Welcome back to school! With the second half of term well underway, we have an exciting and busy time ahead. We will endeavour to keep you up-to-date with what will be happenig and more importantly when during the next few weeks — it promises to be an action packed programme ahead of Christmas! Firstly, an important reminder regarding next week when we shall be celebrating History Day on Thursday 15 November. You will recall Mr Henderson, Head of Humanities, wrote to you back in September advising you that children in Years 1 — 6 should come to school dressed in a costume reminiscent of either the Roman, Viking, Tudor, Victorian, WWI, WWII eras, or as a famous historical character of their own choosing on that day.
Please note Years 1 and 2 must still bring in their PE kit on that day for their sessions during the afternoon and Reception should wear their PE kit to school as normal. The centre was set up to help people who struggle with being socially isolated in the community. They organise services such as shopping trips, transport to Day Centres and outings to places such as National Trust Centres. Various awards were presented in assembly this week for activities undertaken out of school.
Our congratulations to them all! This week the Courtesy Cup and Badge went to Arthur Band Year 2 for being kind and compassionate towards his friends in school. Aashish Gill for doing fantastic listening this week. Anirudh Ageer for always following the Golden Rules and setting a good example for others! Ronak Banerjee for always contributing to class discussions. It has been lovely to see the children settle back into the Kindergarten routine after the half term. We have enjoyed listening to their holiday news.
It has been a very busy week as we discussed and celebrated festivals and special days this week. We started by talking about the fireworks that the children had seen over the weekend and agreed that they are beautiful and colourful, but so very loud! We made our own colourful and sparkly firework pictures using paint and glitter.
We also discussed the importance of staying safe around fires and fireworks. On Wednesday, we were very lucky to have Mrs Gill come into class and help us make chapatis to celebrate Diwali.
We used a rolling pin to make our dough into a very round circle before Mrs Gill put them in the frying pan on a very hot stove. We enjoyed eating our yummy bread during circle time. We rounded the week up by finding out lots of information about Remembrance Day and why we wear poppies. We watched clips of children selling poppies and found out that the money goes to the men and women who keep us safe. We all made a poppy to wear with pride on Sunday. Thursday 15 November is History Day and we will be looking at the history of toys and invite the children to bring in a small toy to show their friends in circle time.
This week in Reception, we have focused our learning around the theme of festivals of light. We talked about the beautiful firework displays lots of us saw, and created some exciting and colourful pictures using paint and glitter. We have also created some super sparkly firework art and used pom poms, ribbon, gems and glittery pipe cleaners to make transient art on black paper.
TPS is a Co-Educational Independent Day School
We talked about the festival of Diwali and how this is celebrated, and each boy made a clay diva lamp. We read the very exciting story of Rama and the Demon King, which the children absolutely adored. We talked about the different characters in the story and used magnetic props to help us retell the story thinking about the sequence of events.
We read the story Inside, Outside, Upside Down to learn about positional language — we gave instructions to a partner, asking them to put a teddy bear in all sorts of funny places! The boys learnt about why we commemorate Remembrance Day and thought about those who lost their lives in the war. We talked about the significance of poppies and painted some of our own. Next week, we are very much looking forward to celebrating an extra special show and tell in advance of our History Day on Thursday. All the boys will take part in a workshop based on the history of toys, and we would love the children to bring in a special toy from their past — this could be a toy from a family member or a toy from their childhood baby toy or similar.
We may stretch show and tell over two days Wednesday and Thursday next week to enable us to fully enjoy each toy. Year 1 have had a very busy first week back to school after the half term. They have been learning what command sentences are and they have been reading and writing their own command sentences too.
Some children pretended to be the teacher and gave bossy sentences to the rest of the class! In maths, the children have been counting in 2s, 5s and 10s mostly from 0. Those that were feeling particularly adventurous had a go at counting in 10s from their own choice of number such as 3! The children have enjoyed learning about Diwali this week and we were lucky enough to have some children in the class share their own experiences about it.
The class have also spent some time reflecting on Remembrance Sunday and have made their own beautiful poppy patterns on the iPads. Well done for a super first week back! In maths this week Year 2 have been learning all about fractions! They have learned how to read and write halves, quarters and thirds, and how to find halves and quarters of shapes and objects.
Today, they used their new knowledge to solve and make up their own word problems involving fractions. They were also very excited to have their first times tables test today. In English, we have been planning and writing stories about finding an animal living in the cupboard under the stairs and going on an adventure with that animal.
Headmaster's Bulletin - Edition 2 - Hampton Prep School
We had to think very carefully about how to make our stories interesting by adding in extra details, as well as checking through our stories and adding in any missing punctuation or words. In topic, we learned about toys from the past before designing and making our own wooden spoon toys. In RE we talked about the festival of Diwali; some of the class had celebrated this over half term and were able to tell us lots about it! If you do have any questions about any of the above, please do ask Mrs Murphy, who will be very happy to help.
Have a great weekend, Tim Smith Headmaster. The B team worked hard to secure a draw and the C team had things a little easier with a win. Therefore, there will be plenty of movement between working groups and teams over the next few weeks, as we decide on where each boy best sits within the year group. This is so that they are comfortable with the peers that they work with and able to progress effectively. This can often be difficult as we rely on other schools to also put out similar teams, but I hope you all notice the difference this term.
Year 6 were lucky enough to head into London on the first trip of the year on Thursday and enjoyed a very cultured day at the Tate Modern. This term Chris Harrison will be running Saturday sessions in the excellent sports hall at Hampton School. These sessions are perfectly suited for young cricketers who wish to continue to play and improve through the off season.
The young cricketers will be placed in skill specific groups when appropriate and there will be an excellent coach to player ratio. Please click here for more details. September seems to be moving along at a rapid pace, this week has simply flown by. How lucky were we that the rain held off on Wednesday to allow individual and class photographs to take place!
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The children all looked very smart indeed in their new school uniforms. Reading aloud to children is so vitally important in the infant stage but also well into the primary years. We hope that you will be able to make our Reading Information Evening next week; it takes place on Thursday 20 September at 6. You will have noticed that double yellow lines have been painted around the corner and into the entrance of Wensleydale Gardens, however, already we are noting some parking violations.
We would urge you all to park sensibly and legally during drop offs and collections at Pre-Prep, setting good examples to everyone in our community — children, parents and neighbours alike. The new assembly programme started in earnest this week, and Years 1 and 2 were delighted to join the Beginning of Term Assembly at Prep. It was with great pleasure that the Captains and Vice Captains were announced in assembly yesterday, with Mr Smith on hand to distribute the accompanying badges that these children will wear for the term.
He also awarded Rishi Schneider Year 1 with his martial arts certificate following his endeavours during the summer period. Rishi honed his sparring and kicking skills to earn this award. The Courtesy Cup and Badge were awarded to Finn Timba Year 2 for his beautiful manners and for looking after the new children in the playground. Harry Hayes , for settling into Year 2 so well and for always being so polite.
Daniel Fitzpatrick , for always being polite, kind and helpful in our classroom. Aubin Williams , for a positive approach to school life and settling into Hampton Pre-Prep beautifully. It has been another great week in Kindergarten. The children have been accessing many new resources in the classroom and outside in the playground and, of course, getting to know their friends.
You will see diaries have been sent home today for the weekend. We would be really grateful if you could help your child add some information into their diary each week, but please note we do not want this to be too onerous for you. It can be anything that they have been up to over the weekend, for example, a sentence or two, drawings, photographs, tickets or maps. The reading diaries will start next week.
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In literacy, we have spoken about the characters in our Oxford Reading Tree ORT stories — learning about each one, looking carefully at their names, and using our phonics to blend the letters and read the word. We read some big book stories on our interactive whiteboard and you may like to look at this website at home https: Every boy has brought home a reading book for the weekend, a reading diary and a small zip-lock bag containing sounds. Have fun sharing the book together; talking about the illustrations and recognising the character names in the text.
During our phonics sessions, we have been focusing on the correct cursive formation of the letters s, a and t, and have been playing some oral blending games. In mathematics, we have been counting up to 20 and using our hands to practise quickly showing the correct amount of fingers when a number is said. We were also very excited to start our very first dough disco session!
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During dough disco, each child has a ball of playdough, and whilst listening to some upbeat disco music, we poke, prod, stretch and roll the dough and take our fingers for a dance! Have a great weekend! This week in Year 1, we have continued developing our number skills by counting, ordering numbers and filling in missing numbers on a number line.
We have been practising writing our numbers the correct way round too.
Welcome to Twickenham Prep
Today, we completed an aural maths activity where Miss Page read out a question and we had to listen carefully and write down the answer. We earnt a marble for our jar because we were so sensible! In English, we have been learning how to form the letters c, o and a correctly with the lead ins and outs. Everyone is doing a great job! After this, we sequenced pictures from the story into the correct order. Other activities we did this week included: We enjoyed learning how to say thank you in Makaton as well as learning a song Three Little Monkeys.
In maths, Year 2 have been using number lines to add and subtract.