This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
As we draw to a close on a lengthy yet industrious half term in the Prep School, I am filled with a mixture of emotions. I am exceptionally proud of the staff for the way they have dealt with all that has been achieved with the pupils, despite a backdrop of some sadness across the School. Similarly, the parents continue to show their support for all we endeavour to achieve and even when things do not go as planned, we are able to work through issues together, in a true partnership that benefits the pupils. Of course, I must also congratulate the children (of which there are some very tired tigers) for their continued efforts across their subjects and the smiles they keep on their faces. We all deserve a well-earned rest next week!
The final throes of the academic year are almost upon us. Only 4 and a half weeks remain before we break for summer and for our Year 6s, they bid a fond farewell to the Prep School. There is much to look forward to in the final half term – residentials, sports day, house challenge day, ocean day, prize day, transition day and back by ‘un’popular demand, I will once again be ‘performing’ alongside Mr Quartermain and other staff, at Rossall’s Got Talent. Should you wish to view some real talent, as well as have a laugh at me, please don’t forget to purchase your tickets here.
This week has seen the Year 6 children on bikeability, our Year 3 and 4s striking and fielding at Poolfoot, our musicians performing in the music assembly concert, and all year groups, despite some unseasonal weather, joining in with outdoor learning day on Thursday.
Of course, the term finished on a musical note, as the hotly contested house singing took place in Museum Theatre this afternoon. Renditions of ‘I’m a Believer’, ‘Together’, ‘This is Me’ and ‘When I Grow Up’. The theme was musicals and I was blown away by the fabulous singing on show but more importantly, the enjoyment and camaraderie that are displayed through being part of a house.
I wish you all a restful break and look forward to seeing you on Monday 3rd June.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Year 2 BMX Competition
Year 2 student Theo took part in a BMX competition and came 2nd. Everyone at Rossall School is very proud of him!
Year 4 Striking and Fielding Event
Poolfoot Farm played host to yet another fantastic Wyre schools festival on Tuesday afternoon. A Rossall Prep team of ten Year 4 boys and girls competed in this annual Striking and Fielding event. The children had to move around eight exciting cricket activities. The team performed magnificently at each discipline, achieving an incredible overall score and also had a lot of fun! Thank you to everyone involved in organising this competition and ensuring it ran so smoothly. Well done to all of the children that took part.
Year 6
The Prep School enjoyed a day of ‘Outdoor Learning’ on Thursday- almost. Year 6 enjoyed a relaxed morning channeling their inner Shakespeare by writing poetry in the Penine Suite away from the wind and rain. The change of scenery and the stunning views of the distant hills seemed to inspire the children, they wrote some fabulous poems.
Our ‘Exhibition’ continues to inspire some interesting and often inspiring research, teamwork and discussion. Year 6 are overcoming the challenges of working in teams, organising themselves and making decisions about content, display and workload.
Algebra continues to challenge us as n our Mathematics lessons. We have learned how to use function machines, form expressions, substitute numbers in place of letters and finally to use formulae to work out values. It has been a challenging week but Mrs Scott and I (Mrs Kenmare) have been impressed with the resilience and commitment the children have shown.
The Preparatory School has been alive with the sound of music in the run up to House Singing. Houses have had the opportunity to meet, led by the Year 6 House Captains and the songs have been practiced. Let us hope on if the Houses gets a ‘golden buzzer!’
The Year 6 teachers hope you all have an amazing, well deserved half term. Come back refreshed and ready for an action packed final half term!
Year 5
The wet weather didn’t stop our Year 5 scientists from enjoying an action packed Outdoor Learning Day, we just took the ‘outside’ ‘inside’ by investigating the school pond in the Senior School Science Laboratory. The class relished the opportunity to scoop as many organisms as they could from the Biology Department’s pond, especially when they were given points for their ‘catch’; a Pond Snail was worth 5 points, a Newt a whopping 20!
The children then had the chance to scrutinise the smaller organisms under the microscope, which they found fascinating. This was the first time many of the class had used microscopes before and they were intrigued by their discoveries, especially the water fleas, such as Daphnia and the dreaded Cyclops! We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and many thanks to Mrs Pearson and Mr Walker for sharing their knowledge, expertise and leeches!
The class have continued to develop their persuasive writing skills by researching the impact of Palm Oil production on the rainforests of Indonesia. The children were shocked to learn about the devastation that the clearing of forests at an alarming rate is having on the planet, so have decided to express their concerns in a letter to the Prime Minister- I hope he doesn’t have much on at the moment!
Year 4
Just like that, we are at the end of our first summer term!
A huge congratulations to our talented Year 4s who participated in the Assembly Concert this week. Their instrumental performances were outstanding and showcased their hard work and dedication. Well done to everyone involved!
In Maths, we have been focusing on the practical topic of money. We have been learning to write money as decimals, convert pence into pounds and vice versa, and compare amounts of money using the greater than, less than, and equal to signs.
Our English lessons have been particularly exciting as we delved deeper into our ‘Blue John’ book. We worked on upleveling sentences by including fronted adverbials, similes, and subordinating conjunctions. Additionally, we held a dramatic hot-seating activity where some we took on the role of the mysterious character, The Queen of Darkness, and answered thoughtfully prepared questions. This exercise helped us to analyse the character in more depth.
Despite the weather, we enthusiastically participated in Outdoor Learning Day this week. Our creative writing session was inspired by a story starter about magical dragons flying to paradise, which we then continued with our imaginative plots. This activity was a fantastic way to blend nature with creativity. We also ventured to the secret garden for a times table treasure hunt and a pirate treasure hunt, which made learning both fun and adventurous.
House singing practices have been a major highlight this week, culminating in a fantastic final performance today. All houses did a tremendous job, and it was wonderful to see the children’s enthusiasm and teamwork shine through their singing.
As we look forward to the half-term break, I want to thank you all for your continued support. Wishing you a restful and enjoyable half term!
Year 3
It’s been a really special final week of this half term in Year 3.
We have started quite a few new areas of learning this week as we approach the end of the School year. We started reading our last class book of the year: Zeraffa Giraffa. We made some predictions about the book, talking about likes, dislikes, connections and puzzles. We also wrote a blessing for the giraffe using conjunctions.
We loved outdoor learning day on Thursday, despite the weather not being as nice as we might have liked! We enjoyed our English lesson in the wooded area, where we read an extract of the Wind in the Willows. We used this to inspire some creative writing and we wrote mini stories about animals who can talk, applying our knowledge of speech marks. Unfortunately the weather stopped us from doing our Topic lesson on the beach as planned, but we will do this after half term instead!
This week in Maths we are having a break from Time and now doing a couple of weeks on Angles and Shape. This week we looked at angles and turns, learning about clockwise and anti-clockwise, and different types of angles: acute, obtuse and right angles.
Our final Science topic this year is Light and Shadow. This week we talked about what light is and what things are light sources. We conducted a light source hunt around the school, spotting and identifying where light comes from indoors and outdoors.
We are already very enthusiastic about our new topic, Ancient Egypt! This week we had an introduction to Ancient Egypt and ordered events on a timeline. We also made our own pyramids out of paper.
Finishing the week off with House Singing was very joyful!
Only four and a half weeks left of Year 3… Let’s make the most of every second!
Our certificates in Year 3 go to Fynn for wonderful participation in Maths and to Fox for fabulous knowledge about our new topic Ancient Egypt.
To celebrate Ocean Day 2024, we are challenging the Rossall Prep community to create Ocean-themed edible art! Make your own culinary masterpiece, which can be sweet, savoury or both, celebrating all things ocean, sea and marine! Please submit your edible art by sending a photo and a written description to Mrs Roberts [email protected] and Mrs Payne [email protected]. Please do not bring your edible art into School, instead please enjoy them at home. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday 4th June so you can enjoy your cooking over half-term.
Prizes for Pre-Prep, Y3/4 and Y5/6. The winner will be announced in our Certificates Assembly on Friday 7th June.
We will be also enjoying Ocean Day activities in School on Friday 7th June. Children are invited to wear blue to celebrate the sea on this day for a donation of £2 which will go to the Marine Conservation Society and to the RNLI.
Year 2
We have made it to Week 7! What a half term it has been. It has been an amazing experience getting to know the children and watching them grow on their learning journey. This week we had Outdoor Learning Day and despite the dramatic change of weather, we managed to get outside and enjoy the fantastic outdoor spaces we have here at Rossall.
On Wednesday students in Year 2 amazed us with their musical talents. We were invited to watch Max and Nektarios in their piano concert, it was so wonderful to see them showcase their talent. The children were so happy to be able to share this moment with them. Lexi and Lena also showcased their musical talents in a concert in the morning, which I heard was also very impressive. Well done!
This week in English we wrote persuasive letters to the Prime Minister to persuade him to stop cutting down trees. The children have blown me away with their passion on this topic and this has shown in their writing. They have used many persuasive techniques and I have been impressed with their vocabulary. On Outdoor Learning Day we went into the forest, where this unit all began, and we stood amongst the trees and read aloud the letters with passion and enthusiasm. Watch out Mr Prime Minister, Year 2 are coming.
In Maths this week we finished our unit on Fractions with the students exploring fractions to a whole. They were able to showcase their knowledge and understanding by solving some difficult problems. I have been impressed with how well they are able to reason and talk through misconceptions.
In Science and Topic this week we combined our plants unit with our seaside unit. The children used the cress they had grown to make sandwiches for a beach picnic. The children made a selection of sandwiches with cress as the finishing ingredient. They packed up their sandwiches and we had a lovely beach picnic, despite the windy weather.
Well done Year 2 on a great half term. Have a lovely break.
Year 1
What a fantastically busy half term we have had. Not only have we been super busy preparing ourselves for the move to Year 2, we have also had People Who Help Us Week, our class assembly, Outdoor Classroom Day, House Singing and lots of fun in the forest for Rossall Rotation. They say time flies when you’re having fun, and it certainly has!
On Thursday we took part in Outdoor Classroom Day. This is not just a national celebration, but a global celebration to inspire children to play and learn outdoors and celebrate the natural world. Statistics show that children are spending less and less time outdoors which can impact a child’s health, development and wellbeing. Evidence suggests that spending time outdoors will make children happier and healthier.
Despite the wet and windy weather, we took our learning outside to learn more about position and direction for our Maths lesson. We used our learning from earlier in the week to use mathematical vocabulary to create and follow routes and to understand more about full, half and quarter turns, left and right and forwards and backwards. In Art this term we have been learning about using different materials to create collage, so, we collected natural materials from the Secret Garden for our Art lesson. This also supported our learning in Science by giving us the perfect opportunity for looking at different plants and leaves that we collected.
Dance this week also gave us another perfect opportunity to support our learning about position and direction, thinking about turns and going clockwise, anti-clockwise, left and right. Well done Year 1, a fantastic finish to the half term!
Reception
“When life gives you rainy days, put on your boots and go jump in the puddles!”
This week we have celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day together on 23rd May. Although, Outdoor Classroom Day is about more than one day outdoors – it’s a year-round movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day. Over 12 million children have taken part in Outdoor Classroom Day so far!
It has been raining recently and in Reception, we can not stop ourselves from going out and getting drenched! Whenever we get the opportunity to get wet in the rain we try not to miss it. Children are automatically attracted to rain as they have an affinity for exploration and nature. Letting our children play in the rain will not only make them happy but also keep them healthy. Here are some of the benefits of playing in the rain for your children.
Rainy days give children a chance to use their imagination and be creative- Kids move, they dance, they jump in the rain. It’s a great way to explore the world and its abilities.
Playing in the rain helps children develop gross motor skills- All that movement is helping them develop their gross motor skills—the big movements of the arms and legs. When they’re using those muscles, they’re also improving their balance, coordination, and strength.
Rainy days are a great opportunity to teach children about science- Children are fascinated by rain. They want to know how and why it happens. Take advantage of their curiosity and help them understand the science behind the rain.
Rainy days are a great opportunity for children to bond with nature. In the process of playing and exploring, children will inevitably get dirty. And that’s okay! It’s all part of the fun. Whether you are inside or outside, rainy days are a great opportunity to spend time with your kids and create some cherished memories.
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Henry and Stefan.
Henry showed excellent general knowledge when answering scientific questions about the rain and puddles.
Stefan has demonstrated independence and perseverance as he has confidently completed all our ‘super hero’ challenges.
Nursery
This week in Nursery we have focused on Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The Sanderlings have been helping the new starters settle into nursery life; encouraging them to explore confidently in the presence of a familiar adult and interacting with other children by watching and offering toys. The Sanderling teams have placed a focus on emotions and making the children aware of feelings, showing empathy to others by offering comfort objects. As we have some new children this has been a great opportunity for our older Sanderlings to interact with our younger Sanderlings. As a result of the activities this week children are working on developing a sense of self, this is reinforced through familiar songs and looking at ourselves in the mirrors to find out physical features, like nose, eyes and hair – head, shoulders, knees and toes has been resounding round the Sanderling room.
The Sandpiper children have been introduced to a new story ‘The Colour Monster’ by Anna Llenas, linked to this the children have been talking about feelings and what can happen to make them feel this way. Some of the children said “I am happy because my Mummy makes me happy” and “I am sad because it’s raining”. Creatively the children have been making their own Colour Monsters, acting out the story and building up role play skills to support their understanding of the story. This week The Sandpipers have also been coming to the nursery in different costumes to link in with their book of the month ‘Traditional Tales’, a book full of stories we are familiar with such as ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘Goldilocks and The Three Bears’. The children looked fantastic, we had; pigs, bears, Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood and Gingerbread men. During the week the children have been enjoying lots of messy play to be creative and explore all different textures whilst talking about how they feel.
This week the children in the Pre-school have been talking about School transition and the new schools the children will be attending. The badge of each School is displayed in the Pre-School room. The children talked about how this big change makes them feel – there was a mix of excited, happy and nervous. The Pre-School team explained that they are all normal feelings and that the teachers and adults are there to support them. Pre-School children have also learnt a song that helps them to manage their emotions and understand boundaries, for example, if a child was to take a toy the words they can use to tell them how the child how they feel. The children have also enjoyed their key group times where they are focusing on multiple different activities such rhyming words, number identification and matching and subitising.
Awards
Year 6
Poppy for showing enthusiasm and perseverance when writing her poem
Karan for showing creativity and curiosity when writing his poem.
Jasper for his leadership, creativity and cooperative skills
Annabel for her creativity and cooperative skills
Year 5
Hattie: Outstanding confidence and ability performing playscripts
Alfie: Outstanding creativity with artwork
Year 4
Our Year 4 certificate winners this week were awarded to Stanley and Matilda for excellent achievement and progress in English.
Year 3
Our certificates in Year 3 go to Fynn for wonderful participation in Maths and to Fox for fabulous knowledge about our new topic Ancient Egypt.
Year 2
Jessica- For always being helpful to her friends and her teachers.
Hugo- For having an excellent week of being focussed and making his way above the sun on the rainbow chart.
Year 1
This week’s awards are awarded to Ares and Francis for excellent independent writing in English.
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Henry and Stefan.
Henry showed excellent general knowledge when answering scientific questions about the rain and puddles.
Stefan has demonstrated independence and perseverance as he has confidently completed all our ‘superhero’ challenges.
