Prep Newsletter Summer Term Week 6 | Rossall - Independent Boarding School

This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.

Dear All,

There have been a lot of tired children in Prep throughout the week. I am positive this has little to do with late nights and more to do with the energetic manner in which the children throw themselves into all aspects of school life. On top of exciting lessons, the children really do have days packed with so many additional elements.

Two weeks ago, a group of Year 5 boys knocked on my office door to ask if they could run a Beyblade Club. Obviously being ‘down with the kids’ I knew exactly what they meant but asked them to return to pitch their new club to me. What followed was a super presentation and persuasive argument and this week the children launched their club. The motivation was there and who was I to say no when there had been so much effort put into it? Therein lies the lesson; if you want something enough then you have to work for it.

It was fantastic to once again host our swimming gala this afternoon. After the last two years of not being able to invite parents and family members to watch, the children thoroughly enjoyed swimming in front of a live (and loud) audience. Congratulations to all those who took part, no matter their level or position. The competitive element of a house gala was certainly there for all to see.

As is always the case, we are continually looking at ways to improve our fantastic Prep School. Fundamentals of school improvement include elements such as the curriculum and resources. However, there are always things that are the ‘cherry on the top’ and our children have been asking for a more interactive play area. We have taken an overall review of our play spaces for Nursery and Prep and, alongside the School Council, have designed some amazing spaces. I am delighted to announce that some of the funds from our Summer Gala on 2nd July, will go towards this very project and would therefore urge all of you to attend what promises to be a super event. You can purchase tickets here.

I hope you all have a relaxing and well-deserved break over half term. The five weeks following the holiday is action packed; please do keep an eye open for a letter containing many of the upcoming events.

All best wishes,

Mr M Turner

Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery

Rossall Cricketers at their best!

Three cheers for the Rossall Cricket Team this week for representing the school admirably against AKS.

Batting first, they came out swinging from the start, and amassed a grand total of 73 runs. In reply, AKS found it difficult to score runs due to the accuracy of the Rossall bowling and the movement of the ball in the steady Rossall breeze. Wickets tumbled and AKS reached a total of 37 runs.

This was a fine performance by this young Rossall side. It was also rewarding to hear the AKS teachers comment on how impressed they were with the etiquette and manners that were shown by the team on the field and at the afternoon tea. Well done, Rossall cricketers, you are a credit to the school!

Rounders – AKS v Rossall Prep

The Rossall and AKS girls had to be at their best in the windy conditions down the coast in St Annes on Wednesday. However, the Rossall girls really were up for the challenge, and played some slick rounders, both in the field and with the bat. Well done to all of the girls that took part in the match, you represented the Prep School superbly.

Anyone for Tennis!

It was a real joy to witness the final Y3 &Y4 tennis session this Tuesday. Mini tennis has been the focus of the Y3/4 multi skills club for the last 5 weeks, and the progress the Prep children have made really is astounding. Well done to all of the children involved!

Year 6

What a wonderful start to the week we had, Heather and the kitchen staff did a fabulous job creating a party atmosphere for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The music, picnic and flag waving really got us in the mood for an action packed week on the lead up to the half term break.

The children have almost completed their boards and interactive activities in preparation for our Exhibition, details to follow soon. In Mathematics we have been working hard in geometry, Mr C and Mr R have got all angles covered on this one! When completing their recent writing tasks the children have really impressed with their biographies on Jacques Cousteau in the style of the “Great Adventurers” book by Alastair Humphreys. The end products were creative, original and informative.

Though the Year 6 children work hard, they really do love the activities that we do out with the classroom, Mr Condon’s organisation and running of the swimming gala was no exception watching children get towed across the pool looking like something out of “Saturday Night Fever”!

Year 5

A busy end to a busy Half Term.

Year 5 have enjoyed an action packed week which has included preparing for their Chapel Service, sports, the House Swimming Gala, celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and their normal academic lessons! How have they managed to fit it all in?! They are truly amazing, hard working and they most definitely deserve a week off.

It was fabulous to see the whole of the Pre-Prep and Prep school in the dining hall celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee with a special lunch. The children rose to the occasion in their homemade crowns, singing the National Anthem with great gusto while waving the flags provided by the catering department. The dining hall looked spectacular, indeed it was fit for Royalty. These are the moments and occasions that the children will look back on when they are older with great fondness and it is part of what makes attending Rossall so special.

I hope you have a wonderful half term and that the weather is kind to us!

Year 4

In the blink of an eye we have reached the end of term which itself has led to the conclusion of our rainforest topic. The children are now full of knowledge about rainforests across the planet and the importance of looking after them.

Even though it is the final week of term it has still been action-packed with activities and learning. In Geography we have looked at how we can help save the rainforest from the devastating impact of deforestation. The children created bright and bold posters highlighting what we can do to reduce our footprint on the Earth.

In Science, the children have been discovering the impacts humans are having on animal populations across the globe. They have created a class book containing many facts about many endangered animals from the fluffy panda to the hefty rhino.

The animal theme crossed over to our Art lessons where the children observed how to apply different shapes to draw realistic animals. Once drawn the children enjoyed experimenting with watercolours and how they could be used to create different tones and patterns.

All the skills and knowledge taught across the week have then culminated in the creation of our final writing piece of the term. In English, the children have developed their skills as graphic designers by creating their very own display boards for a rainforest area in a zoo. I am sure we will soon receive phone calls from Blackpool Zoo asking for the children’s artistic assistance.

In Maths, our focus this week has been time. The children have been thinking carefully about their routine and have enjoyed comparing their daily routines and working up who has to wake up the earliest in the morning. However now is the time to switch the alarms off and have a later start to the day as we wish you a wonderful and restful half term.

Year 3

What a fun-filled week to finish off the half-term! It started with a culinary journey through Europe where Ms Hoban combined our Spanish learning with a venture into our topic. The children needed to answer clues in a Spanish treasure hunt in order to try European specialities such as salami, olives and pretzels!

Continuing with our Topic, to finish our learning about Modern Europe, the children researched a specific country and made a fact-filled poster. We shared information we found out about the country with its natural and human-made features.

In English we have been doing lots of writing in order to complete our own stories for the book Journey. We focussed on writing in the style of Berlin Doherty (the author of Tilly Mint Tales) using adverbs, similes, time conjunctions and talking to the reader. It’s fantastic to read the children’s creative interpretations of the story, and see how much their writing has improved!

In Maths we continued our journey through time, practicing telling the time to the minute and learning about the difference between digital and analogue clocks.

For Science we have finished our unit on plants, and the children completed their own information leaflets filled with their learning about plants. A great final way to show off their botanical knowledge! In Art we also honed our Jane Colden skills creating some detailed observational drawings.

Add to this our fantastic Jubilee lunch party and ending with the Swim Gala – couldn’t have asked for a better week! Hard to believe that we only have 1 half-term left together in Year 3, before the big move up! Have a great half term break everyone.

Year 2

What a great end of the half term Year 2 have had! We all loved our Jubilee lunch on Monday and enjoyed singing the National Anthem together as a Prep School.

On Tuesday, we wrote some amazing persuasive letters as ‘Red’ to other fairy tale characters to ask them to help plant trees to save the animals.

In Maths, we have been mastering 2D and 3D shapes and can find edges, faces and vertices of 3D shapes.

We finished off our Science topic of ‘Plants’ by writing conclusions for our ‘bean in a bag’ experiment. We looked at the similarities and differences between each other’s beans and discussed why certain beans grew a lot and some did not grow at all.

Year 1

What a fantastic start to the week with our Platinum Jubilee Lunch. The children really enjoyed sitting in their houses and eating their lunch with other children from different year groups. It was such a pleasure to see them wearing their crowns, waving their flags and singing the National Anthem. Continuing with the Jubilee theme, and linked to our Topic work, we used the colours of the Union Jack to create our own artwork; a sun catcher and a collage of the Queen.

In Maths we started to think about division and sharing into equal groups. In Language we have finished our class book and have written our own stories based on what we have read. The children tried so hard. We definitely have some budding authors in the making!

This week we completed our last observations of our beanstalks, and hopefully they made it home in one piece. Some of them were GIGANTIC! I am looking forward to seeing some photographs of how your beanstalks are getting on at home over the next half term.

Have a wonderful half term and get some rest ready for a really busy last half term in Year 1.

Reception

Over 58.4 million animals are kept as pets in the UK, so it’s important we understand what they need to be happy and healthy. This week we have been learning how to care for our pets. The children told each other about the pets they have at home and we reminded each other about the five basic needs of animals. In class we have had a pet hamster, two rabbits, two dogs and a snake to look after. Oh, and of course Silly Doggy! Using our toy pets, the children took it in turns to hold a pet and help create a list of what resources they needed to help them look after the animals. This involved food, pet bowls, beds, cages and vet accessories.

We listened to a true story about Smoky the pet rabbit, who lived in the same boring hutch every day – he never got to run outside! Some days his water got dirty and no one brought him his favourite food. Some weeks no one cleaned out his hutch and it got very dirty and smelly. Living like this, Smoky was unhappy and soon began to feel ill. Luckily for Smoky, an RSPCA inspector came and took him to an animal centre, where he got well looked after and eventually rehomed.

The activities this week have aimed to make the children aware of pets as living animals with needs and feelings. We have learnt that pets should be handled carefully and only when it is appropriate to do so. We have also investigated the responsibility of pet owners to meet the needs of their pets and to keep them happy and healthy. If you have a pet at home, hopefully the children now understand how to help to look after them?

Nursery

It’s been an active week in Nursery and it has flown by; as always our days have been full of fun, laughter and smiles. We have celebrated ‘Bee day’, Move it Monday, wellbeing Wednesday and lots of other activities in between.

Sanderlings

Sanderlings have used shaving foam in their tuff tray with lots of different shapes in differing colours and sizes, Mrs Beddis and Miss Schofield modelled language of size, shape and colour and we tried to copy. We had lots of fun and we enjoyed the lovely smells and textures this activity also provided. The Sanderlings have been out and about in the nice weather searching for the blue tractor we can see from our window; we found it so it was a successful outing. When the weather was not so nice we brought our soft play inside so we could still practice our physical development and gross motor skills. We have balanced, we have been negotiated space safely and best of all, we all go to have a turn on our slide. Our fine motor skills were challenged with a drawing activity where the key was to hold the crayon to make marks on paper.

Sandpipers

The Sandpipers have had lots of practice using jigsaw puzzles which has helped them to develop their finger strength (this comes in handy when we are drawing and writing), perseverance, problem-solving skills and hand-eye co-ordination. To celebrate ‘Bee day’ we filled ‘beehives’ with pompoms to show how bees fill their hives with honey, we loved learning about bees. Miss Southern led an activity all around health and self-care, we washed the green paint germs off gloves to show how we must wash our hands and make them and clean. Finally, we teamed up with The Sparrows in Pre-school to do yoga in the secret garden. I’m sure you will agree we have been having lots of fun!

Sparrows

Pre-school week started with move it Monday with Mrs Farrell, we climbed up and down the sand dunes, it was brilliant! We have taken part in a messy activity using gloop with Miss Ward where we explored colours and what happens when we mix colours together, it was magical. As a group we have loved listening to all the exciting things we do at home in the evenings at the weekend – Miss Simms even showed us pictures of her visit to the zoo. Finally, we joined Miss Southern (from The Sandpipers room) and Miss Simms for a Yoga adventure in the secret garden. We practised breathing exercises to help us keep calm and relaxed, we said the secret yoga code word which is “namaste” and our favourite move was downward dog.

We look forward to updating you on another Nursery week.

Awards

Year 6

This week our awards went to:

Amiee – Outstanding Effort and Creative Talent.

Betsy – Outstanding commitment in all activities.

Josh and Maya – Outstanding written work.

Year 5

In Year 5 the award go to Molly for going out of her way to help others and also to Finley for displaying excellent times tables knowledge.

Year 4

This week our certificate winners are:

Ahill and Hollie for outstanding effort in English

Archie and Catlin for progress in their times tables

Year 3

Our year 3 certificates today go to Aaron and Ben, for their perseverance in Maths with telling the time!

Year 2

In Year 2 the award this week are for Mykhalio – for having a super first week in Year 2 and Larry – for great resilience and perseverance in Maths

Year 1

This week’s awards go to Beau for enthusiastic and excellent performances in Drama club and Junior for excellent engagement in his division work, and for always sharing his mathematical ideas.