Prep School Newsletter Friday 15 March 2024

After a tremendous amount of hard work and commitment, it was time this week to present the whole school production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Well done to those Year 5 and 6 pupils involved for their brilliant performances! Year 6 has shown particular resilience this week with a rainy and windy trip to the Horton Kirby Environmental Studies Centre on Monday followed by three days at the Tunbridge Wells Junior Enterprise and then a late night performance on Thursday evening of Edwin Drood. True grit!

Year 1 and 2 delighted us all with their fabulous Assembly this week. 'We are all different but we are all special' was a wonderful way to sum up the excellence of each and every child who took part. Congratulations!

Next week promises to bring further excitement. See Dates For Your Diary below for more information.

Commonwealth Day 2024

On Monday, Solenne and Marcella in Year 5 represented Kent College Prep at the Town Hall where they met the Mayor to celebrate Commonwealth Day. As part of the celebrations, the Commonwealth Affirmation was read and the Flag was raised on top of the Town Hall. They also had the opportunity to see the Mayoral Chains and listen to many interesting facts relating to the Commonwealth.

Prep School Notice

  1. Please take note that there will be no Gymnastics Club on Tuesday 19th March, however the Gymnastics Academy will continue as normal.

What happened in school this week?

Edwin Drood

We are so proud of our Year 5 and 6 pupils for their fantastic performance in The Mystery of Edwin Drood this week! Despite their busy schedules, they were fantastic on stage, showcasing their talent and dedication. Bravo to all everyone involved and for giving us such memorable performances! Congratulations to the Drama and Music Department for all the hours of hard work.

To read the programme from the show with more images and full details of the cast and crew, please click here.

If you haven't seen the show yet or would like to see it again, here is the booking link for the final two performances, which we are sure will be even better!

Red Nose Day 2024

Thank you for your generous contributions on Red Nose Day! The children looked absolutely fabulous in their red attire, spreading joy and awareness for a great cause. And a special shoutout to our incredible catering team for the delicious Red Nose Day cupcakes - you truly sweetened the day!

Assemblies

The charity, Restless Development, visited us to talk to the children in Key Stage 2 about a Triathlon competition taking place at Sevenoaks School on Sunday 12th May 2024. More than 750 children between 7-11 year from local schools will come together in teams of four completing relays of swimming, cycling and running to raise money for Restless Development and local charities. Follow the link on how to enter HERE.

Reception

This week we have really loved reading the story ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson. The children have made their own puppets to use for retelling the story and imagined a terrible creature of their own. They created some scary creatures, with some scary features. The children had fun describing their terrible creature and writing about them.

Year 1 and 2

The Key Stage 1 children thoroughly enjoyed performing ‘Under the African Sun’ to their families and Prep School friends during their Assembly this week. They sang in Swahili and shared the story of how animals got their coats, horns, spots and stripes! The children enjoyed using musical instruments including African drums. Their teachers are so proud of how hard the children worked to learn their lines and provide such heartwarming entertainment on a rather grey Wednesday morning. Well done to all involved and thank you to the parents for coming to watch.

Year 3

Year 3 are busy rehearsing for their class assembly on Tuesday. They have learnt their lines, costumes are ready and the dancing has a very Egyptian theme! A sneak preview to what's instore.........

Year 4

Year 4 had a very enjoyable time decorating their door for World Book Day. Basing it on ‘How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth’, they designed toiletry bottles, wallpaper and the woolly mammoth himself. They then went on to write their own versions of this rather amusing story. The bubble machine made an effective addition to their door design. Miss Handford thought they were worthy winners of the World Book Day Classroom Door competition!

Year 5

The importance of brushstrokes is just as important for calligraphy as for painting, if not more so. Artists practise for years to master each different character, all of which need to be created using a particular stroke order. In Chinese writing, there is no alphabet but each word has a character to represent the word. There are more than 50,000 characters in Chinese but you only need to know around 3000 to be able to read a newspaper. The children were provided with paper, a suitable paintbrush and black paint. We worked together to create different characters using the correct order of brushstrokes.

Year 6

Year 6 have been out and about this week. On Monday, they visited the educational centre at Horton Kirby to complement their study of rivers. Whilst there, they studied the river basin, how and why rivers change shape over time and measured the speed of flow across the River Darent in two different places. The children also tested a variety of permeable and impermeable rocks before deciding where they would build houses on a model of the river that they created themselves.

Tunbridge Wells Junior Enterprise Competition

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday saw the year group taking part in the Tunbridge Wells Junior Enterprise Competition. Challenged to design and create an educational toy, they had to decide how and to whom they would market it before filming their adverts and presenting their final pitches to a range of judges. It was an extremely intense three days, but the children were outstanding! Congratulations to the Kent College Team 1 for taking 2nd Place today!

Sport News

Year 3 travelled away to Radnor House for their first match on grass! They were very excited and there was a multitude of colourful boots! The team played two matches with one team winning 8-1 and the other team winning 6-4. Lots of goals scored. Congratulations to our Players of the Matches - Juno, Olivia, Hallie and Mabel!

Gymnastics

Arianna, Sadhbh and Amelie represented Kent College and the South East of England at the BSGA Milano National finals in Stoke over the weekend. The team came 2nd out of 12 competing Schools and 1st as a Region. The day ended brilliantly with the South East Teams receiving a combined 1st place! Congratulations!

Congratulations everyone and well done on the dedication and hard work you put in every week!" Mrs Cox

Wellbeing News

Upcoming Workshops for Parents

Please join us for the third workshop for parents this term which will take place in the Senior School on Tuesday 19th March from 6:00 – 7:30pm. The workshop will focus on how to support your children and young people’s emotional understanding, regulation and literacy.

Leading the session will be Louise Payne (Kent College Deputy Head Pastoral), Nel Levett (Kent College SENCO), Wendy Pearson (Autism and Neurodiversity Mentor and Practitioner) and Rachel Cole (Kent College Early Years Lead).

Dr. Jay Halbert, Senior Consultant Paediatrician and father to Suyana and Aiyana, has kindly offered to share his knowledge and expertise with us through a series of blogs. This one coincides with World Sleep Day today and has some really useful advice.

Easter Holiday Camps

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Have a lovely weekend!