This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
What an incredible week that culminated in a wonderful celebration of athletics at our Sports Day. The children performed admirably despite the ‘rather warm’ conditions, and I was delighted that so many parents and family members and friends were able to join us. Sports Day is absolutely about each child challenging themselves and their peers, but it is also about team spirit as they battle for the House Trophy! Congratulations to every child who took part this afternoon and to Clifton for their victories in both Pre-Prep and Prep.
The rounders team were triumphant for the second year in succession, as they took on 8 local schools in the annual rounders invitational competition on Wednesday. It was a super performance from all of the boys and girls who took part in mixed teams. Unbeaten on the day, it came down to the final match which was won by a half rounder hit with the final bowl of the game. A nail-biting end to a wonderful tournament – well done, Rossall!
Similarly, the cricket matches against Westholme proved to be another exciting example of the talents of some of our pupils. Year 5 batted, bowed and fielded superbly well, as they won both games. Again, huge congratulations!
Reception enjoyed a wonderful trip out to ‘The Little Lancashire Village’ and Brockholes on Thursday. There were a variety of shops and job roles to inspire and allow the children to get into character, to engage with other children, learn to socialise and share all whilst acting out real life roles.With 12 different areas, there was something to suit everyone! Reception then ventured to ‘Brockholes’ for a picnic lunch. There was time to explore over 250 acres of natural beauty, investigate the ancient woodland, and have fun in a natural adventure area, including a climbing forest and a zip wire. I know that the children most certainly enjoyed the excursion, given the fact they all fell asleep on the return journey. However, I was not expecting Mrs Santamera to enjoy it quite so much, as she received a full makeover from the children!
There is much to look forward to next week, with the Prep residentials to Stoller and Waddecar, ensuring that there is no let up in the vast array of activities on offer for our very fortunate pupils.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
ROSSALL PREP RETAIN ROUNDERS GOLD!
This Wednesday, Rossall Prep hosted the second annual U11 Mixed rounders tournament for all of the schools in Thornton-Cleveleys and Fleetwood. Weather conditions were perfect, as was the setting. The matches were closely contested, and the standard of play was very high. When the final results were announced the Rossall Prep team were delighted. For the second consecutive year Rossall Prep were the overall winners. Well done to all the children that took part, for playing with such enthusiasm, and making it such an enjoyable afternoon. Thank you also to all the Senior School students who helped out ensuring the tournament ran smoothly.
Year 6
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,
Leonardo Da Vinci
for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
What a glorious week it has been in the Preparatory School. The sunshine has set the tone for another golden week in Year 6. The children have enjoyed listening to our new novel, ‘Skychasers’ by Emma Carroll. It is the fascinating story of a young pickpocket called Magpie whose chance encounter with a young boy named Pierre, changes her life forever. Magpie becomes entangled with the boy’s family, the Montgolfiers, who are desperate to be first to discover the secret of flight. The children have enjoyed learning the science behind the hot air balloons and have drawn some beautiful examples of the Montgolfiers early designs. They have written some imaginative passages using techniques including imagery, metaphors, similes and concise noun phrases to convey what they think it would be like to fly.
We have had our problem solving caps on in Mathematics and have, at times had ‘brain ache’ trying to solve the challenging three and four step problems.
In Topic we are investigating different types of Natural Disasters, drought currently being topical! The children are producing some fabulous independent research and I am looking forward to seeing their presentations.
As this week comes to a sporty conclusion, we are all incredibly excited for next week and our trip to Stoller. Have a fantastic weekend, get lots of rest, big week ahead!
Year 5
We have immersed ourselves this week in our new topic ‘Out of Africa’ and it certainly feels like we could be there with the glorious weather. We located Africa on a world map, discussed what we think the climate would be like and labelled some of the African countries from the clues we were given. We were surprised to find out that there are so many different countries in Africa. In music the children have been exploring African percussion instruments, the Djembe and Doumbek, and creating tribal beats. During our art lesson we looked at animal prints and recreated our own using a variety of colours and different media.
We have also continued our class book ‘The Hunter’ during our English lessons. We have used our inference skills to describe how the main character, Jamina, is feeling in different parts of the story. Through reading the book it has left us wanting to find out more about elephants and poaching in Africa.
In Science we have learned more about the human life cycle, from fertilisation to death. We have thought more about the different stages of development we go through during our lives and what changes can occur.
For our final Rossall Rotation of Year 5 we are visiting the farm. This week we have done some planting, taken part in a nature trail and visited the Rossall Farm to help learn how to take care of the animals that we have on the farm.
Year 4
Another week of glorious weather has been bestowed upon us, and here at Rossall we have certainly taken advantage of it. Year 4 basked in the sunbeams as they enjoyed their first golf lesson in Rossall Rotation, and then again on Friday for Sports Day.
In the classroom, our new book, ‘Blue John’ has taken us on a journey into a deep, dark cave and the children have used this inspiration to do some letter writing about an adventure into a cave, inspired by Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’. We listened to the music and imagined the character tiptoeing through the cave and discovering the mountain troll! It was great fun telling the story using the music to aid our ideas.
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 out who has to wake up the earliest in the morning. We have also been taking advantage of the good weather and moved our Maths lessons outside to create our very own giant, human clock.
For History, we have furthered our understanding of the Iron Age by learning how they lived in prehistoric times. The children designed their very own round houses and hill forts, complete with animal hide carpets for warmth and herbs to ward off evil spirits. They were able to immerse themselves in the time zone and produce some very accurate representations of life in the UK between 750BC and AD43.
The children are now very excited and looking forward to the residential trip next week. Let’s hope the beautiful weather continues.
Year 3
A sunny and fun-filled week for Year 3! In English we have continued our book Zeraffa Giraffa, reading about how Atir took Zeraffa on a felucca along the Nile up to Paris. We wrote diary entries using present perfect and progressive tenses to describe how Atir was feeling.
For Maths this week we extended our learning about lines and angles into learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We discovered how many vertices, edges and faces different 3D shapes have.
In Science, we continued our learning about light by exploring the absence of light – darkness. We used feely bags to discover that we need light to see. We also learnt about reflection, and tested different reflective materials using torches.
For our topic on Ancient Egypt we learnt about the Nile and how important it was to the people living in that civilisation. We also explored Egyptian writing called Hieroglyphs, and in Art we designed our own Egyptian Cartouches showing our names in Hieroglyphs!
On Thursday we had Rossall Rotation, the long awaited cookery in the Rossall Kitchen! We loved making pizzas and relating this to our learning about fractions – Mrs Payne always uses pizzas as examples of fractions in Maths!
Finishing the week off with the exciting Sports Day was very special, well done Year 3 for your wonderful participation!
Year 2
The excitement levels have reached a new high in Year 2. At the end of last week the children had the opportunity to celebrate World Ocean Day. This consisted of various activities, including a visit to Rossall Beach with Mrs Roberts and a visit to the Year 6 Exhibition. Reports from the children were that it was both incredibly enjoyable and educational. However, this was simply the excitement appetizer, the letter sent out on Friday regarding the upcoming Year 2 sleepover has sent children to a new level of enthusiasm, and having spoken to several parents they also seem overjoyed at the opportunity the children are receiving, or is it the prospect of the night off? In the classroom the children continue to work hard, we have been developing our use of noun phrases in English and continuing our problem solving in Mathematics.
However, as we reached the middle of the week Mrs Lawton and I decided it was time to reduce the excitement levels, the end of term assessments really helped with this, though I was incredibly impressed with how focused the children were during these. I just can’t believe there are only three weeks left of school, with sports day, the beach party, a sleepover, prize day, house challenge day, and lots more learning and fun. The term is going to be over before we know it. I’m going to make the most of our last few weeks together and knowing my Year 2 class I know they will as well!
Year 1
We ended last week with a fabulous walk to the beach where we made lots of different sand sculptures to celebrate Ocean Day. The children were so creative and they were really mindful of their beach environment too; they worked together in groups to create something fun whilst taking care of the beach around them and making sure they weren’t disturbing any habitats.
In Topic this week we have been talking more about space and we even re-enacted Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon- what fun! There’s so much that we have learned about Neil Armstrong and what it could be like on the moon- what fascinating stuff!
In English we have been talking about our new story ‘Toys in Space’ and we have been writing lots of sentences about the toys’ feelings…they had been abandoned and then beamed up into space! We can’t wait to read on in the story and see what happens to them next.
In Maths we have moved on from halving numbers (and halving them again!) to counting up to 100. We are so confident with our numbers to 100 and we can even partition them too into tens and ones- well done!
In Art we have started our own version of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ by creating a city silhouette scene and we placed the silhouette on top of our own oil pastel drawing of a starry, starry night.
Well done everyone!
Reception
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of the childhood.”
Fred Rogers
Role play forms an essential part of a child’s development and is an important element of their learning. Children learn through observing others, imagining and taking part in role play.
As children play, they develop fundamental cognitive, social, emotional, and physical skills. Young children also learn practical life skills such as dressing themselves, problem solving, how to cooperate, and share with other children.
Little Lancashire Village is a place where your little ones can dress up and get into character through imaginative play. We have had a fantastic time and the children all want to return… please Mum’s and Dads?
Nursery
“One of the greatest gifts adults can give is to read to children”
Carl Sagan
This week in the Nursery we have focused on Literacy.
The Sanderlings
The weather has been lovely this week so the Sanderlings have been out and about enjoying walks around the School grounds. It has been a brilliant opportunity to use a different environment for learning, Miss Heatley and Miss have taken toys and books to read whilst the sun was shining.The Sanderlings have been getting creative with glueing, sticking and drawing making lots of pieces of art – where possible the children we encouraged to give meaning to their marks on the paper. Finally, group times consisted of reading lots of stories. The Sanderlings love the story ‘Dear Zoo’ at the moment, it is definitely one of the babies’ favourite books as they try to guess which animal is hidden within each enclosure.
The Sandpipers
This week in The Sandpipers room the children have loved painting and drawing their own portraits. The children were supported to describe their facial features such as their eye colour and hair colour. Following on from this the children took part in a group task where they talked about how everyone is different but we are all beautiful and unique in our own way. The Sandpipers have also been active whilst singing and dancing to the action song ‘head shoulders, knees and toes’, building upon their learning of their features. The children have been on various trips to the library to look at the new books on offer, the children have taken turns to choose a book and even borrowed some books to read in their classroom. The Sandpipers always finish their Library session with a story. Next week The Sandpipers will be reading the story ‘The Rainbow Fish’, with activities planned around the key events of the story.
Pre-School
Pre-School started the week with a conversation about their favourite stories, there were lots of different suggestions so the rest of the week focused on listening to each story and identifying the author, illustrations and the key elements of the story. The most popular book was ‘Zog’ by Julia Donaldson. The children love to hear Mrs Gaynor voice each character’s voice and listen intently as the story progresses. As the children showed such a fascination with Zog, the main character, they created maps for Zog to find his way to the castle to capture the princess, at the end of the map Zog won a golden star just like in the story.This activity it enabled Pre-School to practise directions to follow the map such as left, right, up and down. The children enjoyed having fun in the sun playing alongside their friends in the cool slime, using the jugs to pour and describing what they could see and feel, the children said “ it is so sticky” and “it’s green”. On Friday the oldest Pre-School children took part in Sports day; they ran super fast showing everyone how quick they can be, well done Pre-School!
Awards
Year 6
Our award certificates this week go to the following pupils –
6R Awards:
Roman and Dawood for excellent performances and sportsmanship in the rounders tournament
6S Awards:
Hugo for Friendship and kindness to others
Michael for Outstanding creativity and artistic ability
Year 5
Well done to this week’s award winners; in 5R, Rio, for her curiosity and mature attitude in Science, and Jude R for his great effort with home learning. iN 5S, Cara and Millie for having a positive attitude towards school life.
Year 4
In Year 4 our certificates this week, go to Aaron for excellent Maths work on Time and Seb for outstanding effort with his handwriting.
Year 3
In Year 3 our certificates this week go to Stanley and Ryan for being super helpful and taking lots of responsibility in the class.
Year 2
Certificates in Year 2 go to Rex for improved attitude and effort in all areas of school and also Junior with desire for knowledge and understanding.
Year 1
This week’s Certificates of Achievement in Year 1 go to:
Max for having a fantastic final week in school; working confidently and trying his best each day!
Bow for partitioning numbers to 100 and for giving her best effort in Maths all week!
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement go to Clark and Xander for active and imaginative engagement in the various role play areas on our trip.
