The Bulletin - Edition 6

Parents in the Prep will have been booking in times to speak to teaching staff about the academic progress their boys have been making this term. These meetings are always important from our angle. Being able to pass on to parents our views of what the boys are doing well, alongside highlighting any areas that might need that little bit of extra effort means, we hope, school and home are working in concert to make the most of each boy’s gifts and talents. I shall always be happy to discuss individual boys and their life and times at school with parents too. Open and honest communication is what we aim for here, as that will always, in my view, serve our pupils best.

Tim Smith

Headmaster

Prep

Assemblies this half term:

The theme for assemblies this half term is ‘Looking After Others’. Year 6 Prep pupil Nick Senior came to me last half term completely off his own bat to express how important he feels matters of sustainability are and how we need to do all we can to make sure everyone in our school community recognises all the different issues and perspectives around climate change. To that end, Nick devised an excellent assembly that he presented to all the boys and staff on Monday, and of course it was the perfect launch to us exploring our theme.

Diwali

Mrs Murphy ran an excellent Diwali themed assembly in the Pre-Prep this week. I am very excited to be attending, as I do each year, what will be a very enjoyable Diwali party with close friends of mine this weekend. I would like to extend now my best wishes to all Hampton Pre-Prep & Prep families for whom Diwali is a special occasion!

‘Pupil Points’ Initiative:

Boys in the Prep were making history in assembly this morning as we awarded our very first set of ‘Pupil Points’ trophies. This initiative has arisen out of discussion by the boys in Year 6 who were voted in as House Captains, Deputy Head Boy and Head Boy. As a group, they came up with the idea of recognising the boys who make an excellent but low key, ‘under the radar’ type of positive contribution to school life, no matter which House they were in; the sort of contribution that if we did not look carefully enough, could easily be missed. It was so exciting to present the first set of awards and this is very definitely just the type of pupil devised and entirely pupil led initiative that sets our school apart.

News from Mr Salt, Head of Games

Happily, we avoided the worst of the weather this week and all fixtures were played. The boys were raring to go after two weeks off and gained some good results. All teams faced off against Surbiton this week in a return fixture, having played them last half term. The U8s demonstrated their continued progress with a win for them in the C team games and some close games at D and B team level.

A word from Mrs Murphy

School Council’s second meeting of the term proved to be a great start to the week when councillors met with Mrs Hamilton from the School’s catering team. Plenty of good ideas were exchanged, chief amongst them the children’s desire to have more vegetables on offer at lunch - you will all be thrilled to hear they asked for more broccoli, carrots, green beans and peppers and, on the meat front, more chicken and lamb were requested by some. Whilst with the children, Mrs Hamilton explained the process she goes through when creating menus for members of the school community, that is, for over 1,500 people – pupils from 3 up to 18 years of age, plus all the staff too - we all agreed shopping and preparing meals on such a huge scale is indeed no mean feat!

Kindergarten

The children have been excited coming back to Kindergarten and getting back into the swing of our daily routine. We began our week celebrating Diwali, also known as ‘The Festival of Light’. This is a special celebration for Hindus and Sikhs, but, is celebrated by other religions too. We read the story of Rama and Sita and found out that Divas are lit to welcome them home and to help Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth find her way into people’s homes.

Reception

Reception too focused their learning around the theme of Autumn festivals of light. We enjoyed recapping on the origins of bonfire night fireworks, using this as inspiration for our literacy tasks this week. The class split into three groups and wrote a bonfire night poem collaboratively. It was great to hear how creative the children were, using lovely adjectives to describe their experiences of a bonfire night party.

Year 1

The children in Year 1 have returned to school after their half term break full of enthusiasm and vigour, and have impressed us by working so hard this week. It really feels like they have matured after the rest, and we are happy to report that they have been approaching their learning in a sensible and diligent manner.

Year 2

Year 2’s English work has been centred around a new text this week, ‘Lila and the Secret of Rain’. Earlier in the week, the children discovered the importance of expanded noun phrases to elevate their written work, making it more interesting for the reader and many good examples followed this lesson. In maths, we have been focusing on subtraction, learning all the different vocabulary associated with this number operation. I was pleased to see the children’s subsequent work in this area.

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Back to all

The Bulletin – Edition 6

Prep

Assemblies this half term:

Diwali

‘Pupil Points’ Initiative:

News from Mr Salt, Head of Games

Pre-Prep

A word from Mrs Murphy

Kindergarten

Reception

Year 1

Year 2

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The Bulletin – Edition 1

The Bulletin – Edition 30

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