It is always sad to say "Goodbye" to our Year 6 leavers at the end of their Primary School Years. This morning we said our farewell at the Leavers' Service, this year by Zoom. A new experience for us all!
Mrs Dickinson and I are immensely proud of this class of children. We have all loved teaching them and will miss them. They have been kind to one another, thoughtful, humorous, attentive in class, and eager to learn. We wish them every success and happiness as they move onto new challenges next year.
Thank you Katrin Kennedy for joining us today, giving out the prizes and reminding the children of the importance of resilience and hard work.
We have shared some lovely photos with you.
Enjoy the weekend.
Mrs Korcz
Headmistress
Calendar & Events
SCHOOL YEAR
2020-2021
Autumn Term 2020
Term Starts:
Wednesday 2/9/20
Half Term:
19/10/20 - 30/10/20
End of Term: Friday 11/12/20
Spring Term 2021
Term Starts:
Tuesday 5/1/21
Half Term:
15/2/21 - 19/2/21
End of Term: Thursday 1/4/21
Summer Term 2021
Term Starts:
Monday 19/4/21
May Day:
3/5/21
Half Term:
31/5/21 - 4/6/21
End of Term: Friday 16/7/21
ISSUE: 417 10th July 2020
IMPORTANT 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 13th July ACTIVITY DAY - NORMAL SCHOOL HOURS
Tuesday 14th July ACTIVITY DAY - NORMAL SCHOOL HOURS
Wednesday 15th July ACTIVITY DAY
END OF TERM - - NORMAL SCHOOL HOURS
Benjamin in Year 2 has lost his blue PE jacket and it is named. Please could we ask you to check at home and in cars, just in case it has been picked up accidentally.
Come September our music teachers will have spaces, so if you'd like your child to learn a musical instrument, please contact the school office.
We are very proud of our music department here at Grantham Prep and we offer the children the chance to learn a variety of instruments such as Clarinet, Saxophone, Flute, Recorder, Violin, Trumpet, Cornet, Trombone, Guitar, Ukelele, Singing and Drums. All individual music lessons are taught by professional, qualified and highly talented music teachers.
The music department is vibrant and thriving, with our School Band, Choir, Rock Band and Clarinet ensemble often playing in assemblies, representing our school in the local community at local events, concerts, competitions to name but a few.
Have you ever thought about playing the piano? It is quite an amazing instrument to learn. The piano has 88 notes on the keyboard - but you don't need 88 fingers to play it!
The piano can play very high sounds like birds singing and it can play very low sounds like a big bear growling. You can make the piano whisper - or you can make it shout very loudly and make everyone 'jump' in surprise! Some piano music has one note at a time and in other music you can play eight or ten notes at the same time.
Playing the piano is good fun just by yourself, but you can also play duets with another pianist or with someone who plays a different instrument - piano and violin or piano and clarinet.
You do need a piano or a keyboard to practise and play on at home.
Above are the kind of music books you will use as you begin to play the piano. I hope you can see that it is all good fun - and I would love to help you enjoy this great way of making music.
I am very happy to announce that from September, Offstage Drama will be resuming their Saturday drama workshops.
There will be two sessions:
9.30 am - 10.30 am - Children aged 4-11
10.30 am - 11.30 am - Secondary aged children
We will ensure that children are spaced out, the hall is well-ventilated and that good hand hygiene is adhered to. We already have contact details for all of the families, so that if there were any concerns, this could be shared quickly. This is subject, of course, to any further updates from the Government nearer the time.
I would like to offer any current children in Year 6, whether or not they already attend the sessions, the chance to join the 10.30am workshop.
Please contact Ellie Dickinson for more information on offstagedrama1@gmail.com
What happened to the weather this week? In spite of the wet and drizzling days the children have still managed to have another fun week. We had a hula hoop competition in the middle of the week and found out that we had a natural ‘hula hooper’ Isla. She just stood there and effortlessly managed over 30 rotations. Unfortunately for the other children and adults in the unit it was not such an easy task!!! But we’ll have to keep on practising.
The children have also had some lovely creative afternoons relaxing to water music and creating some wonderful pieces of art. They choose to paint some multicoloured fish, patterned beetles and colourful rainbow flies. They have also been making some wonderful fans with lots of different friendship messages on to keep themselves cool ready for next week’s heatwave. Fingers crossed. What a busy week! Well done everyone another fabulous week of learning.
What an amazing group of young explorers we have in Year One...when the enormous World map was unfurled (covering four tables), the children set about looking for key locations, familiar holiday destinations, different continents, oceans and landmarks. Some of the boys thought it would be fun to build an Egyptian Pyramid; complete with internal labyrinth, quickly followed by Anya deciding to design her own flag for a new country - the motto on one side being "Hello!" and on the reverse "Bye-Bye!" At the end of a very busy year, it is an absolute delight to see that the children have retained their boundless enthusiasm for creativity and learning. I am an extremely lucky and proud class teacher. Well done everyone. Have a lovely summer break.
Class Two tackled the Marshmallow and Spaghetti Tower Challenge!
This exercise is a great way to encourage team members to collaborate, problem solve and to model design thinking such as testing and iterating. This activity also encourages critical thinking by asking participants to synthesize what they learned quickly to create new designs. Must also demonstrate resilience in the face of challenges or frustrations.
Somehow, we managed to keep a few spare to munch on at the end! Congratulations Benjamin, Jack and Rupert who got the tallest tower on the day! Although the competition was very close! All the children had a tremendous time and it was lovely to see them working together. Some of the conversations were priceless! It is lovely to see the class collaborating so well together and proves we have become a really close family.
Class 3 have been very busy again this week. All the children have been working incredibly hard in school and at home.We have covered a wide variety of subjects including Hurricanes in Geography, Marie Curie in History, John Logie Baird in Science, Pointillism in Art and Mr Stink in English.
They should be very proud of the effort they are putting into their studies and they always have a smile on their face.
This week class 4 has enjoyed listening to the story of ‘Wind in the Willows.’ Following this they have analysed the character of toad and written supporting views for their opinion of him. Finally they illustrated their work with water reeds and riverbank foliage. Well done.
Mrs Kennedy
CLASS 4 STEAM - Shop Till You Drop
This week’s challenge was to create a design for a paper carrier bag.
On one side of the carrier bag the children were asked to create a design to reflect the ocean, whilst on the other side they were challenged to create a design showing mini beasts and flowers. I’m sure you will agree that they used their imagination admirably.
This week class 5 managed to dodge the rain in order to get outside and do some socially distanced athletics. Not the most ideal conditions for sprinting but we hope you enjoy our videos we made.
Mr Tranter
Semi-Final 1
Semi-Final 2
Final
Trioramas
This week class 5 created a triorama a 3D model. We hope you like our creativity and the finished pieces.
We have been busily making things for our upcoming production of Peter Pan, putting up the set and finalising sounds effects and costumes.
Of course, we have been keeping up to date with the adventures of the illusive Ickabog too; we are now at Chapter 60! Evie, George and Millie have been working hard on projects based on their favourite sports.
This week has been also filled up with preparing our Leavers' speeches, and this has surprisingly crept up on us really quickly!
The rain did not stop us. We played the Rock, Paper, Scissors, Run game, football and continued with the Daily mile.
This week preschool children had a closer look of POMPOM stories make the healthy eating more fun. What is Gomboc Artur’s favourite food he would eat in any shape and size? What would he never eat?Was he right? Noooooo. So we did the opposite, we played „GUESS WHAT?” figuring out fruits from it’s texture, smell, feel and of course we ate them all in a yummy salad! And what if you „accindetally” ate some sweets or chocolate? You brush your teeth just the way we learnt how to do it properply on a premade mould teeth. As part of a healthy lifestlye we went to and moved our body in POMPOM’s playground and not at last we enjoyed the refreshing watergame in the garden! Ildikó Popovics - Preschool Teacher SEK Budapest International School HUNGARY
Breakout rooms - an online useful tool
Videoconferences and online classes are things rarely thought of for school education and even less for children who are just beginning their literacy, reading and writing development. Our students have demonstrated a great adaptability to remote classes, a completely new methodology for them.
It is understood as “normal” to attend school, to play in the schoolyard, to learn and share together in a classroom, but this change has made the students of our School learn and use different tools and platforms that sooner or later they would start to use in the near future.
Working in groups online, something that perhaps we never thought could be possible to carry out, has been something that has helped students to feel closer to each other. Breakout rooms are great for splitting off from the main meeting, as they allow participants to meet in smaller groups. There are many benefits of using this feature; increases interaction amongst classmates, promotes learning, facilitates widespread participation and allows students to work at their own pace. Other advantages we have seen is that increases socialization and connectivity with peers, project management, and plan more effectively.
Diana Abello from 8th Grade says: “Working in groups has some advantages because it is easier to share information and learn it all together as a team, you can see the different points of view and maybe laugh for a while.”
“I like working in groups because we usually do something different than what we do in classes, also as I am a new student, it gives me a chance to get to know my classmates better.” says Rosario Muñoz from 8th Grade.
Valentina Tapia from 6th Grade says: “When you work in a group, the work is distributed among the members of the group and the responsibility is shared with the participants.”
Breakout rooms are definitely a great way to improve teachers’ class management techniques, and it also helps students focusing better when learning new material.
Mónica González Ojeda
English Coordinator
Colegio Internacional SEK Austral SANTIAGO DE CHILE – CHILE
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.
