The Bulletin Edition 14

On Wednesday this week, Mr Ford and I attended a very grown-up meeting, organised by Mrs Howard, to share the findings of a recent survey exploring the boys’ views on how effective our approach to rewards and sanctions is in the Prep. This is exactly the sort of thing that keeps me especially interested in the ongoing development of school life.

The meeting, however, came with a rather wonderful twist. Although it was undeniably “grown-up” in both tone and content (with careful analysis of the survey findings and a thoughtful discussion around the inevitable “what next…?”) the most remarkable aspect was that it was conducted entirely by boys in Year 6!

The Head Boy, Deputy Head Boy and all our Joint Heads of House have been working on this project with Mrs Howard for some time and, with very minimal guidance from her, had put together an impressively thoughtful and measured analysis of their survey results. They will now be running focus groups over the next few weeks with boys across all Year groups to unpack the data further, gathering rich, real-life qualitative insights to bring the numbers to life. In due course, they will also curate (for me!) a set of recommendations to help guide the future development of pastoral care at our school.

This is pretty incredible stuff in my view, all coming from 10- and 11-year-olds. The real kicker came when I asked whether the boys would be brave enough to attend one of our regular after-school staff meetings on a Thursday afternoon to present their final thoughts and recommendations to the teaching staff, not just me. They could not have been more delighted or more devoted to the prospect, which only served to reinforce just how lucky we are to have such thoughtful, engaged and capable Year 6 boys playing a leading role in the ongoing development of our school.

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The rain had its say this week, with a couple of fixtures unfortunately falling victim to the conditions. The Shrewsbury House U10 rugby festival was cancelled, and the U11s missed the opportunity to face Claremont in what would have been their first contact fixture of the term. That said, it certainly wasn’t a complete washout, with the U8s, U9s and U10s all getting valuable playing time over the past seven days.

Year 4 had a fantastic trip to The Lightbox Gallery, immersing themselves in sculpture, painting and drawing. Pupils confidently shared their ideas and personal responses to the artworks, showing great curiosity and enthusiasm throughout the visit.

Yesterday the whole of the Prep school joined young singers from around the world for the O2 Young Voices Wicked Worldwide Sing-a-long. The children were led by Emma Kingston (who is currently playing Elphaba in London) and a 9000 strong children’s choir, in a medley of songs from Wicked, live from the O2. The boys knew that they were sharing the moment with over 300,000 singers from across the world and the atmosphere at the O2 and in the James Hall was electric! Together, we experienced all of the magic and the joy that singing as one can bring.

Year 3 stepped outside the classroom this week to put road safety into practice during a hands-on walk led by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames road safety team.

We have embraced this term’s new assembly theme, PRIDE Values, focusing on the six values: respect, kindness, responsibility, integrity, generosity and cooperation.  We began by exploring how each of these values plays a vital role in helping any group work together harmoniously, taking inspiration from the strong, supportive relationships found within a pride of lions.

We have been busy learning all about rhyming words and exploring how words can sound the same at the end. Rhyming is an important early literacy skill, and the children have really enjoyed joining in with songs, stories, and playful activities that help develop their listening and language skills. Focusing on five of our favourite rhymes, we had great fun taking part in the activities that accompanied each one. Through these experiences, we have been building confidence, strengthening our language skills, and enjoying learning together.

Reception have journeyed back to the Jurassic period as part of our exciting topic, Fossil Hunters. We explored information books about fossils and discovered the remarkable story of Mary Anning, born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in 1799. Widely recognised as Britain’s first recorded female palaeontologist, Mary devoted her life to searching the beaches and cliffs for fossils and ancient bones. The children wrote fantastic biographical pieces about her, accompanied by delightful drawings showing Mary in her bonnet and tunic, carrying her trusty bag of chisels and hammers along the shoreline. 

This week in English, Year 1 enjoyed reading, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We retold the story using puppets and had great fun acting it out in groups before performing to the class. The children then sequenced the story using first, next, then, and last. Next week, we will be exploring the book, Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! by Mo Willems. 

Year 2 have loved starting their new maths topic, multiplication and division this week. They have been working on recognising equal groups, making equal groups with a given number of objects, and then moving onto finding the total using repeated addition. The children will finally be introduced to the multiplication symbol next week, making the link between multiplication and repeated addition. Since the Year 2s are such avid fans of learning their times tables facts, this learning couldn’t come soon enough! They are also eager to get stuck into repeated subtraction and develop their understanding of division next week.