Newsletter - Summer Term - 08.05.18

Glorious Goodwood, the IAPs Clay Pigeon Championships, coding and (some) sports fixtures have been highlights of the last week, although rain prevented play for some matches. Spirits are never dampened at Cottesmore though — as our guests on Saturday’s Open Morning will soon discover!

Academic News

Geography Field Trip to Goodwood
The Goodwood trip was a great success and much enjoyed. We were blessed with a sunny day, sandwiched between the rain and made the most of it by being outside for the whole time. Firstly, pupils enjoyed watching some classic cars racing around the Goodwood track while learning about its colourful history. A Spitfire on the airstrip provoked much interest, before a climb up an iron-age hill fort for lunch, with a truly impressive view of the south coast.

A tour of the farm followed where pupils learned about a variety of farming techniques, especially how farms are striving to become more sustainable. The pupils watched the cows being milked whilst tasting some of their fresh milk and cheese before returning to school in time for games. A super day out!

Sports Round-Up

Cricket
The rain has defeated the fixture card once more, however, Mr Walker shares a few words on the season so far:

“We were under-practised and under-strength in the first game v Dorset House. Usually a game we'd win, I think the rain may have saved us. We didn't bowl or field particularly well, and we dropped 4 catches - as many as we dropped last season. I can't say with much confidence that we would have chased 127.

However, with a full-strength team, and following a positive (!) team meeting, we put in a much better performance at Windlesham

I have no doubt that, had we won the toss and bowled, we would have won this game. I thought for long periods we were the better team. In the end, an exciting and engaging game, which gives me confidence going into the next run of games, should the weather be kind to us.

Some headlines:
- Vs Dorset House, Will J took his first 1st XI wicket
- Vs Windlesham, Sam's 36 took his tally past 150 1st XI runs (156 @ 26.0) and his wicket took him to 10 (@22.1) (11 games)
- Vs Windlesham, Harry's 24* took his 1st XI tally to 50 runs (@ 12.5) and his 2 wickets also took him to 10 (@ 14.1) (11 games)

Rounders
Rain caused havoc with these fixtures too, however, an excellent start to the rounders season came in our opening fixture against Handcross Park at home: we were victorious in all three games: the 1sts won 17.5 – 16.5; the 2nds won 15 -7 and the 3rds won 18- 17.     

The 1sts result rested on our last remaining batsman, Clara, who scored 5 rounders from her allotted six balls, being caught out on her final strike. She thoroughly deserved her Girl of the Game award for batting, while Abigail gained Girl of the Game for fielding. Our general fielding was slick throughout, but Mrs Watkin’s own choice for Girl of the Game was Maria, who is new to Rounders and already showing great potential.       

On Saturday the 1st team matches were cancelled by Windlesham, although the 2nds did play away on their astro pitch. This was a very different surface for us and five of our team were U12s, competing against their U13. We lost 11.5-17.5, which was a creditable result in Mrs Watkin’s view. Girls of the Game were Tierney (fielder) and Amour (batsman), with Mrs Watkin’s choice of Phoebe as all-rounder.

IAPS Clay Pigeon Shooting Championships 2018

Well done to our team who enjoyed a fantastic day of competition at the West London Shooting School recently; a special ‘congratulations’ goes to Humphrey, who is now the UK U11 champion!

Pre-prep news

The pre-prep children are all very excited about their up-and-coming trip to Hampton Court Palace, the first of two ‘whole Pre-prep’ outings this term. Each year group is working hard on their curriculum and topic work, so let’s catch up with each one:

Reception
The Reception class has been continuing their work on doubling numbers through looking at pairs and counting in 2s; they have also been counting in 5s and 10s and relating this to their money work using 1p, 2p 5p and 10p pieces. They have also been learning about odd and even numbers.

The children have written about their trip to Slaugham Park. And their phonic learning has included writing, spelling and reading words with the magic ‘e’ (late, fine, stone, tune etc). They have been continuing their planting work by making some cress heads and starting broad beans off without soil so that they can learn about root structure, recording their learning in their bean diaries. I

In ICT the children have started coding using j2e.com using the coding section, paint tab at the top of the web page. Parents are welcome to explore this with their children at home to further extend their independence.  

Year 1
Year 1 has really enjoyed their Creative Writing sessions where they have been writing about some frog facts and a story about a hungry frog. In Maths they have continued to work with a hundred square, finding number before and after a 2-digit number, also working on 10 more and 10 less from a given number. In their topic work they have been talking about the life cycles of a frog, hen and butterfly. The Castle topic has been started and Year 1 has been finding out about why castles were built and who were they built for. In Art they have been painting castles.

Year 2:
To start the term Year 2 will be spending the first four weeks learning about Pirates, both fictional and factual. They have already discovered what life was like aboard a pirate ship and the famous ‘Pirate Code of Honour’. They learned about the jobs that the pirates did aboard their ship and finally wrote an application form for the job of a pirate.

In Art Year 2 has been looking at the work of the artist Vincent Van Gogh. Hopefully inspired by the planting of our sunflower seeds last week the children will create their own versions of the famous ‘Sunflowers’. In Maths the children have been revising 2, 5 and 10 times-tables; revising arrays and hops on the number line; multiplying by 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10; arranging objects into arrays and writing the corresponding multiplications. In Science they have been recording their observations of a variety of plants in their local environment.

Year 3:
During their Maths sessions Year 3 has been investigation the relationship between addition and subtraction. They have practised mental maths strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems involving 2 or 3-digit numbers. The focus in English lesson continues to be the legend of Robin Hood. The children have been using their descriptive skills to write wanted posters of Robin and his merry men. They have also begun to plan their own version of the tale of the Golden Arrow, mimicking the cartoon style used by Marcia Williams. In Science the children have been exploring the sun as a source of light and identifying the difference between night and day. In their History lessons Year 3 has been looking at Tudor food and feasts. In Art, the children have greatly enjoyed looking at Tudor coats of arms, before designing their own.

Dorm Doings

The Buchan Sleepover was a success with Tom, James H, Alex, Henry and Ollie H all enjoying hot chocolate, nibbles, Twister challenges and Mario Carts!

Sunday Fundays

This Sunday is the turn of the Juniors to play Ultimate Laser with the Seniors playing the following Sunday.

Open Morning

Please do pass on the word about this Saturday’s Open Morning, from 10.00 to 12 noon. Whatever the weather decides to do there will be a warm welcome waiting for prospective Cottesmorians and their families. Come and see what makes us ‘tick’.