This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Message from the Preparatory School Headmaster
Dear Parents,
After having just held the awards assembly for this week, I was delighted to hear of the reasons behind our weekly winners successes.
Certificates were awarded for improved handwriting, column multiplication, independent work, sporting prowess, Topic research, Science experiments, learning from home, to name but a few. The sheer breadth of reasons for the awards displays the level of commitment and effort that the children in the Prep School put into each and every aspect of their time at Rossall. The smiles on the faces of children when they receive a certificate should not be underestimated.
It is a recognition of their hard work, good manners, and positive attitudes. In essence, a big ‘WELL DONE!’ Who doesn’t enjoy someone taking notice of effort to get it right or do something to the best of their ability?
It has been another busy week in Prep and Pre-Prep. Preparations and rehearsals are well underway for ‘Oliver’ and I am sure that many of you will be well versed with the dialogue and songs by the time the children begin performing just before Easter! Some more incredible performances on the sporting front saw us go undefeated as we dodged, dipped, dived, ducked and dodged in the local ‘Glow Dodgeball’ competition!
Then on Wednesday, we were delighted to witness the U-11 hockey players record some fantastic displays as they won gold in the Plate Competition in our very own tournament. Schools from across the region took part in some wonderful games and I know that the staff and spectators were wowed by the energy and skill of the players; well done to all involved!
Friday was all about the numbers! Children took part in Maths-based treasure hunts, orienteering and plenty of other activities, as they enjoyed our NSPCC Number Day. Even Miss Lochner got involved, as she counted the monies raised from our nearly new sale in aid of both the NSPCC and the treatment for local girl, Isabelle Grundy. Lots of fun in aid of two very worthy causes.
Finally, our newest and youngest members of the School Council were announced this week. Dylan and Millie have been voted in to join the Council and I am reliably informed from Mrs Trippier that they have lots of opinions they wish to share – you are never too young to have your say and I am positive they will do a fabulous job in representing their peers!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Wyre and Fylde U11 Indoor Athletics Finals
Rossall Indoor athletics squad successfully qualified for the Wyre and Fylde indoor athletics finals before the Christmas holidays. The finals were held at Blackpool Sports Centre last Thursday evening. We were now competing against some of the strongest athletes on the Fylde coast!
Each child took part in both field and track events. There were too many amazing performances to mention, and the team showed resilience and determination in their events. More importantly though, was the camaraderie and team spirit in Team Rossall. We were delighted to finish 5th overall. Thank you to Lee Cadwallader for organising yet another brilliant event. Good luck to Stanah School who were the Wyre and Fylde Champions, and have qualified for the Lancashire finals. Well done to everyone who took part!
Glow Dodgeball at Cardinal Allen
…Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!
What great fun our Year 6 dodgeball team had at Cardinal Allen School on Tuesday this week. Playing dodgeball in the dark, with music, and face paints! There was a real party atmosphere, with balls whizzing around at great speed. Well done to all the teams that took part, and to the Rossall team who represented the school so impeccably!
Rossall Romp to Gold Glory!
Wednesday afternoon saw a feast of hockey down on the Rossall Astro-turf pitches. Eight teams took part in the Rossall annual invitational hockey tournament. Our girls were truly focused on the task they had ahead, especially as it was on home ground.
The progress each player made was quite phenomenal. The team gelled together marvellously, and produced some top notch hockey. All of the games were tight and competitive, but our Rossall team fought until the final whistle of the Plate Final.
We were so proud when we were awarded the winning medals after a 1-0 victory over The Queen’s School. Well done to all of the teams that took part, and to St Mary’s Hall who managed to pip Kirkham Grammar School to the post in the cup final, after a lengthy, nail biting shoot out!
Year 6
What an explosive week it has been in Year 6, with gunpowder plots and sparky Suffragettes in History, to racing heartbeats in our pursuit of scientific knowledge. Our work on ‘Politics and Parliament’ has taken us back in time to study significant events when people have disagreed with the government, which led us to research Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot, and the Suffragette movement in their fight for women’s rights.
The children have enjoyed researching historical events, creating information posters, and dramatising re-enactments in a ‘Horrible Histories’ style performance. Year 6 really are a dramatic bunch; the Tower of London scenes were torturous; I’m still having nightmares!
Year 5
Arthur’s perilous journey has been the topic of our English lessons this week. The young explorer has confounded his critics and set off across the perilous sea to visit the God of Storms in a mighty hall on top of a jagged mountain. The children have recreated the journey in both a pictorial form and in a piece of extended writing. Both are fabulous! The maps are carefully illustrated and detailed and the writing is full of expanded noun phrases, similes, speech, rhetorical questions and superb descriptions of the perils that Arthur faced.
We all had a super time on Friday taking part in Number Day. The children participated in a variety of number based tasks throughout the day and enjoyed the Bring and Buy toy sale, all in aid of a worthwhile charity.
The Tudors continues to fascinate the children. This week we have looked at Tudor houses, no toilets was a shock, as was emptying your bedpan out of the window into the street below! The children have drawn their own Tudor property and have enjoyed writing about what they have discovered.
For weekend prep, the children have some Tudor recipes to try. Please do send some photographs if you have time to recreate any of these dishes.
Year 4
Happy Lunar New Year!
Welcome to the year of the Tiger which the children have been discussing at length. Let’s hope this symbolism of bravery, wisdom and strength is imbued and transmigrated throughout our school year and into our school classrooms.
The children enjoyed learning about the zodiac animals and the characteristic traits associated with each animal. Apparently our Year 4’s (born in either the year of the Dragon or Snake) could be ambitious dreamers and/or determined learners. One wonders how this combination of dreams, aspirations and determination will metamorphose throughout their school years.
In English we furthered our understanding of how the characters in our story felt during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and what the people of Pompeii endured. The children achieved this through the medium of drama and channelled their inner ‘Fiona Bruce’ by becoming ancient Roman newsreaders to report the events.
The drama activities did not stop there. In Topic the children designed their very own Year 4 spa experience in a Roman bathhouse, however I doubt we will have much of an uptake as the treatments involved olive oil and sweat.
Our Year 4 scientists have been busy experimenting with water. The children combined their knowledge learnt over the term to look at the three states of matter and how we can manipulate the states of each, including those that can be reversed. It’s always delightful to see how experiments involving everyday items; in this case ice cubes, salt and cling film, can generate countless questions and hopefully a wealth of answers.
Year 3
Well we’re nearly at the end of the half term and Year 3 are continuing to ‘rock’ with their learning!
We’ve been getting messy in Science again, testing the permeability of soils depending on what rocks they are made of. We discovered that sandy soil is less permeable than loamy soil, which lets a lot of water through.
In Topic, we have moved on to the final prehistoric period we are studying which is the Iron Age, and how people used to live in hillforts to protect themselves from enemies.
This week in Maths has been ‘Money week’, and we’ve been learning about converting pounds and pence, and how to add and subtract with money – a very important life skill!
In English, we have been a bit ‘tense’ (not really!) with our tenses – learning about present perfect tense and progressive tense! Also we have started to plan our own Stone Age stories which we will write next week. The children have some very creative and original ideas to put their own slant on our book Stone Age Boy.
This week was also Chinese New Year, and Year 3 welcomed in the Year of the Tiger by making our own Dragon dance puppets. Happy Year of the Tiger everyone, 新年快乐!
Year 2
Year 2 have enjoyed another super week filled with lots of learning and enthusiasm!
In our English lessons, we have continued to read the ‘Dragon Machine’. George built his own machine and we looked closely at the features he included: an anchor for landing, spare wrenches in case he broke down mid-flight and lanterns to guide the way across the night sky. The children were put to the task of creating their own mischievous creature machine and used their imaginations to draw fantastic pictures of dinosaur machines, unicorn machines and alien machines! We then used adjectives, noun phrases and exclamation sentences to create a description of our creations.
In Maths this week, we have been focussing on learning the 2s, 5s and 10 times table. I think we all have the timetable song permanently stuck in our heads! In Science, we have been focussing on how to make materials waterproof and conducted our own investigation to see if there was any way to make an absorbent material waterproof.
Year 1
“Without Mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is Mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.” Shakuntala Devi
The quote was completely true today as we took part in Number Day. The whole day was full of maths themed activities. Our day started with a biscuit challenge. We were tasked with who could create the best maths themed biscuit. Then, musical maths as part of our Music lesson, a team quiz and finished off with Buddy’s key challenge, where each house had to work as a team to complete a maths scavenger hunt, crack the code and solve the puzzle. We had a math-nificent day!
We have learnt more facts about the ice age and some of the animals that were alive, both through our Language book and in our Topic work. We created a missing poster for Teddy, the baby mammoth, using lots of excellent adjectives to describe him.
Have you seen him?
“Teddy has muddy feet because he goes in muddy puddles” – Rupert
“He is disobedient and mischievous” – Junior
“He has tusks and small ears” – Beau
“He is naughty and has a long trunk” – Alicia
With these excellent descriptions we are sure to find him!
Reception
Whether at home or at school, naming numbers and counting is at the core of EYFS Mathematics. It is the beginning of the development of number sense. Giving your child a solid foundation in number sense is more than just naming numbers and counting. Number sense encompasses a broad understanding of the concept of numbers, it refers to a child’s fluidity in numbers.
This week we are delighted to be supporting the NSPCC by taking part in Number Day. Number Day is a great way to make maths fun and bring about a positive, ‘can-do’ attitude, as well as helping the children develop number sense.
On Friday, we took on Buddy’s Key Challenge in our houses, with a scavenger hunt around school. We worked to solve exciting Maths puzzles against the clock with Buddy, the Speak out. Stay safe mascot. We had a fun day of maths activities including, decorating number themed biscuits, completing a shape quiz, using shapes to make tangrams and tackling a fun problem solving activity using spring flowers and Numicon.
We have really enjoyed all the fun of Number Day, and we really appreciated your support. All the money we raise at school will make an enormous difference to children today, including Isabelle and help the NSPCC be there for children tomorrow.
Nursery
All aboard Rossall Railway choo-choo!!
Sandpipers have put their imagination skills into play, with visits to play on Rossall Railway in the Pre-Prep playground. The children enjoyed using their physical skills to climb on then off the train and their imagination to visit some wonderful places, including the zoo, the park and even “mummy’s house.” Sandpipers have also enjoyed a sign language focussed circle time with Miss Preston this week. Through songs the children have learnt how to sign some animal names whilst singing Old MacDonald, some colour names whilst singing the Rainbow song and how to sign the letter starting their names whilst singing the Alphabet song.
In Sanderlings the children have enjoyed lots of outdoor play, in the garden and out on some lovely walks. The children have accessed a variety of water and sensory play, where they have been exploring filling, pouring and the utter joy of splashing. Sanderlings have been introducing early math skills with the babies through their story of the month ‘ten little dinosaurs’, the children hear lots of number language and are encouraged to join in counting the dinosaurs on each page.
Preschool have been cooking up a storm at Rossall kitchen, this week they made banana cakes with Mrs James and they were a real hit… with some parents even asking for the recipe to repeat at home! In circle time, preschool have been focussing on letter sounds and applying their knowledge of sounds to objects and making links. The children have mastered making their own play dough and have enjoyed adding colours & scents to their dough to explore how the texture will change. As always our Preschool children have enjoyed lots of walks & outdoor play, especially enjoying a trip to the sea wall to see how the wind makes giant waves in the sea.
Award Winners
Year 6
This week our award go to:
Asser for Excellent Progress in Writing
Amiee for Outstanding effort in all Subjects
Eyad for Excellent Sporting Performance
Lucas for Outstanding Online Learning
Year 5
The Year 5 award went to Hugo for excellent efforts in his English work and Emily for an amazing performance in the hockey tournament.
Year 4
Our awards this week go to:
4S
Jasper for his hard work and dedication while working from home.
Archie for working hard on his handwriting and producing an excellent piece of work.
4R
Our awards this week go to Hollie and Henry for outstanding perseverance in maths.
Year 3
This week’s certificates go to Sebastian for his fantastic scientific knowledge and vocabulary and to Eryn for her curiosity and creativity in Topic.
Year 2
Well done our award winners: Wyatt – for an amazing attitude to learning this week and Larry – for super effort in his reading and writing.
Year 1
This week’s award winners are Beau and Kaxshaan for working independently. Well done!
Reception
This weeks certificates of achievement awards go to Dylan and Darcey.
Dylan for trying very hard to improve his self-help skills and complete tasks independently.
Darcey for trying very hard to improve her handwriting and form her letters correctly.
