It was wonderful to welcome three teams from Ayscoughfee Hall and their parents to enjoy a competitive, afternoon on the sports field. The sun shone and all the children clearly enjoyed themselves. The children have waited a long time for competitive school sport to return and thank you for your support yesterday.
Please let us know if you would like to visit school on Wednesday 13th October for the Open Day. We want to welcome parents and prospective parents back into school but are still being cautious and trying to avoid crowds inside school if we can. We will timetable appointments to help prevent this.
We would like to support International E-Waste Day on October 14th. Environcom will deliver a container to our school which will be collected on 14th October. If you have any unwanted or broken small electrical appliances (anything with a plug), please dispose of them in our container once it arrives (we will let you know when it does). Environcom will dispose of the items by either reusing or recycling.
I am hoping that we may be able to share a video with our children about how these items can be recycled rather than buried in landfill. I know we all care about the environment and need to be thinking about how to protect it for future generations.
The day after on Friday 15th October, we would like to support "Just One Tree Day". I suggest the children and colleagues wear one item of clothing that is green (jumper, trousers or tights or socks or shirt) and donate £1 for this cause if you wish to. The money will be used to plant trees somewhere on the planet. This will give us the opportunity to talk to the children about trees and the impact they have on our environment. Did you know that on average a tree absorbs 48lbs of carbon dioxide per year for every year of its life? Hopefully "Just One Tree Day" will generate some interesting discussions in all classrooms with all age groups.
The Saturday our Y6 will complete the second non verbal reasoning paper and we wish them all every success on Saturday. We will be thinking about them all.
After a long hiatus of school sport, it was wonderful to see so many of our children out in force representing the school against Ayscoughfee yesterday. Though nerves were running high to begin with, the U9 and U10 Netball teams both started out strong, with the U9 Netballers scoring in the first quarter. As the adrenaline flowed, both teams fought hard for every pass, attacking with confidence and bravely defending every shot. Both games were very evenly matched, and after 32 mins of play, the U9 team celebrated their first victory of the year, with the U10 team losing narrowly by 1 goal. A promising start to the 2021/22 year, and encouraging to see so many of our students back on the pitch and court.
Final Scores
U9 - Grantham Prep 5 - 1 Ayscoughfee Hall
U10 - Grantham Prep 0 - 1 Ayscoughfee Hall
Team U10 Netball
Abigail, Anna, Connie, Fraser, George, Jessica, Owen, Serena, Billy
U9 Tag Rugby v. Ayscoughfee Hall
After a 2 year absence, tag rugby was finally back at Grantham Preparatory with an under 9's fixture at home against Ayscoughfee Hall. In the glorious late September sunshine and with a crowd of eager spectators watching on, both teams lined up on the field ready to commence in competition, which had been so sorely missed!
It was the visitors who started the brighter of the two teams scoring an early try. This seemed to spark Grantham into life and woke them up, knowing it was not going to be an easy afternoon's play. The home team responded with two great tries of their own. The match continued to ebb and flow with both teams seemingly scoring tries whenever they liked as they entered the fourth quarter.
Ayscoughfee managed to improve defensively stopping attack after attack from Grantham but as the game drew on the home team managed to pull away from their opponents with some excellent late tries, leaving Grantham the victors on what was an excellent afternoon's game of tag rugby.
This week in STEM the children were challenged to find as many circular logos as possible. They worked in pairs using the iPads to find the logos and then drew them on their worksheet. It was wonderful to see the older juniors working so well alongside the younger ones. Great communication and teamwork was evident during the whole task.
This week the children have been learning all about Queen Victoria. The children spent time looking at her early life, her marriage to Prince Albert, her children and grandchildren before linking this to their previous WWI topic and discussing the impact she had on Europe and the world. It is important to use prior learning when learning something new. The more we understand about what students already think, and the more we help them engage their prior understandings, the more likely they are to learn well! Here is some of the children's work to show. They should feel proud of the results.
We spent our Drama lesson this week, discussing the history of Elizabethan theatre and the play Macbeth. We have talked about the themes of ambition and the importance of the witches. The whole class have thoroughly enjoyed learning the characters' names, using them in a game and we have begun to act it out in a simple narrated version. You can see some of the characters in action. The play deals with multiple deaths and murders and over the next few weeks they will see it really does become a case of last man standing.
Well done Class 5, another fantastic and varied week - including clips of Mr Bean.
Pupils have been working on the formal method of multiplication, so learning those times tables is essential for success.
Rupert reminded his classmates how to use your fingers to check the 9 times tables, and we had lots of willing volunteers to work on the board to figure out the examples.
Setting out work neatly and working in a methodical manner, pupils were keen to achieve 100% accuracy in their work.
This week in science the children have been tackling parts of a flower. Having already learned about the parts of a plant and what they do, the children began by looking at the different parts of the flower. Once they had labelled the parts of the flower and expertly coloured the picture in, they moved onto dissecting a flower to try and find the different parts. As the pictures clearly show, the children were extremely successful when it came to finding and naming the parts of a flower and the smiles on their faces were just the icing on the cake! I could not have been prouder of the children's attitude and listening skills, well done class 3!
This week in Science, we have been studying Materials and their physical properties. The children learnt that all things around us are natural or man-made materials. They were excited to go on a materials hunt around the classroom to find out how many objects were made from wood, glass, metal, plastic or paper. We were all surprised that lots of everyday objects were made from plastic!
In PSHE, we have been talking about healthy living and eating which is very important to us all. The children agreed that we should eat at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables every day and limit consumption of sugary and fatty foods. They then created a healthy plate and demonstrated their knowledge of a well-balanced diet.
In English, the children were asked to describe the beautifully illustrated picture of a bear in their creative writing. The activity was fun and engaging and the children enjoyed reading their work to the class.
Well done Class 2 for working very hard this week!
Another busy week has flown by in Year One and once again it has been full of fun and learning. In Literacy, the children have been retelling traditional tales, singing along to associated songs, taking part in quizzes and being interviewed as characters from the stories. In Numeracy, the focus has been 2D shape, money and subtraction. I have been very impressed by my young mathematicians. In Science, everyone is becoming very knowledgeable about animal groups and their characteristics. In Art, it has been delightful to listen to the conversation about the Nigerian born artist William Uzo Egonu, who left his Nigerian birthplace at a very young age with the express desire of becoming an artist. The children have been closely observing examples of his colourful and intricate work before making their own interpretations. The artwork achieved by everyone is stunning. Well done Class One. You are all amazing.
In Reception and Pre-School the children have had a super third week with lots of fun learning outside. They have continued to adapt well to all the routines in their class and around the school. For their physical development this week we have been using the new wooden outdoor equipment which the children have been climbing over, jumping off and certainly working at taking turns to use and to share.
They have enjoyed some super PE sessions with Mrs Joyce and are becoming so good at following instructions. In Literacy, the children have been reading The Three Little Pigs and have loved retelling this traditional tale and acting out the story with their friends. They have been building and designing individual houses for the little pigs.
The children have also been looking at repeated patterns and have been ordering and sequencing the pigs’ houses with the big bad wolf. They have even embarked on some role play which involved complicated road repairs outside one of the pig’s houses.
Bookings for this week:
Please contact the school office to book a place for your child.
8.05am Honnington
8.10am Barkston
8.20am Ancaster Playing Field
8.25am Ancaster Leisure Car Park (The Tank)
On Fridays the bus will run 15 minutes earlier to ensure pupils arrive in time for School Band.
The school bus mobile:
07784 343749
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.
