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Prep School Golfing Success

golfers

Congratulations to James in Year 6 who won the Inter Schools Golf Match at Cumberwell Golf Club.  Playing on the yellow course over 9 holes James,  the youngest competitor on the course, went round in 51 shots, beating Christy Wells by one shot on the last hole.

MP visits MP!

Don foster

Bath and Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster visited the Prep on Monday morning as part of a project by the Year 8 pupils. 
 
In addition to individual study into a Community of their choice and a first aid course, a variety of speakers from various parts of the community, Don Foster MP, an ex-mayor, police, doctors, civil engineers, corporate community trusts and even newspaper editor Sam Halliday of the Bath Chronicle, will visit this week.
 
Mr Foster spent an hour sharing his experiences as an MP and explaining how he does his best to serve his 80,000 constituents here in Bath and also in the House of Commons.   A diverse range of topics were covered from the regeneration of the Western Riverside Development, filling in pot holes and also providing emergency housing for the homeless.
 
Mr Foster was also keen to engage his audience and made the point that he serves the whole of the Bath community and explained that many of the laws that are passed in Parliament actually affect young people. A lively 10 minutes of Q&As closed the session.
 
Martin Bray,  Director of Academic Studies thanked the MP.
 
“We are very grateful to Don Foster for taking time out to share his experiences of working in a community.   He is a great example of someone working in the community who has the energy and vision to make a difference on a daily basis to the lives of his constituents – young or old! This is just a part of the Community Project that has given our pupils the chance to organize a concert and tea party for old people, write a play and also widen their horizons and have experiences rather different from their normal day-to-day school life, as well as have some fun!

Year 4 enjoy a trip to local environmentally friendly wood


The Year 4 children enjoyed a memorable overnight trip to the Cherry Wood Project at the beginning of May.  The wood, situated in the beautiful St Catherine's Valley just outside Bath is owned by Tim Gatfield.  The project promotes sustainable living and the study of renewable energy, recycling and the reuse of water. The forest is used to teach wood crafting skills.

cherry wood

During their stay the children enjoyed a variety of activities including pizza making in a clay oven; making sausage rolls; roasting bananas with marshmallows and chocolate; putting up their own tents and lighting fires Alfred the Great style!  They also ate wild garlic and beech tree leaves collected from their woodland exploring.

To find out more about Cherry Wood, please visit the website on www.cherrywoodproject.co.uk. To view some more pictures please visit the Trips and Outings photo gallery.

High Five in Food Hygiene!

presentation

Congratulations to our Catering team here at the Prep who have just picked up a  Five Star Food Hygiene award from Bath & North East Somerset Environmental Health. The Prep School went through a rigorous inspection procedure which graded them on cleanliness, training, structure and record keeping.   Charles Worrall, the Food Safety Officer for B&NES presented our Catering Manager Mrs Gill Hamilton and her team with a  certificate and award. “We all know how important it is to maintain high standards at all times in the catering industry and none more so than when cooking for young children. I am delighted to present this five star award to the team today. Only 2% of catering establishments in the Bath area achieve this outstanding level of Food Safety Practise so the team should quite rightly be very proud of this achievement.”

The Laughing Stones of Red Loftra

As a sequel to the previous play, 'The Tales of Redloftra', this play continued the theme of the peace of Redloftra being threatened by the two forces of evil and greed personified by the Purple Ogres and the Triclops led by the Purple Ogre Captain and Borrodag Greymountain respectively. In the Lord of Redloftra's quest to defeat these forces of destruction he is ably assisted by his daughter, the Princess Genevieve, and the three 'earthly' boarders from Muddybanks Prep School, Peter, Paul and Mary. Any resemblance to Monkton Prep School was completely unintentional! As the boarders are magically transported to the land of Redloftra they come across such 'beings' as a two-headed giant, dancing Milrundle flowers that talk, Weebledips who protect the Princess Genevieve and a green talking dog who eventually returns to Earth with the three boarders.

laughing stones

The Laughing Stones that have such magical powers are found by the rather dubious character, Salmonella Salmon, who has an 'infectious personality' and these become a bargaining tool between her and the Purple Ogres. Her partner in crime, Willie Watersnake, demonstrate that crime does not pay where the Lord of Redloftra is concerned. Despite their awesome weaponry and so-called leadership the Purple Ogres and Triclops soldiers meet their Redloftran Waterloo ending with the swift decapitation of Borrodag by Princess Genevieve. All ends well for the 'good' people of Redloftra but where will it all end? You will have to see in Redloftra 3 - The Return!

Award Winning Author visits Prep

The award-winning author of 'Peter Pan in Scarlet', Geraldine McCaughrean, visited the Prep School and talked to the children about her life as an author. Her talk included the reading of extracts from one or two of her books and how she was selected to write the official sequel to J.M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan'. She amused the pupils with her approach to inventing characters by inviting volunteers to come out and enact an imaginary scenario. This also helped the pupils to imagine possible storylines and illustrated how a writer can eventually arrive at a story and overcome the dreaded 'writer's block'!

She brought in Captain Hook's coat as part of Peter Pan Week which was 26-30 April. It was quite a treat to have an award-winning author like Geraldine to visit Monkton and share with us her gift for story-writing.

 

Swimming success for the Year 6s

The Year 6 Swimming Team attended the South West Regional Swimming Relays at Millfield at the weekend and performed brilliantly. The year 6 boy’s team put in outstanding performances and won both the freestyle relay and the medley beating 18 other teams from the region. They have now qualified for the national finals on the 19th June. The girl’s team swam well on the night with an overall ranking of 11 and 15 out of 25. Their coach Mrs Martindale was delighted with the performance.

prep swim team

“Their hard work and training is beginning to pay off and they swam with real determination on the night under huge pressure. They are thrilled to have made it through to the National FInals and we will now work even harder so that we can maintain that first place slot!”.

 

The Great Big Quake Cake Bake!

The pupils and parents at Monkton Prep School have been busy raising money for the Haiti Earthquake appeal.

 

cake bake pic

Parent Kendra Sandford, who has three children at the school, was responsible for organising the event which was a huge success. 
 
Literally hundreds of cakes in various shapes, colours and sizes were baked and this massive cake bake raised more than  £970 for the appeal.
 
Cakes were also sold at the evening performance of the school play. Mrs Sandford was delighted by the success of the event and that the whole school had been so supportive. “It was a great community event which parents enjoyed being part of. It gave parents a chance to meet new faces and work together for this cause.  Children loved the chance to bake and of course eat the cakes!  A big thank you to all involved”