PRE-PREP

Reception Hedgehogs – funky finger fun!

A wonderful culmination of learning this week saw Reception’s Literacy focus on ‘The Little Red Hen’, woven together with their explorations of autumn and some fabulous finger exercises …. all in the shape of hedgehogs!
All the kneading, pummeling, stretching, pinching and snipping of dough proved to be an excellent hand strengthening exercise, essential for controlling and co-ordinating pencils and other small tools.  Of course, once all those tiny muscles in the children’s fingers had enjoyed a work out, so did their taste buds, when they scurried down to the forest school to munch on their freshly baked bread.

Collecting Autumn Colours – collaborative learning

‘Five Acres Wood’, our forest school, is a wonderful haven for the children’s’ learning at any time of the year.  RG and 2L took advantage this week, by buddying up for some collaborative autumn colour matching activities amongst the woodland surroundings. It proved to be an enriching experience for the children’s language skills, as they guided and explained their learning to each other.  The children in 2L certainly felt an immense sense of pride as they took responsibility for supporting their younger friends, and the children in RG took utter delight in showing 2L absolutely everything that captured their curiosity.

Music, Drama and Dance

Children, movement and music are three words that go together beautifully.  Engaging the cognitive and emotional parts of the brain, Music, Drama and Dance certainly feature very prominently in the children’s learning at present, as do our wonderful specialist tutors that lead them.
With our Christmas nativity rehearsals now in full swing, the children are fully immersed in these three creative areas of learning.  With many of the songs now whirling around inside our heads, snippets of “Little grey donkey, clipping, clopping” and “Underneath the star they’ll find a stable”, can often be heard from the deck of the pirate ship, in cloakrooms, classrooms and from role-play areas, as the children naturally drift into song.  Even the staff are humming the tunes whilst waiting for the kettle to boil at break times!

Christmas Nativity e-Tickets

Thank you for all of your ticket requests.  Mrs Hopwell and I are now allocating names to seats, with e-tickets being emailed to parents by Thursday 30^th November.  Any additional tickets requests will be distributed as fairly and evenly as possible. Unfortunately, this does mean that requests for large numbers of seats cannot be accommodated as we endeavour to fulfil the wishes of as many families as possible, within the capacity of the Hunter Hall. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Christmas Nativity Photographs

A huge thank you also if you have helped to bring parts of your child’s costume together.  We cannot wait for a big trying on session next week! On Wednesday, tinsel and tea towels will be perched on heads as a professional photographer joins us for the day, clicking away with her camera to capture some fabulous costume shots.  The excitement is most definitely building now!

Pupil Achievements

Congratulations to Isabella Wiseman (RG) who was awarded a trophy for her skills and effort in pony riding.

Very well done to Harriet Guppy (1S) and Phoebe Tilston (1S) who both passed their Pre-Primary Ballet Exams.

Congratulations to Harriet Turculet (2L) for achieving her 5m and 10m Swimming Awards.

A final well done goes to Willa Mercer (1N) for gaining her Level 8 Gymnastics Award.

Fiona Sanchez
Head of Pre-Prep

ART

Rugby Art Competition

In the summer, Bessie won the Rugby School Key Stage 2 Bicentenary Art Competition.

She had a wonderful afternoon at Rugby School, meeting Johnny Wilkinson, having afternoon tea and watching two exhibition rugby matches. She then received an invite to watch the Northampton Saints in training (03/11) before their premiership match against Bath. She was shown around their new indoor High Performance Centre and watched training on the main pitch in the stadium. She chatted to all the players, who were very generous with their time, and to Director of Rugby, Phil Dowson, who very kindly invited her to lunch after training. Bessie was served the biggest ‘rugby player’ lunch portion and sat down with Phil and players Alex Coles, Curtis Langdon and Tom Cruse, who were great company, and asked Bessie all sorts of questions about her sport and art.

The following day she was then given four tickets to the Saints v Bath Premiership match with Saints winning a very close game, the highlight being Alex Coles scoring under the posts, near where she was sitting.

It was an amazing experience.