What a term that lies ahead of us! It shall be action packed as ever and we are all ready for it and good to go, after what I hope for all of you too has been a very good holiday.
Those of you who found yourselves, as I did, rather glued to the news over the Easter break will have been transfixed by NASA’s Artemis II mission, as four astronauts made their extraordinary journey around the Moon. There is something almost impossibly stirring about the thought of those crew members gazing back at our planet from that vast, silent distance, seeing the whole of it at once, this luminous blue marble suspended in the dark, every one of its eight billion inhabitants invisible and yet somehow, entirely present. From up there, there are no borders, no postcodes, no school pickup traffic, just Earth, and it was following this mission which in part inspired me to come up with our assembly theme for this term.
We know of course that what those astronauts were looking at is anything but simple because every single one of us who lives on this planet carries within us a quite extraordinary complexity of identity. This term, therefore, in our assemblies in the Pre-Prep & Prep we are going to explore exactly that. Our theme is The People on Our Planet.
In my first assembly on Tuesday, I asked the boys and the staff in the Prep to think about how they might consider their identity, as in, coming from a continent, a nation or a cultural group within that nation? The answer, of course, is that we are all of these things, and more. I believe our identities cannot always sit under a single neat label but are in fact made up from a complex, interwoven tapestry of where we come from, who raised us, what languages live in our homes, what food is on our tables, what stories have been handed down to us and what dreams we are busily building for ourselves.
Being a human being, I put it to the boys, is a quite joyous and wonderful thing! To understand ourselves as people I also strongly feel we must understand where we come from. And to understand one another (our friends, our classmates, our community) we must be genuinely curious about those layers in the people around us too. These layers do not compete with one another, in my view, instead they compound; they make us richer, deeper and more interesting. Our backgrounds, our heritages, our lived experiences, none of these are incidental to who we are, they are the very substance of it.
Over the coming weeks, we will be unpacking all of this together in our assemblies at both the Pre-Prep and in the Prep, and I very much look forward to seeing where it takes us. If the Artemis astronauts could see the beauty of our complexity from a quarter of a million miles away, just imagine how much more carefully and sensitively we might understand that when we simply take the time to see each other properly, right here, from about three feet away.
Welcome back – it is going to be a wonderful term!
Headmaster
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…
Here’s a round-up of our Instagram posts from this week – take a look below!
Make sure to follow us on Instagram for regular updates and snapshots of daily school life.
Prep
News From Year 6
The Year 6 Leavers’ Programme has officially begun, and it promises to be a fun-filled and memorable final term. Events due to take place include a trip to the theatre, a visit to a science museum, a food workshop, cycling proficiency workshops and training and rehearsals for their end-of-year production. There will be plenty of cricket to play and the boys will be looking forward to their final Sports Day too. Needless to say, the boys’ week long alpine adventure trip to Ponte di Legno in northern Italy just after half term will be the standout highlight of the term for them! It’s set to be a busy and exciting few months ahead and we look forward to seeing Year 6 make the most of every moment.
Pre-Prep
A Word from Mrs Murphy
As we begin the summer term, I would like to welcome everyone back to school. This term promises to be a very busy but enriching one for the children, with plenty of opportunities for learning, growth and celebration as we move towards the end of the academic year. We have lots of exciting events and trips planned which we are greatly looking forward to.
Read moreKindergarten
Kindergarten have enjoyed listening to the story A Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. In this story we followed a small seed as it travels through the wind, across the seasons, and past many obstacles. While other seeds don’t make it, the smallest seed eventually lands in good soil and slowly grows into a tall flower. The story shows that big changes start small, and with time, sunshine and water, even the littlest seed can flourish. We also discussed the lifecycle of the seed.
Read moreReception
In line with our two-week topic, ‘Mindfulness and the Sky’, the Reception class have been learning about ‘The Weather’, which has led to some interesting and thoughtful conversations about different types of weather the children have experienced. They compared sunny, rainy, windy and snowy days, discussing how the weather can change and how it affects our clothes, activities and feelings. The children have also started keeping a daily weather report and enjoy checking the weather station in our Reception class garden each day, helping them to observe changes and develop their understanding of the world around them.
Read moreYear 1
The children have had a great start to the term this week, returning to school refreshed and ready to learn. It has been lovely to see such positive attitudes and enthusiasm across the class. We have very excitingly begun our new Science and Humanities topic on the solar system. The children especially enjoyed learning fun facts about astronauts and discussing what they need to live and work in space. This has already sparked lots of curiosity, and we are looking forward to exploring this topic further over the coming weeks.
Read moreYear 2
Year 2 are all set to become rainforest experts with the launch of the new summer term geographical topic! They demonstrated excellent recall of their world continent knowledge, acquired in the Autumn term, and were therefore excited to locate rainforests on a map in the various tropical climates. The children shared their current understanding of what a rainforest actually is and then we discussed what we would like to find out about rainforests over the coming weeks.
Read more
