St Teresa's Prep Bulletin 12 February 2021

8th February 2021 12th February 2021

Message from Mrs Conrad Today is the start of Chinese New Year and so I would like to wish all our Chinese families, “Gong Xi Fa Cai”! I hope you enjoy your celebrations and festivities over the next 7 days.

Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that comes between 21st January and the 20th February and is also known in China as the Spring Festival. This reminds us that Spring is around the corner and soon the days will be longer and lighter and new life will be bursting forth all around us – a lovely image on which to end this half term! Brighter days will soon be with us and we hope that the Prime Minister’s announcement, expected at the end of half term, will bring good news that the girls will be able to return to school in March. Whatever the case, I am sure the Year of the Ox, will give us the strength and determination we need to overcome any obstacles that come our way!

I hope you all enjoy a well deserved rest over the coming week’s break.

Diary Dates: Friday 12th February

Half Term begins

Monday 22nd February

School resumes

This week you should have received: Whole School

Half termly grade sheet

Years 1 - 3

Updated log in details for Collins reading books

Half Term Reading Ideas Miss Hilder wanted to share this article—’10 children’s books that will take them on a journey this half term’.

There are some lovely suggestions here for our older readers—click here

Golden Book Well done to all of the girls in our Golden Books this week: 1BB

Sophia D and Lucy A for their positive attitude and independence in their online learning and showing pride in their work.

2EB

Arabella H and Isabella M-S for working so hard independently on all tasks and participating fully in all lessons during this half term.

3DI

Clemmie H for her fabulous contributions to lessons and a super Chinese New Year booklet—well done!

Perla L for her fabulous participation and enthusiasm across the curriculum this half term.

Charlotte J for creating a fantastic shadow puppet show as part of our project on Chinese New Year including a theatre to perform it in!

Amelia L for fantastic effort with her written work and especially her research on Everyday Life in Ancient Greece and Chinese New Year.

3KC

4RN

Tabitha D for her fantastic attitude and maturity to online learning this half term. Tabby has shown independence and resilience with her work, producing some lovely pieces of extended writing.

Isola R for working fantastically in school and at home, listening carefully to what is expected of her and gaining confidence to share her thoughts online.

Alexandra B for excellent contributions to our English lessons this week, sharing her ideas on setting and character description. Well done!

4CR

Saskia D for working hard using mental calculations to help with adding to larger numbers.

Alana E for her fantastic descriptions of both characters and settings, using imagery and carefully chosen language to develop her ideas.

Clara de A for her fantastic use of language to really paint a clear picture of her setting and effort to include features such as fronted adverbials in her description.

Peyton S for her positivity and her effort with her work shown in her problem solving in Maths and superb descriptions in English.

5MK

Eloise S and Isla N for their brilliant character descriptions of Henry VIII with super use of figurative language and interesting sentence starters.

Phoebe H and Lilia N for showing such kindness and helpfulness during our PSHE lesson this week. ….and from Mrs Pearson Ruby A for being great in Science. She is so enthusiastic and when she dropped her egg and picked it up it squirted everywhere, we all laughed for a very long time.

5HC

Layla S for her commitment to online learning and for her huge improvement in answering questions about a text, using evidence to support her opinions.

Erin C for her consistent conscientious attitude to all aspects of online learning and for excellent writing in English this week, taking her time and striving to produce her best week.

Evangelina P for her excellent work in our Topic lessons this half term and for her enthusiasm for all tasks during online learning.

6KH

Lottie DT and Chloe S who have both shown real commitment to online learning this half term and who both wrote detailed and descriptive stories last week, based on the book we studied, 'Rose Blanche' Zara P and Sophia Y for their excellent commitment to online learning and their wonderful stories based on Rose Blanche.

6JG

Good News!

French Baking Peyton in Year 4 made a traditional French cake (a Gallette des rois) using thin slices of apple and a chocolate ganache. It looks delicious!! If you’d like to try making it at home, you can find the recipe here.

Ice Bowls Alana helped make ice bowls by freezing water and food colouring in balloons. Great fun!

Online Courses for Children Microsoft are running some great free online courses for children (and adults). Have a look here to see if there is anything that might be of interest to your daughter (there is even some Minecraft in there!): Microsoft Online Courses

Great Work!

Year 2

Great Work!

Year 3 Year 3 had fun creating either a finger or a hand to demonstrate how joints, tendons and bones work together to make it move. They also met the challenge of moving an object using the hand!

Year 6 The girls have been researching jobs that women did during WW2 and Betty combined this with a propaganda poster persuading ladies to join the WRENS. The very special thing about this is that the lady in the picture is her Great Grandmother who was a WREN in WW2.

Year 5 Science Year 5 have been learning and carrying out investigations about forces this term. Mrs Pearson challenged them to defy gravity and drop an egg without it breaking. They were given certain items they could use to protect the egg.

Here are some of the results:

Great Work!

Year 3—Chinese New Year Year 3 have been researching and finding out all about Chinese culture during Chinese New Year.

They have researched a number of areas including red envelopes, dragon and lion dances, special food, firecrackers and fireworks and much, much more and are making a Chinese New Year booklet including a front cover and a contents page.

In Topic, the girls are making a shadow puppet show including all the characters by either designing and drawing their own or cutting out intricate characters from the Story of the Zodiac. We hope to show you the finished results after half term.

Year 3 Maths Mrs Irons' Maths group have had 'Fractions' as their topic this week, revising fraction notation, equal parts and introducing decimal fractions! They enjoyed some extra challenges, representing fractions using Lego!

Year 1 This week in RE, the girls began to think about the Last Supper. We discussed the importance and significance of the Holy Communion at Church and thought about why we celebrate this meal. The girls had some lovely and thoughtful questions about why we have Holy Communion at Church and learnt all about the what the bread and the wine symbolise. The girls then put themselves in the position of the disciples and wrote some lovely pieces of writing about how they would feel if they were present at the Last Supper.

Great Work!

6JG These are pictures that the girls created for RE to show how 6JG is made up of individuals working together.

Year 4 This week in English, we have looked at the story of an ordinary young girl who draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and escapes on an extraordinary journey. Using the wordless book 'Journey' we wrote setting descriptions, with sentence starters and noun phrases. We looked at the action scenes in the story with the magic red crayon the girl uses, to create her adventure and we have started to plan our own sequels!

Year 5 Year 5 have been looking at Tudor clothing and comparing the clothes of the rich and poor. After being invited to a banquet at Hampton Court Palace, the girls used what they had learned to design an outfit for a Lord or Lady to wear for the occasion.

Music News Musicians of the Week Evie C and Ruby S for consistently good engagement and contribution to the music lesson this half term.

Isabella K for very good playing of the Can-Can melody on the piano.

Phoebe H for her excellent work on the viol.

Amy L for being fully engaged in online lessons and producing lots of work. She created a very good poster about the hurdy-gurdy.

Arabella C for her very good playing of the White Cliffs of Dover on the piano.

Lockdown Music Competitions Congratulations to all the girls who took part in the music competitions. The judges enjoyed all the entries. These are the results: LOWER PREP Highly Commended: Lucy A for her unaccompanied singing.

Amelia H for her costume.

Darcy R for her dance moves.

Ruby S for her special effects.

WINNERS:

Sophia C and Summer C

YEAR 3 Highly Commended: Searlait W WINNER:

Matilda R

YEAR 4 Highly Commended: Felicity S WINNER:

India Rose C

YEARS 5 & 6 Highly Commended: Alice C, Tabby H and Caitlin W WINNER:

Phoebe R

Congratulations to all these girls. The judges were very impressed with the standard.

All the girls who took part will receive merits and a certificate.

Musical Podcasts Classic FM radio have some very good podcasts for children, recorded by David Walliams. Each one is between 15 and 20 minutes long. They are highly recommended!

David Walliams’ Marvellous Musical Podcast: David Walliams' Marvellous Musical Podcast - Podcast | Global Player

Sports News This week, Years 3-6 have been re-testing their fitness components to see which areas of fitness they have improved over the last 5 weeks. Years 5 and 6 learnt how to do Bollywood dancing, whilst Years 1 and 2 improved on their agility and learnt the Shark and Table Top yoga pose. We wish you a lovely half term and remember to keep practising your hockey and netball skills, ready for when we come back to School.

PE Star of the Week Our PE Stars of the week for outstanding effort are: Susie Y in Year 3 Zara B in Year 5

Weekly PE Challenge This week’s PE challenge was alternate claps in a front support with a family member. The weekly PE challenge winners are: Year 4-6: 1st) Stella P in Year 6: 101 claps, 2nd) Lucia C in Year 6: 81 claps, 3rd) Arabella C in Year 5: 62 claps Year 1-3: 1st) Jessica T in Year 3 with 55 claps 3nd) Searlait W with 37 claps

Outside School India in Year 4 has been enjoying take part in the IAPS challenges with her family each day.

Alex, Emma and Stef wrapped up and ran 1 mile in the snow. Great effort girls! Nothing better than running in the snow!

Next Week Next Wednesday it will be Ash Wednesday. As we will not be in school next week, we spent time in Chapel this week preparing for this important Feast Day. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, the forty day period of preparation for the great feast of Easter.

In Scripture, a period of forty days, or indeed, forty years, always refers to a time of testing, trial and preparation. For example, Noah waited forty days for the waters of the flood to recede, Moses waited forty days on the mountain before receiving the Ten Commandments, and the people of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years before entering the promised land. We mark these forty days as we recall Jesus spending this time in the wilderness preparing for his great sacrifice in Holy Week.

During the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert he spent his time in prayer, fasting and preparing to give his life for us. During Lent we are asked to do the same – to pray, to fast and to give to others.

Perhaps, if we don’t usually pray, we can set aside a specific time each day for prayer. First thing in the morning or just before bed are both good times. And if we already spend some time in prayer, we are encouraged to do more – perhaps commit to reading a passage from the Bible each day, or to pray the Rosary for the intentions of those in need. Lent is a great time to recommit to spend a regular period of time in prayer.

Traditionally, children give up sweets, chocolate or other treats and we are certainly encouraged still to do this as it builds a real experience of fasting. But Lent is also a time for us to consider what attitudes and behaviours we need to fast from – selfishness, thoughtlessness, bad language – the list could go on. We are encouraged to choose one of these and to fast from it during Lent.

Finally, we are called to think of others. Again, traditionally, people make an extra donation to a charity, and this is certainly to be encouraged. But this year, particularly because of COVID, perhaps we can recommit ourselves to acts of charity at home. Perhaps in quite ways we can take it upon ourselves to complete a selfless act of charity for our families – loading and unloading the dishwasher, tidying up without being asked, or zooming grandparents for a daily chat.

We have a week to decide what we will commit to do this Lent. We are encouraged to write our commitments down and to revisit them regularly. And in this we will be enter into the real meaning of Lent this year.

E-mail equestrian@st-teresas.com Call

01372 750257

Visit our website www.st-teresas.com/ equestrian Or find us on Facebook “St Teresa’s Equestrian”

While we’re counting down the days until we can open again, we’ll do our best to keep you all updated with what the horses are up to!

We’ll also be updating our page on Firefly with information and activities for you to do at home.

Check out Resources —> Sport —> Equestrian to find us!

We only have two entries in for our cross country jump competition! We’ve extended the deadline to Sunday 21st February, so send in your entries to win the chance to get a prize!

Hi Everyone,

It’s been very cold this week with lots of snow and ice, we are all bored now as the humans are keeping us in the barn to save the fields from getting too muddy. so we have to be turned out in the arena.

Fingers crossed everything will start to defrost and we can go out, roll and get muddy!

Lots of love Tango and Sky x

Lockdown Competition - Design your own cross country jump!

Along with our updates, we’re also including a small competition where you can design your own cross country jump. Be it a water complex, a brush, a log, or something you’ve made up entirely on your own!

The deadline has been extended to Sunday 21st February, email in your designs to equestrian@st-teresas.com and the winner will receive Mary King’s latest book ‘My Way: How I train for success’

Good luck to you all!