Prep for the Week
Issue Number 1911 – 18 January 2019
That was the week that was...
Prep for The Week Issue Number 1911 18 January 2019
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Prep for the Week
Issue Number 1911 – 18 January 2019
Get involved! Make sure you are following us on social media (@CheltPrep) for all of the latest goings on around school! Included in this week’s issue… • Kingfishers Update • Lower School News • Boarding House Update • Sports Update • Building Learning Power News • Birthday Announcements • Spring Week 3 Calendar Prep for The Week Issue Number 1911 18 January 2019
Building Learning Power Can you spot all of the ways our pupils have been building their learning power from Nursery to Year 8?
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Kingfishers Update
Keep up to date Make sure you’re following Kingfishers on twitter (@CheltKingfisher) to keep up to date with all of the latest activities we’re getting up to!
Nursery Dino Hunt The children in the Nursery have been on a dinosaur hunt, they travelled through the swashy grass, then splashed in the icy water. They clambered through the thick, oozy mud and navigated through the deep woods. They battled the swirling, whirling snowstorm and tiptoed through the dark, narrow cave … “AAAAARRRRRHHHH!” a dinosaur. They decided not to go on a dinosaur hunt again!
Dinosaur Topic Launch The Reception and Nursery children had a ‘roarsome’ day celebrating their Dinosaur topic launch. They enjoyed making footprint biscuits and dinosaur headbands before heading to the barn to have a stomp around alongside the other dinosaurs that turned up at school.
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Kingfishers Update Year 1 and 2 Topic Launch Years 1 and 2 started their new topic ‘Kings and Queens’ in a creative way this week. They enjoyed making colourful crowns, captivating castles and finally a clever coat of arms!!
Building Learning Power Year 2 have been enjoying focusing on building their learning powers since the beginning of term. Every morning they choose from a range of activities representing one of our Super Skills Squad of animals. Poppy the Persevering Pony’s cup and ball activity was a clear favourite this week!
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Lower School News Outdoor Learning
Pupils had great fun learning outdoors. Discovering what they could find after the winter break on a Miniature Treasure Hunt, they could only collect non-living things that would be able to fit into a small envelope. It is amazing what is out there. Meanwhile others were practising photography skills and taking pictures of living things in our grounds. Finally, some were helping to bring Lower School to life, planting our pots at the main entrance. What a lovely display girls!
Keep up to date Make sure you’re following Lower School on twitter (@CheltPrepLower) to keep up to date with all of the latest activities we’re getting up to!
Assembly with Father Dunning
Bun and Drink Our Year 4s are certainly taking an active approach to participating in Lower School. It is great when they just see jobs that need to be done and just get on with it. Fantastic work boys, helping out at bun and drink so that everyone can get to their clubs quickly.
Father Dunning welcomed in the New Year with Lower School. We always enjoy his weekly assemblies with us. We have great fun listening to the stories he tells. The best part is that he always gets everyone involved. This week we learned about the parable, “The Lost Sheep”. Imagine so many sheep running around Lower School.
Building Learning Power For the first half of term we are working on our creative skills. Expect to be asked lots of “What if...?” questions and imaginative ideas being discussed. We are looking forward to some great problem solving this term.
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Middle and Upper School Geography Years 6, 7 and 8 were visited this Wednesday by David Edwards, a geographer, vulcanologist, biologist and an explorer all rolled into one. David delivered two stimulating talks to the children. The first presentation was about the biodiversity and volcanic hazards of Montserrat, and how he survived the devastating eruption in 1995 (including some dramatic before/ after pictures!), whilst the second talk was about why Iceland was such a unique place geologically and the forces of nature that helped shape it. The students also got a crash course in how to successfully go ‘lavafishing’ in Hawaii (complete with lava samples for the children to handle), what catching a snake in the dark is like and how to pronounce ‘Eyjafjallajökull’ correctly...!
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Boarding House Update The Boarders have enjoyed a great first week back at school. We have welcomed Mr LaCava and Miss Udvardi from Australia to join us as Gap students for the year, and they have got stuck straight in getting to know the Boarders. Sunday saw Miss Sheehan lead a trip to the Trampoline Park for an afternoon of fun. Our Sunday Evening Roast was enjoyed sat in Boarding House Families. We are very much looking forward to what the rest of the term has to offer.
Prep for The Week Issue Number 1911 18 January 2019
Keep up to date Make sure you’re following the Boarding House on twitter (@CheltPrepBoard) to keep up to date with all of the latest activities we’re getting up to!
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Year 5 History Year 5 have been studying with Mr Bass about trench warfare during World War One this week. What better way than to reenact a day in a trench; thankfully without the mud, rats and bullets!
Blue Peter Badge Winners Congratulations to both Gabriella and Jean-Christian who earned their Blue Peter badges over the Christmas holidays. Jean-Christian’s work was shown on the Christmas special episode of Blue Peter, and Gabriella’s art work (as you can see here) was awarded post of the week!
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Upper School Building Learning Power Years 7 and 8 had the chance to complete some learning skills and activities today to get ready for the term ahead. They assessed their own learning levels, strengths and weaknesses and set some targets. We look forward to seeing their successes this term.
Invites you to join our Private Marquee on CHAMPION’S DAY AT THE CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL Tuesday 12th March 2019 To Book
by 1st March
Card Payments: 01242 265694 Online Booking: cheltoniansociety.org for individual login details please email r.creed@cheltenhamcollege.org
Cheltenham Racecourse
Ticket Prices £140 for Non Members £65 for Racecourse Members or those with entrance tickets £12 Parking Ticket Included in the Marquee Cash Bar Private Tote Racing Coverage
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Sport Update Joint Hockey Teams of the Week On Saturday both the 1st VII and U11A travelled to Winchester House School for tournaments. After only a handful of training sessions it was a great opportunity for the coaches to see the boys in action and they certainly stepped up. Both the 1st VII and U11A won their respective tournaments, playing with tremendous pace and flair. The 1st VII backed this up on Wednesday with a tight 4-4 draw with a HUGE Bromsgrove side, with the U11A beating Bromsgrove 4-2. Both sides look to be in a good position as we start to move towards the IAPS Qualifiers.
Prep for The Week Issue Number 1911 18 January 2019
Boys’ Hockey Results 1st VII at the Winchester House Tournament Winners 2nd VII vs The Downs Won 9 - 1 3rd VII vs The Downs Won 1 - 0 4th VII vs The Downs Won 5 - 2 5th VII vs The Downs Won 5 - 0 U11A at the Winchester House Tournament Winners U11B vs The Downs Drew 2 - 2 U9A vs The Downs Won 8 - 2 U9B vs The Downs Drew 1 - 1 1st VII vs Bromsgrove Drew 4 - 4 2nd VII vs Bromsgrove Lost 0 - 2 3rd VII vs Bromsgrove Lost 1 - 10 4th VII vs Bromsgrove Drew 3 - 3 5th VII vs Bromsgrove Won 5 - 0 6th VII vs Bromsgrove Lost 2 - 3 7th VII vs Bromsgrove Lost 6 - 7 U11A vs Bromsgrove Won 4 - 2 U11B vs Bromsgrove Lost 2 - 8 U11C vs Bromsgrove Lost 0 - 2 U10A vs Bromsgrove Lost 1 - 3 U10B vs Bromsgrove Won 1 - 0 U10C vs Bromsgrove Won 3 - 0
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Sport Update Netball Team of the Week The U10B team had a great start to the season with a 14-3 win in their match against The Dragon. The girls played the game with a great intensity and worked really well as a team to produce this fantastic result. Saturday sees them taking on Clifton and looking for a repeat of this superb performance.
Girls’ Netball Results U12A vs High School for Girls Lost 5 - 15 U12B vs High School for Girls Lost 4 - 15 U11A vs Dragon School Won 11 - 4 U11B vs Dragon School Lost 4 - 7 U11C vs Dragon School Lost 3 - 5 U10A vs Dragon School Lost 2 - 5 U10B vs Dragon School Won 14 - 3
Boys’ Football Results U9A vs Berkhampsted Won 4 - 2 U9B vs Berkhampsted Lost 0 - 6
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Functional Movement Training Over the next few months The Prep will be reviewing our current PE programme and will be looking to incorporate a greater deal of functional movement training into the children. The move is very much about building the nuts and bolts of movement onto the children, the very foundations of any form of sporting ability. Our Year 8s have already begun this process and had their first lesson in the Performance Gym with the College Head of Strength and Conditioning, Mr Henry Davies, who is also the Senior Strength and Conditioning Coach for Wales Hockey. Mr Davies will be running a session for parents and children to learn more about the process of reviewing the PE curricullum. It will be on 29 January and called “Learning to Move – Putting Theory into Practice”, further details will be announced soon.
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2019 - Our Year of Reading On Monday 14 January, we launched the “2019 Our Year of Reading” initiative here at The Prep. Over the course of the next twelve months, The Prep community will be celebrating our collective love of books and hosting a range of events and initiatives aimed at further developing our pupils’ love of reading.
Visiting Authors On Tuesday 29 January, local writer John Dougherty will be spending the day at The Prep, visiting Kingfishers and Lower School in the morning to share his passion for reading and writing, as well as singing and poems, with our younger pupils. He will then host a Writers Workshop for selected pupils in Years 5 and 6, before a final session with Middle School pupils in the afternoon. After the Easter holiday, Richard Peirce, writer and animal conservationist, will also spend a day at The Prep sharing his love of animals and discussing “Cuddle Me Kill Me”, his enthralling new book about lion conservation in South Africa.
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2019 - Our Year of Reading World Book Day This is one of the highlights of the school year for pupils and staff alike, and we hope that this year will be no exception. We will be hosting our annual Fashion Show spectacular to celebrate our pupils’ wonderfully imaginative range of costumes on the day, and there will be several competitions and challenges for pupils to enter in the run-up to the event, and on the day itself. Let’s hope the snow keeps away this year!
Accelerated Reader Since introducing AR for Years 5 to 7 in September, we have been delighted by the response from our pupils! Collectively they have read over 55 million words in the last five months and passed over 1,500 book quizzes. We have fifteen pupils who have individually read over a million words each, including two double word millionaires. We have awarded over 250 reading certificates in Middle School and Upper School assemblies as pupils achieve different milestones in their own private reading. Of course, fundamental to this success is the support of parents at home, and our thanks go to all those parents and family members who encourage our pupils to read outside of school. Our Christmas Holiday Reading Challenge was very successful, and prizes have now been given to those pupils who made significant progress with the reading over the three-week break. We look forward to awarding our first Bronze, Silver and Gold Reading Awards, perhaps as soon as this term. Each week we will be using Prep for the Week to help celebrate reading and our pupils’ successes. More details to follow next week!
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Former Pupil stars in Les Mis For those of you, probably in Upper School, who are watching the current BBC production of ‘Les Miserables’, look out for the character Monsieur Thenardier. Monsieur Thenardier is played by actor Adeel Akhtar who was a pupil at The Prep quite a long time ago. When he left school he trained to be a lawyer but eventually decided to follow his dream of being an actor. He became the first ever non-white actor to win a Best Actor BAFTA award in 2017 and his acting career seems to be going from strength to strength so expect to see him in future productions on TV and in films. We have also found some photos of a production of Chaucer’s ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’, from The Canterbury Tales, that Adeel was in at The Prep many years ago.
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Autumn Term House Competitions Report In the 2018 Autumn Term, Sparta managed to beat Troy by just one point, an incredibly close finish! This means that the Planners and the Flag on the Head’s Lawn will be black for the Term! Congratulations to Mr Dawson and Sparta, we look forward to another term of excellent House Events, participation and competition! Here are some brief highlights and key stats: • There were nine House Events this term; two academic (Maths, Accelerated Reading), four sporting (Hockey, Rugby, Cross Country, Football), one creative (Art) and three ‘effort’ (PR1 & PR2, Pluses) • There was one brand new House Event this term (Accelerated Reading) • After all the events, only 15 points separated 1st to 6th place and there was only one point between the top three Houses! • We also say goodbye to Miss Ramsay, an organiser of some superb House Events, particularly the House Swimming and Sport Day. She will definitely be missed and we wish her all the best in her new job!
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Year 7 Talk with Rosie Radford from Cheltenham Open Door As part of their study of Robert Swindells’ novel ‘Stone Cold’ this term, all Year 7s have begun a project on street homelessness, one of the text’s central themes. On Tuesday 15 January, we welcomed Rosie to The Prep to speak to the year group about her work at Cheltenham Open Door, a volunteer charity which supports vulnerable adults in the Cheltenham area. We learned all about the work they do to provide support for local people who have become street homeless. We then met Terry. An Irish national who has lived in England for most of his life, Terry has been receiving support from Open Door for the last eighteen months, but he is also one of their most committed volunteers. He recounted the story of his varied and colourful life, including his experiences of living homeless on the streets of Cheltenham in recent months. It was a highly thought-provoking and informative session. In order to further develop empathy for the plight of the street homeless and the novel’s main character, Year 7 pupils will be undertaking a Sleep-Out activity on the evening of Friday 1 February. On behalf of all the ‘guests’ and staff at Open Door, Rosie has also asked me to thank all those Year 7 pupils and parents who were kind enough to donate tins of food before Christmas. Your generosity made a big difference over the festive period.
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Week 3 3 Calendar Week 21/1/19 - 27/1/19 Mon - 21/1/19 Week 3 (18) 21 -27 January 08:20
Years 3-8 D&T House Competition Prize Giving
12:00
Kingfishers Parents' Lunch*
18:00
13+ Music Scholars' Recital (Lake House)*
Tue - 22/1/19 Cheltenham College 13+ Music Scholarship Examinations (College) 09:00
Prep Eco-Committee Trip to Forest Green Rovers FC
12:00
Kingfishers Parents' Lunch*
Wed - 23/1/19 12:40
Departure for U13 Severnside Netball Tournament at Clifton (A): U13A. Start 14:15. Pick up 18:00
13:00
Departure for Hockey v Pinewood (A): 1st VII. Start 14:15. Pick up 16:30
13:00
Hockey v Dean Close (H): U11C VII, U10C VII. Pick up 16:20
13:15
Departure for Dean Close Hockey Festival (A): U11A VII, U11B VII. Start 14:00. Pick up 16:30
13:15
Departure for U13 Severnside Netball Tournament at Wycliffe (A): U13B. Start 14:15. Pick up 17:30
13:30
Departure for U12 Severnside Netball Tournament at Dean Close (A): U12A. Start 14:15. Pick up 17:00
13:45
Departure for Hockey v Pinewood (A): 6th VII, 7th VII. Start 15:15. Pick up 17:30
14:00
Cheltenham Prep Hockey Festival (H): U10A VII, U10B VII. Pick up 16:20
14:15
Hockey v Pinewood (H): 2nd VII, 3rd VII. Pick up 16:20
14:15
Internal Netball Matches (H): U11B v U13C, U11C v U12B. Pick up 16:20
14:30
Football v St Hugh's (H): U9A VII, U9B VII. Pick up 16:00
14:30
U11 Severnside Netball Tournament (H): U11A. Pick up 16:30
15:15
Hockey v Pinewood (H): 4th VII, 5th VII. Pick up 16:45
15:15
Internal Matches (H): U10A v U9A, U10B v U9B. Pick up 16:20
Thu - 24/1/19 10:30
Year 3 Geography Field Trip to Bath Road
12:00
Kingfishers Parents' Lunch*
16:20
Departure for Swimming Gala v Dean Close (A): Years 6-8. Start 17:00. Pick up 18:15
19:30
Prep+ 'Fame' The Musical (Everyman Theatre)
Fri - 25/1/19 House Maths Challenge 3 12:00
Kingfishers Parents' Lunch*
14:20
Chapel*
15:30
Exeat begins for pupils in Kingfishers
16:00
Exeat begins for pupils in Lower School
16:20
Year 6 Mixed Hockey Tour Information Meeting (Assembly Hall)*
16:20
Exeat begins for pupils in Middle and Upper School
Sun - 27/1/19 19:00
Boarders return, latest return 19:30
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Birthdays Happy birthday to the following pupils who had their birthdays this week:
• Apollinaire C (13) • Max M (10) • Eleanor B (6) • Carys K (5) • Jack E (10) • Oscar L (9) • Olivia L (9) • Theodore N (13) • Charlie S (8) Happy birthday to the following pupils who have their birthdays in the next week:
• Max R (4) • Oliver W (10) • Finn C (7) • Max W (10)
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The CCPS Morocco Experience
Tribal Tracks Presents
www.tribaltracks.co.uk
TRIBAL TRACKS PRESENTS THE CCPS MOROCCO EXPERIENCE... Join us on a parent and child adventure, designed to ignite wanderlust and let young imaginations go wild as they leave the world of tech behind and become immersed in this fascinating real-life voyage of discovery. This 5 day October half term adventure (first week) for the parents and children in middle and upper school, begins in the colourful and exotic souks of Marrakech. You then travel to the spectacular High Atlas Mountains where you will experience the wonder of this special place with expert local guides. You will discover the culture of the Berbers, learning their customs and traditions while you make bread with them, showing the children a very different way of life. The journey culminates in the beautiful Agafay desert, with a night under the stars and a chance to reflect on knowledge gained, experiences shared and important life lessons learned.
LAUNCHING WITH AN INFORMATION EVENING AT 6PM IN THE LIBRARY, ON 7 FEBRUARY 2019. RSVP by 5 February 2019 please, by clicking on this link https://goo.gl/forms/D2IJgwmLZp1BRcDG2
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And finally... Dear Parents It has been fantastic having the children back in school, with renewed enthusiasm and vigour, after the Christmas holidays. As staff, we had a couple of days of training and preparation but the school always feels strange without the children and we were all champing at the bit waiting for term to start. I am delighted to announce that Tor Simpson has taken on the role of Head of Girls’ Games for the rest of this year. A permanent appointment will be made over the coming months for a September start. In the meantime, please direct all of your girls’ games queries to Mrs Simpson who already has the department flourishing. We had a very busy and enjoyable Lower School Open Morning today and we have our whole school ‘Circus’ themed Open Morning on 9 February. Do pass on details to anyone who you think may be interested and, please, feel free to come yourselves if you would like to see what happens further up the school from where your child may
There is also one more event to announce. The inaugural Prep Grand Masquerade Ball will be taking place this term. This spectacular evening is for all children in Years 6, 7 and 8, is free of charge, and will, I am sure, prove to be one of the highlights of the year. A host of surprises will be
be now.
revealed on this night of fine food and dancing, but I can
There are a couple of very exciting trips happening over
for by Prep children!!) will be revealed.
the next 18 months or so that I wanted to bring to your attention, so they are in the back of your minds. In
reveal that the top ten greatest songs of all time (as voted
Have a wonderful weekend.
October Half Term Mr Perona-Wright will be leading a music and cultural trip to Sicily and in March 2020 there will be a school ski trip for skiers of all standards from absolute beginners to budding Franz Klammers! More information will be circulated about each trip in due time, but I thought it would be useful to have the dates early for your diaries.
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