This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
In my assembly this week, I spoke with the pupils about stepping outside of your comfort zone and how important it is to challenge yourself to try new things.
Over the past few weeks I have tried out cold water swimming and being a member of a boy band! That’s a sentence I never envisaged writing! Whilst neither of these activities are likely to be on my long term list of hobbies to take up on a more permanent basis, at least I can say I gave them a go!
There is a great life lesson in trying things out and whilst not every activity or challenge may end up being something you stick with, there is a great deal of satisfaction knowing that they are not things that you will one day need to put on your bucket list! I sincerely hope that the children take that mentality with them through life, for not to try will mean never knowing…
Year 4R’s chapel assembly was a wonderfully joyous and informative end to our week. The children provided us with rainforest facts, dance, music, colourful costumes and even superheroes; it was little wonder our parents left with smiles on their faces. Well done to all the children who took part and congratulations on displaying such incredible confidence.
Today also saw the end of this half term’s Rossall Rotation series. The children are thoroughly enjoying the opportunities that arise from Beach and Forest Schools, Cooking and Baking, Astronomy, Golf and the Farm. Only one more rotation this academic year!
Have a lovely weekend and I hope to see you at the Rob Houchen concert on Saturday evening!
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Rossall go Nuts for Netball!
Rossall netball squad travelled to Stanley Park, Blackpool last Thursday, to play in the Wyre & Fylde U11 Netball Tournament. After winning all of the group matches, we played an exciting game against St Hilda’s in the quarter finals and were just pipped to the post, losing 5-4. Rossall’s team played some outstanding netball throughout the afternoon, and really were a delight to watch. The shooting, passing, defending and decision making were phenomenal. Well done to all of the girls who took part, and also to the rest of the Rossall netball squad for their commitment and dedication this year!
If you are interested the event had a professional photographer capturing images, if you would like to view and purchase them they are available at this link.
U11 Cricketers Caught Out By Sedbergh!
After a few years away, it was wonderful to welcome Sedbergh back to Rossall for an afternoon of cricket. Conditions were perfect as the Rossall bowlers took an impressive haul of nine wickets for 134 runs.
The Rossall Rhinos came into bat in confident mood ready for the run chase. However, the Sedbergh bowling attack was just as accurate and their fielders dismissed the Rossall team with some outstanding fielding, limiting their total to 96 for 7.
Congratulations to both teams for an entertaining match and to the Rossall team for hosting Sedbergh so admirably.
Year 6
As much as the Year 6 children enjoy the quality learning time they share with their form teachers each day, there is always a buzz of excitement and anticipation when the class leave the Prep School for their weekly lessons with the senior school teachers in Art, Music, Drama and PE.
This is an excellent opportunity for the children to develop their ability and passion in these areas, as well as being an invaluable part of the transition process in preparation for Year 7, now only seven weeks away!
Under the expert eye and guidance of Mrs Cox, their artistic skills have progressed dramatically. They have created an array of stunning pieces using a variety of techniques, from William Morris inspired illuminated clay letter tiles (see the photo below), to their present project using recycled glass bottles to produce a spectacular undersea world, perfect as a centre piece for any kitchen or living room!
Year 5
Rubbish has been a hot topic for discussion in Year 5 this week. Why rubbish you might ask? Our fabulous book, ‘The Paperbag Prince’ has given the children cause to think about the amount of rubbish society creates on a daily basis. The book is beautifully illustrated and we spent time pouring over one particular picture of the mountain of discarded household objects. At first glance, that is all you see. Then when you look more closely you realise that nature has found a way to survive. The children have enjoyed writing sentences using Modal verbs to describe the image.
A fabulous time was had by all during Rossall Rotation on Friday. The children channelled their inner artists to create some magnificent images of sea creatures using the resources the beach had to offer.
Our Topic, ‘Enough for Everyone’ continues to promote lively discussions. This week we have focused on ‘Food Miles’ and have been amazed just how far our food can travel! I do apologise if the weekly shop takes a little longer due to the children checking where things have come from!!
Year 4
As we come to the end of our penultimate week of this half term, the children have started to reflect on their time in Year 4 coming to an end. There have been discussions about transitioning into Year 5 and of course the most important question, which terrifying teacher will be taking charge of us come September? Amidst all of the excitement, we have also kept our focus on completing the Summer term and how many amazing things we still have to look forward to.
The residential trip is looming and so the chatter about midnight snacks and minibus partners have taken hold this week. There is also a rumour about a Year 4 disco while we are there…what a thought. The time away together will no doubt be enjoyable, and an amazing opportunity to step outside our ‘normal’ routine and tackle new experiences alongside our friends.
In lessons this week we have begun a new Maths topic and have been learning about different angles. Using their names, the children have identified and counted the different angles present in their name and compared them to their friends. They discovered that the most common angle was a right angle and that only a couple of letters have obtuse angles!
The children have become poets in English this week and written some wonderfully creative poems about rainforests. They have looked at some famous poems and discussed what makes a poem. Through exploring a variety of vocabulary and matching similar sounding words, some of the poems have some very catchy lines and rhyming couplets.
The children are looking forward to a very busy week next week and then a well earned rest over the half term, ready for a FINAL push before completing their time in Year 4!
Year 3
Albert Einstein said that time is an illusion, but it has been the main subject of discussion in Year 3 this week!
We have started our 2 week Maths unit all about time! We began by learning about the months in the year, before moving on to hours and minutes. The children have created their own clocks which show the hour hand and the minute hand, and time past/to each hour. We have had a great time with it all!
In English, we finished reading the beautiful book Journey. The story has taken us through forests, citadels, stormy skies, flying ships and deserts. We have started to think of how we might write our own stories to go with the pictures in the book, We have also reviewed present perfect tense and use of prepositions.
In Topic, this week we focused on the difference between physical and human-made geographical features. We explored different European geographical features, such as the Eiffel Tower and Giants Causeway, and sorted them into the two categories of natural and human-made.
In Science, we are reaching the end of our long unit on Plants. To demonstrate everything we have learnt about plants, the children are making their own plants information leaflets! These will take a few lessons to complete as they will be filled with information we have learnt about through the unit.
We finished off the week with a swing in Rossall Rotation and our last session on golf!
Year 2
In Literacy this week, we have continued reading ‘The Last Wolf’. We have written directions for Red using verbs at the start of our sentences and we wrote letters to the Last Wolf to persuade him not to eat Red.
In Maths, we have been continuing our shape unit and have been counting the sides and vertices of 2D shapes.
In our Science lesson this week, we learned about the lifecycle of a bean and worked out which part of the lifecycle our own beans are in.
Today, we really enjoyed 4R’s chapel, creating our own seaside mosaic pictures in Art and our final Farm session in Rossall Rotation.
Year 1
This week, in Maths, we have started to learn about making arrays and learning doubles.
In Language, we have written a diary entry from Little Bears’ perspective. We have also discovered that the apartment that Little Bear has gone into belongs to none other than Goldilocks. We have predicted what has happened to Goldilocks since the last time she met Little Bear, when she was a little girl in the three bear’s cottage, and written biographies about Goldilocks life.
In Science, we have continued to make observations of our bean plants. We have also looked at different plants that we eat and which parts of the plants are edible. We continue to be amazed at how tall they are getting. This week’s tallest beanstalks are Josephine, Fox and Rupert’s measuring 44cm. There are no giants at the top yet!
In Topic, we have been thinking about the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and making crowns to wear to our Platinum Jubilee Lunch. We are very excited to celebrate this special occasion.
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 enquiry, giving them the confidence to ‘have a go’ and to develop their understanding and skills. This week we have used tens frames, numicon and number lines to help us with our ‘counting on’ but when confident the children actually found it quicker to use all the new mathematical vocabulary and mentally work out answers to problems. We have 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 number is vast, the early ideas are the all-important blocks that form the structure.
Nursery
“Play is our brain’s favourite way of learning”
Diane Ackerman
Our nursery week began and ended with two stay and play sessions in our Sanderlings and Sandpipers rooms; it has been a busy but successful week.
Sanderlings
Our Sanderlings have been taking part in lots of fascinating play with hands on experience. Our Tuff tray was used for a sensory activity where we used fruits to use vocabulary related to texture, smell and colour (we were building upon the descriptive words we were learning to use last week).
In addition to our tuff try we have used water in pipettes to rescue polar bear and penguins who had become stuck in the ice, our Sanderlings were super rescuers. The Sanderlings have also enjoyed a walk around our grounds; ending with a much needed rest and picnic under the trees.
Finally, we have had a stay and play session with our families; activities included biscuit decorating, soft play to show our families how well we are physical development is progressing and a small world area with animals.
Sandpipers
The Sandpipers began their week with the first of our stay and play sessions. Our families created colourful pasta necklaces, took part in a digging and planting activity as well as having the chance to see how much we love our action songs in a singalong.
For wellbeing Wednesday Sandpipers have joined Miss Southern in the garden for a dental hygiene session. We learned all about keeping our teeth and mouths healthy, how to brush our teeth and we took part in a ’10 second challenge’ to clean some teeth our teachers had created for us in one of our tuff trays.
Wellbeing Wednesday finished with a story called “Tusk troubles” where a crocodile had eaten too many sweets and the children saved the day by cleaning the crocodile’s teeth and giving him a filling.
Sparrows
Our Sparrows have been as busy as ever this week. The Sparrows and Miss Simms have joined up with The Sandpipers for Miss Southern’s wellbeing Wednesday dental hygiene activity. Even though we were discussing the very serious topic of dental hygiene we still had lots of fun and we even took home some toothbrushes and toothpaste to show are families how well we brush our teeth to get super, sparkly smiles.
The Sparrows have walked to the beach for a story time with Mrs Farrell and Miss Simms as well as pizza making with Mrs James and Miss Ward.
What a fabulous week we have had, we look forward to updating you with our new adventures next week.
Awards
Year 6
This week our awards went to:
6R: Summer-Teamwork and commitment to the Exhibition
Lockie- Vastly improved presentation
6S: Lizzie-Outstanding contribution in class activities
Asser- Outstanding progress and determination in Cricket
Year 5
In Year 5 we are celebrating Jessica and Dawood with an award for being super friends.
Year 4
The awards in 4S this week go to Jasper for his brilliant letter about a magical creature, and Alfie who has worked hard in Maths this week.
The awards in 4R this week go to Mia and Sophie for outstanding poetry writing.
Year 3
In Year 3 our certificates go to two children who have really been taking care with their work – Lara and Seb.
Year 2
The awards this week go to Wyatt – For persevering to manage his distractions and making the right choices and Isla – For great enthusiasm in writing this week.
Year 1
This week’s awards are awarded to Oskar and Valencia for writing a fantastic diary entry in our language work. Well done!
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement awards go Lexi and Lena
Both children have made excellent progress with their independent writing and are beginning to use known digraphs and trigraphs to help with their spelling.
