Junior Newsletter 20 October 2017

Winter uniform

Please be prepared for the switch to compulsory winter uniform after October half-term.

Book Fair

Date for your diary!

The book fair is returning to school the week beginning Monday 13th November.

It will be held in the library from 8:00am to 8:20am in the mornings and after school until 4:00pm.

Come and buy some Christmas presents!

If any parents/Grandparents would like to come and help run the book fair, please let Mrs Greenbank know.

Martial Arts club

We have been unable to locate a new judo coach but have been recommended a local Tae Kwon Do instructor who could deliver sessions on Mondays during the previous judo session slots. Before proceeding we must check interest, please inform the office or class teachers if you would like your daughter to take part. Year 1-3 from 3.30 to 4.15 and Year 4-6 from 4.15 to 5.00.

Calendar

Please note that we will now only publish changes to the school calendar in Junior News. Please use the ‘live’ version of the calendar which can be found in Firefly and the Fixture calendar which is shared with relevant parents at the start of each term.

Grandparents' Day

Early warning that we will be hosting our annual Grandparents’ Day in Junior School on Friday 2 March 2018.  More details to follow.

Early Years Fun Morning

Following the success of these events last year we invite all of our Nursery and Reception girls, with their parents, to join us for a fun morning on Saturday 18 November from 10.00 am – 12.00 pm.  There will be lots for the girls to do and a great opportunity for parents to socialise with each other and enjoy refreshments.  This event is also open to new families who may be interested in joining us, so please pass on the date and time to anyone you know that has girls of this age.

Hobbies morning for Year 5

Please save the date of November 15 when all Year 5 Parents are invited to visit the classroom during the morning to see displays and hear the girls oral presentations.

Sports

U11 Hockey v Winchester House School

On Wednesday 18 October, the A team played against Winchester House and lost a disappointing 5-0.  We did not play well as a team and left our goalie Emily all alone to defend herself.  However, she did an amazing job, saving far more goals than she let in.  Laura Charles had an exceptional game and was justly rewarded with ‘player of the match’.

Arianna Hay, Captain

The U11 B team played Winchester House and lost 5-2 but played strong.  Erin scored the first goal and Alessandra scored the second.  Both teams played very well, we had quite strong defence that made some good tackles and Connie had her stick down for a large part of the game which was very good.  Jess made some good runs down the wing to pass to the attacker.  Alessandra was ‘player of the match’ but everyone played very well.

Alessandra Jahina, Captain

U11 Hockey v Winchester House School

On Wednesday 18 October the C team for hockey played a home game against Winchester House.  It was their second match and they played against two teams! They lost 0/1 in a match against the C team and won 1/0 in the match against their D team. They really enjoyed playing although the result was not as good they had hoped.  They tried their best and look forward to their next match hoping it will be a good win.  Thank you to all the supporters and well done to the C team!

Sahitya Bobba, Captain

Under 9 Bedford Modern Hockey tournament

Having lost to Bedford Modern seven days earlier, the team started their day with revenge in the shape of a 1-0 win over the same team; Leela Shah scoring and Moriah Okoye as Player of the Match. The next game was against Witham Hall, a boarding school from Norfolk, who were strong and defeated us 4-0, Player of the Match was Darcy Fowler. Spirits remained high against Milton Keynes Prep School, especially when I told girls that I used to work there! Final score 0-0, with us enjoying most of the possession; Player of the Match was Ella Greenbank. The final group game still offered a chance to qualify for the semi finals.  The opposition were Wellingborough and Charlotte Fordham scored our winner to send the team through 1-0, Charlotte was deservedly Player of the Match. In 3 back to back games with no rest we ran out of steam losing 2-0 to St Faiths in the semi-finals and 2-0 to Akeley Wood in 3/4th play-off; Players of the last 2 matches were Anna Crowley and Moriah Okoye, who was playing in goal for the first time that day. Other team members were Lucy Nicholas & Rose Neville.

Hockey World Cup tickets

A Junior School parent has access to several tickets, including England’s pool games which are sold out, for the Women’s Hockey World Cup in London from 25-31 July 2018. Please get in touch with her if you are interested in purchasing any tickets; I am sure that this would be a valuable experience for any of our keen hockey players. Please contact Lesley Currie at: lesleycurrie@yahoo.co.uk

Nursery

This week in Nursery the girls have been keeping busy with a range of activities including celebrating Diwali. We had fun learning some Diwali dance moves, looking at a story and watching a DVD showing us what Diwali is all about.  The girls also have had fun dressing up and food tasting. They loved making a shelter down at Forest School. For our masterpiece clay competition the girls created lovely models using a variety of resources.

After half term we will be starting our theme of ‘Autumn and Colours’.

Have a lovely half term!

Reception

This week we have been learning about the number 6, the hexagon shape and the colour purple. Our letter sounds have been ‘b, u, f, e ‘.  We have enjoyed planting bulbs and flowers in our garden and making shape pictures. We celebrated Diwali and enjoyed tasting different fruits whilst at Forest School.

We would like to say how pleased we are with how the Reception class have settled into their new routines and have made a fantastic start to the school year. We hope everyone has a restful half term holiday and we look forward to an exciting half term when we come back!

Year 1

Year 1 girls have been stirring Christmas cakes, measuring trees and seeing which materials are best for making a teddy bear’s umbrella.

Year 2

Year 2 have been enjoying the autumnal weather! In Geography they have been finding out about our wonderful world. We had to say goodbye to Karolina who returns to her home country. Since Year 1 the girls supported Karolina and helped her to quickly learn to understand and speak English. They should feel very proud of this.

Year 3

Year 3 girls learnt about India and Diwali as part of their Humanities curriculum.

The girls found out about different spices, looking for pictures of the plants and then looking at and smelling the spices.

They also made shakers and a garland to use during the story telling of ‘Rama and Sita’, had Mendhi patterns on their hand, tried a variety of fruits including lychees and coconut and pinned the tail on the elephant.

Year 4

Year 4 girls have been learning about drawing and measuring to the nearest millimetre using tape measures and rulers.

Year 5

Year 5 girls have been enjoying Forest School, drawing in the style of Rennie Mackintosh and using computers in their maths lesson.

For those parents who asked for reading suggestions, these are helpful websites:

http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/

https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/reading-lists-for-ks2-school-pupils/suggested-reading-list-for-year-5-pupils-ks2-age-9-10/

Please also look at the Junior library pages on Firefly for recommended reading lists by year group.

We hope you all have a lovely half term break. Keep practising your bike riding ready for Grafham Water and don’t forget to make sure you have all the clothing on the kit list.

There will be NO FOREST SCHOOL on Tuesday 31 October.

Year 6

This has been a fantastic week for all of us!

We have been celebrating the 25^th Anniversary for this school site; we planted a time capsule in the Senior School Courtyard and all enjoyed eating a delicious cup cake.

We also explored the number 25 during our Maths Investigating- it’s amazing how many ways it can be used! On Wednesday we did D.T. and in preparation for making our cushions we are practicing our stitches. Thanks to our Sewing Champion Ariana Baninoe we are all now having a go at chain stitch!

In French we all enjoyed creating some quite individual looks for our fashion show!

We can’t wait for our special Spooktacular Party on Friday night and we will post more news on that after half-term!

Enjoy your break!

Sahitya Bobba and Connie Harvey

House and Vice-Captain Demeter

GAP Club

This week in GAP Club we have been celebrating Diwali. Mrs Shah helped the girls to create Rangoli patterns and the girls enjoyed dressing up and dancing to Indian music.