Today we held our harvest assembly together in our hall and enjoyed performances from different year groups.
It is an important opportunity in our school calendar to remind ourselves how fortunate we are living in Great Britain. At our school we have enough to eat and we need to give thanks and show gratitude for everything we have. The children did this brilliantly this morning through their contributions.
Thank you parents for your generous donations which will be delivered to Grantham Food bank at the end of the week.
We also took the opportunity this morning to say a sad but formal Goodbye to Mrs Clegg who will be leaving us at the end of the week after 21 years of loyal service at our school. We thanked her for the many different ways she has supported our children over the years and the children also offered their memories of her time with us. We will all miss her but wish her every happiness as she moves further North to support her own family.
By getting involved in school's Bag2School collection, you have an opportunity to sort through your cupboards and wardrobes and donate unwanted textiles in the bag provided - this can include adults' and children's clothes, shoes (tied together please), hats, belts, bags, soft toys. Please note bedding, curtains and household linen cannot be accepted. In addition it will also raise awareness amongst the children of the benefits of recycling and reusing. If you fill the donation bag and still have more, you can use any other bag to donate your items and don't forget to ask grandparents, friends and neighbours to have a sort out as well!
If you would like to know more about the Bag2School fundraising initiative then please log on to their website www.bag2school.comfor further details.
Friday 15th October
Wear Something Green to School, for "Just One Tree Day"
Swimming Rota
01.11.21 - Year 5 & Year 6
08.11.21 - Year 5 & Year 6
15.11.21 - Year 5 & Year 6
22.11.21 - Year 3 & Year 4
29.11.21 - Year 3 & Year 4
06.12.21 - Year 3 & Year 4
October
Diary
Friday 15th October Flu immunisations "Just One Tree Day" Break up for Half Term. (Normal pick up times)
Monday 18th - Friday 22nd October 2021 October Holiday Camp
Monday 1st November 2021 Back to School
November
Diary
Monday 1st November 2021 Back to School
Tuesday 2nd November 2021
Oakham Music Day (New date)
Wednesday 3rd November 2021
U8/U10 Tag Rugby @ St Hugh's
Thursday 4th November 2021
ISA Swimming Gala, Walsall
Monday 8th November 2021
Parents Evening, by Zoom, 4 - 6pm
Tuesday 9th November 2021
Parents Evening, by Zoom, 4 - 6pm
Wednesday 10th November 2021
Individual School Photos
U8/U9 Hockey @ St Hugh's
Thursday 11th November 2021
Parents Evening, by Zoom, 4 - 6pm
Y5/Y6 Mixed Football, 12 - 4.30pm
Friday 12th November 2021
Inter-House Recitation
Wednesday 17th November 2021
U11 Hockey @ Lincoln Minster
Thursday 18th November 2021
Y3/Y4 Mega Rugby Festival, Kesteven Rugby Club
Monday 22nd November 2021
Macbeth - Young Shakespeare Company in school
Wednesday 24th November 2021
U9 Tag Rugby @ Ayscoughfee Hall
Thursday 25th November 2021
U9/U11 Cross Country @ Highfields School
Saturday 27th November 2021
ISA Swim finals, London
Academic Year 2021 - 2022
Autumn Term 2021
Monday 6th September – Friday 10th December 2021
Half Term: Monday 18th October – Friday 29th October 2021
Spring Term 2022
Tuesday 4th January – Friday 1st April 2022
Half Term: Monday 14th February – Friday 18th February 2022
Summer Term 2022
Tuesday 19th April – Wednesday 20th July 2022
Half Term: Monday 30th May – Friday 3rd June 2022
May Day: Monday 2nd May 2022
Academic Year 2022 - 2023
Autumn Term 2022 Tuesday 6th September - Friday 9th December 2022
Half Term: Monday 17th October - Friday 28th October 2022
Spring Term 2023
Wednesday 4th January - Friday 31st March 2023
Half Term: Monday 13th February - Friday 17th February 2023
Summer Term 2023:
Tuesday 18th April – Friday 14th July 2023
Half Term: Monday 29th May – Friday 2nd June 2023
May Day: Monday 1st May 2023
Last week the Grantham Prep U9 rugby team enjoyed an action packed afternoon of games away at Stamford’s annual Festival of Rugby.
The team’s first game was against Laxton and after a cagey start and going a try behind the team clicked into life. Two quick tries from Benjamin and Rafferty saw Grantham victorious.
The following game saw the team share 3 tries a piece with a strong Spratton Hall opponent with tries from Benjamin and Henry getting a brace.
The next 3 games against Witham Hall, Bedford and Spratton Hall 2 were all closely contested games. Grantham tasted defeat for the first time of the afternoon with two quick one to nothing defeats. The team picked themselves up to manage a draw in the last of the three games against Spratton Hall 2.
The final game of the afternoon saw Grantham take on Bedford 2. With time ticking away and the score tied, Rupert made a great long run to score the winning try of the game. A great way to round of the afternoon.
Results:
Grantham 2-1 Laxton
Grantham 3-3 Spratton Hall
Grantham 0-1 Witham Hall
Grantham 0-1 Bedford
Grantham 0-0 Spratton Hall 2
Grantham 1-0 Bedford
On Monday, the year 4 children excitedly left school for a day of Tri-Golf at The Dixie Grammar Junior school. For some, this was an opportunity to try a new sport and learn some new skills, and for others it was a chance to perfect some of their already practised golfing skills and demonstrate these to the rest of the class. Five other schools had travelled to the event and so it was also a chance throughout the day to make some new friends.
The whole afternoon had a very inclusive, friendly feel to it, and it was lovely to get the opportunity for all of year 4 to spend a fun day together outside of school, participating in a new activity.
Well Done Henry!
A huge well done to Henry who was awarded Player of the Match at Kesteven Rugby Club U9’s match against Sleaford.
It was a brilliant match, superb contributions by all the Kesteven team including some excellent play from classmates Francesca, Rafferty and Benjamin.Great team effort all round!!
The last 2 weeks of TGPS matches will certainly have helped to sharpen their match play, so thanks to all involved in both Ascoughfee and Stamford fixtures.
Grantham & District Badminton Festival
It was great to see 12 of our year 6 children enjoying a fun filled Badminton taster session at KGGS on Wednesday night. The session was organised by Grantham and District Sports Association, and run by young sports leaders and the local badminton development officers. The evening was broken down into a rotation of different badminton skills stations that the children took part in for a few minutes each, and culminated in an exciting round the world game at the end, where it was obvious to see the improvement the children had made in their skills from the start to the end of the festival.
The friendly, encouraging and fun feel to the event, resulted in lots of the children becoming interested in joining the local badminton club in Grantham.
If you would like to know more about this, it is held on a Saturday morning at The Meres Leisure Centre, so please contact them, as they are always booking for new members.
Art work - Here is a selection of the entries for the ISA Art Competition - it was difficult to choose the entries, as we can only submit one per category.
However, I hope you agree that the work chosen is amazing, and represents a good cross section of the type of work that we do here at Grantham Prep. I will be on the lookout for next year's entries soon, so keep up the good work everyone, and best of luck in the competition.
In Class 6 it is not all about working hard (although that is a big part of it!), there are times when it is great just to step back and enjoy living in the present. After running the daily mile and looking after our physical wellbeing it was nice to just let the children cool down by doing a spot of cloud spotting. Mental wellbeing is so important and learning to live in the present, letting the past go and not worrying about what the future holds is something we can all strive for. It was amazing to see the children pointing out clouds and just coming up with ideas for what they looked like.
It has also been nice to see the children enjoying letting steam off at dinner times and one thing in particular that has been wonderful to see is Year 6 playing football and involving the other year groups. These impromptu games have been great for building camaraderie and make you realise what we all have been missing over the past year and a half.
Thursday 7th October was National Poetry Day and I always like to use this as a good opportunity to explore some different poems with the class, to generate an engaging discussion on 'What is poetry?' and to stimulate our creative juices with some poems of our own. Class 5 have certainly grasped the chance with both hands and have written and edited some fantastic Autumn-inspired poems.
Keep your eyes peeled for our entrance hall display of their work after half term.
Class 4 have been busy on their Autumn leaves project.
Pupils developed their fine motor skills by carefully cutting out some tricky leaf shapes for templates. I was impressed that pupils remembered the work that we did in STEAM a few weeks back, where we looked at ,identified and classified trees into deciduous or evergreen categories.
Pupils then used their previous knowledge of colour mixing to recreate these lovely autumnal shades, using the templates to paint around.
We have been thinking about the importance of friendship this week and what qualities make a good friend. We had a long discussion about it during our PSHE lesson and then produced some friendship flowers and friendship chains for the display.
Well done to all of Class 3 for an incredible first term in the juniors you should be very proud of yourselves.
Class 2 have been looking at the work of the French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet.
In particular we have looked at the paintings of his beautiful garden at Giverny, where he spent many hours painting the views of the lily ponds, Japanese bridge and weeping willows.
Pupils used the watercolour paints most effectively, mixing and applying lots of different shades of colour to create their own lily-pond painting.
Super work Class 2, we'll make a 3-d water lily and pad next!
As we come to the end of our first half term together, it's been another busy week in Class One. In Numeracy, everyone has enjoyed estimating length and time... considering things like; how many star jumps can you do in 30 seconds? How many strides does it take to get to the Music Room? How long, in centimetres, is the whiteboard? It has been great fun and occasionally very competitive! The children were very careful to check their predictions by counting strides, measuring with the metre stick, trundle wheel and stopwatch.
They have also (tactfully) put themselves in height order from shortest to tallest. In line with most of our weeks, creativity has been shown in abundance - this week everyone has been busy making windmills, brightly coloured wreaths to celebrate World Animal Day and preparing their fabric for sewing colourful drawstring bags. In Literacy, the children have been working on comprehension, phonics and story writing. Have a wonderful half term break everyone. Come back fully recharged ready for some more fun and learning!
In addition to our phonics, numeracy, art and other activities the children take part in during the school week the children are fortunate to also take part in Spanish lessons and music lessons. Spanish is on a Friday morning with Mme Belestra and music is on a Thursday afternoon with Miss Kerby.
This half term, in Spanish the children have been learning some greeting phrases in Spanish and also learning to count in this new language. Firstly starting with 0-5 in the first few weeks and last week the children began learning to count to 10. Each child was invited to stand up with Mme Belestra by the computer screen and count the number of animals that could see and say the right number in Spanish. Mme Belestra was very impressed with the children’s’ listening ear!
In music the children have been learning some new songs, with actions and practising the harvest song. Miss Kerby and the children certainly know how to make a noise! It is lovely for the children to watch Miss Kerby accompany the children playing on the piano in the music room when they are singing. The children enjoy it so much they ask Miss Kerby to ‘play again, again’! Maybe some of our parents have heard renditions of ‘Big Red Combine Harvester’ at home or in the car over the past few weeks? It’s a big favourite in Pre-school and Reception!
The children have all had a great start to school life. I think they are probably ready for a well- deserved break this half term.
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.
