Highlights from Nursery to Year Six

This week in Nursery, the girls have been exploring the traditional tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to and retelling the story, and focused on understanding how each of the bears might have been feeling at different points. Using loose parts, the girls created their own bear faces to represent a range of emotions, including happy, sad, shocked and angry, encouraging lots of discussion about feelings and expressions. The story was brought to life even further by making the most of the beautiful sunshine and enjoying a morning snack as a picnic outdoors. They had the opportunity to taste porridge, just like Goldilocks, and shared their thoughts on whether it was ‘too hot’, ‘too cold’ or ‘just right’! 

This week, we have been celebrating Sign Language Week in Kindergarten. As part of our learning, the girls explored the theme of frogs, linking to our phonics sound of the week: f. We learned the song ‘Little Green Frog’ and began to use Makaton signs to “sign along” as we sang. The girls showed great enthusiasm and confidence, successfully signing key words such as green, frog and know. To deepen their understanding, we also enjoyed a signed version of our traditional tale of the week, ‘The Frog Prince’. The girls have been incredibly engaged and are keen to learn even more signs, so we look forward to continuing to build our repertoire of songs and signing using Singing Hands. 

Reception children have been busy learning British Sign Language in their lessons this term. They started by practising simple greetings, like saying hello and goodbye using their hands. Soon after, they learnt signs for different feelings, helping them show when they are happy, sad or excited. They have explored colours and family members as well letters in their own name. This week, the girls have been learning how to sign different animals, including dog, cat and other favourites. They enjoyed matching the animal signs to pictures and acting them out during fun activities. Some have progressed to learning signs for different types of weather too! The children have loved copying each other and playing games to help them remember each sign. They also recognise that British Sign Language is it’s own language and how important it is to help people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Year Two have been busy in Art this week, putting their collage skills to the test as they designed and created their very own unique aliens. Using a range of colours, shapes and textures, the girls carefully selected and arranged their materials to bring their imaginative creatures to life. Each alien is wonderfully different and it has been fantastic to see such creativity and individuality shining through in their work. The fun does not stop there! These brilliant creations will soon be used as a writing stimulus in English lessons, where the girls will describe their aliens using expanded noun phrases to create detailed and imaginative pieces of descriptive writing. The aliens already look wonderfully weird and interesting and we cannot wait to see how the girls bring their personalities to life through their writing. Well done, Year Two, for such creative and enthusiastic learning!  

Year Three have been learning about magnets in their Science lessons. They have investigated which materials are magnetic and explored what happens when like poles and opposite poles are brought together. The pupils also discussed some of the everyday uses of magnets. This week, they enjoyed a special lesson in the Prep Science Lab with Mrs Eveleigh, where they learned about magnetic fields. They placed different types of magnets under a sheet of paper and sprinkled iron filings on top to reveal the patterns created by the magnetic fields. To capture these patterns, they carefully placed a piece of paper soaked in tea over the filings. The pupils then experimented further by using different combinations of magnets, such as placing like poles together, to observe how the magnetic field changed. Next week, they will continue this topic by investigating which magnet is the strongest.

The Year Six girls were delighted to receive a response in French from the boys at our partner school, West House School. The girls were tasked with writing to a pen pal in French introducing themselves and providing information such as their age, favourite colour and a description of themselves. West House School reciprocated with a similar letter and the girls have enjoyed reading about their new pen pal in French. They received a Christmas card initially with the name of their pen pal so the arrival of these letters has been much anticipated. In the next half term, the girls will prepare their response in French in the form of an origami-style envelope. They are also looking forward to the opportunity to meet and speak to their pen pal through a visit to West House School for a French Film Workshop in the summer term. Formidable!