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MESSAGE FROM MRS RICHARDSON Dear Parents It was wonderful to sit in a full Chapel yesterday, listening to the choirs singing and the Year 6 performing at our Harvest Festival. Thank you, to all for the food contributions and the £218.51 from the collection for School Charities. Earlier this week, I met a prospective parent, who is also an Old Wellingtonian, and we were chatting about a teacher who used to be Head of the Lower School, Mr Joseph. He was famous for his acronyms: G.A.S. (Good At Something) and B.R.M. (Behaviour, Respect and Manners). These are remembered long after pupils have left school. I speak often of the importance of behaviour, respect and manners with the children in assembly and in class, and they are in no doubt that these are important values for us here at Wellington Prep. A parent who has a child who recently joined us commented that he is saying please and thank you more often at home, which they are delighted with. Our children are generally well-mannered but we do need to remind them, to praise them when they go above and beyond, and to lead by example. If I could bottle the feeling of when a child says 'thank you' when they get off a bus after being on a trip; it would be a tonic for a rainy day. With best wishes for a lovely weekend. Vics Richardson

LITTLE WELLIES TODDLER GROUP After half term, we are relaunching our Little Wellies Toddler group. We would appreciate any donations of good condition baby/ toddler toys (0-3 years) – dressing-up clothes, board books, baby bouncers, mats, toys. Thank you, in advance from the Early Years team.

SPORT UPDATE The annual Conkerthon took place last Friday with a large crowd of supporting parents there to cheer on the competitors. The field was eventually whittled down to our finalists Tom Page-Turner and Tom Bennett-Dixon. With the clock ticking towards 5:00pm, the duel was paused to allow Tom P-T to catch his bus home! The final resumed on Monday lunchtime, with Tom Bennett-Dixon eventually lifting the ‘Conker Bear Trophy’ to be crowned 2021 winner. Winter nets continued on Tuesday evening for our Year 5 and 6 cricketers. Tuesday’s batting session took our cricketers through a variety of drills that helped their ability to bat against pace bowling. All the pupils had the opportunity to bat in front of a bowling machine.

8th October 2021

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EARLY YEARS ‘It is another Harvest Festival When we bring our fruit and vegetables ‘cause we want to share the best Of all the good things we have been given…..’ (one of Mrs Wheller’s favourite Harvest songs). Early Years had great fun building a new scarecrow for their Harvest Celebration and decided to call her ‘Betty’. This week at Nursery the children have been learning a new skill; mixing colours using powder paint. The children have also been making marks on paper using conkers and paint. At Nursery we are making a number line which includes photos of the children, consequently they are more likely to take notice of numbers if it is meaningful and personal to them.

Reception took their maths lesson to Forest School and made lots of repeating patterns with natural objects. The children worked in teams, talked, shared and supported each other to complete the task. A tasty snack was prepared by the children - apples, cored and cooked on the fire. Forest School is just the best!

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YEAR 1 and 2 In Science, Year 1 have been investigating their sense of taste and smell. The children had to try and guess what was hiding in each pot by sniffing it. The stinky cheese proved very unpopular, with the tomato ketchup and soap being the easiest to guess. The taste experiment involved tasting food ranging from sour lemons and bitter olives, to sweet chocolate and salty pretzels. The children had to think about which part of their tongue was detecting each taste. Everyone in the class was very brave and tried all of the different flavours. Well done, Year 1, for being such super scientists. Mrs Perry

Year 1 and 2 have been making some incredible, tactile 3D models of islands where pirates may have hidden their treasure. The children first had to imagine they were seagulls flying over the island looking down (a bit like a drone does now!). Next, map out their island and paint it by mixing the colours themselves, then they made a beach by gluing on real sand. The children have also designed three dimensional mountains and volcanoes, and felted on some rivers or lava flows. Finally, they decided where to hide their treasure and leave a secret message and co-ordinates placed sneakily behind their maps. Some children also cut out some treasure boxes very carefully and stuck them together with help from Miss Rewbury. Mrs Price

YEAR 2 Year 2 had the most fantastic day out, on Thursday, at Escot Park. We spent the morning in the Saxon Village experiencing what life would have been like in the Saxon era. We worked in a forge, used a Cwern to make flour and then baked bread, we even had the opportunity to make wooden tools. The afternoon was spent exploring the habitats of the native animals that would have been found during the Saxon period. We saw wolves, bear cubs, an eagle owl and a lynx. Mrs Webber

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YEAR 3 Year 3 continued their History work on the Stone Age by being archaeologists. The Hive classroom was turned into a cave, and the children found artwork ranging in age from 700 000 BC to 500 ad. The children looked at and discussed the changes in styles of art, from abstract to figurative, and back to abstract, throughout this period of history. They arranged the artwork into a timeline and then explained which artwork was their favourite and why. Mrs Coate

YEAR 4 We went on a coach to Carymoor Recycling Centre. We wanted to learn about rubbish and recycling. The person who worked there introduced themselves and said what we would be doing on our visit. Gary was nice and friendly and did some good impressions. We walked up a big hill and saw tyres and grass. The tyres had plants in them. There was a big landfill that we walked through, we saw rubbish from years ago, from 1970 to 2000. There were old phones that were broken inside and mouldy food. We listened to Gary and Beth, and showed them what we had seen: plastic, yoghurt pots, lap tops, CDs and some nappies. Then we had a chat about what we could recycle and then we went for a walk to look for badger and deer footprints. We saw tractors and compost being piled up. When we went back to have our yummy school packed lunch, we weighed ourselves as a class to see how we compared to a whole truck of compost. Seven times the weight of Year 4 is the same as a truck of rubbish made into compost. Then we made newspaper plant pots by rolling them up and we planted cress in them. We learnt a banana song before we left to go back to school. Written by Year 4

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YEAR 5 Year 5 have been working on their place value and rounding numbers. The children completed a range of amazing journaling tasks this week. The highlight was the task where they had to create their own countries, cities and populations that needed to be rounded to the nearest thousand. ‘La’Mamba’, ‘Cookie Land’, ‘Food Land’, ‘Luke Land’, ‘Gamer Land’, ‘Among Us Empire’ and ‘Cats’ were some of the creative countries designed by the children. ‘Carrot City’ seemed to be very popular with over 123,500 people living in that wonderful orange place! Who said Maths couldn’t be fun? In Art, Year 5 explored colour and shape. Mrs Lawrenson and Mr Warren

YEAR 6 Year 6 have been working hard on multiplying by 2 digit numbers in a Singapore maths lesson, and in Geography they have been researching the animals that live around Kilimanjaro national park.

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PERFORMING ARTS The drama and dance provision for our students has significantly increased this term. Our performers are enjoying ballet and modern tuition, musical theatre choreography and acting as part of Stage School. We run a Year 3&4 Drama Club and a Year 5&6 Drama Club, LAMDA tuition is becoming more popular in the Prep School and all of this is on top of weekly drama lessons in every year group. This week we had a number of Year 9 students join our Prep School clubs as volunteers, it is wonderful to see students working collaboratively together across the year groups and taking on roles of leadership and responsibility.

MODERN PENTATHLON The South West Regional Schools Biathlon takes place on 14th November in Yeovil. This is a separate run and swim event for Years 3 and above. If pupils would like to enter they need to be a member of British Pentathlon and can do so at the website below: https://www.pentathlongb.org/ Entries close on the 4th November. Please email Mrs MacAlister on l.macalister@wellington-school.org.uk if you have any questions - it would be great to get as many from each year group there as possible as there are Team as well as Individual Competitions

HALF TERM HOCKEY CAMP There is a half term hockey camp being held at Wellington School on the 18th and 19th October which is run by Inspire Hockey Ltd. The camp promises to offer a fun couple of days delivering technical and game-play coaching. The camp is proudly sponsored by Welly Fox's Hockey Club, if you are interested in more information please use the following link: https://www.trybooking.co.uk/BGFQ

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FRIENDS OF WELLINGTON SCHOOL (Prep) Quiz Night: A big thank you to all our supporters that came to Quiz Night on Saturday evening. It was great seeing so many people in person, as well as having some fun and winning some prizes in the raffle. A big thank you to all those that donated prizes including Flip Out Somerset, Kathryn Anne Photography, Lidl, Greendale Farm Shop, Cakes to You, Rebecca Charlotte Beauty and Jenny's Gels. We must also mention the Quiz Team of Mr Hitchin, Mr Renyard and Mrs Stanton, for guiding us through the questions and answers and of course, the Prep School catering staff for our delicious supper.

Don't forget, we are always looking for local businesses to donate raffle prizes or to sponsor a fundraising event, do get in touch if you would like to work with us. Our email address is: FOWSPrep@wellington-school.org.uk Movie Night: We have 111 of you coming to this fundraiser tonight, so we look forward to a great evening and raising some money for the school, photos to follow next week! Virtual Balloon Race: This will be launched after the October half term, so start thinking about your balloon name, colour & design!

CAFÉ 37

Our on-site café at Senior School will be open on 8.30am until 4pm on Saturday, do pop in and enjoy a coffee

and something to eat.

STARS OF THE WEEK Alexander Lewis Reception

Benjamin Woodford 1P

Luke Coate and Hayley Chong 2W

Charlie Burgess 3C

Gracie MacAlister 4N Lily Park 4S

Sophie Pipe and Kaan Dogan 5L Henry Taylor 5W

Xavier Lawrence 6H Amba Barthakur 6L Abigael Bill 6M

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Sports Star of the Week: Benton Fletcher 4N

Drama Star of the Week: Georgina Blunden Rec

Music Star of the Week: Erika Lacy-Hulbert 5L

HOUSE POINTS

GALILEO 662 PIONEER 655 APOLLO 575 VIKING 607

DIARY FOR NEXT WEEK

11-Oct-21 Monday

13:00 15:30 Reception - Forest School

14:45 Rugby Boys-U8 and U9 vs Queen's College (A)*

14:30 Hockey Girls-U8 and U9 vs Queen's College (A)*

18:00 20:00 Governors: Pastoral & Cocurricular Committee

12-Oct.21 Tuesday

13-Oct-21 Wednesday

13:00 15:30 Year 1 - Forest School

14:00 Hockey Girls-U10A and B vs Blundell's Prep School (H)*

14:15 Hockey Girls-U11A and B vs Blundell's Prep School (A)*

14:45 Football Mixed-U8 and U9 vs Millfield Preparatory School (A)*

14-Oct-21 Thursday Year 5 Roman Day

13:00 15:30 Year 2 - Forest School

15-Oct-21 Friday

08:45 09:05 Golden Leaves assembly

09:05 13:00 Year 3 - Forest School

13:00 15:30 Nursery - Forest School

13:30 15:00 Years 1 and 2 - Swimming

16-Oct-21 Saturday

Half Term

09:00 10:00 Stage School, Years 5&6

09:00 11:00 Stage School, Reception - Year 2

10:00 12:00 Stage School, Years 3 - 6

31-Oct-21 Sunday Half Term