Pre-Prep News

[ Coffee Mornings ]

	West Midlands Theatre Company visit
	We recently had our annual visit from the West Midlands Theatre Company. They always provide the children with a breathtakingly lively and interactive preformance. This year's play was called "The Golden Dragon" and retold the ancient Chinese story about the building of the Great Wall of China.
	Book Week #4
	Left: There was great excitement as the three teams of children from each year group vied for first place in the Book Quiz competition. The yellow team won but it was very close. They received book tokens for prizes, which were presented after the Quiz. Right: The highlight of the week is the "Book at Bedtime" when all the children return to school in their pyjamas with their sleeping bags, pillows and teddies. The staff read them bedtime stories whilst the children enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie before sleepily returning home to bed.
	Book Week #3
	Left and right: As part of the Book Week celebrations, everyone came to school dressed as characters from nursery rhymes and poems. There were some wonderful costumes and a great deal of excitement. Far right: Even the staff dressed up. Here we have Mrs Charlesworth dressed up as Dr Foster with a puddle right up to her middle!
	Book Week #2
	Left: The very youngest children in the nursery sang their favourite nursery rhyme which was "Old MacDonald had a Farm." Right: The children particularly enjoyed a visit by story teller and author, John Dougherty. He captivated them with his funny poems and songs and answered their questions about being an author.
	Book Week
	The theme for this year's Book Week is Rhyme and Poetry. All the children have been involved in choosing favourite poems to recite in assembly. Each class has made a book of favourite rhymes and poems. Children have visited Tiverton library to look at the books there and to find out what the library has to offer. There was a book fair where children were able to purchase a book.
	Harvest Festival
	The Pre-Prep celebrated its Harvest Festival this week. Mr. Folland led the harvest assembly with the help of children in Year Two. Many children brought in contributions for the Harvest table; the produce was given to the St. Petrocks charity in Exeter who will distribute it to homeless people.
	Year Two Trip to Budleigh Salterton
	Year two went on a trip to Budleigh Salterton. We had a super day as the weather was fantastic. A local fisherman took the time to talk to the children about his catch and let them handle some starfish.
	Year One trip
	Year One had a wonderful day trip to Babbacombe Model Village and Kents Cavern.
	Year One Summer Play
	Year One related the traditional tale of Stone Soup in their summer play this week. They had lots of fun singing the songs and acting out the story.
	Nursery 1M's "Aiken Drum" Performance
	The youngest children in the Preprep - Nursery 1M - gave a sterling performance based on the song "Aiken Drum" to their friends and relatives. They were amazingly confident and entertaining.
	Nursery Two Summer Entertainment
	Nursery Two performed their summer entertainment this week, called "Alphabet Time." Each child wore a hat with a letter on it and recited rhymes and sang songs related to that letter. They kept the audience captivated for nearly an hour with their lovely singing and rhymes.
	Kindergarten play
	We had the first of our summer plays this week with the Kindergarten play entitled "The Litter Muncher." The children thoroughly enjoyed performing for their families and friends; they sang beautifully and provided us with great entertaiment.
	Year Two History Trip
	The Year Two children recently had a history trip to Tiverton castle; they enjoyed trying on the armour.
	Year One Trip to Tiverton Museum #1
	Year One went on their annual trip to Tiverton Museum. The theme for the day was 'A Victorian Childhood.' They had the opportunity to find out about and play with Victorian toys; they dressed up in Victorian clothes, and experienced the rigours of a Victorian classroom.
	Year One Trip to Tiverton Museum #2
	The children learnt about washday and how to use the Dolly tub, Dolly peg and mangle. They all agreed that it was really hard work. They handled artefacts from a Victorian kitchen and tried to guess what they were used for. The highlight of the day was climbing on the Tivvy Bumper at the end of the day.
	Ballet Show
	Mrs. Wightmore and her team of ballet pupils provided us with a super afternoon's entertainment with their ballet show. Children from all year groups performed a wide variety of different dances.
	Pirate Day
	The Busy Bees had great fun this week at their Pirate Day. The highlight of the session was playing on the new Pirate ship, "H.M.S. Blundell's". The ship has been kindly bought for the PrePrep department by the Friends of Blundells Parents' Association.
	Chapel Visit
	As part of their R.E. curriculum, the children in Year One visited Blundell's Chapel and were given a tour by the School Chaplain.
	Year 2 Play
	We watched a fabulous play performed by the children in Year Two this week entitled "Hansel and Gretel." They coped amazingly well with all the words they had to learn and entertained us for over an hour with the humorous tale of the wicked stepmother and the tired, old witch who had lost her magic powers.
	Headmaster's assembly experiment
	Mr. Folland impressed us all by showing us a science experiment during his assembly.
	Science Week - space expert visit
	Dr. Sarah Roberts, an astronomer from Cardiff University, talked to us about space and rocket travel. In the afternoon, she worked with groups of children helping them to make water rockets. Despite the strong winds we managed to launch some of the water rockets later that afternoon.
	Science Week - senior school rocketeers
	Members of the senior school rocket club gave the children an interesting talk about how they designed rockets. They demonstrated a computer program that they use to help with the designs.
	Science Week - rocket competition winners
	Here are the winners of the rocket competition. They received a space themed prize and also the chance to build a rocket with the senior school rocket club. Unfortunately it was too windy to launch their rockets but they had lots of fun making them and intend to launch them when the weather improves.
	Science Week - rocket display
	There was great excitement in the preprep this week as we embarked on a week of space exploration for Science Week. Nearly all the children entered a competition to make a space rocket and we had an amazing display of many different space models.
	Exeter Cathedral visit
	We had a guided tour of the cathedral complete with lots of fascinating stories and history. We also lay in front of the altar and looked up at the stars in the roof which seemed like heaven above us. One of the Year 2 boys took on the role of the Bishop of Exeter for a few minutes and looked most imposing in his mitre. We also learned how to do brass rubbing and returned to school with some wonderful rubbings, stained glass window pictures and mosaics. We all had a marvellous time and found the cathedral impressive in many ways.
	Read, Write Inc.
	Ruth Miskin, creator of the highly successful synthetic phonic programme Read, Write Inc., visited the preprep to support the school in developing its use of the scheme.
	Busy Bees' Pancake Races
	There was huge excitement at Busy Bees this week when it held its annual pancake races. There was a great deal of skilful pancake tossing and a few pancakes that ended up on the floor. The highlight of the evening for the children was devouring a pile of pancakes with lemon and sugar before they went home.
	Kindergarten's Chinese New Year Assembly
	This week the Kindergarten gave everyone in the PrePrep a very informative assembly about the Chinese New Year. Here they are holding up their paintings of all the different animals that represent each year.
	Nursery Bus Ride
	Nursery 1 enjoyed their journey on the double decker bus to Tiverton Parkway Station. They went on the bus to experience what it was like to ride on the service that they see travelling past the school so frequently. They also looked at different houses in the neighbourhood.
Art Week in the Pre-Prep
As part of their theme on pattern, the children in Year One learned about the pop artist Andy Warhol and his eight canvasses entitled "Camouflage". They then created their own canvas in the same size and similar style.
There has been an atmosphere of great industry and excited interest this week in the preprep as children have been absorbed by the wide range of activities that have been available during Art Week. Monday morning kicked off with a session on colour mixing in Year One. They had to blend as many colours as they could using only the primary colours.
Some parents organised an amazing papier mache project for the Year Two children which involved making and decorating a huge bird.
Clare Procter helped the Kindergarten children to create two fabulous night and day monsters out of different materials. This linked in to their science topic about night and day. In this photograph they are gathering together the different materials before they assemble "Sunny Lisa" and "Bonkerstein" which were the names they chose for the monsters.		A specialist clay sculptor, Louise Baker, spent a day in Year Two teaching pottery skills. The children had a rewarding time finding out about how to use clay effectively.
A visiting textiles artist called Clare Procter showed the children in the Nursery how to make felt. They then used the felt they had made to make a large teddy bear. They were fascinated by the process and the end result.	We were lucky enough to have a "parent artist" who gave up a lot of his time to create a huge display involving all the children in the preprep at different stages. Here are children in the Nursery helping to paint the background.
Year One children were encouraged to be completely free with their creativity during a session with Clare Procter. They had a wonderful range of materials to choose from and could assemble them in different ways to create patterns, the theme for Year One during art week.
Some parents kindly organised a tie dye session in Year One; all the children had fun designing and dying their own tee shirts.
Even Mr. Folland's Headmaster's Assembly involved an exciting Art Quiz. He employed Pictionary tactics to decide on a winning team; it was a close contest but in the end both teams drew.	Mrs. Filmer-Bennet, the Head of the Preprep, worked with the youngest children in Nursery One. They experienced the wonder of discovering what colours could be made by mixing certain colours together.	Some of the activities were very messy; the younger children loved having the opportunity to cover their feet in paint.
The theme in Nursery Two was Teddy Bears. Here they can be seen making Teddy Bear pencil puppets.	Painting sea creatures on the hall floor; what could be more fun?!	Painting and colour mixing in the Nursery.
An artist and author/illustrator visited for a day and showed children how she had made the pictures in her book and then helped them to create their own jungle picture in the same collage style that she had used in her book.They had a great day cutting and sticking.		As part of the theme on pattern, some children in Year One designed Aboriginal shields and boomerangs.
	Nursery 2's Winter
	Nusery Two children gave an assembly this week about Winter. They showed their lovely winter paintings and talked about what they like to do in winter.
	Year 2 'sight' presentations
	Year Two children took part in a fascinating assembly about sight this week. They had made beautiful pictures which accompanied all the interesting information they had researched, and presented to the rest of the preprep.
	Really Wild visit
	Neil from Really Wild Enterprises came to visit the Kindergarten last week with some unusual creatures.  Charlie and Shirley the cockroaches ran down our arms, Jim the bird eating spider shook our hands and Norris the skink sat on our arms and heads. The children learnt all about these rescued creatures and why they were not suitable as pets.
	Christmas Party
	There was great excitement in the Pre-Prep as the term ended with a Christmas party and a visit from Santa. The children were allowed to abandon uniform for the day and came dressed in their party clothes. They sang Christmas songs and played party games and had lots of fun.
	Nursery Nativity Play
	The final Nativity play of the term was performed by the children in the Nursery classes. They charmed the audience with a tale of a Christmas donkey called Alfie. Even the youngest children were brave enough to go on stage dressed as the sheep, pigs and ladybird in the stable.
	Kindergarten Nativity Play
	There was a very frustrated and hungry Innkeeper in this year's Kindergarten Nativity play. All the children took part and sang beautifully in their production of "The Innkeeper's Breakfast." It provided great entertainment for their friends and families.
	Nativity Plays
	The season of Nativity plays has been launched by two superb Nativity plays this week. The Year Two children performed in the play "The Snow Child." They entertained their friends and families with delightful songs and the poignant story of a childless couple who discovered a child made of snow. The audience were even treated to some fabulous Russian Cossack dancing. The Year One children retold the tale of Babushka; an old Russian woman who could not stop cleaning! Finally she learnt how about true happiness through finding Jesus in the stable.
	Ridgeway Farm visit
	Year One and some of the children in Nursery One spent an interesting afternoon at Ridgeway Farm in Holcombe Rogus this week. They saw many of the animals and learnt about the life cycle of the chicken. They helped collect the apples in the orchard and feed the horses.
	West Midlands Theatre Company's "The Firebird"
	Great entertainment was provided for the children in the Preprep by the West Midlands Theatre Company who visited this week and presented the story of The Firebird. Many of the children were able to take part and there was plenty of audience participation to keep everyone excitedly involved.
	Halloween pumpkins at Busy Bees
	There was huge excitement at the Busy Bees club this week when everyone was given the chance to make a pumpkin lantern for Halloween. There were many messy hands but also very happy faces!
	Book Week concludes with a 'book at bedtime'
	Book week ended with a very well supported "Book At Bedtime" with children excitedly coming to school in the evening dressed in their pyjamas and armed with sleeping bags, pillows and cuddly toys. The teachers read them some of their favourite bedtime stories and they had a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie to round off the evening.
	Book Week #3
	On the final day, all the children and staff came to school dressed up as a character from a traditional fairy story. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
	Book Week #2
	The children in Year Two put on a special book week assembly and acted out their own version of "The Beauty and the Beast." Many of the children went to visit Tiverton library to read some of the books there and to discover what the library has to offer. They had a story time while they were there.
	Book Week #1
	There has been great excitement in the Preprep this week as we have had our annual Bookweek activities.The week started with "Table Top Clues" which involved children in a competition to guess as many of the book titles as they could by looking at the clues set out on the tables. The clues were based on the week's theme which was "Traditional Fairy Stories." Each class made a book that they read out to their friends in assembly each day. There was a Quiz in the middle of the week with children from each class in each of three teams. The yellow team were the winners but it was very close!
	Year 2 trip to the seaside
	Year two had a field trip to Budleigh Salterton and Exmouth last week, as part of their study of the seaside.
	Harvest Festival
	Mr. Folland talked to the children about "Feast and Famine" during the recent Harvest Festival. He was helped by this Master Chef who created a wonderful pizza full of healthy produce.
	Year One History Project
	As part of their history project on Teddy Bears, the children in Year One brought their own Teddy Bears into school to make a timelime. The youngest bear was one week old and the oldest bear was seventy five years old.

News archive: 2005-6 | 2006-7

Coffee Mornings

We have started a monthly coffee morning which generally takes place on the last Friday morning of the month. It is held in the Pre-Prep from 9:00am. You are welcome to bring along family and friends to enjoy a cup of coffee and a chat. If you are new to the school it is an ideal opportunity to meet others members of the school community including staff and parents. Please see the on-line calendar for the date of the next coffee morning. We hope to see you there.