A note from Mr Webster… Dear parents,

I really can’t believe that I am already writing the first one of these when it only seems

two minutes ago that it was the end of the last academic year. I have to say that although

we may grumble at the alarm clock when it sounds, I know that all of the staff team are

incredibly happy to be back in to the groove with new classes, new pupils and new

challenges.

The Summer break flew by – possibly not so much for you whilst trying to entertain your

children for 7 weeks! In that time a lot of work was done at school; most notably the re-

furbishment of the ICT Suite and the Dining Room. As staff, we are very proud of where we work and we want

your children to continue to develop their own sense of pride in the school environment.

We have started a new initiative this year called ‘Class Chat’ and I am sure this is going to be a great success.

Essentially, parents and pupils will get out of it what they put in. Modern life means that families are so active and on

the go that sometimes the simplest act of having a chat about something positive gets lost in the working week.

Class Chat is an opportunity for your children to talk to you about something they have been proud of in the week

and for you to share in that positivity.

There is no hard and fast rule as to how ‘Class Chat’ will work and some weeks the children will bring home an ex-

ercise book from school, at times it will be a photocopy of some work and indeed sometimes it will be a photo-

graph of them in class that they can talk you through. The concept is that we are increasing the children’s ability to

converse about a chosen subject matter.

We held our Early Literacy and Numeracy Meeting for parents last night and one of the key themes that came out

of this was that the opportunity to simply talk is something that is hard to find in modern family life. Children are so

often busy at netball, dance, rugby, football or doing homework

or attached to some form of electronics. I do hope that ‘Class

Chat’ will give you the chance to create a record of the valuable

time you spend with your child discussing their

successes in school.

Have a restful weekend,

Mr J Webster, Headmaster

‘What have you done in

school today?’

Week ending

15th September 2017

Stars of the Week Zachary Amin, Liam Rogers,

Cain Tierney, Poppy

Hammersley, William

Sedgwick, Jan-Philip Gellweiler

and Bella Porter

Latest Updates

A new source of up to date information

for parents can now be found on the

Home page of the website. Click on

‘Latest Updates, found under ‘Welcome’

to access reminders and

latest information.

Thomas Taylor We are delighted to let you all know that Thomas’

recent stem cell transplant was a total success and he is

now on the long road to recovery. Thomas is seen here

ringing the bell at the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit

which signifies the end of his treatment at the unit. The

nurse in attendance read this poem;

“ring this bell,

three times well,

it’s toll to clearly say,

my treatment’s done,

this course is run,

and I’m on my way”.

Thomas now faces 4 months of recovery, which at

times can be make him very poorly and cause him pain.

He will continue his schoolwork at home and may at

time to time pop into school just to catch up. With the

wonders of modern technology Thomas has been able

to keep in touch with his classmates and we are all

looking forward to welcoming him back to school in

January.

House Points Winners A new rewards incentive introduced this term is the

weekly House Point Winners’ Medals. Each week

the pupil with the most House Point in each house

from each class will receive a medal and this week’s

winners are picture left. The medals are returned to

class for the following week’s presentation at Star of

the Week Assembly. Well done to all the children

who have worked hard this week and accumulated

the most House Points.

Reception PE The children in Reception thoroughly en-

joyed their first rugby session this week.

They demonstrated their listening skills

and team work as they followed a set of

instructions to complete an obstacle

course. The children showed their core

strength as the took part in a range of

dodging and balancing activities. The chil-

dren were able to move in a range of ways,

safely manoeuvring their bodies, over, un-

der and around obstacles to score a try!

Year1 RE—Families This week the children have been focussing on how members in their family show love and care to each

other. Some children engaged in role play whilst others discussed a picture of a family at a park and

matched speech bubbles. Then the whole class talked about how God loves us all. Finally, the children ex-

plored some psalms from the Bible to tell us about God’s love and care for everyone.

Year 2 Literacy This week in Literacy, Year 2 have been ex-

ploring grammar and sentence work. They

have worked on nouns, adjectives, verbs and

writing correct sentences with capital letters

and full stops. The children have had to write

descriptions, identify different features of sen-

tences and correct sentences that had things

missing in them. They all worked very hard

and produced some wonderful work along

with some fantastic adjectives.

Year 3 Literacy This week Year 3 have been describing a familiar setting in their Eng-

lish lessons. We have been reading the story of ‘The Bear Snores On’

which is set in a cold and stormy woods and deep, dark, warm and

cosy bear’s lair. The children have been describing each of these set-

tings and trying to create either a happy, calm or scary atmosphere

through their dialogue and adjectives they use. In the pictures you can

see them performing their dialogue either walking through the

stormy wood or walking through the warm, cosy cave. We have had a

great start to the term with all of the children trying really hard, Mr

Cooke hopes they keep up this fantastic effort!

Year 4 Maths This week we have been looking at place value,

partitioning numbers and reading and writing whole

numbers. The children were challenged to use

either multiplication or addition to create answers

over 4-digit numbers. Using Pokémon cards, the

children used the energy number as their starting

point and they wrote down (in words) their an-

swers. The children enjoyed this lesson and they

consolidated their learning when adding and multi-

plying numbers together. I was very pleased by the

end of the lesson as the whole class could read and

write 7- digit numbers!

Year 5 RE This week in Religious Education the children have been

exploring our new topic of ‘Ourselves’, the children in

groups discussed what it meant to have qualities within

ourselves, they were able to identify that not all are good

and not all are bad. After discussing the qualities they liked

about their peers, the children focused on the quality of

being peaceful. After coming up with fantastic definitions of

the quality they thoroughly enjoyed a role play scenario in

which one character shows true qualities of being peaceful.

The children concluded this week’s RE lesson by discussing

and writing why they thought the quality is so important.

Year 6 Science Starting our first Science Topic, Living Things and

their Habitats, Year 6 have been learning about how

taxonomists group and classify living things. We

learnt that they do this by creating two large groups,

which are then broken down into four smaller

groups before being broken down further into eight

groups. This process continues until the groups are

much more specific.

The class put themselves in the role of taxonomist,

sorting animals into groups so that a new zoo could

organise the enclosures for similar animals to be

near each other.

Roald Dahl Day Every class celebrated Roald Dahl Day with activities ranging from

filling a Dream Jar for the BFG to designing new sweets for Mr

Wonka’s factory! The author has enchanted children over the dec-

ades with some wonderful characters and our pupils enjoyed bring-

ing some of those to life in the classroom.

Reception BFG The children had a rather unexpected visit from the BFG on Wednes-

day. He left the children a letter explaining that he had lost all of the

dreams he had caught. He asked if the children could help him draw im-

ages of their favourite dreams and place their art work in his dream jar.

The children were delighted and once the activity was complete they

had to blow the ‘dream horn’ to let he BFG know that they had com-

pleted his mission. It was a very magical experience and the BFG even

left his slippers behind!

Year 1 The children recalled as many books they could think of that were

written by Roald Dahl. Then the class observed pictures of some of

the characters from some of the author’s books. After that, the

children created a speech bubble for their favourite character and

coloured in their picture. Later on in the afternoon, the children

made their very own ‘Marvellous Medicine’. They had a wonderful

time experimenting with colour and designing labels for their

potion!

Year 2 Year 2 had a ‘Whoopsy-splunkers’ day and truly immersed themselves into

the world of Roald Dahl. The morning started with both English and Maths

being based around a Roald Dahl theme with Maths challenges such as

working out quantities of sweets for the chocolate factory or quantities of

ingredients for George’s grandma’s medicine. The children worked out

their ‘Gobblefunk’ name which was highly amusing. IMiss Walton was very

impressed with the interesting facts that the children brought in to share

with the rest of the class. The end of the day was spent watching the live

streaming from the village of Great Missenden where Roald Dahl wrote

most of his stories. CBBC presenter Katie Thistleton presented this short

show for children all around the country where they learnt all about their

favourite heroes like Ma-

tilda and Charlie Bucket,

and saw the story of Billy

and the Minpins brought

to life by Quentin Blake’s

illustrations for the first

time.

What a ‘Splendiferous’

day had by all.

Year 3 Year 3 took part in a Roald Dahl quiz about all of the

books he has written, they then had a Wordsearch

competition, trying to find different words connected

with Roald Dahl. Seb Tanner was the first one to

finish in record breaking time!

Year 4

During Roald Dahl day, Year 4 read The Twits. The children

loved listening to all of the tricks Mr and Mrs Twit played

on each other so they decided to create and design their

own trick. Using adjectives, the children created a plan

and described what their trick was and how it worked.

Unfortunately, some of the children were designing tricks

to play on Miss Moran when they go to Castlerigg!

Year 5

In celebration of Roald Dahl day this week, the children in Year 5 took it

upon themselves to find out more in regards to his life and work. As a

group, the children discussed what they already knew about Roald Dahl,

it was clear the children were fans of his books and enjoyed discussing

what they liked about their favourite book. After researching his life and

work the children worked to answer questions based on his life before

reading aloud what information they had recently acquired.

Year 6 Year 6 Roald Dahl Day

Year 6 had great fun designing some

new sweets for Mr Wonka’s inventing

room, which they then presented to

the class hoping to persuade Mr

Wonka to take their idea. Beware

parents of Zac and Matthew’s sweet

which makes sure parents always say

yes! You might be more interested in

Claudia and Rachael’s invention

‘Lemon and Liem’ which makes

people unable to lie.

Join author Jude Lennon and illustrator Holly Bushnell for the launch of their new picture book

Pirate Lamby and His Woolly Crew at Write Blend Bookshop on South Road in Waterloo on 19th

September at 4.00.

Jude delivered an Assembly last year here at The Prep about her road safety book ‘Slow down for

Bobby’ and Holly is the artist who has transformed a number of bare walls at The Prep with her

wonderful artwork. All children who attend will be entered into a draw to win a bundle of Jude's books.

There will also be a limited number of Make Your Own Treasure Boxes available. Plus Little Vintage Pho-

tography will be on hand to take FREE souvenir photographs of the children with Jude and Holly to

stick in the front of any Pirate Lamby books they wish to purchase.

Wanted!

Preloved school uniform to replenish stocks for a Nearly New Sale coming

soon! Please send into school as soon as possible.

Next Meeting -21st September 7.30 pm at the Prep.

All welcome especially new parents to St Mary’s

Dates for you diary… Friday, 6th October—Family Quiz Night—more details will be sent home shortly

Monday, 30th October—Halloween Disco for all!

Saturday, 9th December—Festive Fayre at St Mary’s College

Joint Chairs Sue New and Emma Cowin are always keen to welcome new

members to the PA and hope to meet you soon either at the next meeting or

event. They can be contacted on

suerice1@btinternet.com or emmaliz999@hotmail.com

Key dates for your diary Please visit the school website www.stmarys.ac/prep for full details of fixtures and

important dates

Date Event Classes involved

September

Monday, 18th Year 6 Parents’ Evening, 3.30pm to 7pm Year 6

Tuesday, 19th Year 6 Parents’ Evening, 3.30pm to 7pm Year 6

Thursday, 21st Parents Association Meeting at Prep,

7.30am

All parents

welcome

Thursday, 28th Open Evening, 4pm to 7pm

SCHOOL FINISHES AT12PM

Whole school

Saturday, 30th Open Morning, 10am to 12pm Yea 6 pupils to act as guides. Come in full uniform

Year 6

October

Monday, 2nd ‘Big Soup Share’ week All classes

Monday, 9th to

Thursday, 12th

Travelling Book Fair All classes

Thursday, 12th Grandparents’ Mass, 10am at St Joseph’s

Parents Association Meeting, 7.30pm

All classes

Tuesday, 17th Junior Chef Academy at school All classes

Thursday, 19th Reception Class pupil Choice Lunch,

12pm

Reception

Friday, 20th ‘Silly Sock’ Day Pupils can wear silly socks and are asked to bring in a

bottle (full) for the Autumn Fayre

All classes

Monday, 23rd to

Friday, 27th

Half Term Holiday All classes

Monday, 30th Parents Association Halloween Disco More details will be sent home

All classes

Date Event Classes in-

volved

November

Tuesday, 7th Ski Trip Meeting, for parents 7pm Parents of pupils

going on Ski Trip

Tuesday, 14th Parenst Association meeting, 7.30pm All welcome

Wednesday, 15th Year 6 Trip to Apple Store Year 6

Wednesday, 22nd Year 4 Trip to Imperial War Museum Year 4

Monday, 27th Assessment Week All classes

Thursday, 30th Year 1 Pupil Choice Lunch, 12pm Year 1

December

Friday 1st Sleepover All classes

Monday, 4th Parents’ Evening, 3.3pm to 7pm All classes

Tuesday 5th Parents’ Evening, 3.30pm to 7pm All classes

Friday, 8th Infants’ Nativity Play, 2pm Rec, Year 1 and 2

Saturday, 9th PA Festive Fayre, 12pm to 3pm All families

Tuesday, 12th Show Coir at R Charity Concert, Liver-

pool Anglican Cathedral

Show Choir

Thursday, 14th Whole School Carol Service, 7pm All classes

Friday, 15th Term ends, 12pm Whole school