Rehearsals for the Pre-School and Pre Prep Nativity are in full swing and are providing an exciting focus for the children and staff. Each year group is working so hard to contribute to what I know will be a wonderful collaborative retelling of the Christmas Nativity story and we look forward to sharing it with everyone before the end of the term.
Along with all the Christmas traditions comes the fun of the little mischievous Elves and others!! In Reception the children arrived at their classrooms to a strange mystery of glitter and mess! But who had done it? Video footage showed us it was the gingerbread man! This inspired lots of letters written to Mr Stanley, Mrs McManus and the Martins asking how the gingerbread man got in. They wrote their own recipes for Chef Mikael and decorated the gingerbread men that he baked for them.
In Pre-School, along with messy play having a very wintery feel, the children have also been exploring the world of the Gruffalo. They had read the book and created story sequencing crowns including all of the animals seen on The Gruffalo’s journey. There have been lots of lovely conversations about rhyming and the unique features The Gruffalo has. Whilst others have been busy mixing up a delicious Gruffalo crumble in the role play kitchen!
Step aboard the Year 1 Maths Bus! The children had fun intertwining roleplay into their mathematics learning. They had to calculate the total sum of passengers that stepped on board at each stop of the bus journey and then used this practical experience to add groups of passengers by counting on. They used relevant maths language to calculate addition, such as ‘increase’, ‘add’, ‘plus’, ‘greater than’ and they recognised the magic of the ‘cumulative law’! All the children continue to work on addition with great effort and success!
Creativity inspires the children to direct their own learning; as they explore themes, they are encouraged to apply the skills they have acquired throughout the term. Whether that be writing persuasive letters to Santa or snipping snowflakes to test fine motor skills, the productivity I have seen would rival the most industrious of elf workshops!
The highlight of the week for Year 2 has easily been practising for our Nativity. The children have been so enthusiastic when practising in class and as a year group. We have been very proud of how they have remembered their lines and are presenting them clearly with expression. The singing is going from strength to strength and we can’t wait to practise in our costumes ready for the real performance!
Year 3 - Tensions were building on Monday morning as the children came to school ready to watch the opening game between England and Iran. The Apthorp Hall was filled with much excitement and cheering as England took the lead and won the match.
This week the Year 3 pupils started to attend pantomime rehearsals with the Year 4. We are so proud of all of the hard work of both pupils and staff and we cannot wait for you to see the end result.
In English lessons this week the children were revising their grammar knowledge. They continued to look at ‘Escape from Pompeii’. Year 3 then used their inference skills to write speech bubbles discussing the thoughts and feelings of the main characters from the story. In maths lessons pupils were using arrays and grouping to solve division equations. Towards the end of the week the children were ready to use the written bus stop method to start to solve some tricky 3 digit division problems.
Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed humanities this week as they studied the various volcanoes all over the world. Ask your child to name the different types of volcanoes and their various features.
It was a wet week but that did not deter pupils from enjoying Forest School this week. The children had great fun creating their own leaf art and taking part in nature scavenger hunts. Year 3 continued to investigate different types of rock in their science lessons. They even discovered the effects of weather erosion on sedimentary rocks.
The week concluded with a visit from Father Christmas at the school Christmas Fair. We are sure the children will be on the nice list after all of their hard work this term!
Year 4 - The children have been working hard to perfect their pantomime performance. Children have completed a full dress rehearsal and are looking forward to performing to their first official audience on Monday morning. It has been wonderful to see them bringing their characters to life.
In Maths, children have been looking at factor bugs and can now competently explain what factors and products are. They also explored square numbers and their representation on a factor bug.
Children have enjoyed their research project in Topic lessons. Children were put into groups and were each given a contact to research in greater depth including facts relating to population, climate and location.
Year 5 & 6 - On Friday this week Mr McManus and Mr Wallis took 12 of our Year 5 pupils to a rugby day at St Albans School. It sounded like they had a lot of fun whilst progressing their skills ready for the season ahead.
We hope you enjoyed the Christmas Fair this Saturday. The upper school did a fantastic job of raising money for their chosen charities and we hope this has put you and your families in the holiday mood.
Year 5 - Year 5 children have shown their resilience this week in a series of assessments in English: lexile (year average 846L), spelling, grammar and punctuation, and comprehension. Results highlight strengths and areas for consolidation going forward as children develop test technique and learn to work under increasing time constraints.
In their science lessons this week, Year 5 have been carrying out an examined practical, looking at how the size of helicopter wings affect the speed they fall. They will link the size of the wing to air resistance. They have planned this experiment themselves and will draw graphs and write conclusions. This is the culmination of their forces topic. You can see images of pupils in Year 5 completing this experiment.
Year 6 - Year 6 children took their lexile text this week (year average 990L). We are approaching the end of Pullman’s novella Clockwork which is challenging children to consider ethical questions regarding life and death, and choices that characters make. Children have been practising their oracy skills in a series of Harkness discussions and will prepare for one final debate focussing on the novella’s ending.
In their science lessons this week year 6 have been developing their Bunsen burner skills through the topic of heat energy transfer. They completed a conduction experiment, where they heated stips of metal and saw how quickly the attached pins took to fall off. The pins that fell off the fastest indicated that the metal was a better conductor. You can see pictures of year 6 completing this experiment.
Well done to all our Year 8s who took part in the Christmas Fair stalls this weekend. We were very impressed with your entrepreneurial spirit.
Year 8 took part in some challenging practical science experiments last week. Please see the photos below.
On Thursday we welcomed 17 school teams to the U11 Boys' and Girls' County Table Tennis Finals. Around 80 schools entered the competition and initially each of the nine districts in Hertfordshire ran District Championships with only the winners progressing through to the County Finals. On November 17th we hosted the U11 and U13 District Championships and all four of our teams were victorious. Both the U11 finals were all Edge Grove contests with our Boys' U11 A team beating our C team (Year 5) 7-1 and the Girls' A team winning 6-2 against the B team. The U13 Girls had a bye through to next Monday's Final whilst the U13 Boys' team had a narrow win over a strong Watford Boys team, 4-4 on games in the final match but we went through on countback.
This Thursday in the Finals the standard was very high and the U11 Boys finished 5th after their 4 league matches against Kings, Bengeo, Gardenfields and Welwyn St Mary's (W1, D1, L2) and a 7-1 win over Pixmore in the 5th/6th playoff match. The U11 Girls won 2 and drew 1 of their league games against King James, Greenway and Welwyn to reach the County Final and only narrowly lost to King's 3-5. Congratulations to the girls who wore their silver medals with pride!! The U13 Boys and Girls have their finals on Monday at the Ridgeway Academy.
County Final Teams: U11s: Ben, Kaelan, James, Hunter; Amelie, Darcey, Zuriela, LaceyU13s: Rex, Ben, Tobi, Jamie: Caitlin, Amelie, Ophelia, Emilia
Congratulations to Daniel and Kiersten who passed their latest ju jitsu gradings this evening and received their new belts.
Finally, well done to everyone who took part in fixtures last week. You can read the Match Reports here.
Music - Well done to all pupils who performed in last week's Rush Hour & Piano Platform. It was fantastic to have our youngest musicians perform in Year 1 all the way to Upper School.
Thank you to all those who attended, we look forward to seeing you at Bah Humbug, Prep School Carol Service and the array of Nativities over the coming fortnight.
Tis’ the most wonderful time of year!
D&T - Year 8 manufacturing of clock project - Product Design
This week in D&T, the Year 8 pupils in Product Design have been manufacturing their clock projects. The project theme focuses on the GCSE design movements providing an insight for pupils into higher levels. They have been exploring their chosen design movement, sketching, developing and finalising an idea to make. The pupils have been learning about the materials they will be using to make their designs, studying 2 groups, woods and plastics (plywood, acrylic and vinyl). This provides the pupils with the subject knowledge and understanding of different materials and how they can be used in designing and making their products. They are utilising a wide range of tools and equipment to manufacture their final product, such as the scroll saw, belt sander and coping saw.
