Prep School Newsletter Friday 10 October 2025

What happened in School this week?

Big Business Sale

Our Year 4 pupils demonstrated great teamwork and true purposeful citizenship during their Big Business Sale, raising funds for local hospitals. The children worked hard to plan, design, and run their own mini business. They showed much enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit and we’re so proud of their efforts to support such a meaningful local cause.

Forest Explorers - Caterpillars

It’s been such a joy to see the blue skies and feel the warmth of the sunshine this week! Down in the woods, we’ve been busy creating lots of prickly artwork using natural materials, baking bread roll hedgehogs (with a few dinosaurs and even a lorry in the mix!), and amazing our teachers with our number work and fine motor skills as we clipped pegs to make spikes.

Forest Explorers - Butterflies

We’ve been having lots of fun learning about shapes this week! We counted corners and sides, searched for shapes hidden all around our classroom, and made some brilliant shape-printing pictures. The very best part of our week was the lovely autumn sunshine — perfect for adventures in the forest and enjoying our amazing outdoor space with friends!

Reception

This week the children in Reception have enjoyed talking about food! We enjoyed reading the books – Oliver’s Vegetables by Vivian French, The Shopping List by John Burningham and Don’t Forget the Bacon by Pat Hutchins. The children thought about their two favourites vegetables, drew and labelled them, wrote a shopping list of their favourite food, created a food college and printed a picture with vegetables. As part of our discussions, the children talked about healthy and unhealthy food and making good choices to keep our bodies healthy!

Year 1

In Science this week, Year 1 have been busy exploring the five senses! We had great fun using our sense of smell to guess what was hidden inside each pot, which led to lots of lively discussion about our favourite — and least favourite — scents. The results certainly proved the saying true when it comes to marmite! Next week, we’ll be taking our investigation a step further by exploring and presenting our findings in Maths, and we’re already buzzing with ideas for our next exciting experiment.

Year 1 had a magical Princess and Knights Day filled with crowns, capes, and dragons! The children became brave knights and elegant princesses, enjoying stories, crafts, and royal adventures in their classroom castle — a truly enchanting day!

Year 2

This week has been full of fun and discovery in Year 2! We’ve been learning all about the famous explorer Ibn Battuta in Topic, creating colourful totem poles in Art while exploring the meaning of different animals in Native American culture, and working on fact families and number bonds in Maths. One of the highlights of the week was spending time with our Year 6 buddies — we loved showing them our classroom, reading together, and playing a lively game of Race to 100!

Year 3

In Computing Year 3 have been learning about digital devices. They have been comparing using digital equipment and their non-digital equivalent. They enjoyed drawing on paper and then using the iPads to do the same by blending colours and shading. They found out that the iPads can blend, erase and shade just as well as paper and pen. They really enjoyed discovering all of the different functions on the drawing app and realised that it was easier to change their pictures on an iPad than on paper and they made far less mess!

Year 4

This week has been full of exciting learning! We’ve become rounding experts, confidently rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, and 1000. In history, we stepped into the shoes of Henry VIII, writing speeches that showed how he changed throughout his life. Our science experiment from last week finished with bar charts and thoughtful conclusions. In English, we explored suspense through the story of the Iron Man, crafting tension-filled writing and inventing new creatures to challenge him — complete with vivid descriptions using expanded noun phrases and similes. In Art, we used collage to make beautiful Tudor roses. With just one week to go until half term, we’re looking forward to next week’s learning and ending it with our much-anticipated Sponsored Walk!

Year 5

Artists have been trying to fool people with their artwork for hundreds of years. This week, Year Five have explored trompe l'oeil (to deceive the eye) in their own pieces. They made excellent use of pencil to create a sphere and glasses of water. Their effort was extraordinary.

During other lessons, learning about the phases of the moon has created huge interest as has exploring Children's Rights. There has been eager reading of our novel "Robot Girl'' and maths lessons have required extending learning on addition and subtraction.

Year 6

This week began with Year 6 attending a fascinating HALO lecture by Mrs Edwards, who used as her inspiration Annabelle Hirsch's book, 'A history of women in 101 objects'. From the Lilith Amulet, through dress pockets of the 17th Century to the 2016 Dior T-shirt, we were amazed at the facts we learned. Alongside this, we have looked at how adaptation has occurred in specific habitats, revised addition and subtraction of integers and studied the push/pull factors around emigration to post war England from Jamaica. We even found time to swim, play hockey, speak French and Spanish and get stuck into singing for our visit to Young Voices in January 2026!

On Monday, our Head Girl Frida introduced the BBC 500 Words Writing Competition to the Prep School. She had put together some top tips and generated a great deal of interest. There are two age categories: 5-7 and 8-11 year-olds and spelling, punctuation and grammar are not marked. As has always been the case for 500 Words, it's all about our writers' brilliant creativity! We would love the children to have a go, so please visit the BBC website for more information.

STEM Club

This week in STEM the children continued to look at electrical circuits, this time powering a motor to spin the rubber that they had fitted. Using a great deal of care and resilience, they have all made the first step in creating their brush monsters!

Spy Readers

Kent College has joined Spy Readers, a digital library and book-suggestion platform that supports your child’s reading journey.

From after the October half term, children will start using Spy Readers in class with their teachers to pinpoint personalised book suggestions matched to their interests. Each book also comes with a clear breakdown of its themes, so you can feel fully knowledgeable about what your child is reading. Parents can also use the Book Suggester Tool online to find great ideas – especially handy with Christmas on the horizon. Explore Spy Readers by following this link.

Sport News

Gymnastics Success at the Spires Championships

On Sunday, our Academy gymnasts competed at Spires Canterbury in the Key Steps and Intermediate Championships — and delivered some outstanding performances! If you’re interested in joining the KC Gymnastics Academy, please get in touch with Mrs Cox at coxj@kentcollege.kent.sch.uk

• Year 1 – Leonora placed 7th overall, 4th on Vault, and received a Special Award for Vault.
• Year 4 – Sasha placed 6th overall, 6th on both Floor and Vault, and has qualified for Advanced level.
• Year 5 – Hanna was crowned Kent Champion, 1st on Floor, 2nd on Vault, and also qualified for Advanced.
• Year 6 – Nuran placed 5th overall, 1st on Floor, and qualified for Advanced.

I am incredibly proud of all our talented gymnasts — what an achievement!" Mrs Cox