There is a chilly theme in year 1 and 2 as we start the term, which is not entirely due to the weather. Our Topic this term explores the polar lands and the children have been busy taking part in a knowledge harvest and posing some ‘I wonder’ questions which will frame learning over the coming weeks. As a geography graduate I can’t help slipping into lessons to join in discussions and I get genuinely excited to share my love of this subject. In Pre-School, the PHSE theme this term is ‘Dreams and Goals’ which ties in nicely with adults in school being energised by their new year resolutions. This is such a wonderful topic to start the year as who can fail to be inspired by the dreams and positivity of three and four year olds?! I was intrigued by an invitation to join Reception Holly for a challenge; I confess to being a little apprehensive! What could it possibly be and would I succeed? The children pulled me over to a mysterious chart and said that I had one minute to pull random numbers from a basket and stick them onto the chart in order - but I was not to worry, as they would show me what to do by having a go first. I watched in awe as the children took it in turns to challenge themselves with great results, then the sand timer turned and it was my chance to take part. I will leave you to ponder whether I was successful, but suffice to say that the children’s resilience and risk taking approach inspired me to try my best!
Year 3 - It was wonderful to see the children back after their Christmas break. Year 3 have been working hard on exploring noun phrases and prepositional phrases after a mysterious letter appeared in their classroom asking them to write stories to go with some illustrations taken from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. In maths, the children have moved on to multiplication and division. The focus is the 3, 4 and 8x tables with an emphasis on using known facts to solve unknown facts. This term, light and shadow is the theme in science and the children have enjoyed exploring different light sources. In topic, the children have shared their holiday research on volcanoes and we are very impressed with the effort the children have put in. We are now moving on to explore Ancient Egypt. So far, the children have located Egypt on a map and have ordered events on a timeline. Year 4 - It is fantastic to see the children back at school looking well rested after their holidays. In English we started the week recapping on the use of speech within our writing. This informed us for our character descriptions we planned and wrote on the book How To Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. In Mathematics the children have spent the week focusing on their times tables and corresponding division facts. The children thoroughly enjoyed science this week. They explored solids, liquids and gasses and learnt about the particle composition of these states of matter. They then used this knowledge to inform their documentaries they recorded of themselves explaining the states of matter. The children are looking forward to planning and completing many scientific experiments this term.
Year 5 - It was lovely to welcome back a fresh faced group of year 5 pupils on Monday. Once again the week was filled with lots of activities and events for the pupils to participate in. This term in English lessons, the children will be looking at adventure fiction focusing on the text Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. This week the children read the first few chapters of the book and reflected on the key features of adventure texts. Inspired by Michael’s home-schooling, the children were then asked to plan a debate and write a letter to an imaginary head teacher to discuss its advantages. In maths lessons the children were investigating negative numbers. They used their prior knowledge to order numbers on a number line and to solve equations involving negative numbers. Year 5 gave Poirot a run for his money in history lessons this week as they took part in an investigation to solve the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The children used various sources and their inference skills to eliminate suspects to find the offender. Edge Grove were delighted to welcome back Mrs Evans after her absence last half term. Year 5 have thoroughly enjoyed creating their own self portraits in her art lesson this week. The children will be learning about the solar system in science lessons this term. This week they took part in experiments to further their understanding of the scientific explanations behind day and night. Unfortunately matches did not take place this week but the children showed great enthusiasm when taking part in rugby and netball training sessions. With this extra training there is no doubt year 5 will be ready to face any opposition next week!
Year 6 - It has been lovely having all the children return to school this week, especially since we haven’t seen a few of their faces for a while! It sounds like they had a fun and exciting winter break and we hope you all managed to get some down time amongst the activities!
In English this week year 6 have been reading Clock Tower whilst drawing pictures of different scenes in order to help their descriptions. See Risha H’s brilliantly annotated drawing in the photo below. In Maths, the pupils have been studying negative numbers as well as looking at time and money. In Science, they have been learning about the periodic table and have completed ‘code breakers’ using the atomic symbol names. A fantastic example can be seen in Darcey S-N work in the photo below. In PSHE we focused upon restorative justice and the pupils acted out scenes showing the best way to deal with a range of issues. The children are back to playing Netball and Rugby in games and are looking forward to their first matches.
Before Christmas, Chase in Year 6 competed in the English Open Brazilian Jiu Jitsu championship and he got silver medal for his age class. Here is a picture of Chase proudly wearing his medal! Well done Chase!
And finally well done to Radha in Year 3 and her sister Siya in Year 1 who recently donated their hair to the Little Princess Trust. They really wanted to do something to help following the recent diagnosis of their Grandmother's cancer. Their grandmother has always inspired them to help others, and having found out that children too get cancer and lose their hair, they wanted to donate theirs and raise money to help them. They had their big cut on Monday 3rd January 2022 and through everyone’s generous support they have managed to raise over £2,400! Well done both!
This week, pupils in year 7 Latin have been performing their translations of ‘The Judgement of Paris’. With three beautiful goddesses to choose from, did Paris (Nathan T-S) make the right decision in who he gave the golden apple to? A special thank you to Jamie and Shona for their fair, but thorough, performance feedback.
Well done to all of you who completed your holiday running challenge. It was fantastic to receive all your photos and see how active you have all been.
It has been a busy start of term with netball and rugby training up and running as well as an U11 and U13 basketball match. We also had our Year 3 and 4 cross country team participate in the York House event. Well done to all of those concerned. You can view the match reports here. We did unfortunately have a number of matches that had to be cancelled due to a combination of flooded pitches and staff and pupil illness. We are very much hoping that these disruptions will be a minimum this term however please be aware that this could happen at relatively short notice.
Drama - Year 6 were very excited in their drama lessons this week to find out what the Year 5 & 6 show is at the end of the term and were very happy when I announced it would be Peter Pan the Musical! We started to read through the scripts and they have gone away thinking about which character they would like to audition for next week. Year 5 have been creating their own products with the view to make some TV adverts in the next few weeks before they begin rehearsing their part in the play. We started a new rotation this week for year 7 & 8 and the new drama group has begun to learn the origins of theatre; in particular looking at Greek theatre. The Elective group had lots of fun with a Shakespeare and Musical Theatre escape room challenge, although some unfortunately didn’t escape room three!
Music - Year 6 had a very exciting first week back at school as they began to learn the first song for their upcoming musical production ‘Peter Pan’. They also began exploring character/acting choices for songs in preparation for their auditions next week. This is going to be an amazing opportunity for students to explore wonderful melodies and tunes whilst collaborating with the drama department once again in order to understand the procedure for putting on a staged performance. Year 5 have been thinking about voice types (soprano, alto, tenor and bass). They have been trying to match an exact pitch with their voices using a limited scale (do, ray, me soh and la) in preparation for singing in the upcoming musical ‘Peter Pan’. Year 3 & 4 will be rotating between music and drama each week to gain the advantages of both creative subjects. This week year 3 began to develop their sense of rhythm and did an excellent job at understanding the difference between pulse and rhythm. They enjoyed making their own rhythm patterns and incorporating words into it too. Year 4 had the opportunity to practice more advanced rhythms. Both the year 3 & 4 choir began a new song this week which went off with a brilliant start! 1-1 Music Lesson Information There are three spaces to learn to play the bassoon, an endangered instrument and a very beautiful one. Listen to the Mozart Bassoon Concerto for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaV1jauwbaA There is also availability to play the drums. Please contact Mr Leutfeld on kleutfeld@edgegrove.com or Miss Saville on jsaville@edgegrove.com to sign up. Please note the music@edgegrove.com email is now an inactive email address. Photography - This week the Year 7 & 8’s have changed their module groups this term and therefore the children had an introduction to Photography and went out in the glorious sunshine to take their first photographs ready to start editing next week. Photography elective group are looking at composition for the next few weeks and this week were set the task of taking ‘Reflections and Shadows’ photos and then were evaluating their own as well as their partners photographs. Great photographs this week from Max C and Evan.
Art - It is so lovely to be back and teaching in my art room again! We have had an excellent week and all of the children in the Lower Prep have worked very hard on their self portrait assessments. I am always impressed by the effort the children put into their art lessons. See some photos below. The Upper School children have launched back into the projects they have been working on during the previous half term.
We are delighted to invite you to participate in the 2022 Edge Grove Golf Day to be held on Friday 20th May 2022 at Aldenham Golf and Country Club. We would like to encourage golfers of all standards to join us. The day includes tea/coffee and a breakfast roll before you start, 18 holes of golf followed by a 2 course sit down lunch. The cost of the day is £65 per person. If you would like to secure your place on a team or submit a four ball, please click here to book your place. If you have any questions please email Sue Maughan on smaughan@edgegrove.com.
We are delighted with our new trophy cabinets located in the main reception and boardroom. Kindly donated by the Apthorp family (long-term school supporter and donor), the trophy cabinets allow us to now have all the historic and current trophies in one place.