Issue 2
Spring Term
19th January 2024
Message from Mrs Conrad Many of you will be aware that our school is named after St Thérèse of Lisieux, one of the most popular Catholic saints since apostolic times. This remarkable young woman had a deep faith and is known for her simple yet beautiful theological insights which are so profound that she was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1997. St Thérèse is popularly known as the ‘Little Flower’ because she saw the world as God’s garden and each person as a different kind of flower growing in His love. On her Feast Day, back in October, every member of the Prep School made the petal of a flower. The petals were then assembled by Mrs Halliwell to make class flowers and a staff flower which have formed a stunning art installation in our foyer illustrating one of St Thérèse’s powerful quotes, “If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, Spring would lose its loveliness.” A wonderful message for our girls, and each one of us, that we are all unique and should not be afraid to be different. Please do pop in to take a look!
Key Diary Dates: Mon 22nd Jan
Years 5 & 6, Young Shakespeare Co. A Midsummer Night's Dream Workshop
Afternoon
Wed 24th Jan
Year 4, Open Book Morning, Henderson Hall & Classrooms
8:15—9:00
Thu 25th Jan
6JG Class Assembly, Henderson Hall
08:30—9:00
Mon 29th Jan
Children's Mental Health Awareness Week
All Week
Wed 31th Jan
Year 5, Open Book, Henderson Hall & Classrooms
8:15—9:00
Thu 1st Feb
Prep School Parents’ Evening (on-line)
17:00—20:00
Fri 2nd Feb
FOST Valentine’s Dance
17:30—19:30
Tue 6th Feb
Prep School Parents’ Evening (in person)
16:15—19:15
Thu 8th Feb
Year 5, French Breakfast
AM
Fri 9th Feb
Half term begins
End of day
Mon 19th Feb
School resumes
Wed 21st Feb
Year 6, Open Book, Henderson Hall & Classrooms
8:15—9:00
Thu 22nd Feb
4AB Class Assembly, Henderson Hall
8:30—9:30
Wed 28th Feb
Year 5, Parents Meeting for Osmington Bay Trip
16:30—17:00
Thu 29th Feb
3RN, Class Assembly, Henderson Hall
8:30—9.00
Prep School Open Book Mornings We will be holding Open Book Mornings for each Year Group starting in the Spring Term. This is an opportunity for your daughters to show you their books and their classrooms. Refreshments will be served in the Henderson Hall from 8.15am and, once the girls are settled, you will be taken to the classroom from 8.30am until 9.00am. Please see the dates below. You will be sent an online form to confirm your attendance nearer the time. Wednesday 24th January—Year 4 Wednesday 31st January—Year 5 Wednesday 21st February—Year 6
6JG—Class Assembly Parents of girls in 6JG are invited to join us for their class assembly on Thursday 25th January 2023 at 8.30am in the Henderson Hall Refreshments will be served in the Henderson Hall from 8.15am
Charity Donation The Hall family spent part of their weekend sorting out their clothes and toys so that they could make a donation to an orphanage in Ecuador. They wanted to keep some things, but spoke about having humility to pass something on to someone else whose need is greater. They were shocked at how much they actually had and how much they didn’t need!
This week you should have received: Whole School
Valentine’s Dance flyer—please click this link to register and book your tickets.
Whole School
Parents’ Evening Booking letter—booking system opens at 7.00pm on Tuesday 23rd Jan
Year 4
Open book invitation
Please contact the School Office if you need copies of any of this information—prepinfo@st-teresas.com
Drama Stars Emilia C for her confidence in creating sounds for her for her group poetry performance. Primrose L for her creativity and imagination when leading the tribe. Lily B for her contributions to discussions about Shakespeare and his plays. Maysie R for working positively with her partner and creating some carefully considered mimes.
Golden Book Well done to all of the girls in our Golden Books this week: 3RN
Zoe G for great focus and effort in her maths with her use of the 4 and 8 times tables, and improvement with her reading. Well done Zoe! Caitlin I for her mental maths and super effort with her English in our topic The Street Beneath My Feet. Well done Caitlin!
3KC
Sophia H for fabulous adjectives in her explanation text and for checking her written work makes sense. Well done Sophia. Eloise K for a brilliant description and reasons why we celebrate Christmas during the church year. Well done Eloise. Viv W-S for her great effort during maths this week when working on the 8 times tables and for her increasing speed and accuracy. Well done Viv.
4LH
Zoe G and Rosie M for your creative ideas and range of vocabulary as we explore the journey of our new character in English. Gemma J for her wonderful, detailed setting description. Ania S for enthusiastically sharing her super knowledge and experience of the roles of people who serve in their parish church. Carys D for her fantastic effort to develop her use of language in her setting description. Thea S for her fantastic effort to choose exciting phrases and vocabulary when describing a forest setting.
4AB
4CR
5HC
5KH
6MK
6JG
6RW
Liberty B and Bella D for their positive and excellent start to St Teresa's, especially their perseverance and conscientious attitude in Maths this week. Holly E and Anna P for their thoughtful work on starting their own charity, especially their creative logo designs. Alexa H, Evie R and Eliza P for their thoughtful and well presented comic strips depicting the Battle of Bosworth. Stef V Ey and Florence D for their effective recount writing in English this week, describing what it was like to be evacuated during the Second World War. Pani L and Sophia N for their Blackout Poetry where they created a poem about World War I from a piece of unrelated text. Charlotte J for working so well in Maths and helping the class learn the song for our assembly by singing so confidently. Willa S for fabulous energy at Young Voices and mature attitude to her work in English. Lara B, for working so hard to use emotive language in an evacuee recount. Viola K, for showing an increased confidence in maths this week.
Year 3—Starburst Experiment This week as part of their topic, ‘Rocks, Relics and Rumbles’, the girls completed a Starburst Experiment to find out about the three different types of rock and the rock cycle. They started by comparing starbursts with igneous rock, then cut each starburst into four pieces to show the sediments after the igneous rock had been eroded. Afterwards, they pressed hard on the pieces of sediment and said “compaction and cementation” to eventually create sedimentary rock. The girls then put their flattened sedimentary rock into a plastic bag and added heat and pressure to create metamorphic rock. Next, the girls put their ball of starbursts “metamorphic rock” into the microwave onto a plate and saw what happened when heat was applied. We removed the melting “magma or lava” and then watched it cool and turn into igneous rock. The girls were amazing at following the instructions, predicting what may happen and showing their evidence.
Year 3—Open Book We were delighted to welcome parents to the first Open Book Morning of the year. Our Year 3 girls were able to proudly share their hard work and we look forward to welcoming the other year groups over the coming weeks.
Year 6—Blackout Poetry To kick start their new topic ‘A Child’s War’, the girls in Year 6 studied poems from the First World War, before being challenged to create their own ‘Blackout’ poems from unrelated texts.
Sports News Netball - U8 Interhouse Netball On Friday, the U8s had their interhouse netball tournament. It was very cold but the girls were in high spirits and worked really hard. It was great to see so many goals being scored. Well done to everyone who played—it was fantastic to see your improvement since September. Over the two mini competitions, St Dominic won in Group 1 and St Ignatius won Group 2. Well done girls.
Well done to the U11A Netball Team who played in a tournament on Saturday at Danes Hill. We were lucky enough to be playing in the sports hall but it was FREEZING. The girls worked really hard throughout all the matches and had a great start by beating St Catherines! They managed to win 2 games and lost 3. Two of the matches they lost were very close. It was great to see the girls working hard as team.
Hockey - U10 Interhouse Hockey All the girls from Year 5 competed in the interhouse hockey competition on Tuesday. Throughout the tournament, points were scored for sportsmanship, winning matches and how effectively teams completed their own warm-up led by the team coaches. Many of the matches were closely contested with only 1 or 2 goals separating the teams. The following girls were awarded merits due to their hard work and determination throughout the matches: P. Christie, A. Avakian, S. Brooke, J. Wright, E. Cattley and S. Copeland. Francis and Benedict closely contested third place with only 1-point separating them and finishing 4th and 3rd place respectively. Dominic finished 2nd, meaning Ignatius were crowned champions
Fixtures (week commencing 22nd January) Tuesday 23rd January—U10A-F Netball V St Georges (A) 2:30pm Friday 26th January—U9A-D Netball V CLFS (A) 2:30pm
Music News Young Voices Concert at the O2 Our Years 5 & 6 Young Voices Choir sang brilliantly at the O2 this week. It was an amazing experience for them to perform at such a prestigious arena as part of a massed choir of 8,000. They were joined by some inspirational professional musicians - jazz singer-songwriter Natalie Williams, drummer Nandi Bushell and award winning teacher, MC Grammar. By the end of the night everyone was on their feet singing and dancing! A big thank you to our families who joined us for the event, their support was much appreciated by the choir! We were particularly impressed by the banner prepared by one of our families!
Easter Music Course Further details and booking details can be obtained from: Mrs Caroline Yalden, Director of Music— c.yalden@st-teresas.com
This Week In Chapel this week we reflected on the dramatic account of the call of Samuel (1 Sam 3).
The introduction makes it clear that both Samuel and his mentor Eli are far from God, and Eli has lost not just his physical sight, but his spiritual insight too. Then, into the darkness of that night, God appears. We then have the somewhat comic account of those three times that Samuel mistakenly wakes Eli from his sleep, both literal and spiritual, as he becomes every more aware of God calling him.
Finally, even the faithless Eli recognises that God is calling Samuel and he advises young Samuel how to respond, open to God’s call. Samuel is a lot like most of us. We live in a world that in so many respects has persuaded itself that it has moved beyond its relationship with God, a world where we kid ourselves that we can make it on our own. Yet we are as surely called by God as Samuel was. It is unlikely that we will hear a booming voice from heaven, yet in the countless suggestions, prompts and nudges in our lives, God as surely calls us as he did Samuel. Our own St Thérèse reminds us that there will be opportunities every single day that God will place before us, opportunities for us to share the loving presence of God with our family, friends and neighbours. We may not notice them at first, but that gentle, persistent call will come back again and again. All we are asked to do is respond. “Speak Lord, your servant is listening!”
Valentine’s Dance Flyer Competition Well done to our winner, Perla (Year 6), for designing this beautiful Valentine’s Dance poster. The runner up was Liel in Year 3. Fabulous work girls! There were loads of fantastic entries, so thank you to each and every one of you. All participants will receive a small valentine’s prize next week.
Please use this QR code or click this link to register and book your tickets.
E-mail equestrian@st-teresas.com Call
Visit our website www.st-teresas.com/ equestrian
01372 750257
Or find us on Facebook “St Teresa’s Equestrian”
Booking System st-teresas-equestrian.ecpro.co.uk
We hope that you have all stayed wrapped up and warm this week.
Temperatures have dropped, so please make sure that your child comes to ride with enough layers. We do have some coats and gloves on hand that can be borrowed, however we are limited in sizes. In the cold weather it can be useful to wear tights or leggings underneath jodhpurs/ trousers, the sports skins as a base layer and wearing enough coats on top. Our staff will be encouraging all riders to wear gloves, but if you have your own please make sure to bring it with you.
Topic of the week: Feeding It is important to take care when feeding your horse, as it is easy to feed your horse the wrong thing, too much or too little. The main diet of horses should be forage, this is grass, hay/haylage and chopped grass in hard feed, such as chaff and lucerne. Horses should eat between 1.5-2% of their bodyweight daily, which is dependent on how much work your horse is doing, age, height and weight, and temperament. ~ Libby C
Holidays Activities 2024
We have released our holiday activities on our online booking system for the rest of the academic year! February Half Term, Easter Holidays, May Half Term and Summer Holidays We will be running a variety of Pony Mornings, Pony Afternoons, Private Lessons, Lunge Lessons, Day Camps and a few others. They are all on the EcPro system and you can book a place now!
Menu—w/c Monday 22nd January 2024 Hot lunches include a selection of family favourites and suitable alternatives for children with allergies and intolerances.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Soup of the day
Tomato & basil
Winter vegetable & lentil
Minestrone
Leek & potato
Roasted red pepper & tomato
Prep School
Pork sausages & mash
Pasta Bolognese & crusty bread
Roast chicken breast with Yorkshire pudding
Creamy turkey pie & diced potatoes
Cod goujons or fish fingers
Main
Locally sourced pork sausages & mashed potato
Spaghetti Bolognese with crusty bread
Roast chicken breast with Yorkshire pudding
Turkey & sweetcorn pie with new potatoes
Traditional battered fish fillet or jumbo fish fingers
Eat healthy choice
Roasted red pepper, tomato & turkey coated wholemeal pasta with house salad
Spanish style chicken, chorizo & roasted vegetable ragout with wholemeal rice
Beef bourguignonne
Paella with crusty bread
Chinese style noodles & Oriental vegetables
Vegetarian
Cumberland style vegetable sausages & mashed potato
Ratatouille & mixed bean filled roasted peppers
Leek, potato & mature cheddar bake
Red lentil & vegetable tikka masala with rice
Macaroni cheese with green salad
Sides
Mashed potato Broccoli
Crusty bread Peas & sweetcorn
Roast vegetables Mixed vegetables
New potatoes Carrots
Chips Peas Baked beans
Dessert
Chocolate brownie
Peach & raspberry crumble & custard
Pan au choc bread & butter pudding
Chocolate sponge & chocolate sauce
Summer berry smoothie
Salad Bar Summer Fruit Platter
Salad Bar Summer Fruit Platter
Salad Bar Summer Fruit Platter
Additional
Salad Bar Summer Fruit Platter
Salad Bar Summer Fruit Platter
Items in Italic - Sourced from F Conisbee’s, our local butcher