Daneshill Diary 29/01/16

Headmaster’s Notes

On Monday morning I found myself sat in front of the Traffic Commissioner for Great Britain deliberating the school’s case for the award of a Public Service Vehicle (PSV) Operator’s Licence. I am delighted to report that the Traffic Commissioner was suitably reassured and that the school is now able to run a fleet of minibuses for all purposes. From the school’s perspective this allows us to increase the number of minibus runs we can operate in the mornings and evenings, which we hope will benefit parents and pupils alike. More information to follow on this in the coming weeks.

This week I also received a letter from Her Grace, The Duchess of Marlborough, to confirm that our Year 6 pupils have been awarded a Group Prize for the Annual Heritage Educational Awards. In September the year group collaborated to compile a patchwork batik with a mathematical design inspired by autumn leaves. In April three children from Year 6 will attend an award ceremony to collect their prize and to have tea with the Duchess. Well done Year 6!

Mr Spencer

Musical Notes

This term seems to be moving along at a rapid pace and the Year 6 pupils are busy rehearsing for their ‘Magic & Mystery’ concert, which will be performed shortly before the half-term break. Additionally Year 5 have been given their parts for their end of term production of ‘Robin Hood’. As with all of these concerts and productions, any extra help with learning lines and lyrics at home would be much appreciated!

Freya Green must be congratulated for her superb achievement this week. She has been asked to join the Hampshire County Youth String Orchestra, an accolade that very rarely ever goes to someone quite so young. She is now looking forward to a residential week away at Bryanston School during the Easter Holidays. An excellent achievement Freya!

The department will sadly be saying goodbye to Lianne Lambert after 11 years of coaching singing at Daneshill. She will be missed enormously and I know the children will be sad to see her go too. Interviews have been taking place for prospective Singing and Piano teachers and I am pleased to inform you that positives steps have taken place. Those pupils who were taught by Mrs. Lambert will receive an email shortly explaining what will happen next term.

Numbers keep increasing for private instrumental tuition and I am now hoping that by the beginning of the Summer Term we will no longer have a waiting list.

Finally, good luck to all our pupils sitting scholarship auditions over the next couple of weeks.

Mr Soper

The Daneshill Weekly Maths Challenge

How many square centimetres are there in one square metre?

Mrs Caratelli

News from the Pre-Prep

What an eventful week in Reception! We have enjoyed reading the story ‘The Three little Pigs’. We used a wolf hairdryer to blow down the straw, wooden and brick houses. There were lots of squeals of excitement when the wolf managed to blow down a house. We all agreed that the brick house was the strongest. We also cooked ‘mud pies’ to eat (chocolate brownies). Yum!

The Year 1 children shared their thoughts about Julia Donaldson’s story ‘The Gruffalo’ by writing a book review to express their opinions on this well-known children’s story. We had some wonderful character descriptions about the ‘sly fox’, the ‘wriggly snake’, and the ‘confident mouse’. It was agreed by all that the enormous Gruffalo was our favourite to describe. In Maths this week the children have been developing their understanding of number bonds by finding the missing number within a calculation. The children have explored doubling and started to apply this when completing Maths problems. We are all very excited about our Science based trip to The Lookout Discovery Centre next Wednesday!

The Year 2 scientists had a wonderful hands-on day of learning on Wednesday at Winchester Science Centre. There are so many clever exhibits to play and learn with, and it was great to see all the children so enthusiastic and keen to try everything and attempt to figure out how it all works. The highlight of the day was the visit to the Planetarium to watch a show called Neighbourhood Earth. There were gasps of wonder as the ceiling was filled with an image of Earth. This was followed by further marvel as the children appreciated the difference in size of the Sun to the Earth as the ceiling became a ball of hot, glowing, bubbling, orange and yellow gas! It was a perfect show for these young children with such a desire to learn. The children were asked to choose a planet to look at in more depth and they chose Venus; they learnt some fascinating facts about this planet, a similar size to Earth but a planet that we could not live on. All the children were so keen partake in the show and it was fabulous to see so many hands in the air. Very ‘well done’ to all the children and a big ‘thank you’ to both parent helpers. We thoroughly enjoyed taking such a great group of children out for a day of scientific investigations.

Pre-Prep Teachers

Nursery Corner

We have all been thoroughly enjoying ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’, a fabulous story with familiar nursery rhyme characters, fantastic rhyming words, and gorgeous illustrations. The children have been learning the story with the help of action prompts and many are able to recite it with little support from us! All their busy work at the craft table has paid off and they have created a super new display, which they have all enjoyed looking at independently spotting the ‘wood’ and ‘Robin Hood’, the ‘hill’ and ‘Jack and Jill’ and many more. The book also allows us to explore the different prepositions we use on a regular basis as the witch flies ‘over’ the wood, Tom Thumb sits ‘in’ the cupboard and so it goes on.

The children have also been busy singing ‘5 Little Ducks’ and have made duck head bands in order to act out the song. It is super to witness the planning and organisation that the children are able to work through in order to set up the game and then follow it through with their friends – working out who is to be the mummy duck and then which duck needs to leave the pond – such big decisions to be made. Between them, they have shown excellent negotiation skills during this child-led time.

Our sound of the week ‘u’ was introduced on Wednesday and the weather certainly helped us link the sound to our craft activity with everyone making an ‘u,u,umbrella’!

Mrs Beeching

Sporting Fixtures
Wednesday 27th January
HOCKEY
U.13 A vs. St. Andrew’s L 1 – 7
U.13 B vs. St. Andrew’s L 1 – 2
U.11 A vs. St. Andrew’s L 0 – 6
U.11 B vs. St. Andrew’s L 0 – 3
U.10 A vs. St. Andrew’s Cancelled (Waterlogged Pitches)
U.10 B vs. St. Andrew’s Cancelled (Waterlogged Pitches)

RUGBY
U.13 A vs. Dolphin Cancelled (Waterlogged Pitches)
U.13 B vs. Reddam House Cancelled (Waterlogged Pitches)
Colts A vs. Dolphin Cancelled (Waterlogged Pitches)
Colts B vs. Dolphin Cancelled (Waterlogged Pitches)

Friday 29th January
HOCKEY
U.9 A vs. St. Andrew’s L 5 – 7
U.9 B vs. St. Andrew’s D 0 – 0
U.9 C vs. St. Andrew’s L 1 – 2
U.8 A vs. St. Andrew’s L 1 – 3
U.8 B vs. St. Andrew’s W 2 – 0

RUGBY
U.9 vs. Holme Grange TBC
U.8 A vs. Holme Grange TBC
U.8 B vs. Holme Grange TBC

The Year 3 girls played their first hockey matches last week, with two extremely impressive performances resulting in a 4-0 and 4-1 victory. Felicity Wiltshire managed to score all 4 goals in the first game while Emma Salter and Hedy Jiang shared 2 a-piece in the second. Everyone played their part in the matches with some great hockey being shown by all the girls.

Unfortunately it was a difficult afternoon for the Year 6s and Year 7/8s who came up against some extremely good St Andrew’s teams. In particular the U.13s faced a daunting prospect as their St Andrew’s counterparts had made it through to their national finals this year. Despite this, and the scorelines, none of the teams gave up and continued to battle all the way until the final whistle in brave fashion. Hopefully the girls will have learnt from watching the opposition and can take this forward into their future matches and training.

Mr King

It has been another frustrating week for the PE department as the ‘big freeze’ has been followed by the ‘big downpour’. As I was driving into school on Wednesday morning, being careful that my car didn’t die a slow death from drinking too much water, I had an inkling this amount of rain may have affected the pitches. A pitch inspection at 8:00am confirmed the worst as the amount of standing water meant a game was not going to be possible. We had done our best, even confirming a last minute match for the C’s against Reddam House. This, however, along with all the other away matches never got off the ground as phone calls from both Reddam and Dolphin meant all matches on Wednesday were cancelled.

Cancelling matches is always a great shame but even more so this week as the boys have been putting some really good work in during training and were looking forward to improving on their last match. Our defensive line is shaping up well, guards are in at the ruck and our one on one tackling has improved. It would have been great to see how this stood up under pressure in a game situation. Let’s hope the weather does not let us down next week.

Last Friday I am pleased to say that the U.8s and U.9s played their first matches against Dolphin and St. Mary’s. The U.9s were too strong for Dolphin but the U.8 A’s had a close game against St. Mary’s. The U.8 B’s also had a close game against Dolphin but Daneshill eventually ran in 3 – 2 winners.

Mr Baldwin