Windrush Valley Prep School Oxfordshire – weekly news bulletin.
Foundation Unit
The children in Early Years have had a wonderful first week back at school. We have started our new topic of ‘Transport’. Our focus has been transport you would use on land. We have discussed how we travel to school, the vehicles that pass through the village and used the toy diggers in our sand pit. The children have also painted buses, finger painted traffic lights and they are experts in singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. We offer a warm welcome to Agnes, Aria and Reign who have settled well into our Nursery class.
Year 1 and Year 2
We welcome three new pupils into the Key Stage 1, Noah (Year 1), Cooper (Year 2), and Vivienne (Year 2). The children have started a new history topic – Castles and Folk Tales. They have been learning about the Bayeux Tapestry and William the Conqueror. The children have all designed a shield with their own crest. All after school clubs are up and running – in Nature Club the children have been planting sunflowers, cress and tomatoes. Our greenhouse is now in full use, with the children watering their seeds and plants each morning. Games and PE have been very busy sessions, starting to prepare for sports day.
Year 3
Our great excitement this week was receiving a letter from Buckingham Palace – delivered in Royal style on a cushion by Ms Burrough…The paper, complete with the Buckingham Palace stamp, was such beautiful quality it took our breath away. It was a very special delivery and made the Jubilee celebrations even more memorable. In the classroom the children bought in their plants for the Science experiment, thanks so much for looking after them so well in the Easter holidays. In Maths this week we have been revisiting place value and ordering, with numbers up to 1000 and beyond. In English we have been looking at punctuation, and speech marks in particular. Creative Writing bought some imaginative writing about a Message in the Bottle… we concentrated on a really strong beginning and middle, and each story had to include a speaking character. In history, we are studying the Romans and Italy’s geographical location. We had a brilliant PE lesson this week playing rounders and learning new catching and hitting skills.
Year 4
This week we have started our new topic in Art- European Art. The children have created some excellent, detailed drawings of the school building, focusing on the structure and design. Next lesson we will be looking at ‘broken buildings’. In Science we are continuing ‘Plants’ and this week we have looked at edible parts of plants – the flower, leaf, root, stem or seed. There were lots of edible plants the children had not previously encountered! We are beginning the rehearsals for the May Dancing performance at the end of this half term and have started practicing our assembly for a week on Monday.
Year 5
We have made a great start to the summer term. We have started a new class read (Journey to the River Sea) that we are all enjoying. We were introduced to the main character, Maia, and there were lots of interesting predictions about how Maia had become an orphan. These included her parents being drowned in a shipwreck or being eaten by crocodiles. Eventually we discovered that it was a train crash in Egypt! In English we have been reading about fantastical mythical creatures and have started writing reports on fantastical beasts. We have delved deep into our imaginations to include interesting information on habitat, diet, characteristics and special powers. In maths we have been solving problems by interpreting data from tables, line graphs and timetables. In art we have been developing our sketching and pencil skills by drawing birds. On Wednesday, everyone participated at the Windrush Valley Prep School Oxfordshire Football Tournament and had a great time, whether it was playing in matches or helping by collecting the scorecards.
Year 6
Year 6 pupils have quickly settled as we focus on final preparations for our SATs tests which commence in May. We have been going through papers and looking at techniques to improve our scores and lessen the possibility of careless mistakes. Everyone enjoyed the football tournament at Kingham Hill on Wednesday even if we didn’t lift the trophy and some great football was played by both U11 teams. We have been going over coordinates, pie charts and 3D shapes as well as brushing up on Roman Numerals.