Prep School Newsletter Friday 29 November 2024

Activities and Clubs

Please take note that due to the Theatre trips on Thursday 5 December and the Early Years and KS1 Nativity on Friday 6 December, some of our activities and clubs will not take place. Clubs affected are:

• Thursday - Multi Skills Sport, Recorder Club, Lego Club and Design and Technology Club.
• Friday - Year 3 Ballet, Pop Dance (Year 1 - 2) and Ballet for Forest Explorers

What happened in School this week?

KS2 Choir Performances at Pembury Hospital and the Hospice in the Weald, Pembury

The first of our Christmas musical performances saw KS2 Prep School Choirs sing a range of Christmas songs and carols in the community yesterday, including a beautiful acapella version of Shenandoah. We began our afternoon performing in the foyer of Pembury Hospital with it's incredible acoustics. Moving on to The Hospice in the Weald, we sang to the staff and patients. Thank you to all those parents, carers and hospital staff who came along to give their support. Well done to everyone who performed and a big thanks goes to Mrs Hall and Mrs Groenen who were our minibus drivers for the afternoon.

On behalf of the NHS Trust, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to you and your exceptional students for the wonderful Christmas performance at the Hospital. The children were absolutely amazing—a true credit to you and your school. It’s clear that a great deal of planning and practice went into creating such a memorable and uplifting event. Your visit brought so much joy and truly brightened everyone’s day. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you once again for sharing such a special moment with us. – Claire, NHS Trust"

Forest Explorers

We have been exploring the wonderful story of the Nativity, learning about its special meaning and why we celebrate Christmas. Along the way, we’ve enjoyed creating beautiful Nativity crafts and putting our hearts into rehearsing for our upcoming Nativity show. The excitement is building as we prepare to share this magical performance with you. We can’t wait for you to join us and see all the hard work and joy we’ve poured into making this show truly special!

Reception

This week in maths, our learning has been about 2D shapes, with a focus on circles and triangles. We talked about how to recognise circles and triangles and explored the environment looking for them. The children came up with their own ideas of where they have seen them, for example, car wheels and sandwiches. Then we looked at the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky, finding so many circles and triangles in his work. The children created their own pieces of art. The children then made two triangles with lolly sticks and were amazed to find that if you put them together, it makes a star!

Year 1

Year 1 have been very busy with their Nativity rehearsals but have still found lots of time for excellent learning! We have continued our work on fact families to help with addition, as well as enjoying learning about different festivals celebrated here and abroad. Diwali was one we really enjoyed, making brightly coloured door hangings and Rangoli patterns. We also talked about Thanksgiving and what we were especially thankful for. In Literacy we have done a lot of work on capital letters and their use; we really enjoyed being detectives and going on a hunt around the school to try and spot them in action. We think we did really well to find so many!

Year 2

Can you feel magic in the air? That's the Early Years and KS1 Nativity rehearsals spreading Christmas cheer! Year 2 have worked incredibly hard to learn their lines, remember where to go on the stage and to shine brightly! They are extremely excited about performing to their friends and families next week.

Year 3

In Computing Year 3 have been learning that animation is a sequence of drawings or photographs. They have been creating their own Stop Frame Animation. First they drew a series of pictures, recorded them on iMotion software and will soon be adding music and effects to their final creations.

Year 4

Every week during our ‘Problem Solving Thursday’ maths lesson, the class have an interesting maths challenge to try and solve. This week we played Strike it Out. The game starts with a 0-20 number line. Player 1 picks two numbers, crosses them out and circles either their sum or their difference. The crossed out numbers can’t be used again. We also had great fun making snow owls from pinecones. We also started an advent jar - putting kind and thoughtful wishes for advent into a jar and reading one out each day. We enjoyed thinking of ways to be considerate to others and realising that it does not have to cost anything to do a good deed! Their wishes have made Mrs Crotty, Mrs Williams and Mrs Till realise what a special class they are.

Year 5

As well as launching a study of fractions and diving deeper into Micheal Morpurgo's Beowulf, Year 5 are continuing to study forces in science. Gravity has been their main focus and they have discovered a great deal. 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.

To all our Year 5 Parents, thank you for joining us for the Year 5 Assembly this week. It is always wonderful to welcome you in school and share what happens in the classroom with you . Mrs Youdale