Foundation Unit
Windrush Valley Prep School Oxfordshire Foundation Unit have had a ROARsome return to school. Our new topic is Dinosaurs, the children have thoroughly enjoyed the introduction. They have been playing with the dinosaurs, learning facts and a song for our assembly, we look forward to welcoming you in Church. The children pulled out all the stops for World Book Day. We had Princesses, Jack and the Beanstalk, three little bears, fairies from Sleeping Beauty, a lion, Peter Rabbit and two Gingerbread Men. Well done to Leonora, she was the Foundation Unit winner for her costume. She was dressed as the Princess from the story of ‘The Princess and the Pea’.
Windrush Valley Prep School Oxfordshire – Year 1 & Year 2
The first week back after half term has been full of exciting activities. All the children enjoyed returning to the swimming pool, with many trying to swim without a woggle and gaining plenty of confidence in the water. Our new topic for Our World (Science) this half term is Plants. We have a selection of bulbs, plants and seeds which we are going to be planting and observing their growth. These range from herbs and vegetables, to seed potatoes, cress, hyacinths and daffodils. We are planning a sunflower competition within school and taking cuttings from a Spider plant. Year 1 have also taken plants into their art topic and have started off by making stick photo frames. World Book day was a huge success with some wonderful costumes and fun filled activities for everyone at Windrush Valley Prep School Oxfordshire.
Year 3
Year 3 have had an amazing day for World Book Day – we have had some fabulous workshops – from Rapunzel to Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood and the three Pigs, the day was jampacked full of activities. The children looked incredible in their costumes. In other lessons, we have been learning about Festivals in English, from Pancake Day to Diwali and Christmas, we have been learning about the different celebrations. We have again been following the Endurance22 in Antarctica, where it has docked within a few miles of where Shackleton’s Endurance went down. It has been stuck in the ice a few times, and the crew have had to work hard to get it moving again. There was an amazing photograph of a huge Narwhale swimming in the icy depths of the Weddell Sea. The robot has been down a few times now, we are definitely getting closer! In maths we’ve been working on quick recall of timestables and division. I was really pleased to be able to go swimming with Year 3 this week (this usually happens on a Monday), I was so impressed with their swimming, I lost count of the lengths of the entire pool they completed. In history we looked at the Acropolis and Ancient Greek Architecture.
Year 4
What another busy, first week back it has been for Year 4 Windrush Valley Prep School Oxfordshire. We have started our new topic of ‘Plants’ and this week we set up an experiment to test the best growing conditions for seeds. To ensure we carried out a fair test, we needed to make sure that we were only changing one condition for the seeds. Some have chosen to vary the amount of water, others the amount of soil and one group are testing the variation in light. We are monitoring the growth of the seeds over the next 5 weeks so we will update you on their progress……. In Design and Technology we have started the topic of Mechanical Posters and this week we made levers using card and split pins. We discussed the input and output of the mechanism and were introduced to the brief for our project-Designing a mechanical poster to raise awareness of recycling.
Year 5
In art this week we have been studying feathers as part of a new wildlife topic. They looked closely at real feathers and close up photos. They discussed the structure of feathers and used words such as delicate, wispy, fragile, light and soft to describe them. The next challenge was to sketch the feathers and make sure the sketches had the same characteristics as real feathers. The children did a great job and produced detailed work. We are going to build on these skills next week using a different media (chalk). In English Year 5 have read and discussed descriptive animal poems. They are now getting good at finding examples of figurative language and justifying their preferences. The children are now in the process of planning and writing a descriptive animal poem of their own. In maths we have revisited fractions of quantities in the context of word problems and have also revisited area and perimeter, extending our knowledge to include rectilinear shapes.
Year 6
We have been straight back into it after half term, looking at non-fiction reports about Cornwall and the aviator Amy Johnson who flew solo from England to Australia in a Gypsy Moth. In maths we tackled ratios which, while closely related to fractions, can prove challenging. However, the class did really well and quickly got the hang of it – well done! Our history topic, the Cold War, continues to be highly relevant in the light of what is happening in Ukraine, and we looked at the countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It was unfortunately too wet to go up to the field this week, but Mrs Nowell organised a fun sports bingo session indoors. Fun was had by all on Thursday, World Book Day, where instead of Mr Hone, the school welcomed Mustapha the Magnificent, an enigmatic magician from the East who shared his story of meeting and tricking Aladdin!