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From the

Headmistress
Dear Parents

As the period of Advent approaches we look forward to celebrating with a Christingle service on Monday 10th December in St Wulfram's Church  starting at 6pm.  Please arrive from 5.30pm.  Staff will receive your children and drinks and mince pies will be available for you at the back of the Church.

We are preparing for this service at school and as it is part of our Christmas celebrations, we hope that all our children will be able to come from Reception up to Y6.  Pre-School children are also very welcome but we understand that these children are very young and may be too tired so of course please make a sensible judgement on the day.

Children will sit with Class teachers or music groups at the front of the church and we will dismiss the children in an orderly fashion at the end of the service to you, a class at a time, starting with Reception.  We believe that the service will last approximately 45 minutes, finishing before 7pm.


The idea of "Christingles" came from a Moravian Church in Germany in 1747.  Children were given a lighted candle with a red ribbon around it.  Over the years the symbolism of the Christingle grew into what is known as a Christingle service today.
  • The orange represents the world
  • The candle is the light in the dark, like the love of God
  • The red ribbon is a symbol of the blood shed for all of us
  • The four sticks point in all directions and symbolise North, South, East and West
  • The fruits or sweets on the sticks represent the fruits of the earth
We will be making and transporting the Christingles we make at school on December 10th.  We would be very grateful if you could provide your child with an orange and soft sweets on the day, to make a Christingle at school.  Children do not necessarily receive their own back at the end of the service, but we encourage everyone to make the best one they can for another child at school.  We will provide the candles, sticks and ribbon.

The first Christingle service was held in England in 1968, so this year we celebrate 50 years of Christingle services in England.

As the service was made popular by The Children's Society, one of the earliest charities in the UK, we will be handing out collection moneyboxes to the children, should any child wish to donate their pocket money.  We will collect these moneyboxes on Friday 14th December.

There will also be boxes in the school entrance hall from Friday 7th December for donations of toys for the King's School Toy Bank appeal.  We would like to collect quality pre-loved warm coats for children or adults as well and we will donate these to the Food Bank in Grantham and ensure that everything is delivered before Christmas.

Thank you for your support and I am sure we will all have a very enjoyable evening together.

Over this weekend I have the opportunity to join my colleagues within IES at our annual conference.  This year we will meet in Venice, with our waterproof boots!, and look forward to visiting our sister school in Udine Italy, where some of our children will be enjoying an exchange visit next Spring.

Enjoy the weekend.

Mrs K. Korcz

Calendar & Events

Autumn Term 2018

Term Starts:
Tuesday 4/9/18
Half Term:
22/10/18 - 2/11/18
End of Term:
Friday 14/12/18


Spring Term 2019

Term Starts:
Monday 7/1/19
Half Term:
18/2/19 - 22/2/19 
End of Term:
Friday 5/4/19



Summer Term 2019

Term Starts:
Tuesday 23/4/19
May Day:
Monday 6/5/19
Half Term:
27/5/19 - 31/5/19 
End of Term:

Wednesday 17/7/19

ISSUE: 353 22nd November 2018

IM
PORTANT PARENT INFORMATION


Cool Cats Uniform Supplier: TGPS website - Please access the Uniform & Equipment heading on the home page there is a direct link to the Cool Cats website.

WEEKLY EVENTS     

Monday 26th November
Reception & Pre-School visit to Sundown Adventureland

Tuesday 27th November
Pre-School visit to Brick Kiln Place

Wednesday 28th November
U11/U10/U9 Cross Country @ Highfields
U11/U10/U9 Netball v. Peterborough


Thursday 29th November
Y6 visit to Royal Academy in London
Christmas Choir Festival - Walton Girls School


IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Friday 7.12.18              Friends of Grantham Prep Meeting,
                                   9am


Monday 10.12.18          Christmas Dinner, at school
                                   Christingle Service, 6pm
                                   at St Wulframs

Tuesday 11.12.18         Nativity Production, EYFS & Infants

Wednesday 12.12.18    Nativity Production, EYFS & Infants


Thursday 13.12.18        Infant and Junior Discos & Santa's
                                   Grotto

Friday 14.12.18            Christmas Jumper Day!
                                   School Christmas Carol Service
                                   End of Term. School ends
                                   12.30pm

Notices

Walton Christmas Choir Festival

 
The Junior Choir are looking forward to taking part in the festival on Thursday 29th November.
Just to remind parents that the children need to be dropped off at Walton Girls’ School at 5.00pm ready for the festival to begin at 5.30pm. With the exception of those children returning from London and being collected by school minibus from the station.  It is anticipated that the event will end around 6.30pm.

I am just waiting for the allocation of tickets for parents and as soon as I have the imformation I will be in touch.

Many thanks for your support.

Miss Linehan
Donations 

Boxes will be in the school entrance hall from Friday 7th December for donations of toys for the King's School Toy Bank appeal.  We would also like to collect quality pre-loved warm coats for children or adults and we will donate these to the Food Bank in Grantham.
Infant Production 2018 - Born in a Barn

Rehearsals are well underway for this year's Infant Production. The children are working hard to remember their lines and to learn all the songs. We are all looking forward to entertaining you! Performances will take place on Tuesday 11th and Wednesday 12th December at 2 pm. Tickets will be available for the two afternoon performances on Tuesday 4th December; please see Mrs Howard or Mrs Dawson at the School Office to collect yours! Please could we request that all costumes are brought in to the Infant Classes by this date in readiness for dress rehearsals and practice sessions?  As always, your support is greatly appreciated at this busy time of year. We look forward to sharing our talents with you soon.
Mrs Bell
Inter-House Recitation
Pre-School & Reception Inter House Recitation 

It was lovely to watch the Pre-School children start off the Infant Recitation morning with their wonderful poem 'Autumn Leaves'. They were so confident with their speaking and actions during the performance. Well done! Also a big well done to some Reception children : Alexandra, Emily, Henrietta, Arjun and Isabelle for their fantastic poem recitations last Friday in front of all the infants and the judge Mrs Lewis. The poem was certainly a tongue twister! We were all very impressed and proud to have such confident speakers at such a young age! Well done you five!  It was also lovely to see all the other children in the infants celebrating everyone's performance. What a super morning!


Mrs Ives
Inter-House Recitation
 
Last Friday was the annual Inter-House Recitation competition and we were treated to a wide range of poems with entrants from every class within the school. Pre-school started the competition in the morning with a wonderful rendition of Autumn Leaves. All the children throughout the school had learnt their poems well and performed them with confidence. I had chosen  quite a tricky poem for the children in Reception but they all rose to the challenge and spoke with clarity and enthusiasm. A huge thank you to Mrs Lewis who had the very difficult job of adjudicating the entries. Well done to everybody who took part.


The winners this year were as follows:
Reception 
1st Alexandra
2nd  Emily

Class 1 and 2
1st Taseen
2nd Iris and Anna

Class 3 and 4
1st Pippa
2nd Hattie and Sophia

Class 5 and 6
1st Aidan
2nd Elijah and Phoebe C

Overall Infant Winner
Taseen (Class 2)

Overall Junior Winner
Aidan (Class 5)

House Recitation Trophy   Newton
Children in Need 2018
Children in Need 2018. What a Spotacular fundraiser!
 
So, about a month ago, we started to plan for this year’s event. We talked about last year’s successful cake sale and games in the hall; analysing the highs and lows and considering the ease of running and organising the various activities. We discussed the age range of our pupils and wanted to make sure that even our youngest visitors could access the various competitions on offer. We eliminated outdoors ones – even though sponge a teacher was a popular suggestion – as the weather is so unpredictable at this time of year!

Soon, we had a list of 5 games, suitable for all ages and the usual cake sale. We also ran a Year 5/6 quiz and the Duck Sweepstake Race for the staff.

We had a long to-do list, but everyone was assigned their specific roles and the day quickly arrived.

We set up quickly after lunch, so that we could ensure every age group could have about 20 mins in the hall, and had a dry-run of explaining how each activity worked.  Even Pudsey put in an appearance to keep an eye on everything!

It was a very busy afternoon, however, a lot of fun was had by all; and I think a lot of cake was consumed by all!

We had hoped to beat last year’s amazing total. Well, I think you’ll agree, we well and truly smashed it!! So far (as sponsorship funds are still coming in) we have raised ......£748.12!

Thank you so much for all of the staff for their support and help, especially Miss Cowen; thank you and well done to all of Year 6 for a well-organised and well-run event; huge thanks must also go to all of the parents who baked and donated a vast array of cakes and biscuits – we were so inundated that we continued to sell them in the car park at the end of the day and fed the staff till the following Tuesday!
 
Well done Grantham Prep for your support of children in the UK who are not so fortunate as we are.
 
Year 1 Animal Alphabet
An alphabet of Animals

During this term's topic on Animals, Class One have been bringing together many different research skills in order to complete an alphabet challenge. Using the Barefoot Atlas app on the iPads, fact books, dictionaries and Internet search engines, everyone has been able to locate, name and make detailed notes about a plethora of creatures. The children worked well in pairs; finding and recording their answers. We have all learnt so much about habitats, animal young and ways to conserve Earth and its resources for all of its inhabitants. Super work, Year One. 
Year 1 - Christmas Preparations
Christmas Preparations
 
As part of our work on festivals in RE, Year One have been finding out about The First Christmas and the way in which Christians celebrate this time of year.  The children have retold the story of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus' time in Bethlehem and painted some beautiful pictures. They have also been very proactive in making decorations to add some Christmas  sparkle to the classroom, clay decorations for their trees at home and wrapping paper to carry everything away in. It really was like Santa's workshop on Monday afternoon! Love teamwork and sharing. Well done.

Mrs Bell
Y4 - ISA Art Competition
ISA Midlands Region Art Competition
 
This year's annual art competition was held at St. Dominic's Grammar School, Brewood, Staffordshire.  The competition attracts entries from all over the east Midlands.  We are delighted to announce that Holly H in Year 4 gained second place in the "drawing category" and Phoebe C's work was highly commended.
 
Congratulations to both on their achievement.  Well done.

Mrs Kennedy
Sport
U11's Hockey - Blues  v. St Hugh's
 
The Blue team played St Hugh’s A’s first. The girls pressured the opposition to try and force some errors. They held their ground and prevented several goals from being conceded, with true defensive grit. However, St Hugh's managed to score twice in the first half. 

St Hugh's got off to a flying second half, scoring twice in the first ten minutes of play. However, despite our midfielders turning the ball over to our attackers quickly,  we couldn’t quite get the ball into the opposition’s goal. 

We need to remember to take a hit at goal the minute we enter the shooting circle and follow it up if it doesn’t go in. The ball was lost several times at crucial goal scoring moments by dribbling and taking too long to take a shot at goal. 

In addition to this, too many balls were missed by us, as we didn’t maintain a low body stance. This resulted in our sticks not being held at ground level, which is crucial for intercepting the ball at speed. 

Despite this feedback, I was very proud of the girls as it’s only their second term of hockey and they’ve succeeded in picking up some impressive skills. It was not an easy win for the opposition and they’ve been playing hockey for sometime. The St Hugh's teacher commented on how much the Grantham standard has improved since last year, which is always lovely to hear. 

Final score 4-0 loss 
U11's Hockey - Gold team v. St Hugh's

The Golds played St Hughs B’s and dominated the ball possession. There were some lovely passes whereby the ball was transferred from end to end in rapid succession, catching the opponents off guard. 

Phoebe showed some promising hockey manoeuvres, posting up towards the ball and defence and then rolling out to pass or carry the ball towards our attacking end. 

Hannah and Iniya got stuck in to the game helping Georgie M (GK) to defend the goal end successfully. 

We all need to remember to pressure the opponents rather than allowing them to gain ground. Also, it’s equally important to hold our space on the pitch so that we have passing options and don’t overcrowd. 

Well done to everyone who played. An impressive and well deserved win to us of 3-0. 

Girls, please keep the good work up over the winter and Spring by playing in a club (if you can squeeze it in). The ball time will help you develop your skills and game play immensely. 

A very happy Mrs Klimes and Mrs Clegg. 
Music

Recorder Group


Don't forget Recorders on Thursday lunchtime in Class 6. Bring your recorder and your music. 

Band in the morning,
Band in the morning,
Band in the morning.
Whoop, Whoop!!!!!!!!

 
Mr Giles's top tip …. “Practice the Rhythm Studies regularly to learn “Blocks” of rhythms. Be really accurate and count as you play. This will help you to become great sight readers!”

 
News from IES/SEK Schools
Entrepreneurship projects
 
On November 9th, our highschool students presented their entrepreneurship projects that have been thoughtfully and carefully planned since day one of this school year. This particular event was an interdiciplinary event between Mathematics and Business areas. Such interactions between areas seek a holistic education which happens to be the most significant approach in education nowadays.
 
Wilson Moreno
English Teacher
 
Colegio Internacional SEK Guayaquil
GUAYAQUIL – ECUADOR

People's Procession

It is with immense pride that St John's staff and pupils attended the People's Procession this week. As a nation, we owe such a great debt to those who fought for our country. St John's has a particular tie to WW1, in that 1914's events lead to the first intake of children at the convent, as it was then, and thus we became an educational establishment for the first time. There is also an incredible story of WW2 bombs being dropped in "The Convent Fields", leading to the large dip in the ground that now houses our Sports Hall. Every single window of the school was blown out and boarders had to relocate to the basement for the remainder of the war.
 
All our pupils walked in silence, showing respect as we went through the town, and stared at the waves in one the of most poignant memories that I, and no doubt countless others, have ever had in my time in Sidmouth. I was proud to be there and proud of our pupils. Many, many thanks to our former parent, Mr Willis-Fleming, who likewise is heavily involved in the history of St John's, albeit in more recent times. We would be delighted to participate again in future.
 
Mr Davies
 
St. Jonh’s International School
UNITED KINGDOM
Lunch Note

Lunches are provided for all children by Edwards and Blake 
(Website:
www.edwardsandblake.co.uk )

 
If you are selecting your child's lunches on a weekly basis, it must be done by midnight Thursday of the previous week.  Once you have made your choices, unfortunately, you are unable to change them.  However, if your child would like to change a meal, please email the school office (contact.grantham@iesmail.com) with the date and meal choice that you would like changing and we will make the changes for you.

The Wise pay booking system for hot lunches is available through the TGPS website.

Thank you.


 
School Bus Collection Points & Times
 
Bookings for this week:
Please contact the school office to book a place for your child.
8.10am         Normanton on Cliffe
8.20am         Ancaster
8.25am         Wilsford
On Fridays the bus will run 15 minutes earlier to ensure pupils arrive in time for the *Music Machine" School Band rehearsal.

Access to the School Building after 4.30pm

As you are all aware there is now a gate which has a key code access to the Creche in the evening.  If you do not have the code,  please call 01476 593293 and your call will be answered by Creche.

   





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Grantham Preparatory International School, Gorse Lane,Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 7UF
Tel: 01476 593293      Email: contact.grantham@iesmail.com       Web: www.tgps.co.uk
 






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Grantham Preparatory International School · Gorse Lane · Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 7UF · United Kingdom

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