This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
I was speaking with a new Rossall parent earlier this week. Their child has just joined us at the start of the Summer term. The sheer delight that was spoken regarding the positive impact that has been felt in less than two weeks of the term, was quite incredible to listen to. From an increase in confidence, a smile on a face as they arrive and leave school, and the fact that the child tells all the family about lessons, teachers, friends, clubs, and of course school dinners, I was immeasurably proud of all aspects of our Prep School. Happiness is only part of the journey but it is great to hear that parents really do see and feel the difference in their children once they start with us.
Earlier today, the Prep School joined the rest of the nation as we celebrated the coronation of King Charles III. It does not seem that long ago since we held a similar event for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The coronation has provided us with the opportunity to look at and discuss the monarchy, as well as celebrating all things British – clearly seen here with our lunch of fish and chips!
Summer term means summer sports. The children have loved getting started with tennis, cricket, athletics and rounders in their after school clubs and lessons. We have successfully competed in matches once again this week and it certainly helps when the sun is shining!
Have a lovely extended bank holiday weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III
We celebrated the eve of the King’s Coronation with a fun-filled event, complete with our very own coronation ceremony and a delicious serving of fish and chips.
The highlight of the event was the Coronation ceremony, where we had our very own “Rossall Royalty”. Names were drawn from a hat and the children dressed up in regal attire and were crowned by their peers, who acted as official Coronation officers. It was a delightful sight to see the children participating enthusiastically in the ceremony and taking on their royal roles with great confidence.
After the ceremony, the pupils sat down to enjoy a classic British meal of fish and chips, a perfect complement to the festive atmosphere of the day.
The event was not only an opportunity for the children to learn about the significance of the Coronation but also a chance for them to experience what it feels like to be part of a royal celebration. It was heartwarming to see the pupils getting involved in the event and taking on their roles with such enthusiasm.
We would like to express our gratitude to Richardson Fish & Chips for providing us with the boxes for our fish and chips during our celebrations.
Rossall U10 Rounders -v- Highfield Priory
Rossall Prep hosted a friendly rounders fixture on Wednesday afternoon against Highfield Priory. It was a fantastic opportunity for all our Year 3 and Year 4 girls to experience their first rounders match. With the superb support from our more experienced Year 5 players, the younger girls made brilliant progress in both batting and fielding. The Rossall teams were exemplary hosts to our friends from Highfield Priory. Well done to all the girls that took part!
Year 6
‘When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself’ Jacques Cousteau
The children have had another busy week in the Preparatory School. Year 6 are thoroughly enjoying working together to prepare for their ‘Exhibition’ about sustainability. Research is being carried out, facts are being sourced, quizzes are being made and sustainable companies are being emailed. It really is all go! We are all thoroughly enjoying our text, ‘Manfish’ which tells the story of the remarkable Jacques Cousteau. The children are fascinated by the extraordinary life that he led. He was an inventor, an explorer, a writer, a cinematographer and much more. This week we have been using hyphens to avoid ambiguity and thinking of some questions that we would have liked to ask him.
It is all about angles in Mathematics, we have learned how to accurately draw angles using a protractor and have worked hard to compare and classify geometric shapes based on their properties. We have also found unknown angles in triangles, quadrilaterals and regular polygons.
Keith Siddle is providing the inspiration for our art. We have begun to create our own masterpieces and I am looking forward to seeing the end results.
Roman I bought a commercial diving helmet into school for the class to look at. He gave an informative talk on the uses of the helmet and the children watched a video of the helmet in action.
We hope the sun shines for the Coronation this weekend and continues to shine for the Bank Holiday. Have a wonderful long weekend.
Year 5
Year 5 have enjoyed exploring the toxic ‘Poison Pool’ in our class novel; writing letters to the Council to persuade them to clean up the rubbish dump in the beautiful valley. We have looked at cohesive devices, modal verbs and also Standard English within their writing.
In Science, we have continued to look at how plants reproduce through looking at pollination leading onto learning the advantages and disadvantages of sexual and asexual reproduction.
During our PSHE lessons, Year 5 have discussed the different relationships they may come across. They have understood what a healthy and unhealthy relationship can look like and they have applied their knowledge to certain scenarios. As part of our discussions, we have also thought about how we can manage and develop relationships so that they become positive ones.
We have been delighted to have had the wonderful opportunity to talk about all things Coronation this week. They have enjoyed creating a collage of King Charles III in Art and also making their very own crown to wear at our Coronation picnic!
Year 4
Now in the third week of the summer term we are getting in shape for an action packed agenda of activities and topics for our Year 4 learners.
In English, we have been learning all about the setting of our book – the Daintree Rainforest in Australia. The children have been putting their computing skills to the test to research facts about this unique environment to create a tourist information guide. They have included lots of detail about the rainforest itself as well as the fun activities visitors can entertain themselves with, such as human hamster wheels and jungle surfing!
In Art, the children have been looking closely at the faces of rainforest animals with a focus on colour. The children looked at a range of animal photos and were surprised to find colours they did not expect to see. Blue and navy were seen on a gorilla and even purple on a leopard. Having looked closely at the intricate furry details, the children then began to use oil pastels to create a snapshot of their chosen animal. The end product has been a major success and their creations now look down proudly upon their creators from the wall display. (See their masterpieces below.)
The animal theme continued in our Science lessons, where the children have been looking at animal adaptations and how changing environments can influence animal evolution. As humans, we are able to put on a jumper and a woolly hat if it gets too cold, but what can animals do? The children had the challenge of creating their very own creature which had to be able to survive in rapidly changing environments. We had a plethora of creations ranging from capybara-corns, pengu-afins and dolph-ducks!
Year 3
Year 3 has enjoyed a fun-filled week with the sun starting to come out!
In English this week, we continued our journey through ‘Journey’, learning some new tricky vocabulary to describe the citadel setting. We reviewed speech marks when writing dialogue between the characters in the book.
We also continued with our topic, as we explored the capital cities of Europe! The children worked in pairs to research facts about different European capitals, including languages spoken, famous foods and landmarks.
In Science, we have extended our learning about pollination to learn about the whole life cycle of plants. Children worked in groups to role-play and act out the five steps in the plant life cycle and then wrote and drew diagrams to show the processes. In Maths this week we have finished our learning about measurement, ending the unit with the perimeter of shapes. We are now back on our favourite topic – fractions!
We loved finishing the week by making regal crowns to wear for our special Coronation lunch party in honour of the new King! Enjoy the long weekend Year 3!
Year 2
The end of last week proved very exciting for the Year 2 children as they thoroughly enjoyed their experience visiting all the animals at the Farm as part of their new activity for Rossall Rotation, though Miss Whitehead was less impressed with the confrontational attitude of some of the chickens. It has been a fabulous week and the children have been incredibly productive. The class completed our Mathematics unit on position and movement, demonstrating a fabulous understanding of the vocabulary associated with this topic. In English they have written some marvellous pieces using “The Last Wolf” to inspire real creativity and imaginative writing.
In our Topic we have been thinking about seaside holidays, the children were able to describe how their senses would be affected by the sea and we are hoping to use the work completed to help produce some seaside poetry. Our focus in Science is on the life cycle of a plant, having learnt about seed dispersal last week, we decided it was time to start growing our own plants from seeds. The children have made their own mini greenhouses using a freezer bag and we are very much hoping that our seeds will germinate, then flourish into plants that can be taken home and potted.
I cannot praise the children highly enough, I have been incredibly impressed with their attitude, application and work ethic so far this term. I would simply encourage them to continue in this manner, if they do so then I have no doubt that they will be more than ready for life in Year 3. As the class has worked so hard this week, I think it is only fair that they have an extra day off this weekend. I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday for more of the same!
Year 1
Our children in Year 1 have absolutely blown us away with their wonderful attitudes towards learning this week. They have discovered so much, extending their learning by asking curious questions and by wanting to learn and find out more.
It’s been great fun potting our bean plants in Science and we are so impressed with how well they grew in their plastic bags. Now it’s time to see how they will grow in their pots and soil, exciting! In English and Phonics we are working hard to build our verbal and written sentences using descriptive words, as well as conjunctions. We went on another Phonics hunt around our Library and even in the playground too, to spot words that contain certain sounds. We found it tricky to find some words but we love a challenge! In Maths we have been exploring how to measure capacity and volume. It was really interesting to estimate and to make guesses on how much a container could carry and we had a brilliant discussion about volume and millilitres. We certainly were surprised to see that some containers could carry more water than we thought; we underestimated their capacity! We have also been using our balancing scales and weighing scales to compare items and to check their weight too.
It’s the King’s Coronation this weekend and we have been talking about what will happen and why it’s important. We have also been getting arty too, in preparation and in celebration of the upcoming Coronation. Great work this week Year 1!
Reception
We want young children to engage with numbers and to see how to use them in their everyday environment for labelling, quantifying and calculating. In other words, giving children the tools to help them to develop a better understanding of the world in which they live. Our continuous provision has plenty of opportunities for the children to use and develop these skills, from counting out ingredients to make a cake in the role-play area, to working out what they could build if they only had ten bricks.
The activities covered in class will help to provide the children with the skills they need to support further learning and inquiry, giving them the confidence to gain practical experience by trying things firsthand to develop their understanding. Over the last couple weeks we have used tens frames, numicon and number tracks to help us with our addition and subtraction calculations. We have even begun ‘counting on’ and ‘counting back’ to work out calculations. When confident, the children found it quicker to use all the new mathematical vocabulary and mentally work out answers to problems. We have also begun to work with larger numbers and the children have naturally gravitated to known resources to support their learning but already have a positive attitude, saying ‘I know that!’
These lessons provide an important start in life that will help to overcome the fears and reluctance to engage in mathematics that adults will often admit to. It will help to turn an ‘I can’t‘ attitude towards mathematics into the more positive ‘I can and I do.’
The overall aim is to stimulate and engage children’s interest and joy in numbers, in ways that inform and secure their learning. While the mathematics of numbers is vast, the early ideas are the all-important blocks that form the structure.
Nursery
“Children need the freedom to appreciate the infinite resources of their hands, their eyes and their ears, the resources of forms, materials, sounds and colours”
–Loris Malaguzzi
This week in the Nursery our topic was ‘Understanding The World’.
The Sanderlings
The Sanderling week started with some blue and red play-dough to recreate the Union Jack flag, complete with a special stamp that when used on the play-dough made a Union Jack pattern. The babies enjoyed a nature walk with The Sandpipers and the older babies were able to freely explore the grassy area where they found leaves, sticks and daisies.
Miss Schofield set up a red, white and blue tuff tray with various items such as bricks, sensory scarves and cars. During song time Mrs Beddis played the National Anthem ‘God Save The King’ and the older babies had a go at marching like soldiers to some music that might be played during the Coronation. Miss Heatley helped the babies to plant some sunflower seeds, this was such a fun activity as the babies were able to use spades to dig and scoop the compost into little plant pots.
The Sandpipers
The Sandpipers have been looking in the environment for natural objects such as leaves, trees and flowers, once the items were found they talked about the colours, size and shape of each item. They found yellow, purple and blue flowers, as well as different size sticks and leaves, showing the colours of Autumn and Spring as the seasons change. The Sandpiper’s book of the month is “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. To link with this the children have been looking at the different fruits, just like the fruits the Caterpillar enjoyed in the story. The children were encouraged to describe the fruit, what it looked like inside and they were even tasted some of the fruits. The children looked at the life cycle of a butterfly and took great interest in how a caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly. The story has enabled the children to become familiar with new words, for example, “crunchy”, “juicy”, “sweet” and “cocoon”. Finally, with the upcoming Coronation of King Charles III, The Sandpipers have been making decorations for their room, for our picnic.
Pre-School
This week Pre-School have been learning how to take care of plants and grow them from a tiny seed, Miss Ward has been supporting the children in growing their own beanstalk. The Pre-School staff have also assisted the children in growing vegetables such as peas, the children get excited each morning to see how much they have grown. The children have spent lots of time outside in the garden and have come across lots of different insects. Using magnifying glasses and bug watchers, the children have identified which insect they have found whilst watching the way they move and counting the quantity of legs each bug has. The Pre-School were so kind and it was lovely to see the children care for the insects. Furthermore, the children have been getting very excited for King Charles III’s Coronation. They have been making crowns and have spoken about what a Coronation is and what it means for our country. On Friday, the Pre-School had a pre-Coronation party and enjoyed fish and chips in the garden. Yummy!
Awards
Year 6
6S Awards:
Lex – for his friendship and support of others
Lincoln – for his outstanding progress in all areas of the curriculum
6R Awards:
Emily – for taking action and showing independence
Roman – for courage and presenting to the whole class
Year 5
5R Awards:
Poppy and Tommy for amazing letter writing in our English lessons.
5S Awards:
Cara for excellent presentation and work in English.
Sebastian for great collaboration and perseverance in Maths.
Year 4
In Year 4, our certificates this week went to Lara and Alfie for outstanding effort in all activities.
Year 3
Mykhailo – for brilliant work with measuring length in Maths.
Wyatt – for great participation in PSHE.
Year 2
Josephine – for outstanding Creative Writing.
Kaxshaan – for a positive attitude towards all aspects of school.
Year 1
Max – for writing a variety of interesting and descriptive sentences this week!
Aria – for listening well in our discussions in class and for giving superb answers to questions too!
Reception
This week’s certificate of achievement certificates go to Xander and Chika. Both children have demonstrated excellent observational skills and knowledge when learning about the Coronation of King Charles III.
