarred but far wiser, and delighted with the wonderful impression they had made with the Viking settlers at Martin Mere.
Our trip really was fantastic, extremely informative and so much fun. The children were fascinated to learn about Viking invaders, their weapons, battle techniques and beliefs. They then experienced life in a Viking home, where they carried out the daily chores of foraging, weaving and thatching. It was like stepping back in time and the children’s enthusiasm to ask questions and learn from the experts was very rewarding.
Our voyage home to the land of Rossallia was entertaining, as we amused the locals at the traffic lights with our Viking war cry; I bet they have never encountered such smiley invaders! By the time we returned to camp, everyone was ready for a rest after such an action packed day; we all agreed that being a Viking is exhausting…but great fun!
Year 4
It has been a great first week back in Year 4 and the week has flown by! We have done a mixture of activities ranging from spooky haunted house descriptions to designing our own Christmas cards ready for December. We cannot wait for the busiest, but most exciting, term of the year.
We began our new book this week entitled, ‘Leon and the Place Between’, by Angel McAlister about a boy who goes to a circus and is drawn into a mysterious, mystical world. We were introduced to clues set up around the classroom to enhance sight, hearing and smell to enable us to predict and guess the setting of our magical novel. Year 4 started off creating imaginative descriptions of the circus setting with a focus on putting ourselves in the shoes of our chosen character. We specifically looked at levelling up our vocabulary by using a thesaurus.
In Topic, Year 4 had a whistle-stop tour through British history as we focused on the main events and dates as early as the Mesozoic Era through to the present day. We ordered the events on our own drawn timelines to see them in chronological order.
We began a new Science topic this week all about sound. The class started by jetting off on a ‘sound walk’ and visited a variety of areas around the School. We even paid the goats a visit!
Year 3
What a wonderful first week back Year 3 have had! Our batteries have been recharged over the break and we have come back with oodles of energy and enthusiasm.
We have started lots of new areas of learning, including our new book for this half term: Winter’s Child. We started by making predictions about the book, and then wrote list poems inspired by a snowy scene, using noun phrases and prepositions. We also learnt about speech marks and practised writing dialogue.
In Maths, we have started applying our conceptual understanding of addition and subtraction to the column method. The children have embraced this method incredibly well including grasping exchanging – really great!
Our new topic this half term is Riotous Royals – all about the notorious kings and queens in British history! We kicked off the topic by learning about the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror. We explored the Bayeux Tapestry to see how it portrays Harold being shot by an arrow in the eye, and wrote our own news reports about the battle.
In Science, we started our unit on Forces and Magnets. We learnt about pushes and pulls, and conducted an experiment to find out how much force it takes to pull a toy car along different surfaces. We used force meters to measure and compare the forces. May the Force be with you! A fabulous week – well done Year 3!
Year 2
The first week back since the half term break has been action-packed and full of learning. We have started new topics in all subject areas and most of these have involved meeting new animals. Our English work focuses on the book “The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark” by Jill Tomlinson, the children have met our main character Plop and completed some descriptive writing using adjectives. On Wednesday the children completed artwork related to this, their versions of Plop were brilliant and will soon be flying up onto the classroom walls.
However, the animals that have caused the most excitement are the dinosaurs we have been learning about in our topic lessons. The children have proved to be very knowledgeable about these prehistoric beasts and have enjoyed sharing their knowledge with classmates.
If the introduction of dinosaurs caused excitement, the distribution of roles for our nativity led to some ecstatic faces, the children have already begun to learn their lines and we are all really looking forward to getting our teeth into practice. It looks like we are going to have a very busy few weeks ahead!
Year 1
It’s been a fantastic first week back in class and the children were bursting with energy and buzzing to tell each other what we did during half term. We shared our news with our friends and wrote our holiday news – it was so lovely to hear about all the wonderful things the children got up to.
In Maths, we are exploring number sentences and fact families using part-whole models – we have found it tricky but we are certainly getting the hang of it! Tiny the Turtle, our little Maths helper, has been trying to trick us by mixing the numbers and symbols around. But this is not the only mischievous thing happening in our class this week. In our new topic ‘Monsters and Mischief’ we have been creating skeletons using art straws and learning the names of some of our bones.
In English, we have started our new class book ‘Nibbles the Book Monster’. He is a cheeky little monster that has been nibbling lots of things around our classroom. Keep a look out for him, and let Year 1 know if you see him. We need him caught so he doesn’t cause any more mischief!
Reception
In Reception Class, we have started to use a classroom helper system. Each week we give particular responsibilities to certain children for the week. We have a ‘Line Leader’, ‘Teacher’s Helper’, ‘Snack Helper’, ‘Lunch Helper’ and a ‘Tidy Up Helper’.
The list of responsibilities is designed to meet the needs of the children and the classroom. It is created as a way of minimising times that cause disruption or tension within the classroom. For example, children often squabble over who was first in the line and who was at the front; giving this small responsibility to a child reduces the reasons for arguments at lining up times. The children often feel empowered when they are given a small responsibility and take their role very seriously. This leads to children with increased confidence, maturity and self-esteem: all of which are important in creating active learners and supporting development in all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Also, responsibilities act as a great motivation for good behaviour if they are given to the children who have followed the entire setting rules well. Giving these jobs out to children shows them that they are trusted, valuable members of the group and the children often see them as a reward rather than a chore. The children are asked who would like to do each job which promotes the British value of democracy by showing children that they have the choice and that they can vote and show interest but may not always get their choice.
All in all, classroom helpers can lead to many benefits for the children and help them to progress through the early years foundation stage. Perhaps you could create ‘Helper’ badges at home to help encourage your child’s confidence and independence.
Nursery
“Personal, social and emotional development is recognised as one of the building blocks of success in life” – Ann Langston
This week in the Nursery we have focused on personal, social and emotional development.
The Sanderlings
This week started with a lovely stay and play session for our children and families; it was lovely to see some new faces too. Our stay and play sessions allow families to come into the setting and explore where the littlest Rossallians spend their time playing and learning, it is always so lovely to have this extra time with our families. As it has been Halloween this week, the children have dressed up and had lots of spooky fun and messy activities to explore. A favourite messy activity involved pumpkins, the babies were encouraged to explore the texture, look at the seeds and even have a little taste. The babies were very good at taking turns with their friends.
The Sandpipers
The Sandpipers have been welcoming their new friends who have moved up from the Sanderlings room. It provided a great opportunity for the older children to teach the younger children the routine in their new room. The children have been creating self-portraits by looking in the mirror and talking about their eye colour, hair colour and lips whilst pointing to each body part. At circle time and during play the children have been speaking about their likes and dislikes, making comments such as “I don’t like spiders, I like pumpkins” and “I don’t like melons”. The Sandpipers have shown lots of communication skills as well as making their own choices to voice their likes and dislikes.
The Sandpipers have also been looking at feelings, they have explored questions such as: “How does Halloween make you feel?”, “How are you feeling today?” and “Do you feel happy or sad?” To support this, the children were given different spoons with emotions on them so they could show their teachers how they were feeling. There has been group work to encourage team building and friendship making. Finally, the children have been enjoying learning all about Halloween and the week finished off with dressing up, face painting, pumpkin carving, musical games, and decorating biscuits.
Pre-School
At the start of the week, Pre-School created a Poppy wreath using red and green paint and their hands to make hand-print petals and leaves. Whilst getting messy in the paint, the children talked about why we wear poppies and now understand “it’s for the soldiers”, and is our way of remembering the soldiers and that Remembrance Day is important.
The children have had a lot of fun getting ready for Halloween and we had a Halloween party on Tuesday where some of the children dressed up, they looked so “scary”! The children all took part in party games and carved faces into pumpkins with their friends making sure to be extra careful when handling the tools. On Wednesday, the children asked Miss Emsley if they could create their own fireworks. The children requested paint to make “big” fireworks and used lollipop sticks to paint on the paper which created an effective firework painting, whilst developing their group work skills.
Awards
Year 6
Our certificates this week were awarded to: Arabella for promoting some insightful discussion in English by giving thoughtful answers; Millie for showing perseverance when working systematically in Mathematics to find answers to complex problems; Jude for showing excellent effort and thought in home learning tasks; and Grace for collaboration and thoughtful work during English.
Year 5
This week, our awards go to Ethan for excellent standard of work and positive contribution in class, and Ralph for outstanding thinking skills and interest in our Topic work.
Year 4
This week, our certificate winners are Felix for returning back to School with a fantastic attitude to learning and Sarah-Anne for not giving up during challenging problem solving questions.
Year 3
The certificates this week in Year 3 go to Valencia and Ayana, for building their confidence in their reading and comprehension.
Year 2
This week, our certificates go to Millie and Dylan for outstanding attitude towards their learning.
Year 1
This week’s awards go to Rupert, for excellent effort in Phonics, and Chika, for fantastic concentration and effort in Maths.
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Ted and Hashvini. Both children have improved in self confidence to try all new activities and have become more independent in our daily routines.
Choral Evensong
Join us for a Choral Evensong service on Sunday 5th and 19th November at 6.30pm in Chapel of St John the Baptist. South Drive will be open, with Chapel parking available. Rossallians, parents, family, friends and members of the general public are all welcome.
180th Anniversary Ball
In 2024, Rossall Celebrates its 180th anniversary. To mark this we will be holding a ball on Saturday 1st June. Initially, tickets will be sold as tables of 10, at £80 per person. Booking now open – buy your tickets here. Please contact [email protected] for more information.
Lancashire Music Society Presents: Blackpool Symphony Orchestra with Martin Roscoe
Rossall and Lancashire Music Society invite you to join us on Saturday 11th November as world-renowned pianist Martin Roscoe joins the Blackpool Symphony Orchestra for a beautiful evening of classical music. Click the image to book.
Rossall Christmas Markets 2023
