Senior School Weekly News
News from Senior School this week: 2nd February 2024
Mrs Séguier
Deputy Head of Senior School
Cross country races have punctuated this week at Senior. All pupils from Year 3 to Year 10 have taken part in them with so much enthusiasm, dedication, a healthy competitive spirit as well as an eagerness to earn as many House Points for their respective Houses! Well done to all our fantastic athletes!
A big thank you as well to the PE department for organising these events and thank you to the APA for the lovely hot chocolates.
Year 3 children have been working on the wonderful novel “The Big Friendly Giant” by Roald Dahl and it was really lovely to read some of their work re-writing the opening of the book in their own words. We celebrated a particularly well-written piece that Bobbie wrote and read to us in Assembly. Well done Bobbie and well done to all the Year 3 pupils for their hard work!
Year 4 and Year 5 have worked on their letter writing skills in English and we also celebrated some fantastic work from Calla in Year 4 and from Misha in Year 5 during our assembly this week: Year 4 had to write a formal letter responding to a complaint and Calla’s wrote a very “solution driven” letter to the unhappy customer. Well done Calla!
Year 5 had to write a letter from the perspective of the main character, Stanley Yelnats, from the book “Holes” by Louis Sachar, and Misha used a variety of descriptive language to give a thorough depiction of the surroundings in which the main character is. Fantastic job, Misha!
On Wednesday, all our Key Stage 3 and 4 students participated in the UK Maths Challenge competing against 700 000 other students in the whole of the United Kingdom. For this, they had to put all their Maths knowledge and skills into practice to complete a variety of written exercises. Opportunities like this are extremely valuable because they not only get the students involved to use the concepts learnt in class in a different context, but they are also highly regarded when mentioned in university applications. A big thank you to Mr Khan for organising this, and to all the pupils for taking part.
We concluded Children's Mental Health week this week with our “Dress to Express” day today to raise money for the wonderful Charity “Place 2 be”. Thank you so much for all your generous donations. It has been wonderful seeing the pupils dressed in an outfit which best represents them.
Next Thursday, our Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 students will be performing the play “The Wardrobe”. The performance will be taking place on Thursday 8th February in the evening in our Theatre. Doors will open at 6.30pm with a 7pm start. If you have not got your tickets yet, please contact the Senior School office to book them. As per communicated earlier in the week, please note that some slightly more sensitive subjects which are not necessarily suitable for children younger than ten years old, will be touched upon during the performance.
A big thank you to Mrs Wrottesley and all the staff members involved in the organising of this event.
All the best for a relaxing weekend.
Year 3
"Happy Wellbeing Week!’ We really enjoyed a range of mindfulness activities and a lovely wellbeing assembly, where the children shared how they used determination and risk taking to overcome challenges. In addition to our weekly yoga session on Thursday afternoon, we also completed breathing activities to bring about stronger feelings of calmness and relaxation. Remember, simple actions can bring about positive feelings of wellbeing!
In English, the children began planning their very own suspense narrative by acting out scenes from ‘The Snatch’, the second chapter in Roald Dahl’s BFG story. We discussed how our protagonist felt and used a variety of Mrs Wordsmith words to create a word bank to plan our writing.
Year 3 did a great job in maths this week, their exploration of our measurement topic was fantastic. The children not only successfully identified the appropriate measuring instrument tools objects but also honed their estimating skills while measuring various objects within the classroom for a variety of classroom. I was particularly impressed by some outstanding mathematicians who skilfully identified decimals during the conversion from centimetres to millimetres. Keep up the excellent work!
In Science, we deepened our understanding of light by observing our planet earth rotating and revolving around to the sun. The children then identified the advantages and potential risks associated with UV light. Following this, they showcased their understanding by crafting informative sun safety posters.
Well done to Year 3 for their fantastic efforts during our show rehearsals. The children are so excited to rehearse and the show is really coming together.
Next week, please stop by the Year 3 Hub for optional, Half Term Activities and for more information.
Have a nice weekend, Mr Ward
Year 4
This week has been full of learning in Year 4! We have continued with our Electricity and Electrical Safety topic. The children used their knowledge of the components of electrical circuits to draw neat, well set-out circuit diagrams using the correct symbols and format for showing wires, switches, batteries and cells. Later in the week they used their circuits to test different materials to find out if the materials are conductors or insulators. Next week, they will be given a range of different materials and set the task of designing switches which will break and close their circuits and allow buzzers, lamps and motors to be turned on and off!
In English, the Year 4s have completed work in two areas; the correct use of apostrophes to show singular and plural possession, and script writing using the correct conventions for play script writing.
In Geography, we have continued to explore the rainforest topic.The students have begun work on their rainforest information pop-up book. The book will contain bridge, sliding, hinged, spinning and spring mechanisms, and help to reinforce their learning in Geography. Their information book will also contain a contents page, glossary, an eye-catching cover design and information blurb on the back cover.
On Friday, the Year 4s dressed up for Children Mental Health Week. This year’s theme was ‘My Voice Matters’ and focused on empowering children and young people by providing them with the tools they need to express themselves. In conjunction with the charity Place 2 Be’s Children’s Mental Health Week, we aimed for all our pupils to be able to say - and believe - “My Voice Matters”.
Finally, well done to the Year 4s for their super efforts completing Friday’s inter-house cross-country event at Paddington Recreation ground. Thanks to the APA for providing some very welcome biscuits and hot chocolate at the end of a tough, sometimes muddy cross country circuit. Thankfully they all survived the dreaded Bog of Doom!
Have a lovely weekend! Kind regards, The Year 4 Team
From the Music department - Years 5 - 9
This term Year 5 are exploring World Music through Gamelan. Gamelan is a type of music from Indonesia and often used to accompany shadow puppet theatre based on mythical stories from Indonesian culture. Students have learnt about the culture and geography of Indonesia as well as being able to play some instruments from the region. (See pic). They will now start to compose their own short piece of music in a Gamelan style, and perform it to one another at the end of term. They will use glockenspiels to do this, and write it down in a table in their Google Classroom (using their Chromebooks), for ease of practice and performance (see pic). Year 5 pupils have learnt that Gamelan music is not written down but passed down from generation to generation by ear.
Year 6 are currently looking at the Blues, breaking it down into the three main areas of melody (using the Blues scale), chords (using the 12 Bar Blues structure) and lyrics. Over the coming weeks they will write their own lyrics and a melody and put this together with a 12 Bar Blues accompaniment for a final performance.
Year 7-9 are learning about Listening and Appraising. This is the skill of listening to a piece of music and then deconstructing it to discover in more depth areas such as harmony, texture and rhythm and metre for example. Currently they are exploring a piece of fusion music called; Release. This is by Afro Celt Sound System, a London based group performing in the genres of Ethnic electronica, worldbeat, Celtic fusion and Afrobeat. It is an eclectic sound that really gets the brain working when it comes to listening.
