kent college newsletter volume 39 090218.… · kent college preparatory school ... can make each...

Kent College

Preparatory School

01892 820204 http://www.kent-college.co.uk/

SPRING TERM 9 February 2018

NEWSLETTER “Learn without Limits”

The Phantom of the Opera

Staging The Phantom of the Opera at Kent College has been a long term ambition of Mr Ashton, our Head of Drama. It has been an extremely ambitious project, not least because of the enormity of the theatrical and musical demands placed on the performers.

Our theatre, which was transformed into a breathtaking Paris opera house, was a fitting stage for the wealth of talent at Kent College and the girls are carrying off their demanding roles with aplomb. We also welcomed a small group of talented young men from surrounding schools and colleges to join the cast, who were a delight to work with.

The Phantom of the Opera is full of challenging music and I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to take a few of the musical rehearsals. I witnessed the commitment of the cast, orchestra and backstage team as they rise to the challenge of this extraordinary production.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the vision and direction of Mr Ashton and Mrs Cable, our Head of Productions. It has been inspiring to watch their determination and focus. Mr Kent-Davies, Mrs Bruce and Mrs Pusey from the Music Department have also worked incredibly hard with the cast and orchestra on the score.

The Phantom of the Opera is the biggest production we have mounted at Kent College for a number of years. Thank you to all the parents and staff who supported the demanding rehearsal schedule. I have no doubt that you are as proud of the students as I am.

- Ms Lodrick, Headmistress

http://www.kent-college.co.uk/

Kent College

Preparatory School



NEWSLETTER “Learn without Limits”

The Phantom of the Opera continued...

During Drama, Year 3 were invited to take a closer look at The Phantom of the Opera stage. The girls met with ‘Christine’, and Jasmine,

Claudia and Isabel were even allowed to take a ride on The Phantom’s boat. The girls had a wonderful insight in to what goes on in a

Senior School production and had lots of fun trying out the props.

“It was lots of fun. We went on the stage and Mrs Cable showed us some pictures on the curtains. We got to try on the jewellery and

Molly was allowed to try on The Phantom’s clothes. It was great, but it was a tiny bit creepy!!” - Jessica, 3L

“We have been rehearsing for The Phantom of the Opera for a few weeks after the Christmas

holiday. Everyone worked really hard in the rehearsals we had, and also the dress rehearsals. I

liked that the costumes were from the West-End and although we had lots of late nights, we had

so much fun performing to our families and friends. It was great that the choir were able to act

and not just sing.

I really liked how at the end of the play The Phantom disappeared into the bed, it is still a mystery.

During the final performance, it was so lovely to see the entire cast so full of emotion. It has

inspired me to do more theatre productions and now I am looking forward to doing our Year 6

play.” - Caroline, 6CH




This week Reception have been thinking about bubbles under the sea. As part of the theme the girls collected an old water bottle, odd socks and elastic bands to help them create a bubble making machine! The results were fantastic and they made beautiful bubble snakes from their machines!

Nursery were so excited to see the snow! The girls had great fun playing and building a snowman!




Over the past few weeks, in their ICT lessons, Year 2 have been learning all about coding. From bubbles that pop when they are clicked, to Kings and Queens racing each other. They can make each object move up, down, left or right along with other interesting functions.

The girls have also had great fun creating backgrounds for the characters, some have made castles with a drawbridge and others have created jungles and rainforests.

This week, Year 1 took on some challenging Maths puzzles in order to see how many ‘number sentences’ they could create.

They have been adding, subtracting and then checking their answers using a 100 square. They showed excellent mathematical

thinking and worked very well as small teams.

Leah brought her fantastic globe to school today. We managed to find England and even put a pin on Tunbridge Wells! It has

some great buttons which help you to find continents, capital cities and amazing facts. We really enjoyed listening to the globe

as it spoke to us.




In English, Year 4 have been collectively reading The Spiderwick Chronicles. This magical book features an alternative world of fairies and other creatures. In preparation for their next Big Write based on the book, the girls have been brainstorming ideas in groups. Each group came up with brilliant openers, for example ‘Shall I tell you about the time the Grace children ruined my life FOREVER!?’ and wonderful descriptions to hook their readers, such as ‘the children charged through the house creating an ear splitting and deafening sound of war…’.

This term in Art, Year 3 have been looking at Indian art. They are making large elephant faces from card, which they are decorating with intricate patterns and designs. They are also using vibrant inks to add colour to the decorated faces. Watch this space to see the finished master pieces!




On Wednesday afternoon 6CH were invited to have a Biology lesson in the Senior School with Mrs Hopper, Head of Science.

The lesson was linked to the Year 6 topic on ‘Blood and the Heart’ and provided a real extension of their learning. The girls watched Mrs Hopper examine a rat and show them where the heart and lungs were inside its chest cavity. Afterwards the pupils worked in pairs to examine a pig’s heart.

They were able to open it up and find the valves inside the heart and discovered that the wall on the left side was significantly thicker than that on the right hand side. The girls really impressed Mrs Hopper with their knowledge and with their interest in this topic. Perhaps there will be some future heart surgeons amongst them?

The other year 6 classes will be having the same lesson in the Senior School after half term.

“We had a trip to the Senior School Science block where we

dissected a pig’s heart. We had to identify the four different

chambers of the heart. We cut two slits into the heart where

we could see the difference of thickness of the walls in each

chamber. We were encouraged to feel the valves that prevent

the blood from dropping back into the heart; they are very thin

but strong. Some people were inspired to be heart surgeons

after this lesson. It was one of the most interesting lessons –

many thanks to Mrs Hopper for arranging this.” - Maya

Science assessments have been a focus in this week’s lesson. Each pupil was asked to recall facts, use accurate scientific vocabulary, think about how to undertake fair experiments and how to draw conclusions from the data collected. The practical work undertaken in the last few weeks has certainly been useful, as have Maths lessons on graphs and charts.




“On 3 February the Senior School hosted ‘Space Explores Day’.

We did four activities. Food tech, where we made astronaut

food using raspberry powder, yogurt and powdered milk, you

also had to add in water to turn it into a smoothie from a paste.

Science was two of the activities; one was programing a robot so

that it can travel through ‘Mars’ without hitting a rock or falling

into a crater.

The other Science activity was making a capsule for an egg but

you could not build the capsule around the egg you had to fit the

egg into the capsule after the capsule had been built. I named my

egg, Egg Sheeran!

The last activity was code cracking. We had to crack three codes

with three different types of code including Pig Pen, Morse and

Shift Cipher Code. Each code told us a fact about Helen

Sharman who was the first British astronaut to go into space and

she was only 27 years old. I bet every single person loved Space

Explorers Day, because I did.” - Piper

“On the Space Explorers Day, we were given a booklet and we

had to earn stickers and put them on the tasks we had

completed. We were put in to groups by the colour of our name

tag. I was in the blue group. The first thing we did was code

solving. We had different codes to solve.

After that we did coding with a robot, and we worked in pairs.

On the computer we had to code it to tell it what to do on Mars.

After that we had some lunch.

The last thing we did was food tec.h. We made some smoothies using

space food.; raspberry powder, milk powder, yogurt , vanilla extract and

water

Then we blended them together, put it in cups and drank it! I

found it yummy.

The Space Explorers Day was fun and I enjoyed it.” - Annabel

On Saturday, a Space Explorers Day took place in the Senior School, aimed at girls entering Year 7 in September. It was a superb day, attended by Year 6 girls in the Prep School and a variety of other schools. Our Head Girl Anya chose to recount the day through the eyes of a trainee astronaut.

“My name is Anya. I am training to be an astronaut for the first ever mission to Mars. At the moment I am at ‘Astronaut School’ learning all of the skills that I will need to survive two years on the surface of Mars. Having learnt about Helen Sharman, I have always wanted to be one of the first astronauts to land on Mars. Over 25 years ago, Helen Sharman was the first British astronaut and the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991.

When I wake up, my day starts like any other. I am at the training school, which is miles away from anywhere. They try to make it like Mars so we can imagine what it would be like to live on the red planet.

Firstly, we practice take-off and landing. We cannot practice this as space rockets are jolly expensive and I do not think that the government would be happy if we kept practicing and crashed lots of them! Instead, we make model parachutes out of polystyrene cups, bin bags, rope, shredded newspaper and eggcups. You place an egg in your model and it has to land safely on the ground when you drop the parachute. The parachute has to weigh less than 500g.

Next, we are told about the conditions on Mars. The temperature is bitingly cold, with lots of wind and massive storms that can cover the entire planet. I do not think I would want to be stuck in one of the storms in the dusty, red sand. The gritty sand would aggravate your eyes. We are given a robot in place of a Mars buggy that we have to code to move around the surface of the planet. We have to ensure we do not bump into any of the rocks or craters. It is quite tricky and only some of us made it work.

As lunchtime was approaching, we found out what we could eat and drink on Mars. We cannot take heavy food or food that can go off easily, like milk. Instead, you use milk powder and water. We make smoothies using freeze-dried raspberries, powdered milk, plain yogurt and water. It tasted bitter and not terribly pleasant.

Finally, we looked at communication. We are taught three different codes that would come in useful in case we encounter aliens. The three codes we are taught are Pig Pen, Shift Cipher and Morse Code. The first of these was the easiest; the other two were hard to master. Each code had three facts about my hero, Helen Sharman. I knew most of these because she is my role model.

I am exhausted after another training day. I have a scrumptious Earth dinner, nothing freeze dried, and go straight to bed, dreaming of one day landing on the red planet.” - Anya




On Wednesday, a selection of Year 5 and 6 pupils showcased

some of their fantastic music skills during the Tea Time

Concert, held in the Organ Room.

Family and friends were invited to enjoy a selection of musical

pieces, ranging from singing duets and instrumental solos. The

girls all performed beautifully which such poise and

concentration.

Well done, a lovely afternoon enjoyed by all.

Year 4 and 5 were invited

to an introduction to Sport

and Wellbeing taster

evening on Thursday. They

were given the opportunity

try some of the extra-

curricular activities available

in the Senior School.

Parents were also invited to

try out the activities after a

talk from the Ms Lodrick

and other members of the

Senior School Leadership

Team.

Both the girls and parents

thoroughly enjoyed the

event.




On Saturday, Kent College hosted an Under 10 Netball Versatility Tournament involving 14 local primary and Prep Schools. Despite the wind and rain it was a hugely successful event and Katie Harris, Surrey Storm Super League player even put in a special appearance, running a shooting workshop. The Under 9A team were also invited along to the event to gain some valuable netball coaching and really enjoyed participating in the tournament.

The day started with a rotation of netball skills and drills led by the KC PE teachers and assisted by senior school Sports Scholars. The girls all had a fantastic time and displayed some excellent netball skills, which were put into practice during the tournament matches. The U10s only lost one match all day, which was to the eventual winners, and narrowly missed out on a place in the final.

Both teams played exceptionally well and were wonderful ambassadors for the school. Well done!




Saturday 10 February Half Term

Tuesday 20 February KS2 Swimming Gala v Holmewood House (Home) at 4.30pm

Wednesday 21 February U11 A & B Netball Tournament v St Michael’s

U11 Bottoms Up Netball Tournament at Sutton Valence (Away, ME17 3RF) time TBC

Thursday 22 February U8 A & B Netball v Rosehill (Home) at 2.30pm

U9 A & B Netball v Rosehill (Away, TN4 9SY) at 2.30pm

Sunday 25 February BSGA U11 Gymnastics Team (Away)

Tuesday 27 February U9 U10 & U11 Swimming Gala v Radnor House (Home) at 4.30pm

Wednesday 28 February U10 A, B & C Netball (5-a-side) v Sevenoaks Prep (Home) at 2.30pm

U11 B Netball v Sevenoaks Prep (Away, TN15 0JU) at 2.30pm

Thursday 1 March U11 IAPS Netball Tournament (Away) time and venue TBC

U11 and U10 Trampoline Competition at Hillview School (TN9 2HE)

Friday 2 March U9 ISGA Championships (Away) time TBC

February Half Term Multi-Skills Camp We would like to invite your daughter to attend our Multi-Skills Camp on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 February 2018. This will be open to all girls in years 3 to 6 and will run each day from 10.00am until 3.30pm. The price per day will be £30.00 per pupil . The money generated from this will be going towards the forthcoming sports tours. The approximate structure of each day will be as below:

10.00am - 11:30am - Netball Skills 11.30am - 1.00pm - Swimming

1.00pm - 2.00pm - Lunch 2.00pm - 3:30pm - Cricket/ball skills

Please meet on the Sports Hall balcony from 9.45am. If you would like your daughter to attend please return the form sent home today to the Prep School Office, who will be able to pass it on to the PE Department. Packed lunches will need to be provided. This is not just for Kent College pupils, brothers , sisters, friends from other schools are all very welcome.




(from Susan Waller, School Librarian)

This week was the anniversary of women’s suffrage in the UK - Vote 100

What Are You Playing At?, by Marie-Sabine Roger and Anne Sol (3+)

Recommended before, but no apologies for doing so again. An outstanding non-fiction book, which is as empowering for boys as it is for girls. Photographs of men and women in a range of jobs with a simple question and response format to challenge society’s expectations of gender roles.

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, by Kate Pankhurst (8+)

Kate Pankhurst, descendent of Emmeline Pankhurst, has created this wildly wonderful and accessible book about women who really changed the world. Discover fascinating facts about some of the most amazing women who changed the world we live in. Short, but lively and life enhancing.

The Princess and the Suffragette, by Holly Webb (9+)

A delightful sequel to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, this story is set in Miss Minchin ’s school for young ladies. Lottie has transformed into an assertive and fiery girl. She develops a close relationship with one of the serving maids and, inspired by the actions of Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison, the friends are drawn into exploits of the suffrage movement.

Make More Noise, by Emma Carroll and others (10+)

The title is inspired by the words of Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the British suffragette movement, ‘You have to make more noise than anybody else’. An incredible collection of brand new short stories, from ten of the UK's very best women storytellers, celebrating inspirational girls and women. £1 from the sale of every book will be donated to Camfed, a charity which tackles poverty and inequality by supporting women's education in the developing world.




“When people undermine your dreams,

predict your doom, or criticize you.

Remember, they’re telling you their

story, not yours.”

– Cynthia Occelli

Digital Sunset is an initiative which was started by two women from Kent, Anna Firth and Linden Kemkaran. The programme has been developed to help support children and their families in organising their time together alongside their use of technology. For more information, please click HERE.

The Digital Sunset Challenge:

What is it?

The Digital Sunset Challenge is about helping YOU learn good digital habits, in particular the importance of taking a break at night from your devices.

Why?

Although mobile phones and other smart devices offer us huge new opportunities for learning, creativity and fun, to get the most out of them we have to learn to “control” them and not be “controlled by” them! It is vital we let our brains “switch off” at night to recover and grow.

Click on the picture to find out more about how you can take part in the Digital Sunset Challenge.


https://www.nicolamorgan.com/life-online/digital-sunset-great-idea-wellbeing-sleep/

https://www.nicolamorgan.com/life-online/digital-sunset-great-idea-wellbeing-sleep/

https://www.nicolamorgan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Digital-Sunset-Booklet.pdf



DATE EVENT

Monday 12 February Half Term Week

Monday 19 February Return to School

Friday 23 February KCPPA Year 2 Cake Sale

Monday 26 February Watch Dance Week begins

Wednesday 28 February Darcy Turner Art Workshop

Monday 1 March Year 3 & 4 After School Concert, Prep School Hall (4.15pm)

Friday 2 March World Book Day

Tuesday 6 March Key Stage 2 Parent Consultations and Art Exhibition (4.00pm - 8.00pm)

Cathy Cassidy, Visiting Author for Years 5-8, Theatre

Wednesday 7 March

Year 3 & 4 Bollywood Day

Open Morning/Art Exhibition

Key Stage 2 Parent Consultations and Art Exhibition (4.00pm - 8.00pm)

Thursday 8 March KCPPA Mothers Day Fair in Library

International Women’s Day

Friday 9 March Year 6 Trip to Horton Kirby

Key Stage 1 Assembly, Prep School Hall (8.15am refreshments)

Saturday 10 March Tunbridge Wells Art Festival

Sunday 11 March Tunbridge Wells Art Festival

Tuesday 13 March EY & KS1 Parent Consultations and Art Exhibition (4.00pm - 8.00pm)

Wednesday 14 March EY & KS1 Parent Consultations and Art Exhibition (4.00pm - 6.00pm)

Friday 16 March 11+ Entrance day in Senior School

Monday 19 March ABRSM Exams

Tuesday 20 March ABRSM Exams

Careers Pathway Talk with Fiona Murden, Organ Room (4.45pm)

Thursday 22 March KS2 Drama Presentation, Theatre (3.00pm)

Auction of Promises

Friday 23 March KCPPA Year 5 Cake Sale

Monday 26 March Year 5 Norfolk Information Meeting (4.00pm)

Tuesday 27 March Holy Week Experience Day

Spring Concert, Prep Hall (7.00pm)

Wednesday 28 March

Easter Bonnet Parade

Early Years Easter Egg Hunt (KCPPA Event)

End of Term (usual finish time)




DATE EVENT

Monday 16 April Staff Inset Day

Tuesday 17 April Start of Summer Term

Thursday 26 April Sport and Wellbeing Exhibition and New PE Kit Launch

Monday 30 April Year 5 Trip to Norfolk

Friday 4 May Year 5 Return from Norfolk

Thursday 10 May Team and Class Photos

Saturday 12 May Prep String Workshop, Prep School Hall (9.00am - 3.00pm)

Friday 18 May Year 3 Assembly to Parents, Prep School Hall

Saturday 19 May Outdoor Open Day

Wednesday 23 May Year 6 Production, Theatre

Thursday 24 May Year 6 Production, Theatre

Friday 25 May KCPPA Year 3 Cake Sale

Monday 28 May HALF TERM WEEK

Monday 4 June Enterprise Event at Solomons

Tuesday 5 June Enterprise Event at Solomons

Wednesday 6 June Enterprise Event at Solomons

Saturday 9 June Year 5 Activities Day in Senior School

Monday 11 June Father’s Day Fair, Library

Tuesday 12 June Year 5 Parent Consultation Evening (4.00pm-8.00pm)

Year 6 Depart on French Trip

Wednesday 13 June Year 5 Parent Consultation Evening (4.00pm-6.00pm)

Thursday 14 June Year 4 Block Foco Drum Workshop

Friday 15 June Year 6 Return from French Trip

Wednesday 20 June KS1 Trip - Strawberry Picking

Thursday 21 June Hockey Workshops with Kate Richardson-Walsh OBE, GB Hockey

Friday 22 June EY Trip to Godstone Farm

KCPPA Year 4 Cake Sale

Sunday 24 June Dance Exams Years 2-6 (Time TBC)

Wednesday 27 June

Prep French Day

Year 6 Assembly to Parents, Prep School Hall

Early Years Sports Day (9.30am)

Friday 29 June Sports Day and Prize Giving

Sunday 1 July Dance Exams Years 2-6 (Time TBC)

Monday 2 July Enrichment Week begins

Thursday 5 July End of Term (usual finish time)



SPRING TERM 15 December2017


SPRING TERM 10 November 2017




SPRING TERM 15 December2017


SPRING TERM 10 November 2017

This stunning picture was taken on Monday morning by Mrs Petter (Year 5 parent) on the journey to school. Although it resembles

something out of an Alpine scene, it was actually of our beautiful Pembury Woods.



kent college newsletter volume 39 090218.… · kent college preparatory school ... can make each...

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