Daneshill Diary 27/11/15

News from the Pre-Prep

It has been a very musical week in the Pre-Prep with the learning of our Christmas production songs. Reception and Year 1 loved the opportunity to explore long and short sounds using various musical instruments in their weekly Monkey Music sessions. Year 2 are rising to the challenge of learning a wide variety of songs to perform to their families very soon! Congratulations to all of the children who have been working hard at home to learn their lines. The Pre-Prep staff have noticed a surge in confidence when the children are on the stage. Working on a performance provides pupils with valuable opportunities to be part of a team and develop their speaking and listening skills.

This week in Reception we have continued our celebration theme by looking at Diwali. We extended our vocabulary learning new words. A big hit was our curry playdough and making our clay diva lamps.

In Year 1 this week the children have enjoyed listening to the story of The Ugly Duckling and demonstrating their understanding of the story by answering a range of comprehension questions.

The Year 2 children have had fun this term working on their visual memory. Each child has a picture to study for a couple of minutes, the picture is then hidden and they have to remember various elements of it. They take great pride in marking their own work.

Pre-Prep Teachers

Nursery Corner

Another exciting week has passed with us here in Nursery. We had a number of our new children visit before they start in January and it was fabulous to see how welcoming our current children were and how confident they were to show the younger children how to enjoy themselves in our setting.

It has been pretty busy in our ‘Vet’ role play this week. The children have been looking after a variety of animals – dogs with poorly tails, cheetahs who have lost their spots as well as a zebra with a virus. Many an emergency has been avoided by our rather professional Vets and you will be pleased to hear that all animals are doing well and are on the mend!

Our sound of the week has been ‘r’ and everyone had an opportunity to make some rabbit ears, and with Christmas fast approaching everyone is going to keeping an eye out to see if they can spot a ‘reindeer’ too!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Beeching

Sports News

Last Saturday evening, nine Daneshill pupils from Years 4 to 7 competed at the South Schools Biathlon Championships at Aldershot Garrison. The competition brought together the very best swimmers and middle distance runners in the South region for this highly competitive event which included a 50m swim and 800m running race.

The competition was fierce with many county and club swimmers and runners in attendance. The pupils began with the swimming event and then went straight to the track to compete in the running event. The swim time and run time were combined to give an overall score and final position.

Our pupils did incredibly well and I was delighted with all their efforts. Special mention must go to Ben Kellard in Year 4 who bravely competed up an age group with the U10’s and finished 4th in the 800m and 2nd in the swimming, giving him an incredible overall position of 2nd place. Harrison Cleaver in Year 5 also had an outstanding result, finishing 7th in the run and 1st in the swimming. Both boys now qualify for the national finals at Crystal Palace in March.

Overall Results

U.10
Ben Kellard – 2nd (competing up an age group)
Harrison Cleaver – 4th
Grace Weedon – 21st
Emily Baugh – 22nd

U.11
Saskia Lea – 12th (competing up an age group)
Tilly Scott-Knight – 14th
Natalia Ivanov – 22nd (competing up an age group)

U.12
Jessica Bettesworth – 15th
Imogen Groslin – 18th

It was good to see the U.13 netballers return to their former glory this week with superb wins over Dolphin. With a full squad resumed, the girls put in an excellent performance and successfully put all their training into practice, improving movement and footwork patterns down court.

The U.10’s were once again triumphant against Hawley Place and the B team fought hard to secure a draw. Well done girls.

Miss O’Neill