King’s Hall School

Prep Newsletter

Edition 153 25 May 2018

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HEADlines

So, the lovely stretch of sunnier weather we have been having has broken and the old joke about ‘Well, that was summer, then!’ has been heard a couple of times in the last 24 hours. With June just around the corner let’s hope it brings a return to fine weather and might we even see a ‘flaming June’ this year? It has been a relatively peaceful week in the Prep due to exams and Tuesday here was a particular oasis of calm as not only were Years 5, 6 and 7 taking exams but Year 3 headed up to Dunkery Beacon and Year 4 were enjoying the splendour of Lulworth Cove. We have thrown in some energetic events along the way as Year 3 and 4 ran, jumped and threw at their Sports Day and today we ended with most of the Prep children committing enthusiastically to the King’s Hall Biathlon, running and swimming with vim before heading off into half term. Another packed edition of our Prep Newsletter, full of reflections from the last seven days awaits your perusal.

Justin Chippendale

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Friends of King’s Hall Tennis

A view from the Rose Garden

An incredibly busy week for the Year 3’s!

Friday evening the children had baked beans on toast and then piled onto the minibuses for some

rafting and canoeing on the Tone canal. The children had been so excited all day and the weather

did not disappoint as it was a sublime evening. Kitted up and ready for action, the children rafted

and canoed with four very enthusiastic and experienced instructors from Channel Adventure. The

inflatable rafts became bumper boats and the 3 man canoes wobbled a lot! Weight distribution

and how to control the paddles while working as a team became very important lessons. Most of

Year 3 remained dry(ish) however the call of the water was too great for some…Theo, Aimee and

Anna to name but a few brave souls! Packed suppers on the riverbank and hot chocolate with

flapjacks at school before a giant sleep-over in the Arts Centre. Many thanks to Mrs Chippendale,

who not only gave up her evening, but also slept over with us.

After the busy weekend, things didn’t stop for the Year 3s – there was the Geography trip to

Exmoor visiting Dunkery Beacon, the highest point on Exmoor, and Bossington. A really big thank

you to Mrs Simpson and Mr Campleman for their help on the trip.

The children have been brilliant throughout and Mrs Gompels and Mrs Hayden-Briffett are very

proud of all of you!

Academic Life... Spanish

Spanish

I like Spanish because it is amazing and cool!!!!! It is really fun!

By Alexander Fraser

Spanish=AMAZING!!! Spanish=FUN!

Spanish=COOL! Spanish=GREAT

LEARNING!

Spanish=Exiting! By Wilf Gostling

We learn Spanish because it is useful for if you go to Spain

By Xander Robinson

In Spanish I have learnt a variety of different things. From colours to animals. I LOVE Spanish so much because I

learn something new every day! I have loved learning about the Spanish festival, las Fallas it is full of colour it is

full of fireworks (hay fuegos artificials) , Traditional dresses (el traje Tradicional), firecrackers (el petardo) and my

favourite the wax statues (los ninots). At las Fallas they build massive wax people and… …BURN THEM

DOWN!!!!!!!!!! I love learning foods and drinks. My favourites are un agua mineral (water), un Fanta (Fanta), una

limonada (lemonade), un chocolate (hot chocolate!!). My favourite colours are verde (green) and azul (Blue).

By Arabella Williams

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Latin One of the things we try to do in Latin lessons is to connect the language to the modern tongues of today.

What we find is that Latin is the mother tongue to several European languages such as French, Spanish and

even Romanian. In fact a Year 5 girl of Romanian heritage was telling me only this week how easily she picks

up French words because she speaks Romanian at home.

They are called together, the Romance languages. Strangely English is not one of them, but up to half our

language comes from Latin and pupils enjoy working out the connections.

Does it matter? Maybe not, but Anne Widdecombe once dismantled a

political opponent’s argument when they misunderstood why

‘disparate’ and ‘desperate’ were spelt differently. So why does one

have an ‘a’ after the ‘p’, where the other ‘p’ is followed by an ’e’? Well,

‘paro’ means I prepare, where ‘spero’ means I hope; QED.

Let’s hope that certain leaders on the world stage have the sense to

speak the same language!

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Physical Education

This term all year groups have been working hard in the swimming pool. The boys and girls have shown a very positive and enthusiastic attitude, and have particularity enjoyed some of the wonderful weather we have had. The staff have definitely appreciated it! Pupils from Year 3 up to Year 8 have started well and shown some excellent progress in their techniques and speeds for the front crawl. The pupils will continue to work hard on the backstroke and breast stroke in the weeks after half term in preparation for all the inter house events that will follow. This year the Junior Gala, Y3 and 4, is to be held at King's Hall and the Senior Gala, Y5 -8 to be held at King's College. The pupils have already competed in some school swimming matches and the vital work undertaken in PE and throughout the winter, has led to some excellent results in all these Gala’s.

Geography Trips Year 5 - Plymouth Last week Year 5 enjoyed a Science field trip to Plymouth in the glorious May sunshine. The group spent the morning in the National Marine Aquarium looking around the various tanks of fish, from one containing local native British fish, to a tank containing species from the Caribbean. The most popular exhibit was the huge 3 story tank containing among other things, bat rays, sting rays and sand tiger sharks.

In the afternoon the children visited Jennycliff Bay in Plymouth Sound to look for their own species in the rock pools. The most popular catch was a large number of shore and Velvet swimming crabs.

The whole experience helped to in bed the ideas of how creatures in a habitat are interdependent; the energy transfer through the food chain; how humans affect the marine habitat and especially the serge of plastic waste in ocean waters around the world.

Year 4 - Lulworth Cove

What cracking weather for the Year 4 Geography trip to Lulworth cove this week. The children enjoyed ideal conditions to complete their field study work and walk the scenic route over the chalk downs to Durdle Door of the final class photo. My thanks go to Mrs Thomas, Mrs Foster and Holly Hands for accompanying the group, and lending their wealth of knowledge to the day’s proceedings.

Year 7 Mrs McDermott

Well, what a jam packed half term! 7 SMcD were so relieved to finish their exams this week. It seems so long since the Jaguar/Land Rover visit. They have all been so busy: revising, playing sports fixtures and generally enjoying the sunshine, being outdoors and socialising with each other. Hobbies have been fun, especially Specialist Art which many of them are experiencing for the first time. The boys have set targets of beating each other to be selected for the higher cricket teams and are practicing whenever possible. Several of the girls are playing cricket this term instead of rounders and are doing really well – their first hard ball match this week was a definite highlight (and they won!). A relaxing half term break is now on the cards for all – well deserved!

This week in the Library....

Mrs Keirle’s Year 6 English class are enjoying reading Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone, who will be visiting King’s Hall on 19 June as part of our Arts Week celebrations. Year 6 have written some fantastic pieces of

creative writing in response to Sky Song.

This wonderful piece of writing by Emma received glowing praise from the author herself, who wrote:

“Hi Emma,

You have such an engaging, atmospheric narrative voice - I was utterly entranced!

Brilliant vocab and attention to detail, too. I especially loved the lines ‘eyes as

deep as the savannah’ and ‘She only stays for a few seconds for day does not

last long and night is falling close.’ You have real talent as a writer!

Well done (and looking forward to getting YOUR autograph next month!”

Abi Elphinstone

The Golden Eagle by Emma, Year 6

Vast wings flecked with brown, black and gold feathers, eyes as deep as the savannah and bold

as an amber sunset. Soaring through the sky she wanders calling out her majestic call for all to

hear as it echoes over the plains. Her talons as beautiful as they are ferocious, empathising her

golden toned beak as she thrashes for food. Flying from tree to tree, she hurries back to her

furrow of her nest, hearing her young call their muffled cries as they recognise her strong wing

beats against the wind. Landing upon her nest, she feeds her young with patience and maturity.

She only stays for a few seconds for day does not last long and night is falling close. Another

beat of her strong and powerful wings and she is off, off across the plains that nature grants

her to fly by. At the height that she flies, she can see animals striding below, their images

becoming blurry as she soars well above them. Across the mountains she travels, feathers

withered by time and age. Only she can reach the heights of the greatest mountains, only she

can find and hunt successfully through clouds of grey mist. Travelling through the night, she

sees still, even when the greatest and ferocious prey that she hunts cannot. Searching through

the gathering dusk she catches sight of her soon to be dinner. It runs, but she is too fast. She

grasps the animal with her ever strong talons and with a soft click and twist, the animal has

befallen and is hers. Carrying it back across the plains she blesses her fallen prey and takes it

back to her young.

As the sun sets, one with a sharp and keen eye would be able to see the brave and majestic spirit

of the beautiful golden eagle.

Out of the classroom...

King’s Schools Somerset Cricket Dinner This is a wonderful achievement for all the boys and we are tremendously proud and happy that all their hard work and dedication has been rewarded with selection for the county squads. With more boys involved in the U10 and U11 training squad’s, cricket at King's Hall and King's College has an extremely bright future.

This term’s Head Girl is Jemima Rundell

It has been another busy week at King’s Hall with the Year 5 – 7 exams, the year 3 Trip to Exmoor, the Year 8S making their presentations today and Year 8CE revising very hard! The big news coming from Year 7 is their Year 8 play will be ‘Honk’! And I hope everyone involved enjoyed the Biathlon. Have a great half term and good luck with all the CE revision to the Year 8’s. PS Love to Granny and Grampa – I know you’re reading this!

Sport Action and News...

Cricket

2nd XI against Millfield

Millfield won the toss and elected to bat first, which meant we would have to get a few early wickets to really put them under pressure, and boy did we! Ronnie Potter (16-2-5), including a maiden had a brilliant opening spell, along with Adam Craig (24-2-5) who got us off to a flying start. We needed to consolidate the early win and we picked up another wicket soon after. We applied all the pressure we could and despite some drop catches limited Millfield to 126 for 5 with a good 6 wicket partnership. In strode Ronnie Potter (16 off 17) who got us off to a good start with good rotation of the strike and hitting the bad balls. We then lost 2 quick wickets and Jonty Heard (32 off 24) came in and blasted the ball to all ends including a gigantic 6 over square leg. He then fell trap to good bowling and the innings needed to pick up momentum again, and stepped up Fane Hamilton (35* off 20) who just seemed to take the game away from Millfield with ease, and in the end, with the help of Reef Simpson (8*off 8) knocked off the Millfield total with overs to spare. King’s Hall won a fantastic victory and can really be proud of their 2 wicket win.

Colts B against Millfield

A very good batting performance, particularly from Attius McLoughlin (66), set us up well. Millfield chased hard, but tighter bowling than previously and some good fielding meant that we were able to keep their run rate down.

U12/13B Girls against Wellington School What a beautiful day! With chatter about the Royal Wedding in the air we were put in to bat first, Katie Rowe and Willow Simpson stepping up to play in this team today opening for us. 37 runs and 1 wicket later, we were off to a good start. Next Maya Penn and Eve Rowe, also playing up, managed 27 runs for 1 wicket. Lilly Hodgskin and Alyshia Venning were next up and showed how much they have improved, scoring 22 runs for 1 wicket. Finally, up stepped Flo Delafield-Cook and Izzy Lawford. Flo had a terrific spell of 4's and a 6, carrying our team to a score of 305, with 44 runs for 2 wickets. The girls have worked hard on their bowling and it showed today, with a lot of 1's or dot balls by Wellington and 7 wickets (including a couple of fine catches!) Excellent work today girls - Well done!

Colts A against Queen’s

A strong performance from the Colts A in this away fixture. Our host’s batted first

and decent bowling backed up by ever improving fielding limited Queen's to 91 off

22 overs. The highlight of our fielding was probably Eugene Louw's catch but it was

a strong all round team effort. The ball kept being drilled to Hucklebery Halliday but

he was bravely getting some part of his body behind the ball. Having seen the

Queen's opener bowled by a ball which barely bounced above ankle height, we

thought 91 was very competitive. However, Eugene and Rudi Riesner put on a highly

commendable 68 for the first wicket to calm any nerves. They ran positively and did

well to put the bowlers under pressure. Eugene hit 5 pleasing 4’s and Thomas Rew

ended proceedings with an enormous 6.

Rounders

U12/13 against Taunton What a lovely match. Both teams had a lot of fun. There was much laughter and encouragement and some serious hitting from both teams. Notable progress in fielding was from Samia Sidhu who could not drop a ball today. She was awarded fielder of the match. Jamie Page was awarded batter of the match for her amazing running and batting. All our Year 8 girls played up in the A team today and the camaraderie between them was lovely to see. Great ambassadors for our school.

U11 against Taunton A good result, this was a pretty even match, although the Taunton girls made life a bit easy for us with some

loose fielding! We were 12 - 9 up at the end of the first innings, stretching our lead to 25.5 - 18 by the end.

Danielle Page was named batter of the game scoring 6.5 rounders and Poppy Chedzoy scored 5.5 and took 3

great catches in the second innings winning her fielder of the match. Further rounders came from Georgia

Fidler (4), Tessa Davies (3.5) Isla Ridley and our 2nd deep (2 each) and Emma Duckham (0.5). Although not

scoring any rounders herself it was lovely to see Elsa Clayton so pleased to be connecting with the ball when

batting and she made some telling stops of the ball in her position off 3rd post. Overall this was an excellent

team performance, played in a good spirit, on a beautiful afternoon. Well done all of you - the best performance

of the term so far!

Athletics

Year 3 and 4 Inter-house Athletics

On a beautiful sunny day, the Year 3 and Year 4 pupils headed up onto the Athletics arena for an afternoon of Inter-House Athletics. All of the children were to compete in a minimum of one track event, one field event and the relay. The event began with the 55m hurdles, with 8 girls and 8 boys representing their Houses. With 3 of the 4 races won by Bradfield, they laid down the gauntlet from the off! The first round of field events started shortly after, with the girls throwing the Rounders ball and the boys doing Long Jump. Both Gibbs and Oldham tied for top spot in the Rounders ball and Whitby scored highest in the boys' Long Jump. The 150m was the next event on the track, with Bradfield, Whitby and Gibbs all recording wins and 2nd places. In the 600m, a tough challenge given the weather, Bradfield runners won both the girls and boys races, with Gibbs nipping at their heels! The final individual races were the 75m sprints, with again Bradfield, Gibbs and Whitby winning races, and Oldham, Whitby and Bradfield gaining 2nd places. The field events came to a close with the Gibbs girls winning the Long Jump and Whitby boys the Cricket ball throw. The afternoon ended with a very exciting shuttle relay finale! Dropped batons and missed change-overs added to the tension. Finally Bradfield won the girls' relay and Whitby the boys' relay. Great fun was had by all and the experience of competing in Athletics. Final Scores: Track Events: 1st Bradfield (73pts), 2nd Whitby (56pts), 3rd Gibbs (48pts), 4th Oldham (44pts); Field Events: 1st Gibbs (85pts), =2nd Whitby/Bradfield (22pts), 4th Oldham (65pts).

Results round up ...

Cricket Saturday 19 May v Millfield Prep

1st XI Lost 2nd XI Won

3rd XI Lost 4th XI Lost Colts A Lost Colts B Won Colts C Lost Wednesday 23 May

v Queen’s 1st XI Won 2nd XI Won

3rd XI Won Colts A Won Colts B Lost

Cricket Saturday 19 May v Wellington School

U12/13A Won

Girls U12/13B Won

Wednesday 23 May v Taunton

U12/13 Won

U10/11 Lost

The Boarders’ World...

We left Taunton, with a mini bus packed with sun cream and bottles of water and a weather forecast of 21 degrees! Sadly not, sea mist and a cold sea wind, no sun cream needed, hot chocolates rather than water and the hire of 20 wetsuits! This didn’t however spoil the day, the boarders had a fabulous time on all the water slides. I don’t think I have ever seen and heard so many smiles and roars of laughter in the space of 2 hours of racing, sliding, whizzing, tumbling and almost drowning! Who needs the sun when you have your friends (and wetsuits)!

Rounders Wednesday 23 May v Taunton

U12/13 A Won U12/13 B Lost

U10/11 A Won

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