This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All
As I am sure you are aware, this week we have been visited by inspectors as part of our ISI inspection. Rather than shudder at the thought of an inspection, the staff have actively welcomed the opportunity to showcase our educational provision. I would like to put on record my sincere thanks to the children who have all displayed admirable qualities throughout the week, to the staff who have worked diligently as they always do, and to the parents who took the time to fill in the questionnaire and speak with members of the team. I am incredibly proud of our children and our wonderful community and look forward to receiving the report in due course.
Despite the inspection team being in, it has been business as usual in Prep School. On Wednesday, we welcomed Pownall Hall School from South Manchester, who joined us for some sporting fixtures and a delicious Rossall lunch! I am always delighted to welcome schools to visit our campus and it was a wonderful experience for all pupils involved.
Thursday proved to be a rather spooky affair for the pupils as they enjoyed some Halloween themed experiences including a rather scary lunch menu, decorations, and music in the Dining Hall. We even had a Mummy visit in Year 6!
Friday saw our footballers venture out to Poolfoot to take part in the annual local schools competition. More to follow on this including results next week! Friday also provided the opportunity for the pupils across both Prep and Pre-Prep to take part in our Halloween movie night. The children thoroughly enjoyed their pizzas, drinks and selection of scary movies (The Addams Family and Goosebumps)!
Finally, one of the things I love most is spending time with the children outside of the classroom. This can sometimes be a difficult task as a Head, especially when an inspection team is in. However, at break time on Friday I was caught doing what I love…yes, that is me in the air!
Have a lovely weekend!
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Goals, Grins, and Great Friendships!
This week, Rossall Year 5 rolled out the welcome mat and hockey sticks for Pownall Hall, hosting an action-packed day filled with sport, laughter, and new friendships! The day kicked off with a lively game of Bench Ball, where agility, teamwork, and plenty of high-fives ruled the court.
After an energetic morning, the teams refueled with a well-deserved lunch, sharing stories and laughs around the table. The afternoon saw the stakes rise in three exciting hockey matches, where both teams showed impressive skills and sportsmanship. Fierce defending and lightning-fast goals kept everyone on the edge of their seats!
Pownall Hall headed back to Wilmslow with fond memories, and believing that Rossall has great sports players and amazing lunches!
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. We have already produced some incredible work using this book as a starting point. We have written poems about tigers using inference and have also completed some fabulous work showing how we felt watching an advert about tiger poaching. It was some impressive writing about a powerful but increasingly helpless beast. We are already looking forward to delving deeper into this thought-provoking, challenging book.
We have made an excellent start to our new Humanities topic, which is all about Mountains. This week we thought about the many things that we already know about mountains and learned the names of some of the different types of mountains. We had enormous fun investigating how mountains are formed using our jumpers and paper! We also used our mapping skills and atlases to locate some of the major mountain ranges around the world. It was lovely to see the great enthusiasm the children showed for this topic, we are all very excited for what comes next!
Mathematics has been all about calculating the area of shapes this week. We have worked conscientiously to master the skills needed to calculate the area of both regular and rectilinear shapes. We have also begun to use formulae to calculate the area and volume of shapes. Our grey matter has certainly been put to the test!
In this week’s science lesson, we explored the shady side of science! We investigated how the size of shadows changes depending on the distance between an opaque object and a light source. Starting close to the light, we measured large shadows, then watched in awe as the shadows shrank when we moved the object further away. Some of us even took it a step further and experimented with how changing the angle of the light source affects shadow size—turns out, that shadows have their own “perspective” too! Using careful measurements and our keen observations, we formed evidence-based conclusions to explain what we saw. Who knew science could be such a bright idea? 
Year 5
Year 5 has launched into the new half term with full force, and they could not wait to investigate their new Science topic on… Forces. They relished the opportunity to conduct a wide range of engaging experiments outside the classroom that would have impressed even the great Sir Isaac Newton!
We were thrilled to dive into our new book ‘Arthur and The Golden Rope’, about the World of Norse Mythology, sparking curiosity and enthusiasm for Viking gods and legendary tales, and the class have written their own captivating myths.
Adding to the excitement, we had the pleasure of hosting our friends from Pownall Hall School for an afternoon of Sport for All. It was fantastic seeing our Year 5s form new friendships and cheer each other on. Whether on the Astro or in the Sports Hall everyone gave it their all!
And the adventure continues! Next week, we are heading to Martin Mere to learn about early settlements and experience the Viking lifestyle. We will be weaving, thatching, foraging, and even battling (safely, of course!). We are all looking forward to living like true Norsemen and women, but I am sure we will be ready to get back to our own comfy beds that evening!
Year 4
This week, Year 4 have been engaged in an array of exciting and enriching activities. In Science, we commenced a new topic focusing on Sound. The children conducted a sound survey, contrasting man-made sounds with natural sounds found in and around the school environment. This hands-on investigation not only fostered curiosity but also enhanced their observational skills as they recorded their findings. We enjoyed asking questions about the impact man-made sounds have on the natural world and started to think about the topic of Sound Pollution and how it should be an area that is discussed more in the wider world.
In Maths, Year 4 seamlessly integrated their scientific findings by employing tally charts to gather and organise data related to the sounds they investigated. They demonstrated impressive enthusiasm and teamwork while collecting information, and they were eager to present their findings in various forms, such as bar graphs and line charts. This cross-curricular approach not only enriches their understanding of numeracy concepts but also allows them to appreciate the practical applications of their learning.
Our Religious Studies lesson this week was particularly inspiring. The children delved into the remarkable life of Malala Yousafzai, exploring her unwavering commitment to equality and the importance of education. The discussions prompted by her story provoked thoughtful reflections on social justice and empowerment, leaving the class genuinely moved by her bravery and determination. Learning about Malala’s journey, and how her beliefs earned her the Nobel Peace Prize, has ignited in our children a profound awareness of the power of standing up for our rights and the importance of dreaming big.
Year 3
What a wonderful first week back! After a refreshing break, we have returned recharged and brimming with energy and enthusiasm for learning.
We have commenced our focus text, Winter’s Child. Students engaged in making predictions about the story and described snowy scenes using noun phrases and prepositions. Additionally, we worked with speech marks and practised writing dialogue to enhance our understanding of direct speech.
In our Science unit on Forces and Magnets, we explored the concepts of pushes and pulls. Students conducted an experiment to determine how much force is required to pull a toy car across various surfaces, fostering hands-on learning and critical thinking.
This half term, our new humanities topic is Riotous Royals, focusing on notorious kings and queens throughout British history. We kicked off the topic by creating a timeline of monarchs and imagining what it would be like to hold such a significant role in history.
Year 2
What an exciting and very busy first week back after half term in Year 2!
Throughout the week, the children have been introduced to our new topic, Digging for Dinosaurs!
In science, they ventured outside to find living and non-living things. We classified each object and considered whether the non-living things had ever been alive in the first place!
Our PE lessons have featured gymnastics and the children have experimented with different movements, whilst in humanities the children learnt about the different periods that different types of dinosaurs lived in.
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 have started our new topic ‘Mischief and Mayhem’ this week, and introduced our new class book ‘Nibbles The Book Monster’. He has been causing all kinds of mischief around the Pre-Prep. We know he loves to eat books and he has had a feast in our classroom this week, not only eating books, but lots of things we needed for our lessons. We created Wanted posters to try and catch him, and even the Reception children have been building traps to catch him. We need him caught so he doesn’t cause any more mischief!
Later this term we will be creating our own monster puppets. We have looked at different types of puppets and used them to recreate stories in the Year 1 Puppet Theatre. We have also made Halloween hand puppets and stick puppets. In Drama, we used our imaginations to continue with the theme of Halloween and monsters by role-playing and recalling spooky stories, visiting haunted houses and meeting ghosts and monsters.
In Science, we have started to investigate everyday materials and went on a material hunt around the campus looking around to identify different materials and think about why certain materials are used for different purposes.
In Maths, we have explored systematic number bonds and number bonds to 10. We have also been learning about addition by adding together and writing number sentences using mathematical symbols.
Reception
What a busy and exciting week it’s been in Reception!
This week, we ventured on a bug hunt, exploring the outdoor environment and spotting all sorts of minibeast! The children were very engaged in drawing these little creatures and even had a go at labelling them. We also introduced our new storybook for the half term, I’m Going to Eat This Ant. The children had fun predicting what might happen in the story and talking about ants and anteaters!
Our Maths focus this week has been on shapes and their properties. The children went on a shape hunt around the school, spotting circles, triangles, and more! We sorted and compared shapes together as a class, discussing what makes each shape unique.
With Halloween around the corner, our activities have taken a spooky turn: We have sung Halloween songs, counted spooky spiders, and even mixed colours to create pumpkin shades, linking back to our shape learning by using shapes to decorate. The children practised their fine motor skills by using tweezers to free spiders from a “web” – a great challenge that they loved! Our classroom was transformed into a potion lab, where the children made bubbling cauldrons, glow-in-the-dark milk carton pumpkins, and even a life-sized skeleton jigsaw. And of course, the highlight… the children created potions that, according to their predictions, would turn their teachers into frogs or make their friends grow an extra head! (Thankfully, we’re all still human!)
Nursery
Sanderlings
This week the babies have enjoyed activities focusing on Expressive Arts and Design. There has been a lot of time spent in the garden building with soft play, climbing on the slide, playing in the sand and splashing in the water. To further develop expressing themselves, the babies have explored sounds and music with the help of action rhymes and songs. Miss Gorecki has introduced ‘What’s in the box’. The children have loved seeing what is inside and this week it was a soft cuddly bunny, which led on to sing ‘Sleeping Bunnies.’ In addition, Miss Smith has set up some lovely creative activities to further promote art and design. Finally, to end the week, the babies enjoyed a Halloween dress-up day.
Sandpipers
The Sandpipers have been busy this week with junk modelling. This has enabled the children to use their imaginations and creative skills to produce some brilliant models. A key focus this week has been Diwali, the festival of light. The children have developed a real interest and have been able to speak confidently about it. Some activities have included, making Diwali pictures using lots of different colours, talking about foods, listening to music and dressing up. In addition, the children have used the drawing wall to make marks and draw some lovely pictures. The practitioners have supported the children to use the correct grip and to strengthen their control. On Thursday the children enjoyed a Halloween party. The Sandpipers thoroughly enjoyed a party lunch and also used musical instruments to make their own spooky sounds!
Pre School
This week Pre School have been busy making a ladybird house after a lone ladybird was found in the garden. The children were concerned the ladybird did not have a house, so after discussions, a lovely house was created. On Thursday the children enjoyed a football session led by Fleetwood Town FC, followed by a cookery class in the afternoon with Mrs James. ‘Apple puff pastry mummies’ were on the menu this week, especially for Halloween. The Pre School children have been fully immersed in exciting Halloween activities, including drawing, dancing, Halloween yoga and even took part in Trick or Treating around the Rossall grounds.
Awards
Year 6
6S – Oleg for his curiosity and independence in learning this week, inspiring others; and Lara for demonstrating excellent communication skills, both mathematically and scientifically.
6R – Evelyn for showing courage and perseverance in Mathematics; and Eryn for showing courage and perseverance in Mathematics.
Year 5
Sophia for outstanding creativity and interest in our classwork.
Marcel for outstanding friendship and awareness of others.
Year 4
Rocco for fully committing himself to the creative writing tasks this week, showing great imagination and tenacity to never give up.
Lucas for making an excellent start in year 4 this week, producing stunning pieces of work and showing great curiosity in his studies.
Year 3
Felix for offering fantastic contributions to maths discussions.
Hugo for working more independently with maths and bringing more tasks to completion.
Year 2
Francis for his fantastic attitude and work ethic.
Izzy for her amazing effort and curiosity across all subjects.
Year 1
Lucas for improved effort and concentration in English and Phonics.
Harry for showing enthusiasm and resilience during his first week in Year 1.
Reception
George for working very imaginatively and has created a wanted poster for a Monster that is eating books in the Year One Classroom.
Myles for demonstrating super focus and concentration in all aspects of his work this week, from music lessons with Miss Alexander to adult-led tasks in class.
Extra Awards:
Dalton was awarded a boxing trophy in a club outside of school.
