From Mrs Hall

The summer term is always a very exciting term, packed full of extra events and activities, in addition to the normal school day. Please see the school calendar for an up-to-date list of events, while we will regularly keep you informed of any additions or amendments. I would encourage any of you who can to join us on Tuesday evening (30 April) at 1700 for our Positive Parenting event, I am sure it will be a very productive evening.

I began the week with the happiness baton! I spoke about how the weather can have a big effect on how we feel but ‘happy summers’ are much more about good weather, however! We passed the baton and explained that, in the same way as a relay race, we can also pass happiness on to one another. If we are kind to someone, that person is likely to be kind to another person and so on. If we let others play with us, they are likely to follow our example. Even a smile is likely to be passed on as, if we make someone feel happy, that person is likely to make the next person happy and so on. Our challenge to the boys this week (and beyond) has been to think about their actions; are they passing on happiness to others? Could they make someone else happy?

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Pilgrims' Shell Awards

Year 2 - to Aaron T, for being a true Pilgrim: kind, helpful, polite and for doing his best
Year 1 - to Arthur OB for coming back to school, motivated to work with growing independence. Well done Arthur, for a great start to the term!
Year R - to Felix for settling back into school after the Easter break so confidently and, for his enthusiasm shown for our new class topic 'Animals'.

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Save the Dates!

Sunday 28 April	PPA Meeting 19:00
Tuesday 30 April	Positive Parenting Meeting, for parents in Pre-Prep to Year 4 17:00
Friday 3 May	Pre-Prep Open Morning 09:15-11:30 Pre-Prep Cathedral Assembly, parents welcome
Saturday 11 May	Whole School Open Morning 09:45-12:00
Wednesday 13 May	RNLI visit the Pre-Prep

Tuesday 14 May	Year 2 Trip to Dell Quay
Thursday 16 May	Year 2 Forest School with St Swithun's School
Tuesday 21 May	Year 1 Trip to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
Thursday 24 May	Half-Term begins, 12:00

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Notices

Menus for next week are available here on My School Portal. 
^{Reminder: no food is to be brought into the school and/or given to boys at any time, especially at sign-out.}

Open Days

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From the PPA

 

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Year 2

What a pleasure it was to welcome the boys back into the classroom for their last term in the Pre-Prep.

It has been a busy week and each boy has risen to the challenges set, just like St George. In Literacy we have been focussing on the tale of St George, first by retelling the story, before creating their own story versions, with variations of how the dragon is defeated. 

Keijiro wrote:
The princess led the dragon to the trap that the princess and George made and the dragon fell in the net.
St George tamed the dragon with a hypnotising ring and the dragon turned peaceful as a cat.
George and the princess married and they all went around the world taming other dragons.

Mrs Kent 
Year 2 Teacher
 

Year 1

Seafarers, Explorers and Pirates!
What a fantastic summer term we are going to have in Year 1. The boys have come back full of enthusiasm for all avenues of learning. They are thrilled with our new topic of Seafarers, Explorers and Pirates. We have brainstormed all our initial ideas about pirates together and are starting to increase our knowledge through reading, games, small world imagination resources and our role-play area that has now turned into a pirate galleon! As a class, we started to read a series of books written about a pirate family called “The Jolly-Rogers”, which the boys engaged with quickly.

The class were introduced to the sailor and fisherman turned artist, Alfred Wallis, on Tuesday afternoon. He spent the latter stages of his life painting from the kitchen of his cottage in St. Ives, Cornwall, on any cardboard, wood and boxes that he could find along with paint that was given to him by the local shipyard. We had a lot of fun investigating his paintings and looking for similar shapes and colours across his work. Due to his early life constantly at sea, it is not a surprise that boats feature in most, if not all, of his work. We experimented with oil pastels. The boys were intrigued with this as an artistic medium and are certainly looking forward to next week when we shall be creating our own boat picture on scrap board just like Wallis.

Mrs Ford
Year 1 Teacher
 

Year R

It has been lovely to welcome the boys back to school after the Easter break.  We have been hearing all about your holidays, from glamping in the Isle of Wight, holidaying in other countries, joining in with holiday camps, celebrating Birthdays, to days at the beach and spending quality time at home with family and friends.  What special experiences and memories have been made.  

The new Summer Term started with our theme for the term, 'Animals around the World', a very popular and well-received topic for the boys!  Each week we will focus on a different continent and explore animals that originate and live in this part of the World.  This week we have focused upon North and South America.  Bald eagles, grizzly bears, raccoons, piranha, moose and alligators have been amongst some animals discussed.  Ask your son if he can remember how many metres a bald eagle's wingspan is and where both alligators and crocodiles live together. We learnt some very interesting animal facts and chatted about why these areas are good habitats for these animals.

Miss Whitmore shared some fabulous slides with us from her holiday to the Galápagos Islands and which animals live here.  Some very different landscapes were discussed and compared to the United Kingdom.  

To enhance the boys' role play and imagination, the class role-play area has been changed into a Vets, (an idea the boys had before the end of last term).  They discussed with Miss Whitmore what sorts of objects and equipment they would need and what sorts of things a Vet does.  They watched a short documentary about being a Vet to help with their understanding and to support with play ideas.  The area is proving to be very popular with some fantastic speaking, listening, imagination and collaboration going on.  

What a super start to the fun-packed term we will have.  

Mrs Huntley
Reception Teacher
 

Forest School

It has been lovely welcoming the boys back, and the boys in Year R had a very enjoyable session looking out for signs of spring and spotting any changes that have happened whilst we have been away. Everyone had a chance to make their own spring spotter card, which identified the changes they had spotted. Sadly, we found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. This gave us a chance to chat about the circle of life. The boys showed lovely empathy towards the little bird, and some of the boys chose to make a little grave for the bird during free exploration time.

Year 1 this week took their time making some careful observations and discovering how the arboretum had changed whilst we had been away. Then using a wooden picture frame made from sticks, the boys used their imagination and inspiration from their observations to create a spring woodland image. Can you guess what some of the images are?

The summer term is always an exciting time for Year 2 as it is the term we plant our allotment boxes. This year our plan is to grow some produce that can then be used by the school kitchen, our own mini ‘Farm to Fork’ concept. The boys eagerly planted lettuces, spring onions, radishes and carrots. We even planted some sweet peas and made our own watering cans from old milk containers. The boys will take responsibility for the care of our boxes over the coming weeks.

Mrs Walker
Forest School Leader