Newsletters

Newsletter 27th November

Dear Parents,

We skipped into this week in the knowledge that we are the 16th top prep school in England, as published in The Sunday Times Parent Power List. A huge congratulations to the staff that work so hard to keep St Bernard's Prep at the top of this table, year on year. Thank you also to our parents, whose support is invaluable, and a very well done to the children, whose brilliant results are amongst the best in the country.

Chat and Play

After last week's success of Snack and Chat in Year 4, the Year 1s have had a wellbeing session - Chat and Play - where they have the opportunity to play games, colour in and talk about anything that might be worrying them.

Oracy

At St Bernard's Prep we want our pupils to express themselves clearly and to develop great listening skills, so we have introduced Oracy. Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language. Our Year 6 pupils are working on having interesting exchanges where they can challenge each other's arguments and develop and build on ideas.

This week in Oracy we asked the question: What is happiness?

Maths Champions

In a very tense competition, which was battled to the end, a team of Year 5 pupils gained 1^st Place in our heat of the Quiz Club.

The quiz comprises maths questions covering areas such as mental arithmetic, geometry, algebra, logic, fractions, decimals, percentages and statistics. There is a wide range of difficulty levels and teams confer on answers.

This year the competition was held over Zoom and our winning team beat 30 other teams to the top place! Congratulations to Aarush, Jagat, Jayan and Sai - next stop, National Finals.

Headmaster's Challenge

Inspired by John Lewis and Waitrose's Christmas campaign, we are asking each child to ‘Give a little love’ for this term's Headmaster's Challenge.

This year the John Lewis advert depicts acts of kindness, and they have decided to support two charities, FareShare, which helps those facing food poverty, and Home-Start, which supports parents in need.

We would love for our pupils to enter into the spirit of giving and do something kind for someone else. They then write a letter to Mr Cheesman about their act of kindness and the impact it has had. It doesn't need to involve money, it can be about donating a toy, time or making sure that someone knows that you are thinking of them.

I am really hoping that every child at St Bernard’s can take part in this very special challenge.

Letters need to be in by the 8^th January.

Walk for Sean

Today pupils from Years 1-6 enjoyed a crisp winter walk to raise money for Walk for Sean. Thank you to all the parents that donated so far, raising an amazing £429 to this worthy cause. You can donate up until the end of term if you wish to.

Latin - Word of the week: Felix

This week we discussed why the word Felix would be used as a name for a brand of cat food.

Felix: Latin for lucky. We discussed why cats might be thought of as lucky.

Feles: Latin for cat, which is very similar to ‘felix’. What English word starting ‘fel’ meaning cat-like can you think of ?

Housekeeping

Dates for your diary: Reports will be going out to parents on the following dates:

Thursday 10/12/20 Y1 & 2

Friday 11/12/20 Y3 & 4

Monday 14/12/20 Y5 & 6

Menu change:

Next Monday our chef, Louis, is running a special St Andrew's menu for lunch. Details can be found on the school website.

Christmas lunch will be on Tuesday 15th December.

Covid 19:

If you or your household has had a positive Covid 19 test or has been asked to isolate because you have been in contact with someone who has Covid 19, please refresh yourselves on the guidelines for isolating here.

Parking:

We have been contacted by Thames Valley Police regarding parent parking. They have received a number of complaints from the residents on Dolphin Road and in particular from flats next to the school exit. We have also received a number of complaints of some parents’ rude behaviour and parents parking across driveways blocking access to houses, which has meant a resident was unable to leave their home to attend a medical appointment.

Please treat our neighbours with consideration and kindness.

Online safety:

Thank you to all the parents who attended Mrs Rafferty's Online Safety meeting. There are lots of valuable resources now available in the parent portal section of the website relating to the subject.

Kind regards

Mr N S Cheesman