Evolution Stroud’s Spring Newsletter 2020
Evolution Stroud’s Spring Newsletter 2020
Stroud School, Romsey King Edward VI Preparatory School
From our Headmaster Dear Parents This Easter we find ourselves gripped by what is currently classified as a global pandemic, in the COVID-19 virus. The irony has not been lost on me that the origin of the virus in China is our next step as a family, however, I am pleased to say that the staff, the pupils and the whole school community have been brilliant in taking a balanced, measured and rational view of each phase of our response. We have acted in accordance with government guidance but used judgement to extend this in what we feel has been the best interests of the wider school family. It is true that this has been disruptive and that the pupils have been frightened, in some cases, by what they have seen or heard on the news or in the normal sensationalised conversations of children. I am, however, incredibly proud of the team here at Stroud. They have managed brilliantly; maintaining a continuity of the school environment, our pastoral care and the value of our education, as well as moving incredibly quickly in the background to prepare for the worst case scenario of school closures and escalation of the viral spread. We have also tried to maintain communication with our parent body and I would like to extend my thanks to the large number of you who have phoned or e-mailed to share your knowledge and work with us to get through a difficult period. It is not over, but I feel confident that we are heading in the right direction and making good decisions. My thoughts and best wishes are with all families who are suffering as a result of the virus – inside and outside of the Stroud community. Despite all of this, there is nothing like a school to inject humour and moments of pride, enlightenment and wonder – for the adults as much as the pupils. So far, we have seen the costumes of World Book Day, we have had a fantastic family ski trip, a senior mixed hockey tour to Guernsey and a number of day trips across the age range. These opportunities offer our children perspective and tangible learning – developing skills alongside knowledge. This is a feature of the PSB@Stroud – our Stroud Spirit, and something recognisable from Nursery all the way through to Year 8. Once again, through the process of the senior school assessment, the pupils’ success was reflected in their strength at interview as well as achievement in the written examinations. I am very proud of our senior pupils and their approach to learning, but particularly the way that they learn from their mistakes. Childhood is not always easy and they don’t always get it ‘right’, but skills like resilience and positivity are of huge importance. I am privileged to see these every day at Stroud, from ages 3 -13, and I know that my whole staff feel exactly the same way. Our very best wishes for a happy Easter and time with the family over the holiday. Joel Worrall Headmaster
www.stroud-kes.org.uk
Poetry in Motion
Find Your Brave
Four excited members of Year 5 enjoyed taking part in the Pangbourne School Poetry Performance Competition this term and were delighted to come away with second place. The children enjoyed working collaboratively to bring their chosen poem to life and perform it confidently. They were a credit to Stroud and should be very proud of their conduct and performance.
In the Autumn Term we saw our Year 5 and 6 Team take on the Logic Cup at Lord Wandsworth College. A number of pupils also tackled the UKMT Primary Maths Challenge, with many earning Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards. This term a selection of our children have also been involved in exciting Maths competitions, with teams taking part in the 'Explore Learning' Primary and Senior Team Challenges, Year 4 and Year 6 Bryanston Maths Challenges, Year 5 Pangbourne and Portsmouth Maths Challenges and UKMT Intermediate and Team Maths Challenges, as well as Bonus Rounds in both the UKMT Primary and Intermediate Maths Challenges. Well done to all the pupils for their team spirit, enthusiasm and excellent use of mathematical skills. Huge congratulations goes out to our Year 4 Bryanston sub-team comprising of Benjamin and Michaela, who were awarded joint first place in their competition.
The theme for this year's Children’s Mental Health Week was 'Find your Brave'. At Stroud we believe that life is all about taking small, brave steps every day. With this in mind, children enjoyed engaging sessions with child psychologist Lorraine Lee who has a background in positive parenting training and child development, and is incredibly passionate about giving children and young people the best chances possible. All aspects taught during Mental Health Week highlight our dedication to 'happiness, honesty and respect', which remain our core values.
Two Gold Awards were given to Benjamin and Grayson for their performance in the Intermediate Maths Challenge, who were subsequently invited to take the Grey Kangaroo Bonus Round. Our Secondary Team, Grayson, Dan, David and Bloem, also qualified for the Explore Learning Mathematician’s Awards National Final, which took place at The Natural History Museum in February. Being one of only five teams in the country who made it to the final, this really was an incredible achievement and we are immensely proud of them. Finally, we would like to congratulate our Stroud/ KES teams who competed in the UKMT Team Maths Challenge. They successfully achieved 7th and 9th place respectively amongst 21 other schools.
Honesty, Respect, Happiness
Latest News
Fantastic Maths Results
Early Years
Southampton Art Gallery Nursery and Reception classes visited the Southampton Art Gallery this term. They started by exploring the gallery via the 'Please Touch' trail that enabled them to interact with the pieces of art. This was followed by workshops: Nursery learnt how to make clay hearts, just in time for Valentine's Day, whilst Reception learnt how to block print. Some beautiful art work was created and these, along with other master pieces the children have also created, were displayed to parents at the end of term at a very special Art Gallery viewing, where all parents were invited by hand-written invitation.
Reception
Nursery
Painting in the Great Outdoors It was too windy for Reception children to enjoy a Forest School session on one particular afternoon, so they headed out to the front lawn and, with lots of bottles of paint and big empty canvasses, painted in the style of world-famous artist Jackson Pollock, using twigs and leaves to help texture their works of art! This was inspired by their creative workshop at the Southampton Art Gallery.
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Our Reception children took part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch, which is held annually in January. The RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch is the world's biggest bird survey and regularly attracts nearly half a million participants. The records from people counting birds in their gardens provide a vital snapshot of the UK's bird population each winter. The children wrote a list of instructions that they followed to make their bird feeders, which were then hung in our garden to help attract birds for the big count! They also created a bird hide in our outdoor classroom and made some binoculars. They learnt how to use tallies to record how many of each bird they saw and spotted robins, blue tits, blackbirds and house sparrows. Their findings were submitted to the RSPB.
Honesty, Honesty,Respect, Respect,Happiness Happiness
Early Years
The Great RSPB Garden Watch
KS1
Year 2Out Knight and World Princess Day Of This
Year 2 have had fun this term exploring their Space topic. They kick-started their project by making papier mache planets, which they then used to create solar systems suspended from the classroom ceiling. They then had fun researching and writing ‘space speeches’ on a topic of their own choice. After lots of rehearsing, they presented their speech in front of the green screen. The result? They appeared to be reporting live from space! Finally - could they cut it living in space as an astronaut for long periods of time? We put them to the test by asking them to try some space food. Not all were fans!
Y2 Sea Life Centre
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As part of their Adventures topic, Year 1 have enjoyed learning about pirates. First they made their own miniature treasure islands, then they enjoyed a Pirate Day. The children were replaced by some swash-buckling pirates who designed pirate flags, sung sea shanties and danced in the galley. They then disembarked the ship to scour Stroud Island for a treasure chest. All in a day's work, really!
Year 2 Sea Life Centre Visit
Year 2 visited the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth to start off their topic Deep Down Under. The children had a fantastic day learning all about the habitats of different sea creatures; from coral reefs to mangroves. They all got a chance to touch creatures in the rock pools and visit the ocean tunnel, where they were immersed in the underwater world. They could see first-hand the devastating effect that sea pollution has on sea creatures, with some turtles being deformed from plastic getting stuck around their shells, and also the damage water sports have on animals when they get hurt by jet skis and propellers. The children felt so strongly about what they saw that, on their return to school, they wrote letters to important people who may be able to help stop these unfortunate things from occurring. Currently they are awaiting a response to their letters.
Honesty, Respect, Happiness
KS1
Year 1 Scurvy Scallywags
Middle School
Year 3 Winchester College Treasury Year 3 visited Winchester College Treasury as part of their History and Art project. The children learnt about different styles of Greek pottery and had the opportunity to handle ancient artefacts. This visit inspired the children, giving them ideas for their own Ancient Greek clay work.
Year 4 Discover Hampton Court Palace Year 4 visited Hampton Court Palace to explore what life would have been like in Tudor times. What an amazing experience! The children enjoyed walking in the footsteps of Henry VIII and his queens, viewing the privy council chamber and entering the beautiful chapel. They visited the enormous kitchens and tried to decide if they would like working there – standing near the fire to turn the spit was quite appealing on such a cold day, but maybe not for eight hours at a time! They learnt lots of interesting facts: did you know that a normal bag of sugar would have cost the equivalent of £300? To show off his wealth, King Henry VIII held special banquets where everything (including the cups and salt and pepper pots) were made out of gilded sugar. It was a fantastic trip and, fortunately, no one lost their head!
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Year 5 had their first official Bunsen burner lesson this term and learnt how to light a splint, check a Bunsen burner is set up correctly, light a Bunsen burner, identify safety and heating flames and identify safety features in the lab. Now they are experts; here are some photos!
"There’s Life, Jim..." In January, Year 4 blasted off into space at the Winchester Science Museum. They started with a guided tour of our solar system and the known universe. They took a peek under Venus’ toxic clouds, visited icy Europa and gazed at the countless galaxies. The big question for most of the children: is there life out there? Back on Earth, the children explored the interactive exhibits that make the Winchester Science Centre such a fantastic place to visit. Parachutes, wheelchair basketball, reaction time challenges… they had a go at everything. The most popular activity was a head-to-head battle of mind-power, which involved using relaxation and focus to move a ball with just brain waves. Incredible!
Honesty, Respect, Happiness
Middle School
Playing with Fire... Safely!
Senior School
HMS Queen Elizabeth Year 7 were extremely privileged to enjoy a special visit on board HMS Queen Elizabeth. This ship is the lead vessel of the Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers; the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy. You can see HMS Queen Elizabeth from three different vantage points across Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard. The ÂŁ3 billion aircraft carrier is one of the most advanced warships ever built by the Royal Navy and will be on operations for the next 50 years. The new Queen Elizabeth class carrier is 35 times the size of Nelson's famous flagship HMS Victory and four times her length. This wonderful and unique opportunity arose from the Peter Cooper Motor Group's sponsorship of the Royal Navy Rugby Union, allowing the opportunity for local communities to visit the ship.
Year 8 Geography Field Trip
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Year 6 were treated to the KES Sounds Amazing Roadshow, which was delivered by Upper 6th students from KES. Pupils took part in a range of sound experiments, heard some unusual musical instruments and watched some exciting demonstrations.
Year 8 enjoyed a rather damp day in Lyndhurst and Bolderwood as part of their Sustainable Tourism Project. First stop was Lyndhurst where they visited the New Forest Heritage Centre. An education officer spoke to the children about the history of the New Forest, tourism facts, and Lyndhurst as a 'honey-pot' site. The children then went out onto the high street to ask members of the public some questions they had devised as part of a tourism survey. After lunch, the children then enjoyed a walk around Bolderwood to learn about conservation measures put in place there by the National Park Authority. Bolderwood hosts a deer sanctuary with a public deer observation platform. Unfortunately, no deer were spotted – perhaps too much noise!
Honesty, Respect, Happiness
Senior School
Sounds Amazing!
Creativity
Year 1 Experiment with Music Year 1 have spent time this term looking at different types of instruments that are played in an orchestra. They then had the opportunity to try some out: some from the string family, some from the woodwind family and some from the brass family. It was all rather noisy, but they had great fun!
Sport Relief In March, Stroud took part in Sport Relief: a charity that supports vulnerable people, both in the UK and across the world. Fundraising across the country totalled over ÂŁ40 million, and Stroud were proud to play their part. To raise money, pupils wore non-uniform for the day and paid a ÂŁ1 donation for the privilege. Sports Relief wristbands were sold and a raffle was held where children could win sports equipment prizes. There was an assembly before the day, which explained how Sport Relief helps others, and children took part in bench ball and dodgeball games on the day to celebrate sport.
Spring Music
In total, we raised over ÂŁ1,100! A great effort from all and a really worthwhile cause.
Every Spring Term we produce a Springburst Concert for parents to enjoy, and a Year 4 Show to showcase talent from this year group. This term has been no different, with musicians and actors practising hard for these planned performances. Year 4 produced a show consisting of fairy tales, with dragons, pirates and rats! They also learnt various musical items, and should feel very proud of their hard work, despite not being able to perform their show this term. Orchestra and Senior Choir have had weekly rehearsals; preparing to show off their skills in the Springburst Concert. Year 5 produced a Toy Story medley and also prepared some solo performances, and Year 7 put together a hilarious pantomime. All the children are disappointed not to have shared this in the final concert, but their hard work and impressive performances in rehearsals should be celebrated.
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To celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Norman Romsey Abbey, Stroud was approached to join in with a community collaborative project to create two sculptures of Abbesses who were in situ in the Abbey. We were designated Johanna Icthe and Clemncia de Guldeford to create and represent in our creations and, as a starting point, were provided with a four foot wooden cut-out that pupils, with the aid of Mrs McCarthy van Zyl aided with 3D printing of and Mrs Brewer, began to papier hands and an expertly-designed mache and create a 3D form from. crozier. Finally, pupils guilded the forms to make the wonderful Next, they added Powertex into sculptures look like bronze. fabric to make the form, whilst Mr These will be displayed in Romsey Abbey along with the work from Please scan 16 other schools over the next the QR code six months. We are very proud to see more of the effort the Stroud pupils pictures of the making of have put into creating the Abbess our Abbesses. sculptures and cannot wait to see all of the other creations.
Charitable Events
Abbey Abbesses
The budding musicians of Stroud attended a concert of classical music in Southampton this term. The concert was performed by the Southern Pro Musical orchestra and featured ‘The Blue Danube’ and film music from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ among other things. There was also some awesome xylophone playing!
Honesty, Respect, Happiness
Sports News
IAPS U11 Netball Regional Tournament In February, the U11 Netball Team played in the IAPS tournament at St Swithuns School. The girls played some truly amazing netball, winning their group, which progressed them into the cup competition. Unfortunately, they narrowly lost the quarter final against St Gabriels, but it was really fantastic sport and they should be very proud of their achievements.
Year 1 and Year 2 Solent Sport During the Spring Term, Year 1 and 2 had an exciting opportunity to attend a sports festival led by sports company Solent Sport. Year 1 attended a Multi Ball Skills Festival, which was a fun and exciting introduction to ball skills. The festival incorporated a variety of different invasion-based sports that provided a stepping stone introduction for the children. They participated in a range of different skills and sports throughout the event, in teams against other schools. The Year 2 children attended a Racket Skills Festival. The festival included a variety of different skills and drills all designed at helping and encouraging younger children to try net sports. The festival incorporated hand tennis, target hitting, ball balance relays, keepy uppies, bouncing races and mini net games.
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A huge well done to Annabel, Lotte, Millie, Megan and Milly who have been selected to represent the Prep School Lions in the Football World Youth Cup (Gothia Cup) in Gothenburg, Sweden, in July. The girls competed in the Prep Schools’ District Football Trials, which took place in November, and from this were selected to take part in the World Youth Cup (Gothia Cup), which is a fantastic international youth tournament held in Sweden. This is the first time there will be a girls’ team within each age group as well as the boys’ teams. We wish them all the best of luck and look forward to hearing how they get on.
Half Term School Skiing Trip In February half term, Stroud had a very successful ski trip to Kuchl in the Salzberger Sportwelt Region in Austria. Students and their families, along with Miss Brooker and Mrs Van Zyl, were very fortunate to have great snow and blue skies, with great instructors and an extensive ski area. It was a delight to see the children improve daily: all their hard work and effort paid off. Thank you to everyone for a fantastic week – we're already looking forward to our next trip in February 2021!
Honesty, Respect, Happiness
Sports News
Girls off to Gothia World Cup 2020
Stroud Spirit
World Book Day 2020
At the beginning of March, the whole school came in looking fabulous; Harry Potter chatted amiably with Peter Pan as the Wimpy Kid played football with a dinosaur, and another World Book Day at Stroud had begun! The day started with an assembly where the children enjoyed a story (of course!), followed by a suitably ridiculous staff pantomime with plenty of booing, cheering and naughty crocodiles! This was followed by a story-time and Reading Buddies session where children could share a love of books with their peers. Book-based activities were enjoyed in all English lessons, and celebrated a love of reading, writing and bringing stories to life. Another brilliant day to inspire the children and celebrate creativity across the school.
Stroud School, Highwood Lane, Romsey, Hampshire S051 9ZH