The Bulletin Edition 28

As you will be able to see from the photos below, the Year 6 boys and staff had the most magnificent time in Italy, on their residential adventure week. We were based in the village of Ponte di Legno, just over a couple of hours north of Milan. From our base we trekked into the beautiful National Park on two occasions, up to altitudes of 1600m and then 1700m respectively. The boys loved the mountain bike obstacle course training session in the village, the high wire ropes course in the forest nearby, the trip to a local museum and of course the highlight: white water rafting on the Noce River (oh, wait a minute, perhaps the highlight was the pizza party and disco on the last night?) On our final day yesterday, we were sad to leave our alpine idyll but excited nonetheless to head into downtown Milan for a totally different vibe. We all enjoyed guided tours of the famous ‘Duomo’, Milan’s truly astonishing cathedral, before tucking into a rather lovely lunch and then heading home, tired but utterly in love with Italy!

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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.

In Pre-Prep sport, we place a strong emphasis on building fundamental movement skills, and this was on full display throughout this morning's Sports Day and provided a wonderful celebration of the pupils’ sporting development. The boys and girls ran, balanced, bounded and raced their way through a variety of events, all while demonstrating excellent enthusiasm and effort.

I have very much enjoyed hearing all the children’s recounts of their break - it certainly sounds as though they had a wonderful time, especially with last week’s glorious sunshine. It feels as though a deep breath is needed as we plunge into the final weeks of the academic year; it promises to be a busy but tremendously exciting period. This week alone has already been remarkably full!  Thursday saw our children in Kindergarten, Reception and Year 1 move up to spend time in their next classrooms, giving them the opportunity to meet both their new teachers and classmates. Year 2 visited the Prep, and I would like to reassure you that the boys will also have a further opportunity to meet their new teachers and classmates on Monday 22 June. This will also be the day when we welcome our new Kindergarten intake – time certainly flies, it seems no time at all since we first welcomed our current Year 2 pupils into Pre-Prep! 

There was a real buzz of excitement in Kindergarten on Monday when Mrs G, our visiting beekeeper, arrived in her lime green bee suit to teach us all about her hives and honey bees. She showed us wonderful photographs of her hives and the million bees living inside them, including a close‑up of her very first queen bee, marked with a red dot so she can be easily spotted among the others. The children were fascinated to see how all the worker bees gather around the queen, busy cleaning and feeding her. 

We have had a very busy week in Reception this week!  Reception enjoyed learning all about earthworms this week. We were excited to get our worms in the post all the way from Yorkshire! We learned about the amazing job they do and why they are such a good friend to gardeners. We also discovered some amazing facts about worms and how their bodies are actually covered in tiny bristles which allow them to move both forwards and backwards. We also found out they have no eyes, ears or lungs and feel by touch and vibration. We enjoyed closely observing our worm friends, using magnifying glasses. We were amazed at how strong the worms were and how fast they could move around our tray! We read the story, ‘Super worm’ by Julia Donaldson and wrote creatively about our favourite parts of the story.  

This week in Maths, the children continued their work on number bonds and comparing numbers using greater than and less than, this time with numbers between 50 and 100. They were absolute maths whizzes and took to the topic brilliantly, recalling lots of their previous learning and applying it confidently to larger numbers. It has been wonderful to see how much progress they have made this year.  In English, we have started looking at letter writing and postcards from Paddington. The children have been learning about the different elements needed to write a successful letter, including to and from, questions, context and sign-offs. They have also been developing their grammar, spelling, and punctuation skills by correcting a postcard that Paddington had sent to the class. The children enjoyed spotting his mistakes and helping him improve his writing! 

What an action-packed time we’ve had in Year 2 this week! On Thursday, the children spent the morning at the Prep site and had a fabulous time. With assembly, Science/Engineering, Life Skills, and more opportunities to learn about the work of the Friendship Champions, the morning was filled with engaging and enjoyable activities - and they can’t wait to go back!