Prep for the Week Issue 1828

Prep for the Week Issue Number 1828 – 13 May 2016

In this week’s issue…

Headmaster's Blog and Commendations Personal Achievements A View from the Design & Technology Department Kingfishers and Lower School News Updates from Music and Maths Girls' Sports Calendar and Notices

rs: e h s i f g Kin m o r f e ag A mess your g n i r b t to e g r o f t your t u Don’ p d ol an o h c s o e! t s m t o a c h u n o su re y o f e b n mo a e r c n su

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Headmaster's Blog Dear Parents I would like to explain to the parent community the potential issues which we face when a child is deemed to be ‘off games’ and when requests are made to miss school, especially on Saturdays.

Children, quite rightly, demand to operate in an environment which they perceive to be just.

When they get it wrong, they are accepting of any sanction which they deem to be fair.

If there is any suggestion of disparity in how they have been treated then this is considered more upsetting than the punishment itself.

Consequently, any arrangements brokered between home and school need to be such that children consider that a consistent line has been adopted. Meanwhile, I, as the arbiter in these matters, try to make considered decisions and wherever possible, negotiate workable and fair compromises which do not set a precedent. In the majority of cases there is always a grey area to be explored. For example, a child who has sprained a wrist and who would normally be ‘off games’ is perfectly capable of running and therefore can access elements of the athletics programme. On the other hand, a child who misses a less popular athletics event by being ‘off games’ with a heavy cold, is unlikely to be treated with sympathy by either staff or his/her peers if he/she is found to be chasing around, exerting himself/herself at break. PE and Games staff are continually being asked to manage requests to ‘cherry pick’ activities on account of particular conditions. This presents two challenges: staffing and the perception of the other children. It is the latter which I believe to be the most important as essentially by refusing these requests, staff protect the child concerned from the brickbats of other, less generous children who see the medical condition simply as an excuse to get out of the less palatable activities.

I have deliberately adjusted the Saturday programme to reduce the conflict between school commitments and family time. These clashes will still exist and, wherever possible, I will work with parents to reduce the tension even further. Retaining the integrity of the Saturday programme is everything and so disagreement is inevitable. As our local competitors follow us in reappraising their Saturday offering, it is essential

Prep for The Week Issue Number 1828 13 May 2016

that we retain this integrity, otherwise Saturdays will descend into a mish-mash of activities, prone to the vagaries of fads, bedtimes and the weather.

My thanks to you for your continued support in establishing our new arrangements.

I need to praise the efforts of three boys in helping to make a Saturday morning match a worthwhile event for all. When the opposition for the U9C cricket team arrived with five players (!), it was necessary to ask for volunteers from the Prep team to make up the numbers. James Katz, Jakob Sneyd and Paras Aggarwal were those volunteers and, through their actions, ensured that all 16 boys enjoyed a worthwhile morning’s cricket. My thanks to them.

Class Teachers in Kingfishers Although I am unable to state in which class a child will be in September, staffing arrangements do allow me to inform you of which teachers will be teaching in which year groups: Cottage - Mrs D Stovold Reception - Mrs C Reeves Year 1 - Mrs C Baker and Miss J Jones Year 2 - Miss C Griffiths and Mrs K Trimmer Appointments still have to be confirmed in the rest of The Prep School and therefore I am unable to give the same information for Lower, Middle and Upper School.

Jon Whybrow

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Headmaster's Commendations Headmaster's Commendations Monty White for his detailed and informative independent research on the Romans

Denis Solovyev for volunteering to teach a 10 minute lesson on hydroelectricity to his Y8 Geography class

Emily Grant for independent work, explaining her love of music

Imogen Cutts for visiting the College Textiles department in her own time to help take photographs of the AS Level students final garments and for her incredibly hard work in her DT scholarship presentation

Oscar Mann for excelling in improving his cricket skills

IAPS Swimming Jude Richardson and Anya James have been congratulated for their fantastic achievements after qualifying for the 2016 IAPS Swimming Championships, which took place on Saturday. The competition saw the two swimmers qualify from 4,200 swimmers from 400 schools nationally.

After weeks of training in the early mornings and on Sundays, Jude finished 10th of 16 in the Under 10’s 25m Backstroke. “My Dad was poolside the whole time which gave me confidence,” said Jude. “I love swimming, so I’d definitely like to do this race again.”

Anya performed well in her Under 12’s 50m Front Crawl heat, against stiff competition, but unfortunately did not progress to the final. “I usually swim 25m at galas, so it was a bit nerve-wracking, but everyone feels the same,” said Anya. “I celebrated with my family afterwards by going to Brighton beach in the sunshine!”

Chess Champs Year 2 pupil, Monty, is through to the Gigafinals of the DaLancy UK Schools Chess Challenge in Manchester following his 1st place championship win at the Gloucestershire Megafinals this week.

Monty and his classmate Michael, who also proudly achieved 2nd place in this prestigious competition, qualified for the local Megafinal by competing against their classmates in Cheltenham Prep’s popular Chess Club. Of 43,000 children across the UK who entered the competition, only 6,500 qualified for the regional competitions, across 12 age categories. The Gloucestershire event, held at St Edward's School in Cheltenham, saw Monty, Michael and children from schools across the region competing for rosettes and prizes and the chance to lift the Megafinal trophy. After a tough day and some fierce competition, Monty won the title of Megafinal Supremo in the U7 category.

We all wish the very best of luck to Monty, who goes on to compete in the Gigafinal at Wright Robinson College, Manchester, in July.

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A View from the Design & Technology Dept “Embrace change or become a Design-O-Saur.” — Von Glitschka The Design and Technology (D&T) Department has seen much change over the past couple of years and greater developments are afoot this Summer! From September we will move to new facilities: working with Science on one side and Art on the other, two subjects that closely link with the one in question.

D&T is an inspiring, rigorous and practical subject which prepares all young people to live and work in the designed and made world. D&T is about providing opportunities for children to develop their capability, combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding in order to create quality products.

At The Prep, children from Years 5 to 8 will spend 1 hour and 20 minutes a week immersing themselves into the wonderful world of D&T. In the curriculum we cover Graphics (technical drawing and net construction), Textiles (sewing, applique and felting), Resistant Materials (projects involving wood, metal and plastic) and Systems and Control (electronics and mechanisms). Although this is not exhaustive, it gives a clear picture of the skills that are being taught. Examples of these projects are always on display, such as: a wooden biplane, MP3 Amplifier, oblique and isometric drawings, card net construction, clocks, metal hanging basket brackets and automata mechanisms, to mention just a few.

As in life, this subject is centred on problem solving and once the issues are identified and understood, each class will then go on the ‘Design Process’ Prep for The Week Issue Number 1828 13 May 2016

journey to produce their final product. The stages that each project may embark on are: the design brief, research, specification, design ideas, build, evaluation and, if time allows, improvements.

As I have more time to develop the department, I will be looking to set up architectural workshops, enter D&T tournaments, invite a watch making company and forge more links with other departments as a start, with other exciting initiatives to follow.

Whilst this may offer some insight into D&T at the Prep, I cannot do justice to the impact it has not only on the children but on the world around us, in so few words. With that in mind, I would like to highly recommend that you follow the link below and spend 10 minutes watching this insightful and inspiring video: www.data.org.uk It is a pleasure to teach this extraordinary subject.

Mr George Boyd Head of Design & Technology 4

Kingfishers Bring your parents to Forest School On Saturday, Cottage and Reception children brought their parents to a sunny Forest School. With the help of Molly Mole, the children made sure their parents knew the Forest School rules (‘no picking, no licking and STOP at the orange rope’) to ensure that everyone stayed safe. Our usual Forest School activities were on offer and the children were keen to share their experiences with their parents. Especially popular was the mud kitchen where lots of delicious ‘treats’ were cooked up! Some of the children chose to plant a sunflower seed to take home with them, whilst others designed and built amazing dens with Mums and Dads. A mug of hot chocolate rounded off a very successful and enjoyable morning.

All Aboard!

It was all aboard (with gusto!) on Wednesday as 37 eager children and 6 teachers headed to Bristol for a trip to Brunel’s SS Great Britain. Travelling via The Clifton Suspension Bridge helped to set the scene for the day and Brunel-based facts were coming thick and fast from the children on the journey, with help from our coach driver, Lloyd! Upon arrival, the children were shown around the Dry Dock where they got to see the ship’s enormous anchor. The children soon realised how big the SS Great Britain was, a fact that was confirmed by a detailed tour inside the ship with crew member Pete. Our lucky Year 2s then had the chance to try building part of the ship by hitting in rivets in a Brunel workshop, before launching the ship with Prince Albert, in full Victorian costumes.

All Year 2 teachers were extremely proud of the way our children conducted themselves throughout the day, asking the guides thoughtful questions, being respectful to members of the public and showing excellent manners to everyone they met. A fantastic and informative day out in Bristol!

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Lower School

Sienna's Charity Cut Anything Harry Styles can do, we can do better!

Sienna Baggioli decided it was time for her hair to go in only One Direction - off!

CLIC Sargent pay for hair to make wigs for children and young people with cancer, but Sienna decided that instead of being paid she would give both her hair and the money to them.

A Just Giving page was set up with a target of ÂŁ500 and to date Sienna has raised ÂŁ1,275.80: a fantastic achievement.

If you wish to donate, then please look up the page Sienna's Big Chop for CLIC.

In Lower School Art we have been using the natural texture of paint brushes to

Well done, Sienna - Lower School are very proud of you. You can find out more about CLIC Sargent here: www.clicsargent.org.uk

create flower petals with acrylic paints.

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Music Cheltenham Performing Arts Festival Cheltenham Preparatory School opened the 90th Performing Arts Festival at Cheltenham Town Hall, with the entirety of Year 2 singing two songs in the Under 7 category. They sang with such energy and enthusiasm, which was highly commended. They did themselves proud and were placed 2nd in the competition. Well done Year 2!

As well as this, a number of young solo performers

also competed in a range of categories. Harry Garbutt and George Gardner competed in the string categories. Annie Finan, Violet Bailey, Charles Hellens, Izzy Reid all competed in the wind categories. We have two young pianists from Year 4 competing on Friday 13 as well. Congratulations to those who took part and a special well done to those who were placed.

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Harry Garbutt, 3rd place, Strings 11 and under Annie Finan, 3rd place, Wind 11 and under Violet Bailey, 2nd place, Wind 11 and under Grace White, 2nd place, Wind 14 and under

Music Dates to look out for this term: • Lower School Music Concert, Tuesday 24 May • Kingfishers Music Concert for Years 1 and 2, Thursday 26 May

Maths This week, the Maths Magician, Andrew Jeffrey, performed to all pupils in Years 3 to 8. Although Andrew performs several magic tricks and illusions throughout his show, he explained to our pupils that Maths is at the heart of his repertoire. Through a variety of activities, he demonstrated that Maths is about finding patterns, and then using these to predict outcomes. Another key message that he relayed was the importance of making mistakes and that sometimes we have to “get stuck” in order to improve our learning. Not only is Andrew a clever mathematician with a skill for magic, he is also really funny, and can create humour throughout the whole show. One of our Year 6 pupils left the show saying “My face hurts from smiling so much!". If Maths causes this response then we’re doing something right!

Well done to pupils, staff and parents who took part in last week's tennis tournament and raised £200 for Gloucestershire Bundles! Read the full story on our website.

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Girls' Sports Girls' Tennis Results TEAM OPPOSITION DATE SCORE RESULT U10 – 4 pairs Bromsgrove 7 May 12 – 4 WON U11 – 5 pairs Bromsgrove 7 May 7 – 5 WON U13 Mix – 3 pairs CLC 11 May 8 – 1 WON U13 Mix – 4 pairs CLC 11 May 10 – 3 WON U13 Mix – 4 pairs CLC 11 May 2 – 11 LOST

Team of the Week – U11 Tennis The girls enjoyed their tennis in the beautiful sunshine, playing an evenly matched opposition. The girls worked on the accuracy of their serves and positioning themselves effectively on the court. Following Wednesday’s fixture, the girls also worked on communicating with each other so that they were best positioned for the return shot. Some lovely tennis was played, with the first three pairs drawing 4-4 in their matches. The difference came down to pairs 4 and 5 who won their matches 3-1, giving an overall result of 7-5. One area for all our U11 girls to work on is recovering quickly after a shot has been made so that they are ready for the next.

s and s, fixture witter! w e n r o F s on T follow u , s e t a d up repgirls @cheltp

Girls' Rounders Results TEAM OPPOSITION DATE SCORE RESULT U8 Mix 1 St Hugh’s 7 May 3 – 7 and 10.5 – 8.5 LOST / WON U8 Mix 2 St Hugh’s 7 May 4.5 – 8 and 4 – 4.5 LOST / LOST U9 A Prior Park 7 May 9 – 10 LOST

Upper School House Tennis and Rounders The girls’ House sport competitions are fast becoming one of the most enjoyable features in the calendar. Once again, the girls were all perfectly turned out in their House colours and approached the event with a friendly competitiveness and excellent sportsmanship. Each House had to provide a doubles tennis pair and a rounders team of 6 and both competitions ran as round robin tournaments. At the end, the tennis and rounders results were combined to produce the overall winners. The results were: 1st – ROME 3rd – CORINTH 5th – SPARTA

2nd – ATHENS 4th – PERSIA 6th - TROY

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Prep for The Week Issue Number 1828 13 May 2016

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INVITE YOU TO JOIN IN AN AFTERNOON OF FUN

SUNDAY JUNE

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13:00 -17:00

HEADMASTER'S XI CRICKET MATCH DOUBLES TENNIS TOURNAMENT NETBALL MINITOURNAMENT With a BBQ at 15:30 To take part in the Tennis, email Lucy Hill on lucy24bennerley@yahoo.co.uk If would like to participate in the Cricket, contact Tim Buttress on tim.buttress@hotmail.com If you are interested in playing Netball, call Amy Mills on 07507 847012 Prep for The Week Issue Number 1828 13 May 2016

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All changes and additions to the School Calendar appear in pink.

Calendar

Sunday 15 May 2016 13:00 Boarders' Fun in The Sun 1 (Full and Regular Flexi-Boarders Only) Monday 16 May 2016, Week 6, 16 - 22 May

Travelling Book Fair (Library) 08:30 Year 8 Common Entrance Mathematics Listening Examination 09:10 Year 7 Examinations Tuesday 17 May 2016

Year 7 Examinations

Year 5 Experience at College

Travelling Book Fair (Library) 08:30 Year 8 Common Entrance French and Spanish Listening Examinations Wednesday 18 May 2016

Year 7 Examinations

Travelling Book Fair (Library) 12:45 Departure for Cricket v Pinewood (A): U9C VIII. Start 14:15. Pick up 17:30 13:00 Departure for Tennis v Beaudesert (A): U11 7 pairs. Start 14:30. Pick up 17:00 13:20 Departure for Cricket v Dean Close (A): 2nd XI, 3rd XI, 5th XI, U10A XI, U10B XI, Wanderers XI.

Start 14:00. Pick up 18:15 13:45 Departure for Tennis v Dean Close (A): U13 12 pairs. Start 14:30. Pick up 16:45 13:45 Departure for Rounders v Dean Close (A): U13 IX. Start 14:30. Pick up 16:45 14:00 Cricket v Dean Close (H): 1st XI, 4th XI, U11A XI, U11B XI, U9A VIII, U9B VIII. Pick up 16:30 for

U9s, 17:30 for others 14:15 Cricket v Pinewood (H): U8A VIII, U8B VIII. Pick up 16:00 14:30 Tennis v Dean Close (H): U13 6 pairs. Pick up 16:15 14:30 Tennis v Dean Close (H): U11 2 pairs, U10 2 pairs. Pick up 16:15 14:30 Rounders v Dean Close (H): U10 IX. Pick up 16:15 14:30 Rounders v Dean Close (H): U9A, U9B. Pick up 16:15 14:30 Tennis v Beaudesert (H): U10 3 pairs. Pick up 16:15 14:45 Departure for Rounders v Dean Close (A): U8A, U8B. Start 15:30. Pick up 17:15 Thursday 19 May 2016

Years 5 and 7 Examinations

Travelling Book Fair (Library) Kingfishers Reception Classes Trip to @Bristol 09:00 Lower School Maths Challenge (Assembly Hall) Cancelled 13:30 Friday 20 May 2016

Year 8 Common Entrance French and Spanish Oral Examinations

Year 6 Examinations

Travelling Book Fair (Library) Chapel (parents welcome) 14:15 15:00 Departure for Cricket v St Hugh’s (A): 1st XI. Start 16:15. Pick up 19:30 17:00 Persia House Trip to Lasertag (Gloucester). Pick up 19:30

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Saturday 21 May 2016

Open Morning for Prospective Parents (Upper and Middle School to attend as normal. Lower

School and Kingfishers welcome to assist) Departure for Aquathlon at The Downs Malvern (A): U11, U13. Start 10:00. Pick up 13:30 08:30 09:30 Cheltenham Prep Lower School Tennis Festival. Pick up 11:30 10:00 Cricket v Beaudesert (H): U9A VIII, U9B VIII, U9C VIII, U8A VIII, U8B VIII. Pick up 12:45 Sunday 22 May 2016 Cheltenham College Big Bash (H): U12A VIII. Pick up 15:30 09:30 12:00 Boarders' Trip to Giffords Circus (Full and Regular Flexi-Boarders Only)

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NOTICES Happy Birthday to the following pupils this week!

Hugo Mudie 7

Molly Ropner 10 Faith Urbanovsky

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William Bradley

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Jackson Joly 12

Prep for The Week Issue Number 1828 13 May 2016

More feathered friends have been landing at the Lake - have you seen any of these beautiful Canada geese?

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