New Life in Reception
Children in Reception have welcomed some visitors to the classroom! Currently resident in Mrs Jones’ room are an abundance of tadpoles and 5 very tiny but very hungry caterpillars! The children are studying the topic of ‘Growth’ and are eagerly awaiting the transformations into frogs and butterflies!
Early Years Garden
The children of Nursery and Reception took advantage of the sunny weather and got busy in the garden. The children dug and weeded the flower bed, then worked together to plant Pansies and Primroses. They then took turns to sprinkle some spring flower seeds and water the garden. The garden was then decorated with some brightly coloured windmills and a couple of garden gnomes.
Pre-Prep celebrate St George’s Day
Pre-Prep children had a great afternoon on Thursday 23rd April in Around the World Club celebrating St George’s Day. After hearing the story of George and the Dragon, the children learned about London and the royal family. Then came the best part, afternoon tea. The children were treated to cucumber sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, strawberries and cream and fruit loaf whilst listening to Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem. A perfect enrichment for a sunny summer afternoon.
Easter Egg Competition
There were some wonderful entries into this year’s Decorated Easter Egg competition and we are always grateful to all those pupils whose incredibly imaginative creations brought so much colour and humour to our entrance tables in Main School and Pre-Prep. The winners, who all received their chocolate prizes are as follows: Main School: 1st Prize: George Dunn 2nd Prize: Emilia Praud 3rd Prize: Amelia Bullock Thank you every one who took part in the competition.
Trebuchet Challenge
With so many budding engineers (and equally enthusiastic and practically minded dads) in our midst, the Easter trebuchet Challenge promised to be quite a spectacle. As trucks and trailers started to convene in the main school car park on the last day of term, it became quite apparent that the assembled crowds of spectators from Pre-Prep up to Thornton, would not be disappointed. (Virtually) all homemade and (virtually) all adhering to the underlying counterweight dynamic, the apparatus ranged in size from tiny (fitting into the palm of a Pre-Prep hand) to enormous (based on a full size pallet), and in material from Lego to bamboo! As the competition unfolded, it became apparent that size does not necessarily matter as some of the largest contraptions failed to reach the distances recorded by some of the more diminutive devices, the unpredictability adding to the excitement and suspense of the spectacle. Although not technically a trebuchet, full credit must be given to the enormous entry designed and built by our most senior physicists, Thornton pupils Antony, Ben and Grayson. Such was the force with which their catapult expelled its cargo that the humble egg disintegrated in flight! (Further attempts with an orange, whilst not permitted within the rules of the challenge, did demonstrate the catapult’s impressive trajectory.) Thank you to everyone whose sterling efforts made for such an entertaining morning and congratulations to our winners – the Throup siblings and Wilkinson brothers.
Egg and Spoon Race
There was much scrambling of eggs around the grounds of school as pupils from Pre-Prep all the way through to Thornton took part in a succession of egg and spoon races. Staggered by age groups, the races saw pupils hurtling around the main school buildings and the lawns whist simultaneously trying to keep their crème eggs from falling out of their spoons (for which various methods, of varying degrees of legitimacy, were employed). Most eggs and runners made it to the finishing line, some rather worse for wear by that point than others!
Waterbabies Coffee Morning
We were delighted to be able to host our second coffee morning for the Waterbabies swimming group who use our pool for their baby and toddler swimming lessons. Just before the end of term, the youngsters and their parents joined us for Easter themed refreshments and a recital in the library; The junior choir offered a short but perfect programme of amusing and uplifting songs on a waterbased based theme, all carefully selected and accompanied by Mr Fitzsimons.
Form 1 and Pre-Prep Story Share
The Nursery children were delighted to welcome Form 1 pupils this week for a storytelling session. The Form 1 children had written and illustrated some wonderful stories for young children and came along to share them with Nursery. The children were enthralled and the teachers amazed by Form 1’s literacy skills – a fun time was had by all!
Red Nose Day
Pre-Prep got into the Comic Relief spirit by coming to school wearing their red noses. The children paid £1 to make a funny face on a paper plate. There were some hilarious designs which are now being displayed in the brick building. They also danced along with Dermot and listened to the Comic Relief Song. The children found out that if they raised £60 this would pay for an orphaned child in Africa to go to school for a year and the government would then double this amount, enabling a second child to attend school too. Pre-Prep, Main School and Upper School raised a combined total of over £260. What a fantastic fund raising effort everyone!
PP1 Outdoor Area
Last week PP1 were delighted to explore their new outdoor area. With giant sandpits and tunnels to play in, there is lots for us to do. PP1 would like to say a huge thank you to the men for all their hard work building our new outdoor area. Now all we need is some sunshine so we can enjoy learning outside too!