What an incredibly busy and rewarding few days; from theatre trips, to a visit from the Mayor to collect toy donations, to Privilege Lunch which recognised and celebrated wonderful manners and good behaviour, we have thoroughly enjoyed it all. But the BIG SHOW STOPPER this week was our Early Years and Key Stage 1 Nativity, where the children captivated us with their excellent storytelling, beautiful singing and generally wonderful Christmas spirit. We couldn't be more proud of them.
Thank you for your contributions towards the Mayor's Toy Appeal 2024. We were able to donate three boxes of lovely toys towards this worthy cause, bringing much joy to those in need this Christmas. Mrs Hall
Have a lie-in!
Looking ahead to next week and the Key Stage 2 Christmas Production on Tuesday evening, 10th December, we would like to remind parents that children in Years 3 to 6 are welcome to arrive at school on Wednesday morning in time for breaktime, which begins at 10:10am. Can we please ask that all children report to reception on arrival to sign in.
Advent Assembly
Chaplain Katie led assembly this morning in the church with the help of some puppets and volunteers from the pews. Everyone enjoyed this unique retelling of the Christmas story and felt a real sense of joy.
The Fearless Fox and the Christmas Star
What could be more exciting than going to the theatre to watch a show—especially when you’re driven there by elves? The PE staff made the whole afternoon an unforgettable experience, and the children were absolutely thrilled by the magical performance of The Fearless Fox & the Christmas Star at The Little Vic Theatre. It was a truly enchanting day filled with excitement and festive cheer!
The Twinkly Nativity
It is always such a pleasure to welcome our parents to our Early Years and Key Stage 1 Nativity. This year’s Twinkly Nativity was a charming retelling of the traditional Christmas story, sprinkled with plenty of sparkle and a generous helping of joy. We are incredibly proud of our youngest pupils, who have worked so hard over the past few weeks to bring this wonderful story to life. Well done everyone!
Forest Explorers
We’ve been diving into the festive spirit this week in the Nursery, and it’s been such a joy! The children have been busy making Christmas cards, creating adorable salt dough tree decorations, and painting some lovely festive pictures. One of the highlights of our week was writing letters to Santa. The little ones were full of excitement as they carefully crafted their letters, and the excitement reached a whole new level when it was time to post them in the big red postbox! It’s safe to say Christmas magic is well and truly in the air.
Reception
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Reception this week! Our Christmas tree arrived and the children had fun decorating the tree and the classroom. Our role play area changed from a Toy Shop into Santa’s Workshop and the children have been working very hard wrapping presents for Santa. Each of the children has also written their own letter to Santa.
On top of all that we have been busy rehearsing for our Twinkly Nativity performance today and taken a trip to the theatre too!
Year 1
Year 1 have been thinking about how we show kindness to our friends as part of our PSHE lessons on "Celebrating Difference." We have talked a lot about what makes us unique and special, and how we should treat other people. This week we focused on the differences between kind and unkind behaviour and who we can talk to if someone is making us sad. The photos show examples of these behaviours!
Year 2
This week has been busy for Year 2, welcoming Mrs. Cresswell and Mrs. Keenan, as well as Nativity rehearsals and our trip to the Theatre, but we still found time for lots of learning! In Maths, the children have been exploring the differences between 2D and 3D shapes and learning to identify the characteristics of each shape, such as the number of sides and corners. They started by hunting around the classroom to see what different shapes they could locate, finding circles, squares and rectangles, as well as cubes and cuboids! They then used lollipop sticks to create their own 2D shapes and were able to say which shape they had made. Well done Year 2!
Year 3
Year 3 had an absolutely wonderful time during their creative Outdoor Learning session this week. The children worked in pairs, using their imaginations and natural resources to craft unique Christmas trees. They were so inventive, gathering leaves, berries, feathers, and anything else they could find in the forest to decorate their trees with their own version of ‘baubles and tinsel.’ Each tree turned out beautifully, and the children finished them off with carefully chosen ‘stars’ to crown the tops. It was such a lovely way for them to connect with nature while embracing the festive spirit. The forest was buzzing with excitement and creativity!
Year 4
Another busy week has flown past and Year 4 have been working so hard! In our English lessons we have been thinking about the moment Ernest Shackleton took a handful of his men to fetch help, leaving the rest of the intrepid explorers on Elephant Island, unsure whether that help would ever come. The class discussed the variety of responses the men would have had, did some freeze-frame work and wrote a diary entry as a crew member left behind. Alongside this, the children have been busy in their maths lessons, enjoyed outdoor learning, realised that dressing as a rich Tudor woman would have been hard work and practised for our Christmas production – don’t forget to come on Tuesday!
Year 5
Alongside Christmas art, converting fractions and exploring the use of vivid vocabulary in English, the children undertook a friction experiment. In small groups or pairs, they undertook a fair test of different surfaces. As a class, we also discussed how to make the test accurate and then worked together to create a detailed write up.
Year 6
Year 6 have had an incredibly busy week! They’ve been hard at work rehearsing for the KS2 Christmas performance, ensuring every detail is perfect. Amidst the rehearsals, they set up a fascinating experiment to test the amount of bacteria on different surfaces. By wiping surfaces with a slice of bread and placing it in a sandwich bag with a moist piece of kitchen roll, they will observe how much mould grows. The big question is: what will have more bacteria, a child’s hand or an iPad screen? To deepen their understanding of microorganisms, Year 6 also created mini composters from used bottles. Additionally, they are writing informative texts about the impact the Windrush Generation has had on British society. To top it all off, they enjoyed a trip to London to see the stage show Mrs Doubtfire. Next week promises to be quieter… maybe!
Doubles Day
Today 06/12/24 is Doubles Day. The date doubles as it goes up 6 to 12 to 24. As it is a special day in the world of Maths, here are some Maths Questions for you to try out based on Doubles Day.
- When will the next doubles day be?
- How many years until the next doubles day?
- When was the last doubles day?
- How many doubles day have we had since the year 2000?
- If you started doubling from 1, how many times would you have to double until you reached a number bigger than 100,000? What is this number?
STEM Club
In STEM this week we finished thinking about static electricity and built circuits. We managed to make buzzers sound, songs play, light bulbs light up and best of all, rotors to take off!
Bonjour
Over the past few weeks, the students have been making great progress in French, diving into a variety of topics and activities. They’ve been exploring French phonemes and building their vocabulary with themes like parts of the face and body, names of French foods and shops, numbers and colours, as well as seasons and weather. As the festive season approaches, they’ve also enjoyed learning Christmas songs and creating Christmas cards and bookmarks. The children have been excited to expand their vocabulary with seasonal words, including how to say "Father Christmas" and "reindeer" in French, among many other new terms. A big “JOYEUX NOËL”. Madame Moreau!
Hockey NEWS
This year, our Prep School has focused on developing progressive skills in P.E. lessons. KS1 concentrated on receiving, passing, and dribbling, while KS2 worked on match-play scenarios, preparing for regular fixtures.
The U11s had a packed schedule, starting with the IAPS tournament at BEDES. After strong performances in the group stage, they reached the quarter-finals against BEDES, which ended in a 0-0 draw. Thanks to Eva’s superb goalkeeping during penalty flicks, the team advanced to the semi-finals, narrowly losing 1-0 to Saint Ronan’s. Soon after, they competed in the UKSA tournament, finishing 6th out of 16 teams after being eliminated in the quarter-finals on penalty shuffles. The following week, they participated in the Kent county tournament, showing great effort but just missing out on regional qualification.
The U10s gained valuable experience in the UKSA tournament, playing competitively and practising short corner attacks and defence for the first time. They grew in confidence throughout the event and made us proud.
This season also saw exceptional fixtures from both A and B teams against schools such as Saint Ronan’s, Rose Hill, Sevenoaks Prep, Hilden Oak, Beechwood, Somerhill, and more. The U9s made remarkable progress, impressing our P.E. team with their readiness for 7-a-side hockey, highlighted by an excellent match against St Michael’s.
A huge well done to everyone for all of their efforts in hockey this last term, it has been fantastic to watch your development. We can’t wait to get stuck into more hockey next year and we strongly encourage our pupils to join local clubs if they are interested in playing more hockey and developing their skills! Mr Palmer, Head of Hockey
Here are the details of some of our local hockey clubs:
Have a lovely weekend!
This newsletter is exclusively intended for the Kent College Community. All photographs featured herein are the property of the school and are used in accordance with our photographic permission policy.