This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Message from the Preparatory School Headmaster
Dear Parents,
There are plenty of opportunities to be proud of being a part of the Rossall family. However, this week I have received two wonderful examples in the form of emails into School.
On Wednesday we held our annual Rugby 7s competition in which teams across the North of England join us to ruck and maul for the converted plate and cups! Our Year 6 children not competing in the games were on hand to help, greet, support and take scores. As always, they did a sterling job and we were all quick to thank and commend them.
To then receive an email from a parent from Birkenhead School, complimenting our Year 6 children and in particular, Maya, for lending her jacket to a child without warm clothes, and speaking with such enthusiasm about our School, was lovely to receive. This was followed by another email from a School to thank us for the care and attention that was provided to a child who was injured during a game, by both staff on-hand, and the Health & Wellbeing Centre. The children are very fortunate to be surrounded by such a caring Rossall family.
A wonderful time was had by all pupils during our World Book Day celebrations. Not to do anything by halves, Rossall Prep had a week-long array of activities and celebrations, culminating in our Roald Dahl Day today. We have been raising the profile of reading across this term, to coincide with our new reading scheme and from what I saw from our various ventures this week, that aim has certainly been fulfilled. I am pleased that we were able to support the Roald Dahl Nurses also. Whilst mentioning supporting people, we are most definitely doing all we can to support the ongoing humanitarian crisis and would urge any Prep, Pre-Prep and Nursery parents, to send in any items listed on the recent communications with you.
Congratulations to our new Captains Team for the second half of the academic year. Alicia and Ruby will make wonderful School Captains, ably supported by Harry, our Deputy School Captain. We are all very proud of you and this acknowledgement of your attitude, behaviour and application thus far. I am sure you will all be hugely successful in your new roles!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
Book Tickets for Oliver!
Prep School Golf Programme Launched
We are delighted to launch our Prep School Golf Programme from the Summer 2022 Term.
Spaces are limited for pupils in Years 3 – 6. For more information and to book https://www.rossall.org.uk/prepgolf/
World Book Day
For World Book Day Year 3 played a game where each pupil brought in a prop for everyone to guess their favourite book. We had great fun making the links between the things they had brought in and the books they love. What’s your favourite book and which item would you choose to represent it?
Annual Stonyhurst Hockey Tournament
What a fabulous if wet day the girls experienced at the annual Stonyhurst hockey tournament. The absence of Mrs Santemera, though upsetting, didn’t dent the confidence and enthusiasm of the team. The attitude and effort of all the girls was most impressive and their performances reflected this. We won some games and lost some, however the highlight has to have been the final match against Kirkham which was a very close and exciting affair.
Rossall Shines through the Wind and Rain at the 44th Annual Rugby Festival
After a year away, nothing was going to stop the annual Rossall Rugby Festival from taking place, and the wet and windy weather did not deter sixteen teams across the North of England from enjoying a wonderful day of rugby at the ‘Rossall Riviera 7s’!
It was non-stop action, and the atmosphere was fantastic as the children competed in cup and plate competitions depending on their level of ability. The Rossall team played superbly, winning two matches, drawing one and losing one.
St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst were victorious in the Cup, whilst Ashville, Harrogate were worthy winners of the Plate.
It really was a wonderful day of rugby and a big thank you to all the Year 6 helpers, catering staff, teachers and groundsmen who helped make our 44th Rugby Festival such a memorable and special occasion.
Well done, Rossall!
Year 6
We often talk about how very busy we are in Rossall Preparatory School, this week truly highlighted the varied learning experiences we provide for the children in our care.
We have been enjoying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as part of World Book Week.
On Tuesday we all took part in the exciting Rossall tradition of pancake racing, which was followed by the Year 6 pupils being designated their new positions of responsibility. On Wednesday the girls travelled up to SMH for a hockey festival and the boys enjoyed the Rossall Invitational Rugby 7s; now in its forty-third year.
Then on Thursday we were lucky enough to experience some real culture on our trip to The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester where we soaked in the Halle Orchestra’s amazing performance. For most this would be a packed and exhausting week, but we felt like we needed a little more, so as part of World Book Week we all dressed up as characters from Roald Dahl gathered in our houses and had a day full of exciting and interesting activities.
With the prospect of more trips, a Science Week and the upcoming performance of Oliver ahead of us, this may well be the busiest half term in Year 6 history!
Year 5
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
What a week! We have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in book week and learning more about the amazing Roald Dahl. The children were fascinated to learn about his colourful life and how it inspired so many of the incredible characters in his stories.
The week culminated in an incredible day on Friday. The children thoroughly enjoyed taking part in our Roald Dahl themed activity day. The costumes were fabulous and the activities were great fun.
On Thursday we were treated to a trip to the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to take part in a workshop and performance by the world famous Halle orchestra. It is safe to safe the atmosphere was electric and the performance was brilliant. It was super to watch the children immersed in the music and I feel sure that it is an experience that they will never forget.
Year 4
“We’ve got the whole world in our hands!”
Jasper
This week, Year 4 have delved into their new topic about Natural Disasters. In order to understand how these fascinating phenomena are created and why they happen, we have looked into how the Earth is structured and the many layers that reside beneath our feet. The children have had a great time creating playdough models of our amazing planet, ensuring all the different layers and inner core are included! Their enthusiasm and inquisitive nature has left us with an abundance of questions that we can try to answer over the next few weeks!
We have also enjoyed our Book Week text, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which has culminated in amazing day to celebrate Roald Dahl today. The children have created their own chocolate bars, researched about Roald Dahl’s life and where he got all his ideas from, and used descriptions from the book to bring the characters to life in some spectacular pictures. Celebrating reading is so important and this week, Year 4 have taken so much enjoyment this classic text which will hopefully inspire them to keep reading!
In Maths this week, we have investigated the area of different shapes. Using lego pieces, the children investigated area by building different shapes with lego and calculating their resultant area. They have then looked at more complex rectilinear shapes and expanded their learning through a variety of problem solving tasks such as working out how to calculate the area of the classroom floor using non-standard measurements. The results were fascinating:
- 6 elephants
- 24 wardrobes
- 250 footballs
It has been an action-packed and successful week, and we are now looking forward to our trip on Thursday!
Year 3
It has been a scrumdiddlyumptious week in Year 3!
We have absolutely loved Book Week and enjoyed celebrating reading as a class and as a school! As our theme this week is Roald Dahl, we have been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and our writing has been associated with this. We have written diary entries, descriptions using conjunctions and even made up our own adjectives, just like Roald Dahl did!
The children have also participated in other Book Week activities such as making their own bookmarks, our book prop game and our reading aloud competition. Top it all of with our fantastic Roald Dahl day on Friday, with some eye-catching costumes!
In Maths, the rest of the term will be dedicated to two topics: measuring length and fractions. This week we looked at measuring with metres, centimetres and millimetres, including measuring the length of objects in our classroom. Then we learned how to convert between m/cm and cm/mm which can be quite tricky but Year 3 rocked it!
Science has been yet another highlight of the week as we had a visit to the Senior School Science Department on Monday, and the knowledgeable Mrs Bradburn showed us a wide variety of different plans, of all sizes, shapes, colours – even some that grow underwater or in jelly! We used a special app to identify the names of different plants.
In Topic, we have been learning about plastic pollution. It is quite scary to think about how plastic is polluting our oceans and effecting wildlife, but we also talked about what can be done to help! Connected to this, we read the book Planet Full Of Plastic. This was a great precursor to our Sea Life trip next week which will be focussed on this.
Well done for a fabulous week of learning Year 3!
Year 2
Book Week has meant that we have been doing some amazing work on ‘The Enormous Crocodile’. We have written WANTED posters to warn everyone of the naughty, Enormous Crocodile. We described his different disguises to make sure that everyone was aware how he might be tricking us all in order to eat any yummy, juicy children. We wrote our own book reviews, thinking about the setting of the book and the different characters roles. Finally, we created our own alternative endings for the book; we collaborated to act it out through drama and then independently wrote the ending through a story board.
In Maths this week, we have started our new unit on fractions. We have learned the vocabulary ‘whole’ and ‘parts’ and worked on ensuring we fully understand the terminology so we are ready to learn about 1/2s and 1/4s next week.
In Topic, we used our knowledge of the Fire from our research last week to create our own newspaper reports. We wrote in the past tense and wrote headlines, information and captions in our articles.
On Thursday, we visited the Rossall Kitchen and learned to make bread just like Thomas Farriner, the baker from Pudding Lane. We split the dough into three equal parts to be able to make a plaited loaf. Our star baker this week, awarded by Miss Jones, was Matilda for a superb bake with a good rise!
On Friday, we celebrated Roald Dahl Day by dressing up as a Roald Dahl character. The children all looked amazing! We spent the day completing fun activities in houses based on the Enormous Crocodile: we collaborated as a whole Pre-Prep to make a life sized version of the crocodile, we independently made our own split pin crocodiles, designed our own crocodile traps and went on an outdoor crocodile hunt!
Year 1
What an exciting week we have had. We have really enjoyed reading ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ by Roald Dahl. In our Language work we have sequenced the story, and written alternative endings.
We have found out all sorts of things about crocodiles in our Science work and created our own information book all about crocodiles. In our DART work we enjoyed creating crocodile masks and stick puppets and the children have worked with such enthusiasm.
We have finished off our book week with our Roald Dahl themed dress up day. What fantastic costumes we have had, from Matilda, Charlie and Willy Wonka, Sophie and the BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox, TWO Enormous Crocodiles, the big bad wolf from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and even a guest appearance from the Grand High Witch. Luckily no children were turned into mice today though!
Reception
World Book Day changes lives through a love of books and shared reading. Their mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own. Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. We want to see more children, with a lifelong habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them. So, this weekend, why not pick up a book and share a story together with your child.
This week we have enjoyed listening to ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ by Roald Dahl. The children thoroughly enjoyed the story and learning that crocodiles don’t eat berries but eat little boys and girls! The children have completed various activities and challenges linked to the story this week … we have used some fantastic words to describe The Enormous Crocodile, created new tails for the Roly-Poly Bird, retold the story in our small world swamp, hunted around school for crocodiles, measured crocodiles, counted their teeth and even learnt about Africa and the world’s largest crocodiles.
Nursery
This is not an empty box… this is a box full of imagination!
Preschool have become masters at expressing their imagination through open ended resources, they use cardboard boxes to create enclosures, vehicles or to build with and have been using guttering alongside wooden planks to create roads and tunnels. Imaginative play helps the children to develop their communication and language skills, their social skills and creativity. Seeing the world through a child’s eyes is truly a wonderful thing!
Sandpipers have been incorporating imaginative play into their messy experiences, the children have worked together to form their own playdough which has set off an endless stream of wonder… some children formed animals from dough, whilst others experimented with tools to “chop” and “roll” as some children used the dough to create food for others.
Sanderlings children have introduced imagination to their play with small world animal figures, alongside songs and rhymes. It’s lovely to see the children moving the animals along as they imitate animal sounds and pretend the animal is running, jumping or even “sssshhh” sleeping. Imagination is a key to endless possibilities, awe, wonder and fun for all children.
Award Winners
Year 6
This week our awards go to:
- Henry for making a fabulous start to Rossall life
- Henry for being a caring friend
- Michael outstanding leadership on the sports field
- Maya for being an ambassador for the school
Year 5
This week’s certificate winners are Jacob Magowan and Roman Isbister for super general knowledge and participation in Science.
Year 4
Year 4S – Caitlin Quartermain and Amelia Baker for consistent hard work in all subjects.
In 4R our awards this week go to Ahill for outstanding enthusiasm in Topic and Poppy for always being kind and helpful.
Year 3
This week’s certificates go to Florence, who had a fantastic first week at Rossall, and to Alfie for being so kind and helpful.
Year 2
This weeks certificates of achievement awards go to Hope for showing super independence in all her learning and Abrianna for always making the right choices and being a kind friend.
Year 1
This week’s awards are awarded to Valencia and Alicia for fantastic effort in all of our learning about the Enormous Crocodile.
Reception
This week’s certificates of achievement award go to Teigan and Jaxon.
Jaxon for effort and determination when using new phonic sounds in his writing.
Teigan for effort and determination when practising her letter formation.
Activities List
