Daneshill Diary 13/06/14

Headmaster’s Notes

During the summer term most, if not all, year groups go on school trips out into the local community and beyond. Often our pupils are recognised and complemented on their good manners and the way they conduct themselves.

Last week Alex Brown, Billy Pocock and Sam Steele were playing at the IAPS Golf Championship at Royal Lytham. Sam Steele won the U.14 competition, which is clearly an outstanding achievement. Well done Sam! On Monday I received an e-mail from a parent at Dulwich Preparatory School who had been working as a marker at these championships. She wrote:

‘I had the pleasure of marking your pupils at the IAPS Golf Championships on Friday. I was so impressed by these young men, their natural manners; politeness and sportsmanship were simply outstanding. They not only showed respect but also encouragement for others but most of all such sportsmanship. They were great ambassadors for your school and a credit to their parents. The standard of their play was fantastic and I wish them all well for the future.’

A great testament to the boys.

We also received news this week that all of our Year 8 pupils have passed into their first choice of senior schools. Three of them have won scholarships.

Well done to all of them and enjoy the celebrations!

Mr Spencer

News from Friends of Daneshill

At the time of writing the weather forecast for our World Cup Fun Day looks sunny and hot and lots of you, I know, are getting ready for Dads’ football, Mums’ netball and a fantastic samba parade by the children. It looks like it is going to be an amazing day for all. Please remember to bring some spending money with you for the stalls and games we have been busy organising. Profits from the day will help us greatly towards our funding target. We are so close to being able to fund a new low ropes course for the children in the grounds of the school and hope to get this up and running very soon. 

Our next event will be the annual year-end disco, which is open to all children in Prep. Full details will be sent next week but please save the date in your diaries, it is planned for the last day of term (Thurs 3rd July), 4- 5.30pm for years 3, 4 & 5 and 6-7.30pm for Years 6, 7, & 8. 

Lastly, a quick reminder that on Tuesday 17th June there is a second hand uniform sale from 3:00pm onwards. We had a very popular sale last week when we opened for new children’s’ morning, so we are sending out a general plea for any unwanted uniform that you may have at home. All items in good condition are gratefully received, but please make sure they are labelled with your name using the template from the uniform section of the school website using a safety pin.

Thank you for your support

Mrs Simpson

Year 8 set off on Three Peaks Challenge

On Wednesday 11th June, just five days before Year 8 set off on their great Three Peak Adventure, the March Foundation gave them a presentation. It was very interesting to hear how their donations will be used to genuinely change the lives of young inner-city teenagers with learning needs. I am very proud of Year 8 for choosing a local charity which supports children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The March Foundation is guiding young people towards qualifications and career opportunities, instead of a jobless life, possibly on the path to crime. They do this through team work, discipline, the teaching of practical skills and the building of self-confidence and self-esteem across 3 to 5 years. Mr Glossop, the founder of the charity, (and Daneshill parent and grandparent) came with Terry (from the Army) who not only explained how the army helped these children, but also gave some excellent, practical advice for The Big Challenge up those mountains! This was much appreciated by all. Good Luck Year 8 for this splendid challenge.

Mrs Dixon

Year 3 Roman Week

This week Year 3 have had a fantastic opportunity to consolidate their learning about The Romans in Britain. Children have taken part in a themed week, which has included all aspects of life in Roman Britain approximately 2000 years ago. Pupils have looked at schools (Roman Maths); researched religion (gods and myths) using ICT; investigated sports and leisure (gladiators and Roman Baths); discussed towns (layout and houses); designed and made mosaics); compared the rich and poor; and examined the army (soldiers and road building). Shields were also designed and painted in preparation for the Celts (Y2) v Romans (Y3) ‘battle’ next week.

As part of their Roman project week Year Three enjoyed a fun filled visit to the Reading Museum and Silchester ruins. In the morning they took part in four workshops on Roman town life, including money and homes, Latin language and writing, roles in society and trades and work. Favourite activities included dressing in a variety of replica Roman costumes and handling real Roman artefacts such as tesserae (mosaic pieces), pottery and tiles. The afternoon was spent visiting the Roman site of Calleva Atrebatum, now known as Silchester. With temperatures similar to those in Rome the children braved the heat to explore the substantial walls, some of which still reach 4.5 metres high. Most exciting for the pupils was the walk to the eastern edge of the town and the discovery of the amphitheatre.  Here they were able to imagine they had travelled back almost two thousand years to re-enact some gladiatorial battles and horse races.

Miss Dolphin & Mrs Jeffreys

News from the Pre-Prep

Reception class have been busy counting in 10’s to 100 and recognising their numerals. We have used the great outdoors to chalk numbers. How lovely it is when the sun shines! Most of us prefer to do our writing and mathematics outside. We have been concentrating on writing sentences for ourselves. We can sound out and have come such a long way in a year!
 
Our role play area has had a variety of dressing up clothes. There have been all sorts of stories played out from policemen and pilots to princesses and divers! It is so wonderful to be young!
 
This week in Year 1 the children have shown great enthusiasm using the research that they did on Rainforest Animals to create their own fact sheets. These contain information about what their chosen animal eats, where it lives and some amazing facts about it. The children are looking forward to showing these to their parents when they are put on display in the classroom. 
 
Year 2 have been using their own torches to investigate ‘Light and Dark’ in their Science lessons. It has been fascinating hiding in a dark cupboard and experimenting with various materials to see the torch light travel through tracing paper, fabric or card! They have designed and made their own shadow puppets and have created stories to share with a friend. Thankfully, the sun has been kind to us and we were able to draw around our shadows in the playground and observe how our shadows move depending on the time of day. What a busy time we have had and with more to look forward to next week!
 
Miss Bull
 

Nursery Corner

A stunning week of weather has allowed us to have a fabulous week here in the Nursery. With bees and sunflowers, caterpillars and ladybirds it has been fantastic to initiate learning inside, which they can then explore outside. The children have certainly been finding all sorts of Minibeasts and some exceptionally long worms! Some children are totally relaxed about holding anything whilst others are a lot more cautious. It is a great opportunity for them to conquer fears they may have about these little creatures and to inspect these Minibeasts close up and discover more about them.

Interestingly we also seem to have a pair of Partridges which are nesting somewhere nearby – they occasionally run the gauntlet during outside play time across to the woods or playing fields but have finally realised that it’s a much more relaxing crossing if they wait till after 3.30pm! 

Next week we are hoping for another fun packed week with sounds, construction, numbers, role play, arts and craft, to name just a few things. Please could everyone bring in a named, empty, small water bottle……we have an exciting treat that we will be making and sending home on Tuesday week!

Enjoy the sunshine and we look forward to seeing many of you at Football Fun day on Saturday.

Miss Flood

Sporting Fixtures
Boys:                                                                           Girls:
CRICKET TERM                                                             ROUNDERS TERM
Sunday 8th June                                                          Wednesday 11th June
Wellington College 6-aside Tournament                    U.13 A vs. Dolphin                   W 14 – 13.5
Group Stages                                                              U.11 A vs. Dolphin                   W 21 – 15
U.11 A vs. Rokeby                      W                                U.11 B vs. Dolphin                   L 12.5 – 17
U.11 A vs. Haslemere Prep         W
U.11 A vs. Feltonfleet                 W
U.11 A vs. Cothill                          L
Knockout Stage
U.11 A v Shrewsbury House      L
 
Wednesday 11th June                                                         
U.11 A vs. St. Piran’s                 W by 8 Wkts                
U.11 B vs. St. Piran’s                  W by 9 Wkts                
                       
 
Friday 6th June                                                                 Friday 13th June
U.9 A vs. Brockhurst                 L by 10 runs                   U.9 A vs. Crosfields                 W 13.5 – 13
U.8 A vs. Brockhurst                 W                                    U.9 B vs. Crosfields                  L 13.5 – 15
U.8 B vs. Brockhurst                 W                                            
U.8 C vs. Brockhurst                 L         
                                                                                   

Weekly Sports Reports

The week started brightly with the U.8 and U.9 athletics teams winning the Rookwood School Indoor Athletics tournament on Monday afternoon. The squad of 12 stormed to victory, scoring maximum points on the majority of events they took part in. The team, who had been training hard at athletics club, put their skills into practice against 10 Schools from across Hampshire and Wiltshire. Around 8 different events were included and Daneshill came top in long jump, javelin, speed bounce, high steps and sitting chest push. Well done to all involved! 

The U.11 rounders A team got off to a bit of a shaky start on Wednesday in their rounders match against Dolphin. The girls were trailing at half time but after a pep talk from Mrs Blomfield the girls bounced back to their former glory and scored an incredible 16 rounders in the second half to beat Dolphin 21-15. The U.13 A’s also recorded another victory. Well done girls!

Miss O’Neill

This week has seen a lot of sun, which has been fantastic! We have being focusing on our batting in training as this is certainly an area that we need to improve on throughout the school. We focused on shot selection and working out where on the pitch our striking zones are.

The U.11’s played against St Piran’s on Wednesday and registered two wins. The U.11A’s bowled St Piran’s out for 71 and chased it down with 9 overs to spare. Will Wyatt and Oli Beresford –Davis scoring 27 and 23 no respectively. In the U.11 B’s St Piran’s were bowled out for 39. Joseph Shippen-Davies top scored with 10 no in reply as the B’s won convincingly. All in all it was great to see the training paying off and the boys applying their game plans successfully. Hopefully this will give us a platform to build on for the rest of the season.

Mr Baldwin