Issue 4 13 November 2015

Kirkham Grammar School Junior, Infant and Pre-School Issue 4 Friday 13 November 2015 Dear Parents I trust that the half term break offered you all the chance for some rest and relaxation. The last fortnight since returning from the holidays has been lots of fun; the purposeful hubbub of daily life at school has resumed and new topics have been embarked upon in the classroom.

Last Friday, we had a poignant Remembrance Assembly led by Reverend Bunday and I was very proud of all the children who behaved impeccably and showed such respect.

It has been lovely to see all our J3 and J4 pupils representing the school in a number of sports fixtures in the last week. Our J2 pupils enjoyed their very exciting trip to Castlehead and a full report can be further into this newsletter. We also held the first round of our annual KGJS Bake-Off and we are all looking forward to the final next week which will be covered live on air by Radio Lancashire’s Sally Naden and we are excited that BBC’s GBBO contestant Dorret Conway will be our guest judge!

May I conclude with a couple of reminders. Firstly, the school will be closed for our annual Speech Day holiday on Monday 23 November 2015. Please also remember that all children should arrive in the morning with school coats and hats now the weather is turning colder.

I wish you all an enjoyable weekend.

Mrs AS Roberts Follow me on Twitter: Annette Roberts @KGJShead

On Friday 6 November, KGJS held a special Remembrance Assembly. Reverend Bunday spoke to the children and shared a very moving PowerPoint presentation with the children which delicately explained the reason for the Remembrance Service. Reverend Bunday also led prayers before the whole school fell quiet for a minutes silence followed by ‘The Last Post’. The assembly came to a close with Head Boy, Thomas Shuttleworth and Head Girl, Poppy Kearsley each reciting a Remembrance poem. We would like to thank Reverend Bunday for taking the time to come into school to conduct our Remembrance Assembly.

KGJS children and staff also marked Armistice Day with two minutes silence on Wednesday.

Healthy Snacks

Mobile Phones

Please could we remind you about the importance of sending your children with healthy snacks for morning and afternoon breaks. Sweets, chocolate, crisps and biscuits are not allowed to be brought into school.

Please can parents be aware that a number of cereal bars have an incredibly high sugar content and are therefore not a healthy option.

Please could we ask parents not to use mobile phones in school.

Many thanks for your co-operation with this.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation with this.

Our Scholastic Book Fair raised a fantastic £849 in free books for our school!

Thank you to all who attended and helped at our Book Fair last half term!

Please follow us on Twitter for the latest news at KGJS! twitter.com/kgjs_

REMINDERS



If for any reason a child is going to be absent from school please get in touch with the KGJS office as soon as possible.



Upon their return to school please send a letter in explaining the reason for the absence.



If a child requires medication to be administered in school please see the school office to complete a form of consent.

House

Sub-total

6.11.15

13.11.15

Total

Birley

1467

232

244

1943

Drapers

1583

234

350

2167

Colborne

1466

239

287

1992

Clifton

1628

326

259

2213

LIBRARY TIMES The Library is open between 12.30pm and 1.00pm on the following days.

TUESDAY—I1 WEDNESDAY—J3 & J4 THURSDAY—J1 & J2 FRIDAY—I2 & I3

On Monday 9 November, J1 had a Roman Feast and dressed up in Roman costumes.

The children took turns at being the Roman guests and the slaves who served them. Music was played while we ate and the slaves danced to entertain their Roman guests! We ate grapes, bread, chicken, olives, cheese and breadsticks. Everybody looked amazing in their costumes and had we all had a wonderful time. My best bit was the entertainment!

Thank you to all the parents and grandparents for their support with the Roman costumes!

By Rosie Helliwell

As a one week standalone Arts Afternoon project, pupils from J4 combined their design, science and technology skills through the use of engineering Lego.

The children constructed cranes, motor driven vehicles and sand yachts, which they tested out with the use of a fan, measuring the effects of wind strength and sail size.

It was a fantastic day of hands-on learning with a tremendous level of concentration and enthusiasm from all the pupils.

The Eco–Committee have set the whole school a challenge!

For the next two weeks we are going to participate in ‘Switch Off Fortnight’.

The children decided at a recent meeting that leaving lights on wastes energy and money.

They are hoping that pupils will quickly get in the habit of turning off lights when a room is empty, and they’ll make sure that teachers do too!

Each classroom has already been supplied with a poster to remind them!

Why not get your children switched on to switching off lights at home, too?

On Wednesday 11 November, Armistice Day, the J3 children had a very special visitor into class. Mr Young, Emily Marsh’s grandad, came in to school to talk to the children about his experience of growing up during World War II. He spoke to the children about how his father went away for 6 years and he never saw him during this time. His mother had been left to bring him up along with his baby sister who had been born shortly after the war started, He explained about house occupancy and how his mother had been given two female evacuees to look after due to the fact that their house in the countryside was classed as under-occupied! These children were sent from the city to the countryside where there were no bombs so that they could be safe.

We would like to thank Mr Young for coming into J3 on Armistice Day. This was a very interesting and thought-provoking visit, which tied in nicely with both their History topic on World War II and their Literacy topic, where they are writing their own ’evacuee’ stories.

Within the Infant and Pre-School, the children have been looking at themselves as being ‘unique’ but also understanding their place in the world as ‘many’. Together, they have looked at a map of the world and made comparisons between their lives and other countries.

Each class from Pre-school to I3, have done some exciting activities linked with their own curriculum to explore multiculturalism.

In Pre-school, the children have talked about England and the kind of things we do in our own country. They had scones with strawberries and cream and a cup of tea. They have travelled to India and dressed up as belly dancers, danced to Indian music and had a taste of Indian food. They have looked at photographs of life in Spain, had a taste of home-made Spanish food, dressed up in Spanish costumes and danced to Flamenco songs. They worked very hard to prepare the posters and menus for their Indian Sweet Shop which has been open this week.

The I1 classes have been exploring fruits from around the world, linked with our own harvest traditions in the UK. They explored some unusual fruits and enjoyed tasting them.

In I2, Africa has been explored through Art and Music. The children have looked at the story of ‘Handa’s Surprise’ and explored the fruits and animals from the book. They created some wonderful landscape pictures, as well as producing ‘African lady’ pastel portraits and brightly painted pottery. They danced to the African beat and choreographed their own dances. They have also learnt various African themed songs.

I3 have thoroughly enjoyed learning all about India for Multicultural week. They looked at different Indian Festivals as well as traditional Indian celebrations. They had a fantastic time creating their own Henna designs on Purple Mash and even tried some out on Miss Fountain!

Our half term theme culminated with a wonderful multicultural retirement meal at Guys Thatched Hamlet.

We had an amazing ‘Italian’ experience and we were treated to an exceptional meal beginning with cocktails, breadsticks, a main course of our choice and Italian ice-cream with sprinkles!

More photographs on our The children were impeccably behaved and were a credit to the school. Thank you to all the staff at Guy’s for making our visit so memorable.

KGJS Flickr page which can be accessed through This topic has also linked to our Christmas Productions which in Pre-School includes songs from Hawaii, Ireland and England and the Infant production of the KGJS Twitter or ‘Children of the World’.

Facebook page!

Last week during the Science lesson, the J3 classes got together to look at different materials and had fun mixing solutes and solvents together to make a number of different solutions.

Kirkham Grammar Junior School now have their own Facebook page!

Please visit and ‘LIKE’ our page for all the latest news, photographs and information.

Our Facebook page name is ‘Kirkham Grammar Junior School’ and can be easily identified from our KGJS logo.

U9, U10 & U11 Swimming Gala v Westholme—Thursday 15 October On Thursday 15 October KGJS travelled to Westholme for our annual Swimming Gala. In total we took 45 children to swim in 5 different age categories (U9 mixed, U10 Boys, U10 Girls, U11 Boys, U11 Girls). This fixture is always very tough but we were determined to put in a good performance.

Everyone swam to the best of their ability and I was extremely proud of everyone who took part as it is not easy to practice when you do not have a pool!. After over 30 races the results were as follows: U11 Boys lost 50-38 U11 Girls lost 61-27 U10 Boys lost 56-32 U10 Girls WON 34-32 U9 Mixed lost 51-37 It was a very enjoyable gala and we thank Westholme who were again excellent hosts. The biggest congratulations need to go to the U10 girls who had to win the final race to secure the victory.

Well done girls, you were magnificent!

U11 Rugby v The Buchan School—Friday 16 October It was decided to play two 15 minute matches against the Buchan who were over on a short tour. The A team played first and from the whistle dominated and soon scored some excellent tries. Complacency set in and the standard of play dipped, which was disappointing but a valuable lesson to learn and hopefully will make us a better team in the future. Next up was the B team and the game became very competitive and the Buchan started to play some excellent Rugby, managing to score some very good tries.

The results were as follows: U11A won 15-0 U11B lost 20-5 It was a very enjoyable afternoon and we look forward to our tour to the Isle of Man in January, where we shall have Rugby, Football, Hockey and Netball fixtures.

U10 & U11 Girls Netball & Hockey v Sedbergh—Wednesday 4 November On Wednesday 4 November, KGJS U10 and U11 Girls travelled to Sedbergh to play Hockey and Netball.

They achieved the following results; U11A Hockey won 8-1 U11A Netball lost 16-1 U11B Hockey won 3-0 U11B Netball lost 5-1 U11C Hockey drew 1-1 U11C Netball lost 10-1 U10 Hockey lost 5-0 U10 Netball won 3-0 Congratulations to all our teams who all played girls a year older than themselves. This proved challenging in the Netball but the girls performed magnificently in the Hockey matches.

Well done to all who played! The girls read out their individual match reports to the whole school during Monday’s assembly. Well done - super reports!

Sports Photographs We would be delighted to receive any photographs taken by parents at any school sports events. They may even be used in the school newsletter!

Please email these photographs to; m.tickle@kirkhamgrammarjnr.co.uk Thank you

U10 & U11 Rugby v Merchant Taylors—Saturday 7 November On Saturday 7 November, the KGJS U10 & U11 Rugby teams travelled to Merchant Taylors. The weather was a little challenging to say the least but after the early heavy rain it did brighten up! The boys played some fantastic Rugby and the scores were as follows; U10s lost 35-15 U11A won 30-5 U11B won 25-15 U11C won 50-5 Thank you to Merchant Taylors for hosting the matches and to all the parents who came along to support. During Assembly on Monday, the boys were given the opportunity to read out the match reports they had written. Well done—fantastic reports!

Indoor Athletics Competition v Lytham Road Runners Athletics Club—Monday 9 November

On Monday 9 November, KGJS travelled to Lytham YMCA to take part in our annual Indoor Athletics Competition against Lytham Road Runners Athletic Club who do a fantastic job of promoting Athletics for all abilities. Everyone selected was very excited in what was to turn out to be a very enjoyable evening of Athletics.

The competition comprised of the following events: Speed Bounce, Long Jump, Triple Jump, Vertical Jump, Javelin, 1,2,3,4 Lap races and Relays.

After one and a half hours of exciting competition the results were as follows: U11 Boys Kirkham 90 Lytham 56 U11 Girls Kirkham 63 Lytham 76 So, honours were shared in what was a very closely contested event.

Thank you once again to LSARRC and the YMCA.

FIRST ROUND On Monday 9 November, our five judges; Mr Ian Vevers, Reverend Bunday, Miss Natasha Berks, Mrs Sharon Anyon and Mr Allan Eagle had the challenging task of choosing our Junior Finalists from a huge display of Victoria Sponges and Rock Buns as well as the staff Carrot Cake entries! The standard of the baking was extremely high and all the children who entered should be very proud of their achievements.

Our finalists are as follows; Upper Junior Finalists Elysia Eccles, Henry Taylor and Duke Jones Lower Junior Finalists Hattie Brooks, Anya Kiely and Rosie Helliwell Staff Winners 1st place

Mrs Shuttleworth

2nd place Mrs Anyon 3rd place Mrs Tickle

On Tuesday 17 November, the KGJS Bake Off Final will take place in the Senior School Boarding House kitchen. We are very excited about this year’s event because our chief judge will be Dorret Conway, a contestant on this year’s BBC Great British Bake-Off, and Radio Lancashire’s Sally Naden will be broadcasting live all morning. A photographer from the Blackpool Gazette will also be visiting!

We would like to wish this year’s finalists all the very best for the final next Tuesday!

Dates for your Diary!

Saturday 14 November—U11 Girls & Boys Hockey v Cheadle Hulme (A) 10am Monday 16 November—U11 Netball v Westholme (A) 3.30pm Tuesday 17 November—’Bake Off’ Final, Senior School Boarding House kitchen 9.30am-12 noon U11 A & B Netball v Westholme (A) 3.30pm Thursday 19 November—St Mary’s Hall U11 Cross Country (A) Saturday 21 November—U11 Boys Hockey v Preston HC (A) 10am U10 & U11 Girls Hockey v Queens (H) 10am Monday 23 November—Speech Day Holiday Thursday 26 November—U11 A & B Hockey v Westholme (H) 4pm Friday 27 November—U11 AJIS Boys Hockey (H) 12 noon FKGS Christmas Fair 4pm-6pm Saturday 28 November—U10 & U11 Girls Hockey v St Mary’s Hall (A) 12 noon Wednesday 2 December—U9, U10 & U11 Swimming v Bolton (A) 4pm Thursday 3 December— FKGS Ladies Lunch, Singleton Lodge Country House Hotel 12 noon

U11 Netball v St Pius (A) 3pm Friday 4 December—U11 Boys & Girls Hockey v Altrincham Boys Prep (H) 4pm Saturday 5 December—U11 Boys & Girls Indoor Athletics v Preston Harriers (H)

FKGS Christmas Fair Friday 27 November 4.00pm-6.00pm The Friends of KGS Christmas Fair will be held in the MPH at Kirkham Grammar School.

Everyone Welcome!!

This year’s Victorian themed Christmas Fair will be held in the Senior School MPH on Friday 27 November 4pm-6pm. As well as all the usual stalls and games, we are trying to give the hall a feeling of days gone by, celebrating all things Christmassy.

We would like to ask for help from Pre-School, Infant and Junior children, to prepare a Cracker tombola stall.

Please let your Christmas imagination run wild, and make a cracker for us, any size, with a small gift inside.

Bring your cracker in to school, w/c 23 November where we shall choose a winning entry from each of the Pre-School, Infant, Lower and Upper Junior Schools. All the crackers will then be placed on a tombola stall, to be won at the fair.

We will also be running a tombola and all donations will be gratefully received.

Our plans are to offer an array of warm food for hungry children and their families this year, as well as mulled wine and traditional Victorian nibbles such as roasted chestnuts. Our ever popular cake stall will be relocated into our Victorian food hall and we would be thrilled if it was groaning with delicious goodies!

We would be very grateful if all cake donations could be brought in to school on the morning of Friday 27 November. Thank you for helping us make our Christmas fair magical. We look forward to seeing you there.

During our topic on ‘Celebrations’, we have started to talk about the different types of events we celebrate.

Some are special occasions that might take place throughout the year and some others are celebrated on specific days.

We began our search to find out which festivals we celebrate during the month of November. We learned that Diwali is the festival of light and the start of the Hindu New Year. We read the story “Lighting a Lamp”, a Diwali story about the importance of light in people’s lives. We loved it so much we decided to make Rangoli patterns and light our own lamps to celebrate Diwali.

We decided we needed to find an activity to make our topic hands-on and fun. So we put our thinking caps on and came up with a super idea. We found some recipes for Indian Sweets and turned the Pre-School into an Indian Sweet Shop. We made lots of Coconut Bafis, Nankatai and Khelvaragu and our Indian Sweet Shop was ready for business. The shop was so busy we sold out and the money we made will be donated to Children in Need.

The Indian Sweet Shop gave us opportunities to use language to discuss how Diwali and many other celebrations use light to share hope with people around us. The shop also required for us to use our mathematical skills since we had to do a lot of counting whilst making our sweets and biscuits.

We shared some Indian Sweets, that Mrs Blanco-Bayo bought from a little shop in Preston, with our I1 friends as our way of saying, “Happy Diwali to everyone!”

On Wednesday, J4W went over to the Senior School during their designated Arts Afternoon. They produced 2D designs on the computers in preparation for their clocks project. During the visit they used the Senior School’s Computer Suite in the DT building and, as part of their induction, they received a tour of the workshops. We would like to thank the four members of KGS staff for providing the children with this valuable opportunity.

All J4 children will get the chance to go over to the Senior School during this half term.