Godstowenews AUTUMN TERM4th November 2016

Above: During Half Term, 37 girls travelled to La Manga in Spain for a netball tour. See more below

Awards of the week

ARTWORK OF THE WEEK:

By: Haleema Safdar, Katie Harris, Isabel Maintzer and Estelle D’Souza

BOARDERS OF THE WEEK:Highlands: Alice OdiliTurner: Maddie EganWalker: Iradah A and Laura G

AR READER:Sophie Winson

COLOUR TEAMS:Red

What an outstanding week we had in La Manga during Half Term. The girls played some fantastic netball and we even came home with a cup! They

thoroughly enjoyed all the coaching they received, the weather was glorious and the hospitality was great - what more could we ask for? Please see below for a full report from the trip and a link to my photographs.

The shoeboxes for the Love in a Box campaign are slowly mounting up in the corridor outside my office. Please keep them coming - we will be accepting donations up until Tuesday (8th November). They are very much appreciated by those less fortunate than us and it is a charity we have supported for many years now.

We have a busy weekend ahead. The lacrosse players will be at Queen Anne’s tomorrow and I wish them the best of luck. In the evening, I will be taking the boarders on our annual outing to Parkside School to watch their fireworks display. It looks as though the weather should hold out for us.

Wishing you all a good weekend.

Seeking help for Main School Book Fair next weekOur annual Book Fair will be taking place during week beginning 14th November. Please see the parentmail which was sent out on Monday.

Mrs Evans am always glad of parent help to run the Fair. If anyone has an hour or two to spare during that week Mrs Evans would be delighted to hear from you (fevans@igodstowe.org ).

This week in... LodgeWelcome back after half term. Hope you all had a nice break. We are now well on the way towards the Christmas Fair on Saturday 26th November between 12-5pm and I hope you can all come and support this wonderful event.

Highlights will include: Santa in his outdoor grotto with his sleigh pulled by two of his reindeer; a fantastic cafe/refuge with hot, Christmas sandwiches and waffles; lots of retail stalls in the JK Theatre; amazing Class Rep stalls in the Recital Hall; Christmas plants, hampers, wreaths, aprons, tea towels, cakes, photo booth; and plenty more.

We need your help for contributions to the Secret Santa, Jam Jar and Soft Toy stall. Boxes are in Main School Reception and up at Lodge.

You can book a meeting with Santa and the details will be out in a separate e-mail. Make sure you register and then pay online once you have done.

You will be able to order Copas Turkeys again this year at www.copasturkeys.co.uk using the code GS15. Posters are up and Godstowe will receive a donation for every Turkey that you buy.

Also this year we will be offering Christmas Wreaths, kindly organised through a Godstowe parent. Please watch out for details next week on how to pre-order them.

At Half Term you will have received a leaflet about our annual “Love In a Box” campaign. As we are still awaiting some boxes, we have decided to extend the deadline to next Tuesday, 8th November.

All donations are very welcome. I hope that you will have fun seeing how many little gifts you can fit in a shoebox!

This week Nursery have enjoyed making rockets. We sang some songs and blasted them around the outdoor area. We have been making crocodiles as our number of the week is ‘Snappy 6’. The sounds this week have been ‘c’ and ‘k’ so we enjoyed making kites. Most importantly we have been talking about how to be a good friend. It was great to hear that the children had some lovely ideas.

This week Bg R have been looking at stories and celebrations. We have learnt about Diwali, Bonfire Night and George and the Dragon. We have made firework pictures, Diwali lamps and rocket sausages. In Literacy the children are making excellent progress and over the coming weeks they will receive some keywords to learn to read and write at home. Bg B have also been learning about Diwali and Bonfire Night. They made divas, tried Diwali sweets and created rangoli patterns on the computer. They thoroughly enjoyed creating splatter firework pictures. In Gymnastics they have been practising standing on each leg for 3 seconds.

Kindergarten have been focusing on animals during their Science lessons. Having learnt about different body parts

they made models during DT. This week they have begun to sort animals into groups, starting with sorting according to diet.

Transition have their trip to Milestones Museum on Tuesday 8th November. Please arrive at school for a prompt departure. Transition H enjoyed sharing

the firework code and history behind the 5th November in their assembly this week. All of Transition have started subtraction this week with renaming. We will continue to work on this next week. As mentioned previously your continued support in returning the homework is much appreciated.

CharitynewsNext Tuesday, 8th November Transition will visit the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke.

On Thursday and Friday (10th and 11th) is the Middles production “Shakespeare Rocks”. Performances begin at 7pm.

Sports Fixtures:5th Nov (12pm): U13 A & B and U12 A & B Lacrosse v Queen Anne’s (away)7th Nov (4.15pm): U9 A, B, C & D Netball v High March (home)8th Nov (4.15pm): U10 A & B Netball v Maltman’s Green (home)

Upcoming events

Friendsnews

Reindeer & Elves f Grotto & Hampers f Carols & Candy Floss Shopping & Raffle f Craft & Games f Face Painting & Photo-booth

f Tombola & Turkeys f Tipples & Treats f Café & CakesEntry fee: Adults £2.00 / Children free

SATURDAY 26TH NOVEMBER 12 – 5pm

WE NEED YOUR HELPPlease bring into school - drop off in Lodge or Main School Reception:

• Jam jars filled with sweets and toys • Soft toys• Cakes and homemade produce (drop off day before the fair)

Contact: friends@godstowe.org

Charity No: 1143885

After meeting at school at 3am on the Monday of Half Term, 37 very excited girls and five sleepy staff set off for sunny Spain. We were pleasantly surprised at the amazing standard of the food at the very comfortable hotel. There was a huge buffet with a vast array of choices of hot and cold food and we could help ourselves as many times as we wished.

The girls received more than five hours of netball and fitness training on Tuesday and on Wednesday, plus a full tournament day on the Thursday and a two hour workshop on the first afternoon. We also arranged for our teams to have a special nutrition talk. The girls

worked really hard all week and we were thrilled to see so much progress. Our U12 A team won their tournament and our U12 Bs came 4th. Our U13 B finished 5th and our U13 As came 3rd having finished with an incredible match, drawing with an U18 team. The girls have had some inspirational netball coaching to set them up for the rest of the season. We are now able to build on what they’ve learnt and carry on developing our teams.

On top of the excellent netball we were able to enjoy the lovely warm weather on the beach and by the pool. TheyContinued on the next page >

Girls enjoy netball extravaganza in sunny Spain

> La Manga continued

also enjoyed meeting other schools and making new friends.

All in all an excellent and worthwhile trip and the girls did themselves and Godstowe proud!

Some of the team captains have written a diary about their week at La Manga, as follows:Day 1THE first day started off bright and early at 2am. We had a long coach drive to Gatwick airport where we boarded our 2 hour flight to Alicante. When we arrived we went up to our hotel rooms and unpacked before going down to our buffet lunch. There was so much to choose I didn’t know what to have. In the afternoon we had a session of netball. They had amazing coaches and I learnt a lot. On the first netball session we focused on defending. That was when I was told lots of small things that could make me 50 times better. In Spain it was so hot so we went back to our room to shower. Some of the group had a refreshing swim in the outdoor pool. We were all very tired so we had a quick dinner and went up to bed.

Day 2WE were woken up by what Annie thought was a Spanish cold caller but was actually our wake up call. We started off the day with fitness on the beach. We all got really sandy but we had to go straight to fitness. We did a circuit that was really different to the normal circuits that I do. After lunch we had a netball session on tactics and then matches against Summerhill and Saint Christopher’s. It was really hard work since that day I had learnt a new skill so I was trying to put it into practice. It worked sometimes but not always. That night after dinner we went to a karaoke session. It was so fun and I needed a good night sleep afterwards.

Day 3ON day three we started the day off with morning fitness on the beach. We were working on our core muscles anddoing press-ups and sit-ups. It was hard work and my muscles felt sore. After fitness we had a netball session on how to do centre circle passes correctly and how to

get into space. In the afternoon we had a session on what to do on a back line pass and how to eliminate the other player. After the session I was trying really hard to practise what we had learnt in the session before in our matches. After our matches we went back to the room to change into our swimming costumes to go down to the beach. At the beach we had so much fun paddling and building sand castles and burying people and we even had a rounders game against Wycombe Abbey. We were all very exhausted after that but we still had to do a flamenco dancing class it was really hard to keep up because the dance moves were so fast.

Day 4DAY four was our tournament day and we had to be really focused and hydrated so we could play our best against the other teams. In the morning we did really well winning all our games and our team were really strong and hard to beat even though most of us had not played together yet but they still played amazingly. In the afternoon I don’t know what happened and suddenly everyone was tired and not performing as well as before and we sadly lost our games. The toughest game was against our Godstowe A team and we lost to them but all that mattered at the end of the day was taking part and having fun. The overall results were B team coming 4th and the A team coming first.

Day 5SADLY day 5 was the day we had to travel home but we still had one last trip to the beach and another rounders game against Wycombe before packing our bags and heading to a shopping mall. The mall had a few English shops but not many. I spent most of my money in the supermarket on presents and souvenirs. We then had our flight back to London Gatwick and a coach ride back to school and seeing our families.

I would like to thank Mr Gainer and Mrs Hearnshaw and all the staff at Godstowe and in La Manga for planning such a great trip. I have improved my netball a lot over this week, especially my fitness and tactics.

Photos from the trip can be viewed here:http://www.godstowe.org/media/filter/photos