Moyles Court School

Week 7 Spring Term 2020

“There is more in you than you think”

Kurt Hahn

Diary dates

Saturday 29th February Virtual Baby Project Weekend

Sunday 1st March Junior Boarders’ Trip to Snowtrax Senior Boarders (Yrs. 10 & 11) to Bournemouth

Monday 2nd March Whole School Photograph postponed until 18th March Girls’ Interhouse Tag Rugby Tuesday 3rd March Mr. Brownlow (author) visiting Junior School U9 Tag Rugby vs Leehurst Swan (Away) 1400 U8/9 Netball vs. The Park at Sir David English 1400

Wednesday 4th March LAMDA Junior School Assembly 0850 U11 Tag Rugby vs Leehurst Swan (Away) 1400 U13 Rugby vs Leehurst Swan (Home) 1500 U13 Boys Hockey vs Walhampton (Away) 1400 U11 & U10 Netball vs BCS (Home) 1415

Thursday 5th March World Book Day Junior School Council Meeting 1230 Yr. 8 Parents’ Evening 1615

Friday 6th March LAMDA Whole School Assembly 0850 Year 1 Swimming 2nd Virtual Baby Project

Friday 27th March Easter Service in Sports Hall 1100 End of Term 1230

Message from the Headmaster

I am sure we have all been guilty at some stage in our lives of saying something like, “I can’t

do Maths, I’m not a numbers person” or, “I can’t sing, I’m just not musical”. It’s human nature

to want to try and put ourselves, or others, into neatly definable categories or boxes and we

all know that there are some things which we are good at and there are other things which

we are not so good at. However, the science tells us that “I can’t” statements are a product

of our mindset, not the way that our brains are wired.

We have been looking at this in school this week and I used the words of the wonderfully

wise Mahatma Gandhi to get our children thinking about this concept. He said:

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I

cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing

it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do

it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”

In her work on Growth Mindsets, Carol Dweck famously quotes the research carried out on

the brains of London Cab Drivers as they learnt ‘The Knowledge’. During this test, potential

cab drivers must memorise over 25,000 streets in London and 320 set routes. Scientists

took scans of the brains of the cab drivers as they started to learn these streets and routes

and, amazingly, over time, their brains grew in size. As Kurt Hahn in my quote of the week

states, “there is more in you than you think” and with a positive mindset, he’s absolutely

right, and anything can be achieved. It’s not your brain that’s stopping you, it’s your mind. If

only we could wish ourselves some sunshine…or perhaps we can?

Have a wonderful weekend and a very happy St David’s day to our welsh friends; “Dydd

Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!”

Richard Milner-Smith

House Points

Week Ending: 28.02.20

House Strikes Merits Total House

Points

Dockens 31 2122 2091

Latchmore 23 2628 2605

Linford 32 2080 2048

Latchmore are now miles ahead with 2605 house points. Well done Latchmore!

The Moyles Court School ‘Word of the Week’

This week’s ‘Word of the Week’ is the noun: ‘Anguish’

Meaning ‘severe mental or physical pain or suffering’ or as a verb meaning ‘to be extremely distressed about something’

This week’s word was chosen by Year 11 – Set 1.

We would be very grateful if you could use the word ‘Anguish’ as much as possible in your conversations at home over the coming week to try and familiarise your children with the meaning and spelling of our ‘Word of the Week’.

Junior School

Focus of the Week

Welcome back everyone to the second part of this Spring term! It has certainly been lovely to catch up with our pupils and hearing about all their adventures over the half term break. As World Book Day approaches, we looked at a book that Mr. Babur read when he was much younger and one that also contains several important life lessons - "The Twits" by Roald Dahl. Within the first few pages of the book, the following quote can be found: “If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” The Juniors were fabulous in their discussion afterwards about what this quote meant. Several fantastic children talked about "inner beauty", and how we can achieve this through kind actions, thoughtful responses to others and doing our best not to pull others down. We encourage our pupils to not only read this book (as it is a classic!) but to think about the quote and the message behind it. Our focus for this week is to "think good thoughts about yourselves and others". Well done for a great first week back, Junior School!

The Moyles Court School Art Competition Thank you to all of you who have taken part in the whole school Art Competition, so far. Wow! The entries that we have seen so far have been utterly fantastic and truly inspirational. It is clear to see that we have a great number of pupils across the school who are very talented artists. The range of projects that we have seen has been excellent and we are so very grateful for the support being given by staff and parents to enable our children to participate in this. Thank you! The deadline for the art competition is Wednesday 18th March 2020. Keep those entries coming in!

Mr. Babur and Mr. Winspear

World Book Day 2020 We are very proud to announce that we will be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 5th March 2020. As part of the celebrations, we are delighted to inform parents that children are invited to come into school dressed up as one of their favourite book characters. The costumes can be as simple or elaborate as you like! We will be awarding prizes throughout the day for the most creative or entertaining costumes, as judged by the Junior School staff. There will also be an opportunity for pupils to show off their costumes to all members of the Junior School during the day. Senior School pupils are, of course, also encouraged and invited to dress up, too! As part of the festivities, we will also be hosting a "book swap" where children are able to donate any books that they have finished reading at home that they are happy to pass on to other people. As part of this swap, children will be able to exchange books with other pupils within our Junior School. There will be no charge attached to this, but we do ask that pupils only bring in books that they are happy to part with, with their parents’ permission, of course! In the build-up to World Book Day, we are also happy to announce that we have acclaimed author, Mr. Mike Brownlow, visiting the school on Tuesday 3rd March 2020 to deliver workshops to pupils from Reception to Year 6. We are looking forward to Mr. Brownlow passing on his knowledge and experience to pupils, to further reinforce their love for reading and learning. This is shaping up to be our most exciting World Book Day ever and we simply cannot wait to see the costumes that children (and staff!) will be wearing on the day.

The Moyles Court Creative Writing Competition

Thank you to everyone for your entries to the 500 Words Creative Writing Competition. The entries that were passed on to Mr Babur before the deadline have been sent on to the national BBC 500 Words competition. Good luck to those of you who have taken part, so far. Due to the BBC's deadline being slightly earlier than normal and being so close to the start of this half of term, we are extending the deadline for an additional two weeks. This means that although any further entries will not be entered into the BBC competition, they will still be eligible for our own internal Moyles Court School competition.

The final deadline is Friday 13th March 2020. We encourage all pupils from all year groups to enter. Here is the photograph of last year's winners! Good luck to all of you participating. We cannot wait to see your fantastic stories!

Music Bugs

Music Bugs is always thoroughly enjoyed by our Early Years. Pre-School and Reception particularly enjoyed Thursday’s wonderful session as they learnt a range of different songs, used puppets and shark tails! There is nothing like the ‘Baby Shark’ song to get everyone moving!

Using our senses! This week in Pre-School has been all about our senses. We used our hearing to explore the sound of instruments as well as our taste buds to taste various types of food. We also used our sense of touch to discover exciting contents of feelie bags, smelt different types of herbs and used our sight to look at things carefully with magnifying glasses and torches.

Junior Pancake Race

Our Junior pupils had a fantastic time flipping pancakes in our annual Pancake Day Race on Wednesday. Linford were the winners overall. Well done Linford!

Cats Protection visited the Junior School

Pupils from the Early Years and Junior School were treated to some very special guests earlier this week, when Cats Protection visited our school to guide our children towards being responsible pet owners. Not only were the talks informative and educational, but our children found them to be incredibly fun and hands-on, with the chance to watch some fantastic videos and handle a huge range of props. We learned not only how to handle our cats with care, but also how to manage their hygiene and health. Our pupils had a fabulous time and continued to impress us with their wide range of questioning and enthusiasm. Thank you to Cats Protection for taking the time out of their busy schedule to come and visit our school!

Virtual Baby Project Laura from the Mother’s Union visited the Year 9s on Thursday to introduce the Virtual Baby Project for this year. Many Year 9s have signed up for the challenge in which they learn a lot about themselves. Patience, organisation and resilience will be put to the test. Please sign consent forms if you haven’t done so already and still wish to take part. Nurse Lucy will coordinate the distribution of babies over the next four weekends.

Not Long now until Nepal! The ten students going to Nepal had an exciting meeting on Monday. This was their final pre-trip meeting before the kit check meeting 48 hours before travel. The group were told more details about their itinerary which included a scooped canoe trip down the jungle river, an elephant jungle trek and the project work that they will be participating in. Students will spend a few days sleeping at a village school (a 45 minute walk from the road) where they will paint and make repairs to the school and help teach English to some of the pupils. Students also got to meet their tour guide in person, Jonnie, who will be accompanying us from the UK and for the duration of the trip. Only 12 weeks to go!

Enterprise Day

On Thursday 13 February Senior School students were given the opportunity to take part in a 'business/Dragons Den' type experience. Many students put themselves forward and so first thing on the Thursday morning twelve teams of students set about their task of designing the next big board game to take to market. Students had to consider target markets, business plans, profit margins and presentation skills to complete the task. Amongst the specific tasks, the experience also examined and challenged many soft skills such as negotiation, creative conflict, working to deadlines and group efficiency. The groups set about the design phase manfully for the first hour. These were tense times as they had to be careful not to get stuck down 'wormholes' (design details that distract from agreeing a clear strong design concept). Moving through the day saw the groups all construct their games, design the packaging, write up business plans and formulate their presentations. They worked tirelessly, all through both their break and lunchtimes to get the job done! By the end of the day we had twelve tired teams who had all managed (by hook or by crook) to get their tasks ready for the big day on Friday - The Dragon's Den. Friday morning saw five individual chairs occupied by five fearsome ‘dragons’. Mr. and Mrs. Hawkyard provided great inspiration and experience to the students with Mr. Milner-Smith, Natapat Kirdwichai (Head Boy) and myself making up the intimidating panel. The students shone in the breadth of their ideas and their creative talents. They had really worked very hard indeed. Ultimately there had to be a winner as the ‘dragons’ all allocated their share of the £500,000 investment pot available to groups. The overall winners were LSC - The Little Sweet Company (comprising of Eric, Darren, Lilian and Junho). They had really gone to town and put together a website and comprehensive sales structure alongside a strong game concept. Coming in close second and third were the Mystery Makers (Portia, Annabel, Victoria, Jessica) and SRB (Leah, Amelie W, Emily B, Joe and Oscar). It was a very different and fascinating way to consider real life situations and challenges in the world of business in a school setting. A great experience for all who put themselves forward. Special thanks should go to Mr. and Mrs. Hawkyard for giving their time as dragons, Mr. Berry for providing an IT Hub in the Enterprise Centre (Sports Hall), Mr. Williams for helping to resource the event and all staff who came in during the day to support the students. Very well done to all.

Mr. Padfield

#History Club – Valentine’s Day Cafe The St. Valentine’s Day Café held just before Half Term was great fun and a huge success. The popcorn, candy floss, shortbread, cupcakes, lemonade and hot chocolate all proved hugely popular and #History Club members worked hard to prepare and serve the food and drinks and to clean up afterwards. A special mention must go to Eloise who made and iced loads of delicious cupcakes, to Annabel and Sophia for making popcorn and to Ben, Bethan and Kyla for the stressful job of manning candy floss machines under pressure of a large queue of excited Juniors. A big thank you too to Mr. Smallwood who helped out at short notice and to Mrs Spark for taking the photos.

Mrs. Butterfield

Maths Problems of the Week

What is the only number word with every letter in alphabetical order, and what is the only

number word with every letter in reverse alphabetical order?

Answer:

Forty and One

Nine new students started at Moyles Court at the same time. If all the students shook hands

with each other when they first met, how many different handshakes were there in total?

Answer:

36 handshakes in total. For nine students in total, the first student shakes hands with

everyone else, that will total eight handshakes (since they do not shake hands with

themselves). The second student now shakes hands with everyone, except herself and the

first woman, with whom she has already shaken hands. This will add seven handshakes to

the total. Continuing along the line, each student will then add six, then five and so on until

the 9th student, who will already have shaken hands with everyone else, and will add 0

handshakes to the total. The total handshakes is: 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 36

In Year 11 - Natapat got ‘forty’ first, Farah got ‘one’ first. Jamie got 36 In Year 10 - Hatty got the ‘forty’ and ‘one’ first and Junho got 36 handshakes first In Year 9 - Amia got both ‘forty’ and ‘one’ first, Amelie got 36 Well done everyone!

U13s Netball vs Dumpton

The U13 girls took on Dumpton this Wednesday afternoon. The girls took control of the game after the first quarter. The defence were strong, picking off interceptions. The girls in the centre of the court fed the ball well into the circle where our shooters linked well. The final score was a convincing 14-5 win. Well done to all the girls on a great performance.

FoMS News

Junior Bake Off is back!

Calling all budding bakers! Are you interested in taking part in this year’s Junior Bake Off? If you are, get your baking kit on and apply now!