I am always so proud to see the courage demonstrated by the children, developing their self awareness. This week, the individual performers in the Prep Music Concert were outstanding; it takes such tenacity to perform on stage individually and in front of such a large audience. The Sports Teams were out in force as well at their many festivals this week.
Today, we celebrated all that mummies, grandmas and aunties do for their child. The children's pictures were very entertaining, the children sang beautifully, spoke so eloquently and captivated their audience whilst reciting their poem. Happy Mother's Day to all!
I hope to see you and your child at the PTA Spring Fair, 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm in the Prep Hall tomorrow, Easter bonnets and decorated eggs for the competitions welcomed!
Amanda Ilhan
Head of Nursery and Preparatory School
Nursery
This week, the Ducklings have been making the most of the lovely weather developing our social interaction skills in the outdoor garden as well as taking morning walks around the AKS grounds and riding to Fairhaven Lake.
This week in Pre-School, the children have been looking at the life cycles of plants and exploring various Spring flowers.
They have been artists creating their own sunflower pictures in the style of Vincent Van Gogh and also creating blossom trees using sticks that they have collected.
Nursery Team
Reception
The children have been very excited this week looking forward to presenting their Mother’s Day assembly- they have worked well together to learn their class poem and created beautiful clay hearts as a gift for their mummies.
‘Stitch the Witch’ was very popular this week as the children acted out the story saying the magical words and popping the special ingredients into the cauldron. They decided that she was not the cleverest witch after all, especially after she turned herself into a frog, instead of the naughty cat.
Miss Allen and Mrs Walsh
Year 1
Noisy, active, investigative learning has characterised our Maths lessons this week as the children have been working hard estimating and measuring the length of many of our familiar classroom objects. They decided that centimetres and metres were much more reliable than hands and shoes for measuring, but perhaps not quite as much fun!
A new precedent has been set for our Prep Music concerts, where members of Year 1 receiving additional tuition in Music were invited to play in the concert this week- well done to them for their courage and confidence; we plan to continue this new trend!
Mrs Smith and Mrs Brooker
Year 2
Year 2 have had another productive week completing their London Rat diary work- Mr Rice was very impressed by our finished work and awarded Willow and Archie an Easter egg each in recognition of their hard work.
Our Geography lesson took us to the amazing and varied landscapes of North America; I look forward to seeing all the wonderful projects due in after the Easter holidays.
The children discussed food chains in Science and are developing a really good understanding of producers and consumers; they are now thinking of their own food chains that will contain up to three consumers.
Mrs Bleasdale
Year 3
In Art, Mrs Hine and the children have created some beautiful pastels artwork based on the sand dunes and the beach.
In Maths, we have been looking at how to multiply two digits by one digit and we used our times tables knowledge and recall in solving problems.
In Sport, the children have enjoyed playing badminton, creating a sequence of jumps in gymnastics, and playing football together as a team.
Mrs Blinston
Year 4
This week in Year 4, the pupils were very excited when they investigated sound vibrations with tuning forks- when they hit the tuning fork and placed it in some water they were amazed and thought the resulting water splashing out was "awesome."
We have written beautiful poems and messages to our mums this week; I am very proud of all the pupils writing such beautiful words about their mums.
Finally, in our continuing work about the Silk Road and the city of Baghdad, we learnt this week that Baghdad had a 'House of Wisdom' where they read books and improved their knowledge.
Mrs Briggs
Year 5
This week Year 5 have made recipes for fabric dye using natural ingredients such as berries, nettles, grass and onion skins, and we are going to leave them over the weekend to see how they turned out.
In English, we have begun a new writing unit on Newspaper reports and had a very grown-up discussion about how we might be tricked by what we are reading - we wrote some catchy headlines designed to make you want to read on!
On Thursday, we found out more about our exciting residential school trip to Castle Head in June - we can't wait to go!
Mrs Whitaker and Mr Worthington
Year 6
The children really enjoyed sketching local coastal birds in Art this week- well done Emma and Thea for capturing movement with wings open and using curved strokes to depict texture and form of feathers.
In Science, the children have been discussing how fossils provide evidence of evolution and further identify how a species can change over time due to mutations.
The Maths groups excelled this week investigating how to calculate the area, base and height of triangles- thank you to Nicole, Kathryn and Arish for spotting some magnificent misconceptions.
Mr Avis and Mr Rice
Sports News
What a week it's been for our AKS Prep Sports! Monday saw our U11 boys attend the AJIS Rugby Festival at Merchant Taylor's, Crosby- whilst results went against them, they tried their best and scored some great tries.
The U11 Boys' Football Squad were in action on Tuesday at the LSA Football Festival, held at AKS. With 10 local primary schools competing, our boys did well in their group games with a fantastic team performance.
On Wednesday, it was the turn of the U11 Girls Football Squad who competed at the ISFA (Independent Schools' FA) U11 Festival, hosted once again at AKS. It was a fantastic morning of football with some great performances and results against Cheadle Hulme (1.1), Stockport Grammar (1.1) and narrow defeat to eventual winners Terra Nova (0.1). Goals scorers were Camilla and Alyssa.
Our Friday fixtures saw our U11 Netball Squad in action at the AJIS U11 Festival and our Boys' Football Squad in action at the ISFA Football Festival.
Mr Moretti
Music News
Our Prep School Spring Concert provided the opportunity for 33 pupils to perform solos for their friends and family. It is a testament to the culture of performance and the infectious enthusiasm Mr Thomas has for Music that so many children volunteered to play.
We are looking forward to seeing the Prep Choir perform at the ‘AKS Cabaret’ in the Senior School Hall on the 30th March. The concert is being performed as a fundraiser for our 2022 Senior School Music Tour to the Rhine Valley in July.
AKS students are free to attend (please complete the form on the parent bulletin to secure your child’s place), tickets for non-AKS children and adults are £5 from our Prep and Senior Offices, or online here.
Performing Arts Department
MFL News
In MFL this week, Reception have perfected their knowledge of French colours and the numbers 1 -10.
Year 1 have continued with their zoo animals topic and in Year 2 in French, we looked at masculine and feminine words and how adjectives change depending on the gender of the noun they are describing.
Year 3 learnt about Easter traditions in France and in Year 4, German Easter traditions were explored. Year 5 worked on 'Las Fallas', a festival in Valencia in Spain which takes place in March each year and Year 6 have completed their poems in French.
Ms Robinson
Spring Fair
Saturday 26th March
Thank you for all the wonderful donations of chocolate eggs for the PTA Spring Fair. We look forward to welcoming you tomorrow from 2.00 pm until 4.00 pm in the Prep School Hall.
