News from Middle Prep
8th December 2023
Well, as predicted, Buttons our elf has proven to be rather troublesome! We have seen him put googly eyes on the childrens fruit, climb down a rope ladder from our balcony, sandwich himself between two slices of toast to keep warm and fly into school on an aeroplane! He has been very busy indeed. The children have very much been enjoying looking for him each day, and I have heard many of them explaining to parents about what Buttons has been up to.
We started the week off with Year 3 informal concerts. It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to perform in front of their encouraging peers and parents, boosting their confidence and ability to stand up in front of a crowd. I was impressed by the skills and talents the children displayed.
On Tuesday, all of Middle Prep (Years 3-6) were fortunate enough to be entertained by Year 8’s production of Annie. Seeing the older children don their costumes, perform with confidence to the younger children and inspiring them is always a pleasure to see. ‘Break a leg’ tonight, Year 8, when you perform to your friends and families.
Year 3 have been getting into the festive spirit, and through their learning of persuasive language, they have written letters, in the hope of getting some good presents from Father Christmas! When I meandered into Mrs Klein’s English lesson at the beginning of the week, the children were trying to persuade me to allow them an extra hour of lunchtime!
Year 5 had a glorious trip to the Mary Rose Museum, in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard. Connecting children with opportunities outside the classroom is essential for broadening their horizons and developing their skill sets and this trip enabled them to embed their knowledge of the Tudors. We had wonderful feedback from the museum expressing how wonderful the children were – ‘polite, engaged and well-behaved’ – well done Year 5!
Year 4 had a follow-up creative session with Mark from the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, where they discovered more about habitats and conservation. I was fortunate enough to be able to hear Mark discussing deforestation and the use of palm oil to an engaged sea of faces.
In maths, Year 6 joined forces across the entire year group to take part in a mammoth maths quiz. Children choose their groups of 3 to work in, and they were given 1 hour to answer as many of the 100 questions as they could. They were able to research the answers on their chromebooks or use a calculator. We look forward to marking these and ascertaining who the winning teams are.
We ended the week with a visit for Year 4 from a History Mystery Greek man. This gave the children the opportunity to explore Greek artefacts and to investigate the Greek alphabet.
As you can see, we have been extremely busy at school and our learning continues on.
Have lovely relaxing weekends, ahead of our final week before Father Christmas makes his appearance down your chimneys!
Miss Tyrrell
Head of Middle Prep
Deputy DSL