Pre-Prep Reflections Week 18 2024
Dear parents,
It seems to be that time of year where lots of germs are in the air and half the school has been unwell with colds and coughs. Earlier in the week, I visited Monkton Pre-Prep School in Bath for this term’s IAPS South West district meeting, where all the other pre-prep heads were saying the same. We are reminding the children to wash their hands regularly and cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing. It won’t be long before everyone can rest and recover over half term – just one more week to go!
7+ assessment morning
Today, our Year 2 children completed their 7+ assessment morning for Exeter School, ahead of the assessment morning for external applicants tomorrow. The children enjoyed the morning and were well looked after by Mrs Van, Mrs Hardy and the team.
Assemblies
On Monday, I talked about the child protection charity the NSPCC and Childline – can they remember the telephone number? We looked at their brilliant PANTS video, as we do every year, to remind the children that their private parts are private, how to stay safe and what to do if they are worried. I highly recommend watching it if you haven’t seen it before. February is LGBT History Month and we have been looking at a range of acronyms this week, as well as learning about the history of the rainbow pride flag and sharing the story And Tango Makes Three about a family of penguins.
Interviews
Yesterday, we held interviews for a full-time teacher to cover the summer term in Reception, following Mrs Martin’s departure at Easter. We had a strong field of nine applicants, which we shortlisted down to three. Mrs Van came over to help me interview each one, while Ms Richards and Mrs Dray observed them teaching a phonics session with Reception. The children were, of course, fantastic and certainly not shy about giving me their feedback! The post has been offered and verbally accepted and I look forward to sharing further details with you once contracts have been signed.
Trampolining success
Many congratulations to Ollie in Year 2 who completed in the South West regional trampolining competition last weekend. He competed in the 7-8 age group, despite only being six years old, and came away with a silver medal. What an amazing achievement! We are all very proud of him.
Next week
Next week there is lots going on as we head towards half term: it is Children’s Mental Health Week across the UK and we will be having a special focus on mental health and wellbeing across the week. Each class will be taking part in a special workshop on Tuesday to mark Safer Internet Day and, on Friday, we will be off-timetable for the whole day for our new International Day, our first theme day where the children will be grouped in their houses, which is set to be lots of fun. Please note that I have added the summer term dates to the list below, some of which are ‘to be confirmed’, but hopefully these will help you plan ahead to the end of the academic year.
I look forward to seeing some of you at the quiz tonight and wish you all a wonderful weekend.
