The Prep Newsletter - 17-06-2022

17 June 2022

Dear Parents and Guardians,

This certainly is a wonderful time in the academic year. Pre-Prep have been making use of their outdoor area in the sandpit, whilst Main Prep have enjoyed running around in the sunshine (with sun cream and sun hats of course). It's certainly a busy time of the year for everyone, with many fun-filled activities still to come.

We also arrived on Monday and were greeted with the exciting news of the ISI inspection which happened this week. We enjoyed welcoming the inspectors into our wonderful Prep. We are very proud of our school and our pupils. I would like to take this opportunity to thank parents who completed the online questionnaire. The children have been an absolute joy during this week and I know that they enjoyed telling our visitors all about our school. Earlier in the week they were also busy posting maps and messages in order to help the visitors to find their way around.

In addition, I must thank our amazing staff who have all gone above and beyond this week to ensure that the inspectors see the school in its best light.

Prep 6 have also attended super workshops from Foundations, working on their PSHE skills. The pupils had a wonderful time; thank you Foundations for this opportunity!

Also, this week, all year groups took part in a brilliant Willow craft workshop. All year groups have lent a hand, I can’t tell you where it’s all going to end up yet I’m afraid. Watch this space!

In less exciting news, the drumming workshop scheduled for this week was unfortunately cancelled due to circumstances out of our control. We will be looking to put on an alternative session sometime soon.

Music Timetabling Software

I am very excited to let you know that we will shortly be moving to a new, cloud based system for timetabling music lessons called PracticePal. This new system offers a range of benefits for lesson administration, and also offers us the long term opportunity for better parental involvement in music lessons (it is possible, for example, for parents and guardians to see timetables directly every week). This offers a radical change to the way that we are able to administer lessons, and we are keen to see where these possibilities can lead over the course of next year as we begin to integrate this software into the department.

As part of this process, we need parents or guardians of pupils to set up ‘learner accounts’ for pupils, and you will shortly be receiving an email from me, via PracticePal, to start this process. For the initial account set up, emails are automatically sent to the first ‘Pupil Home’ record that we hold on isams (the College MIS, or Management Information System), and I would be grateful if you could check any email accounts that the College holds information for, just to make sure that this email has been received. 

As this initial setup process is automated, I am unable to add additional email addresses for this specific process. However, all future correspondence will then come to any email addresses that we hold for parents or guardians. Therefore, if you feel that there may be any errors in the email data that we hold, I would be grateful if you could let me know as soon as possible. Similarly, if you have not received an email by Wednesday 22nd June, I would be grateful if you could let me know, and I will investigate further.

This system is in use in a number of schools, and has been comprehensively checked by the College’s own GDPR and Compliance Manager. If you have any questions about our use of this software, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

With best wishes,

Luke

Please can we remind parents that the deadline for responding to the Speech Day invite is 20^th June 2022.

Credit scores to date

Oaks 819, Cedars 897, but the runaway leaders, with an almost unassailable lead, are Beeches with an impressive 1049. Can they be caught?!

Dates for your diary

Thu 23 June Pre-Prep Treat

Thu 23 June Summer Serenade

Fri 24 June Non-Uniform day (Raising money for the children’s chosen charity Guide Dogs for the Blind.)

Enjoy the beautiful sunshine!

Tracey Davies
Head of Prep