From the Headmaster
| WELCOME BACK! Over 21 million UK citizens have now been vaccinated and, across the nation, children are eagerly awaiting the reopening of schools on Monday morning. It has been a horrendous year and I am acutely conscious of the fact that this most recent lockdown has been especially hard to endure for children and parents alike. It is inevitable that some of us will feel a little anxious next week but we should remember that our children are remarkably resilient and endlessly adaptive. Reports referring to a ‘lost generation’ of young people are unhelpful and typical of the hyperbolic and alarmist speculation that has coloured so much of the media’s response to this crisis. Our children will be just fine and rather than fretting about them ‘catching up’ (not something that should be necessary at Rossall given the outstanding quality of our online provision), we should focus upon ensuring that they really flourish here at School. What we tell our children does matter. As parents, we can unwittingly project some of our own anxieties onto our children. Occasionally, we assume that they will struggle because somewhere internally, we are struggling. I do not doubt that my own children were affected by the inevitable worries that we experienced back in March, 2020. Honestly, we are not always as good at hiding our emotions as we might imagine. Similarly, I know that some of our children will have been aware of financial concerns or the anxiety and sadness that we have felt with regards to aged and/or isolated family members. We try our best to protect our children but the pressures upon families have been overwhelming during recent months. The word ‘normal’ is perhaps unhelpful insomuch as I am not sure that any of us really know what ‘normal’ even means anymore. Nevertheless, we do need to treat Monday as a return to some degree of business as usual. It is important that our children come to school: – immaculately attired – with all the right equipment (books, folders, pens, iPads etc.) – ready to throw themselves back into school life – fully mindful of the protocols and procedures put in place to ensure – that we remain a COVID safe environment. The support, encouragement and praise that we will give our children during the next few weeks will provide them with the reassurance that they need at this time. Similarly, our collective expectations that we should make a brilliant return will help them to make an effective transition back to School life. I would ask that we all make an especial effort to ensure that our children really do look the part when they return to school. Looking smart will help all of us to feel in the right frame of mind. You will be aware of the government guidelines regarding lateral flow testing. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that we adhere to these guidelines. In opting out, we risk the health of others within our community and potentially serve to disrupt the education of entire year groups. We have all heard the arguments and counterarguments about issues connected with COVID but there is strong evidence that measures such as social distancing, testing and the wearing of masks save lives. In this regard, our responsibility to one another is very clear. I would ask that all parents read the pupil protocols very carefully and please do ensure that your children are fully cognisant of our expectations. Finally, we are delighted that our children are returning to school. After such a disruptive year, we are determined that school life needs to resume as quickly as possible. Whilst precautions will remain in place for the remainder of this term, we are so pleased that outdoor sports and all of our other after-school activities can resume almost immediately. We have enjoyed seeing so many of our day pupils today and I know that they share our desire to return to School. The opportunity to reconnect with friends, to learn together and play together is priceless. As restrictions ease, we are looking forward to meeting more of our parents in person and although Monday does not constitute an absolute return to normal school life, it is an incredibly important step and one for which we have waited for so long. We are back and we are resolved to make this a fabulous half term. All best wishes, Mr Jeremy Quartermain Headmaster of Rossall School |
Message from the Junior Headmaster
| Dear Parents, The excitement of the pupils has reached a crescendo, with the anticipation of seeing friends being the hot topic of conversation. From a school perspective, we are delighted to be welcoming all pupils back and will do so cautiously but with genuine relief. Hearing the voices around school and seeing the pupils in person will certainly be a welcome change to the delights of remote learning. We opened the final room of our incredible Nursery on Monday. The fabulous space that was formally the Infant Hall is now filled with our Pre-School children and we are delighted that our numbers have grown so considerably given our outstanding reputation and superb facilities. This week, despite our restrictions of learning remotely, we most certainly enjoyed the various activities associated with World Book Day. Once again, our pupils and teachers did us proud in completing the variety of challenges on offer: the Masked Reader, the extreme reading challenge, and the guess the prop from a book. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and I know that the staff also entertained the children by reading some of their favourite stories to the pupils from different year groups. Have a fantastic weekend and we look forward to seeing the children on Monday. Mr Turner Headmaster of Rossall Junior School |
| JUNIOR & NURSERY NEWS Please click here for this week’s Junior and Nursery Newsletter. |
| BRAND NEW NURSERY HALL Our beautiful new Nursery Hall has finally opened. What a fantastic environment for our pre-school children to learn and play. The nursery pupil numbers have grown so quickly over the last year, converting the infant’s hall was vital to the expansion of our nursery provision. We love it and so do the children. |
| BACK TO SCHOOL PREPARATIONS COVID Testing for all Senior School pupils took place this week, ahead of their return on Monday. We cannot wait to have a full campus again! |
| REFURBISHED WRECK ROOM Anchor Houseparents, Mr and Mrs Gair have been busy at work, refurbishing Anchor’s Wreck Room so that the older boarders (Year 8 students) have their own area to relax in. What a fantastic job they have done! |
| ROSSALL’S INTERNATIONAL PIANO ACADEMY We are delighted to announce the launch of Rossall’s International Piano Academy – the first of its kind in the UK! www.rossall.org.uk/school-life/international-piano-academy “The Rossall International Piano Academy is committed to providing a world-class musical education, enabling our pianists to develop the skills, confidence and tenacity required to achieve their fullest musical potential.” Mr Jeremy Quartermain, Headmaster. Our commitment to providing an outstanding musical education for future generations of pianists has been further enabled by Rossall becoming an All-Steinway School from early Summer, 2021. |
| JEMMA HELPS SPREAD SOME MUCH NEEDED KINDNESS The Duke of Edinburgh Award has given Year 9 pupil, Jemma Tarbuck a great focus on staying positive during the lockdown. She has been improving her cooking and baking for her skill section and has been helping out with her church community engagement worker for her volunteering section. Last weekend, Jemma spent her time baking brownies, courgette cake, banana bread, flapjacks and fudge which she then packaged up and delivered to some of the older members of her church who have been isolated at home. We are very proud of the commitment Jemma has shown to achieve her Duke of Edinburgh Award and how she has displayed kindness towards others in using the skills she has been cultivating. Well done, Jemma! |
| THE MASKED READER WHO’S THAT BEHIND THE MASK!? To celebrate World Book Day we had a very special episode of ‘The Masked Reader’. Can you guess which Junior School teachers are behind which masks? Rossall Rabbit has already been revealed – you can watch the video here. |
| ASSEMBLY – MONDAY 1ST MARCH In the final assembly before we all come back together, Headmaster, Mr Quartermain shared some exciting developments. Ms Porovic commended this week’s Headmaster’s Academic Award Winners and Year 12 student, Emily Yang performed Schumann’s ‘Novelletten’ on the piano. We hope you enjoy. |
| SENIOR SCHOOL & SIXTH FORM VIRTUAL OPEN DAY Join us for our next Virtual Open Day for Senior School (11-16) and Sixth Form (16-18) tomorrow (Saturday 6th March at 11am (BST)), and hear all about what life is like at Rossall from our current students and parents. Scholarships available. Register now: https://www.rossalldigital.org/ |
| PHOTOGRAPHY Year 13 Photography student, Sam Wong has been asked to take pictures for a fashion show in Hong Kong. He is doing really well, making lots of connections and getting many opportunities to use his skills. Here are just a few of his photos. Well done, Sam! |
| MR SHARPE’S MATHS CHALLENGE LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE Dr Paul’s new and very complicated Garden To celebrate his dominance in the weekly maths puzzle, Dr Paul decides to redesign his garden. He gets a little carried away with the complexity of the design and opts for the following.  The triangles will be used to house his extensive collection of pets (including his Wallabies and Koalas). The segments will be used to grow Eucalyptus for the Koalas and the food for the other animals (as well as storing the Pot noodles and sandwiches for the Wallabies, or whatever they eat…). Anyway, the question is: What is the size of the angle marked with an x? ANSWER: This week’s puzzle involved Circle Theorems, a very popular branch of mathematics tested at GCSE and a personal favourite of mine! In our diagram, the first angle we can get is angle ADC which will be 97° (this is because ABCD is a polygon known as a cyclic quadrilateral and in such a shape opposite angles add to 180°). So angle ABC (which is 37° + 46° = 83°) + angle ADC = 180°. This leads to angle CDE = 83° (angles on a straight line = 180°). We now have one of the missing angles in triangle CDE where angle x resides. The other angle in triangle CDE, other than x, is angle DCE. Angle CBD and angle DCE are equal due to the Alternate Segment Theorem, so since angle CBD = 46° so does angle DCE. As there are 180° in a triangle and two of the angles are 83° and 46° which makes x = 51°. Please note that this is not the only route to the correct answer and that is part of the joy that is Circle Theorems!! If you want to find out a bit more about Circle Theorems then follow this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcsgdxs/revision/1 Congratulations to Kai Wagner in Year 11 for getting the first correct solution and further diluting the largely Paul-based set of victors! In total, I received 5 solutions to the puzzle this week so numbers are climbing and if I count the fact that one of the responses was a team effort then we have matched the previous high of 6! Let’s keep trying Rossallians! THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE: Here is this week’s puzzle in honour of Mr Kai Wagner: Kai loves triangles so much that when he saw the following diagram, he had an urge to make a triangle.  Lengths in cm. He imagined rotating the line segment BC by 90° so that AB and BC formed two sides of a right-angled triangle (right-angled triangles are his 3rd favourite type!). If he did this, how long would the new side joining A and C need to be? Once more the first correct response will become the subject of the next puzzle. 6 responses to beat. Come on, I believe next week is National “Make a Maths Teacher Happy Week”. Mr Sharpe |
| Hello everyone and welcome to the inaugural edition of Rossall Eco-Society’s weekly bulletin. From now on, we will have a weekly slot in the newsletter where we can provide updates on our plans and let everyone know what we have gotten up to each week. From time to time we will also include some relevant stories related to environmental issues, such as the potential for environmentally friendly mushroom boats. Firstly, I would like to congratulate a few of our members who ran some bake sales for boarders at the start of last month. They raised just over £100 and we are using that money to purchase recycling bins for the boarding houses. We are going to trial these bins in MC and Rose, starting in the next few weeks, before hopefully introducing them to all the houses after the Easter Holidays. On the note of fundraising, we are also in the process of planning some Easter-themed fundraisers for the final week of this term and hopefully, more details will be revealed next week. As well as the recycling bins our main focus this term is on introducing a completely vegetarian day to the fortnightly menu rotation. Many studies have shown that, as well as a plethora of health benefits, having one meat-free day a week can have an incredibly beneficial impact on the environment due to the number of greenhouse gasses the livestock industry is responsible for. On a survey we sent out last week, more than two-thirds of responses reacted positively to the idea of regular vegetarian days so it is good to see that this is something the Rossall community as a whole wants moving forward. If anyone is interested in joining the Eco-Society, we meet on Thursdays in Mr Hutchinson’s room during activity time. Due to the bubble system that is in place at the moment, we are only open to Sixth Form in person but the rest of Senior School are more than welcome to join on Zoom. Please get in touch with us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Mr Hutchinson also runs a junior Eco-Society for Lower School at the same time so please email him at [email protected] if you have any queries. Thank you for reading, Max and Ryan, Rossall Eco-Society Co-Leaders |
