Reception spent a wonderful morning with their grandparents and special adults for a series of remembrance activities. It was a heartwarming experience as the children and adults worked together to produce some amazing artwork centred around the poignant poppy, a symbol of hope for a peaceful future after the two world wars. The colourful creations including poppies made from clay, paintings of poppies, and poppy wreaths. The special visitors then shared wartime stories with Reception over a cup of hot chocolate before the children took centre stage to recite a poem all about Remembrance Day.

Natasha Jacklin, Reception Class Teacher

This week, Year 1 not only demonstrated their historical knowledge but also developed their performance skills. After learning all about the story of ‘Toby and the Great Fire of London’, which told the tale of the devastating blaze which began in a bakery in Pudding Lane in 1666, the children put their acting skills to the test to recreate part of the story. Despite some children feeling a little nervous standing up in front of their peers to play their parts, Year 1 supported each other as they displayed great ability and courage which will stand them in good stead when they perform their Nativity to parents in a few weeks’ time.

Hannah Feery, Year 1 Class Teacher

Thoughtful Year 2 have this week been considering how best to care for the environment. Having worked together to pick up litter after last weekend’s school bonfire and fireworks display, the children were faced with a diverse range of rubbish, from discarded sweet wrappers to burnt out sparklers. They were tasked with sorting the litter into different piles depending on what it was made of, for example metal, paper or plastic, before discussing how such rubbish could adversely affect the wildlife that lives in our school grounds. Year 2 considered how each item could have been properly disposed of, giving them a real appreciation of how to keep their school environment neat and tidy and safe for the animals which inhabit it.

Shirley Jervis, Year 2 Class Teacher

In a huddle of excitement, Year 3 developed their understanding of adaptation through role play as they became penguins in Antarctica. After experiencing first hand the impact of being the warmest in the middle, the children explored the science behind the huddle and the role of thermal insulators in everyday life. Working in groups, they designed an experiment to investigate why a huddle maintains so much heat by recording the temperature of each test tube of warm water to represent a penguin’s body in their carefully designed tables. The test tubes were moved around to explore what happens to penguins when they don’t stick together, giving Year 3 the chance to look at the effectiveness of different types of insulators.

Henrietta Platt, Year 3 Class Teacher

Year 5 this week moved on from their brief study of Ancient Greek to begin real Latin. As ever, the links with English remain close, this time beginning with the grammatical details of basic sentence structure. With a small hop, “David eats the cheese” can become “the cheese eats David” – so any pupil who ignores Latin word endings risks unleashing a cheese nemesis, so let’s hope they were all listening! The children also took their first steps in learning Latin vocabulary, beginning with using words that have had an influence on English.

Alex Walker, Head of Classics

The Chapel had a distinctly festive feel this week as Year 6 turned their attention to Christmas. Rehearsals for the annual carol services are always a popular part of the children’s regular music programme, and this week was no exception. The children covered O Little Town of Bethlehem and Once in Royal David’s City, carefully plotting their way through the words in order to avoid one or two common lyrical errors that can creep in to Christmas carols. Excellent focus and good voice projection ensured the countdown to Christmas got off to a wonderful start.

John Mühlemann, Director of Music

Year 7 have been exploring all things Shakespeare this term, discovering links between themes, characters and modern-day scenarios. This week, the children got stuck into the prologue from Romeo and Juliet, using their imaginations and creativity to translate the language into modern verse before putting together a mimed movement sequence to represent their translation, all set to Taylor Swift’s Love Story. Showing great understanding of their dramatic task, Year 7 revelled in the infectious excitement of bringing Shakespeare into the present day.

Sarah Baird, Head of Drama

Following the efforts of numerous Year 8 pupils in their first academic scholarship mock exams, all of 8A looked through the papers they tackled. Whether moving forward with an academic scholarship or not, the opportunity to extend the children is a key part of their schooling. As a result, the children were challenged to interpret various data and probe knowledge-based questions across different topic areas, sharing their thoughts and skills along the way. There was also a distinct effort to link recent global events and current affairs to their thinking. It was a pleasure to have so many pupils participating in class discussion, sharing differing views and perspectives. While we continue to explore varying thematic studies, it is the proactive behaviour of the year group overall that is exciting to work with.

James Figgis, Head of Geography