This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Message from the Preparatory School Headmaster
Dear Parents,
Welcoming twenty schools to Rossall on Wednesday for the annual AJIS (Association Junior Independent Schools) Cross Country, brought a sense of delight to all involved. It has been two years since the event was held, an event that has been hosted by Rossall for 20 years. During the restrictions of last year, we organised and ran a ‘virtual’ cross country race but nothing compares to having children from across the North West gather to compete. The obstacles of social distancing between schools were merely that and we overcame these to deliver the first multi-school event for a very long time. My sincere thanks to all involved in the organisation of such a seamless competition. Congratulations to all of our runners who ensured team shield success in the Year 6 boys and Year 6 girls races. A special mention to Betsy, who took a silver medal after a simply breathtaking run!
The International Week of Languages has proved to be a popular event for pupils across Prep and Pre-Prep. Quizzes, special lunches, and learning to greet in many different tongues has provided the children with a flavour of not only the languages that people speak, but also of the internationalism of our school, as multilingual children delivered messages in assemblies.
The leadership opportunities on offer for the pupils at Rossall are simply brilliant. As well as our School and House Captains, we now have Year 6 children in roles such as Digital, Playground, Library, and Sports Leaders. After delivering campaign speeches to their classes and being voted for, our new School Council has been elected. It was a proud moment on Thursday as the winners were announced. I was so proud of all the children who put themselves forward, writing and delivering speeches in front of their peers; something I am sure will stand them in good stead for the future.
The School opens its real rather than virtual doors tomorrow for our Open Day 2021 and I am looking forward to meeting some of our current as well as our prospective parents. We have a great deal to be thankful for and proud of. The Year 5 and 6 children are thoroughly looking forward to proudly touring parents around their school.
A reminder that we host our first Headmaster’s Parents’ Forum of the year on Thursday 7th October at 6pm in the Sports Centre. On this occasion, I will be joined by Mr Condon our Deputy Head of Prep. If you are interested in attending, please contact Miss Lochner at [email protected].
Mr Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
European Week of Languages Treasure Hunt
We have had an educational, fun-filled week of activities for our European Week of Languages!
We have sung “Hello” in various languages, learnt about the importance and benefits of learning another language, found clues about the 6000+ languages spoken globally in order to complete the Treasure Hunt, experienced an International Food Day and carried out class quizzes and competitions.
It has been a splendid celebration of language diversity! If you decide to take part independently with the T-shirt Contest or Bake-off on the European Day of Languages website, please do let us know! It would be wonderful to see your creations!
AJIS Cross Country
Rossall Shines at the 29th AJIS Cross Country!
After the torrential rain earlier this week the chances of our annual Independent Schools Cross Country event looked in jeopardy. However, there was no need to fear as the trusty Rossall wind blew away the rain clouds, and the sun shone through as we welcomed school children from all over the North West to a cross country experience to be treasured!
Now in its 29th Year, the Preparatory School are proud to be the hosts of this prestigious event, where nearly 500 runners gather for a stern test of endurance, stamina, teamwork and determination.
There were four races in all, with approximately 120 competitors in each event. This was a wonderful opportunity for the Rossall runners and a thrilling experience for many who were competing for the first time against children from other schools.
First to race were the U10 Boys, who ran determinedly to achieve an admirable placing in the team event with a very young squad that show amazing potential. The U10 Girls followed and showed excellent spirit to complete the challenging course admirably.
The U11 Boys fielded a strong squad and did not disappoint with brilliant running that led them to victory in the smaller schools competition.
Finally it was the U11 Girls, not to be outshone by the boys, they produced an exceptional team performance to win the smaller schools trophy for Rossall.
This was a fantastic team performance. However, there was one individual performance that was outstanding, Betsy, in Year 6 ran superbly to take the individual silver medal! Battling from 15th as she ran from the Sea Wall around the Chapel, with sheer determination she outsprinted and overtook nearly all those in front to claim an incredible 2nd place on the podium, much to the delight of the Rossall children and teachers!
The atmosphere was electric throughout the afternoon and the dedication shown by all our runners, as well as the Preparatory and Sixth Form helpers, created a wonderful team spirit amongst the Rossall children.
Well done, Rossall!
Year 6
Our topic work on World War I and II has captured the interest of Year 6 this week, and they have produced some captivating writing on different perspectives, as well as some outstanding artwork on the Blitz that has certainly lit up the classroom!
Our science investigation into how light travels led the class to carry out an amazing light show to match the Blackpool Illuminations using the teachers’ CD collections to divert light to hit a target. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experiments, particularly reflecting the light beams into their teachers’ eyes! This connected perfectly with our World War II work on searchlights, which was enlightening; we’re just desperate to find Mr Rund’s ‘Best of Kylie’ CD before he returns next week!
Year 5
Well, what a wet and windy week it has been! Autumn is most certainly upon us, the trees are showing their beautiful Autumnal colours and the temperature has dropped. Year 5 have braved the wind and rain as they have moved around the campus.
Please do encourage them to remember their coats!
We had a fabulous lesson with the help of our CCF Leader, Mr Magowan on Tuesday. The children experienced what it was like to transport and build their very own shelter in the shape of a tepee. The weather was not kind but the children showed fabulous resilience, perseverance and problem-solving skills to erect their tepees. Once inside the shouts of joy at being in the dry were a delight to hear!
Year 5 are also enjoying their Drama lessons. Our Head of Drama, Mr Newell, has kindly sent the following report.
After a challenging eighteen months, it has been amazing to be back, face-to-face, in our fantastic Performing Arts Studio. I have been impressed by the enthusiasm with which Year 5 have thrown themselves into our work. So far we have explored the importance of body language when working with scripts, and the value of improvisation when developing character.
There is huge potential in the group and I can’t wait to get started on our monologue work next week in preparation for our Christmas showcase. I’m also pleased to report that Year 5 are more than holding their own in our after school Drama Club on Tuesday afternoons. The future of performance at Rossall is looking very bright indeed!
Year 4
Last week I was writing about the beautiful autumn weather, this week has seen a change and the meteorological conditions are now more favourable for ducks. The children dash around the school campus between lessons getting thoroughly drenched but this does not seem to dampen (excuse the pun) their enthusiasm. My Year 4 class are always ready for a challenge and this week was to take part in the European Language Week by learning to say hello in as many different languages as possible. It is such a great way to widen the children’s horizons with links to geography, history and culture, as well as improving their cognitive function.
This was certainly in evidence during our science lesson this week as we began experiments to discover how exposure to different drinks results in demineralisation. This is in relation to acid attacks on teeth and the resulting detrimental effects on tooth enamel. The children used boiled eggs to simulate tooth enamel as the eggshells carry some of the same properties and chemical compounds as teeth. By exposing the eggs over a period of time to different substances (water, orange juice, cola and vinegar) the children were able to extrapolate the results would be similar to the effects on tooth enamel. Hopefully, your children will be extra vigilant when brushing their teeth as a result of their observations and appreciation of chemical reactions.
We were also able to hypothesise that the gorilla in our English story would be unlikely to suffer from tooth decay due to having a mostly plant-based diet, unless he ate too much fruit! This is one of the facts children have been adding to their fact-files about gorillas and their habitat. The children have also been comparing the height of a gorilla with various members of staff. I lost this by 25cms, however, I can tell you that Mr Turner has won the accolade for being the nearest in height to a gorilla! I hope the children have enjoyed the journey of researching new information and the delight of discovering something previously unknown to them.
Linking seamlessly with our English curriculum, the children’s project for art is to draw and paint a gorilla. They have done amazingly well and we now have a troop of psychedelic gorillas keeping a beady eye on us from the wall display!
Year 3
This has been another bumper week in Year 3.
We have finished our book Seal Surfer and have practiced writing in paragraphs to describe a stormy walk. In Maths we have moved on to applying our knowledge of place value to addition and subtraction, including looking at exchanging.
In Science it has been all about bones – learning about our skeleton, it’s functions and the different skeletons of animals.
For Topic, we have been investigating coastal wildlife, conducting our own research to find out more about coastal animals and spotting coastal wildlife on our Beach Schools trip for Rossall Rotation.
In Games we have been honing our hockey skills, and we have also enjoyed European Week of Languages, especially the treasure hunt. Well done for a wonderful week Year 3!
Year 2
What another super week in Year 2!
In Maths this week, we have been learning how to order numbers and we have been counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.
Recorder club on Tuesday sounded super – new notes were being taught and the playing was heard throughout Pre-Prep!
In Science, we learned about the effects of exercise on the body; we learned how to take our pulse, completed different exercises that would make our hearts beat faster and our lungs breathe quicker and we even learned why our veins are blue!
On Thursday we were introduced to Florence Nightingale. We found out how she helped soldiers in the war hospitals and we started to compare the differences in nursing now, to what it was like when Florence, Edith and Mary were alive.
Year 1
We have continued to read our class story and have been helping the man from the Lost and Found office write labels for all the missing animals. We have thought carefully about our phonics to help us. We decided that we would like to set up our own Lost and Found office in the classroom. We have an abundance of hats, gloves and socks! Luckily not smelly ones!
In Topic we have thought about hot and cold places and what we need to take with us on a trip to these different places. We helped to choose the right clothing and other items that we would need to take with us to take the lost penguin back to the South Pole. We know we would definitely not need our flip flops, but we would need to take our gloves.
In Maths we have been comparing and ordering numbers. We have been thinking about ordinal numbers too.
We used number cards to make sequences going from smallest to largest and vice versa. We have also shared our mathematical knowledge to discuss and help our classmates to find their correct place in the number sequences.
Reception
Helping children learn about the world around them and the environment is so important. One of the ways in which we can do this is to help them learn about the changing seasons. The advent of spring, summer, autumn and winter each brings with it its own unique natural characteristics and the ideal opportunity for helping children learn. Young children are usually keen to learn and improve their understanding of the world around them and the chance to gain new knowledge can be incorporated into a variety of activities.
One of the best ways of helping children get an idea of the changing seasons is to get outdoors and explore. In the autumn there’s the excitement of crunching through autumn leaves or finding the first conkers as they fall from horse chestnut trees. We thoroughly enjoyed our walks around the school campus and the activities in the ‘Secret Garden’ as we looked for signs of Autumn, observed the different colours we could see, collected leaves and looked for conkers.
To enhance the children’s learning experience even more, we have read several books and stories that are related to the different seasons, especially Autumn. We loved the story about the ‘Leaf Thief’ and had fun stealing leaves from the ‘Secret Garden’ to make wonderful leaf collages with. We also used some of the leaves to print with, using Autumnal coloured paint.
Our wonderful collection of autumnal objects is growing by the day and causes great interest for the children as they use tweezers to prise the shiny conkers out of their shells and use the magnifying glasses to look for bugs on the leaves. We have even used all the conkers collected for our Maths lessons! So, if you are out and about over the weekend, we would love more exciting things for our collection, please?
Nursery
The wet weather this week has provided us with the best free thing in the world…puddles!
All the children have enjoyed jumping, splashing and running into puddles all around the grounds. The learning opportunities are endless from mathematical, communication skills and knowledge and understanding of the world. Learning about what is all around us brings learning to life and makes it more enjoyable.
In the forest school session this week, they brought the story ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’ to life. Going on the journey of the story around the school in search of the bear.
The Sanderlings have enjoyed creating their own tumble tots in the room letting the children take a risk, trying something new for the first time and improving physical skills all supported by the staff.
One of the highlights in Sanderlings this week was letting the children create monkeys in a cage just like the story ‘Dear Zoo’. They used a range of food items to create the cage and popped a chocolate monkey biscuit inside. The enjoyment really came when it came to eating it.
Preschool have enjoyed using flowers as paintbrushes. The patterns they created using the stems, leaves and petals were so different to what they usually experience with paintbrushes. Having flowers leftover, they created their own vases using recycled plastic bottles and decorated and they now sit proudly in the home corner.
Award Winners
Year 6
Asser- Excellent Contribution to all areas of School
Aimee- Outstanding Role Model to all year groups
Alicia- Outstanding Role Model
Maya- Outstanding Role Model
Year 5
This week our awards went to Alexander and Oskar for fabulous participation and super singing in their Music lesson.
Year 4
Our awards this week go to Hollie and Nick for their outstanding effort in English.
Year 3
The certificate winners this week go to Nilanth for being consistently helpful and kind towards his classmates, and to Aaron for always being curious and sharing his ideas.
Year 2
The year 2 awards this week go to Isla for challenging herself in Maths and Larry for using his Phonics to sound out spellings when independently writing.
Year 1
This week’s certificates are for Fox and Josephine for being kind and thoughtful and helping their classmates
Reception
This weeks certificates of achievement awards go to Lexi and Nektarios.
Lexi completed her work independently and carefully. She spent a long time colouring very neatly and ensuring her work was correct.
Nektarios has written a fantastic sentence this week, linked to our class story ‘The Naughty Bus’.
