Prep School Newsletter Friday 1 December 2023

Prep School Notices

• Please take note that Fun Gymnastics Club has been cancelled for Tuesday 5 December.
• The tickets for the KS2 Christmas Production are now unfortunately all sold out.

Count down to Christmas!

What happened in School this week?

Prep School Choirs’ visit to Pembury Hospital and The Hospice in the Weald

On Monday afternoon the Lower school and Upper school choirs joined forces and performed two 30 minute sets, firstly, in the entrance hall to Pembury Hospital then in our local Hospice in the Weald. We were lucky enough to have some fantastic audiences in both venues which really encouraged us sing beautifully together! We performed a variety of popular and more traditional Christmas songs and carols, from Silent Night and Away in a Manger to Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas and Rockin' around the Christmas Tree. It was great to have both the Lower School and Upper School choirs performing together; an excellent way to get everyone in the Christmas mood!

Thank you for all the staff that supported us on the trip. A special thank you to our very own personal minibus drivers: Mrs Hall and Mrs Groenen for their excellent driving skills. Well done to everyone who took part!

Forest Explorers

Nursery have been very excited about Christmas so we went on a Christmas tree search around the school grounds and buildings. We found a huge tree in the Senior School and we were very puzzled to know how the star had got on the top!

Reception

The children in Reception have had fun reading the story ‘Dear Zoo', by Rod Campbell. They enjoyed making up their own actions for each of the characters and to help them tell the story.

The week ended with each of the children writing a letter to the zoo to ask for a pet! They have requested a penguin and a panda. Will the zoo will send us one of the pets we have requested? The children are hoping there will be a big parcel from the zoo waiting for them at school when they return after Christmas…………..!

Year 1

This term Year 1 have been learning to use the paint programme to make their own pictures in the style of different artists. This week we recreated Kandinsky’s concentric circles. The children’s mouse skills have really improved, and we produced some super Kandinsky style pictures.

Year 2

Year 2 are making waves of progress in their swimming lessons! Our enthusiastic swimmers are flourishing as they dive into skill-building sessions, mastering strokes and water safety techniques. They have made a big splash into their aquatic journey and look forward to every lesson. What a fantastic first term of swimming in our new pool!

Year 3

Year 3 have been experimenting with magnets and testing their strength. Using a variety of different sized and shaped magnets they predicted which they thought would be the strongest. Then they kept adding paperclips to see how many the magnet could hold and recorded them in a table and on a bar chart. Year 3 discovered that the wand and horseshoe magnet held the most because they had the strongest magnetic force. Well done, Year 3!

Year 4

Year 4 had a wonderful time in the forest this week. With a class focus on teamwork and creativity, they worked very well together to produce an environmental sculpture of a Christmas Tree! Fresh air and friendship were the themes of the afternoon; what a lovely time we had!

Year 5

As well as enjoying some Christmas activities and a swimming gala, Year 5 are continuing to study forces in science. Gravity has been their main focus and they have discovered so much. Questions have been asked about the words mass and weight and the difference between them. Lessons have also included learning about scientists who have helped us understand this force and the strength of an object's gravitational pull. One lesson involved the practical activity of using force meters to measure weight which is measured in N (Newtons). Keen scientists in the class compared the Newton measurement to the mass measurement (g) and quickly saw that they were connected. With a small calculation they realised you could convert N to g and kg.

Year 6

Despite mounting excitement about Christmas, everyone has worked very hard this week. In music and drama we have been preparing for our upcoming Nativity production, whilst in English we continued to look at the poetry of Ted Hughes. Having studied the rhyming couplets in his poem ‘Dog’, we wrote our own poem in that style about an animal of our choice. We were disgusted to learn about microbes in science (although relieved that there are so many good microbes as well) and started to think about an experiment that we can set up next week to study the growth of microbes. In humanities we started to investigate the impact of the arrival of the Spanish for the Aztec empire and how everyone involved would have felt. We all played hard in our first netball match of the season and are looking forward to those to come. In PHSE this week we looked at targets we would like to improve on, what may be a hindrance to that progress and how we can overcome them.

Year 6 would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Kiely and the KCPPA for their fabulous Christmas afternoon with Father Christmas and his reindeer and to be able to make it snow. THANK YOU!!!

Sport News

On Monday 27 November our Prep School pupils participated in their first Swimming Gala in our new pool. Pupils from Year 3 - 6 were invited and did extremely well. A special mention goes to Bella. She was the only Year 3 member of the team and did really well, competing in every race. Emilia and Cyra in Year 5 also deserve a special mention for swimming in extra races as some of their team mates were unwell on the day. Fantastic effort, KC Prep swim team!

To close out a fantastic term of hockey fixtures for our Prep School, Mr. Palmer would like to share a few of our successes this year.

Our Year 1 and 2s have regularly attended the Hockey Club on a Monday night. Working with the age group-specific bigger balls, the pupils have been learning the basic skills such as passing, controlling and tackling an opposition player.

Year 3 and 4 have had 6 festivals of 4-a-side Hockey, playing regularly and making huge strides in scoring goals and making tackles. The focus on understanding the game and having lots of touches of the ball in a 4v4 match has made a huge difference to the pupils' understanding of the game.

Year 5 had 5 matches across the term with lots of time focused on improvement during lessons. Playing against teams like Hilden Oaks, Brambletye and Sevenoaks Prep gave the teams very competitive matches to test out their skills in game play.

Our Year 6 teams had a very positive year with 5 matches for the teams and with many goals scored against oppositions such as Rose Hill, Skippers Hill, Brambletye and many more in their tournament matches. A well deserved 3rd place at the Sutton Valence tournament came after winning all of their matches apart from the semi final vs St Michaels, where it came down to a shuffle shootout when St Michael’s took the win. However the team rallied and won their 3rd/4th playoff convincingly in order to take the bronze medal home. The team went on to have some success at the IAPS qualifier tournament hosted at Hurstpierpoint College. The U11s were so close to qualifying for the regional event, but unfortunately lost in the quarter final in a close match. Then the team went away to the UKSA U11 tournament hosted in Burgess Hill, and played some great hockey to win the group again, but unfortunately lost the quarter final match after creating a large number of attacking opportunities. The team went away again to the U11 county competition at Junior Kings Canterbury and fought hard to come 3rd in the group.

Some Prep children have been invited to join in with some of the Senior School sessions before school on a Monday. We are always on the look out to see if more children can come along to these sessions, so train hard and keep listening to what you are asked to do in order to keep your performances improving!

Well done to you all. You can be very proud of your hard work. Thank you to Mr Beck, Mr George, Miss Webb, Mrs Sutton, Mrs Beazleigh and Mrs Ashley for their support during your lessons and matches.