Pre-Prep: A Recipe for Christmas Joy
It is hard to believe that our new starters in September have only been with us for one term – the children have been so courageous and settled in incredibly well, supported by the rest of the Pre-Prep, their buddies in Form 1 and Harry F and Willow G, our brilliant Pre-Prep Leaders. We hope that they have enjoyed their first Christmas at Belhaven – it's always a magical time with so much going on. Let's find out how the Pre-Prep have celebrated the festive season so far...
We kicked off the Christmas calendar with our first festive Pre-Prep movie night, in aid of the RNLI Dunbar. With their pyjamas, blankets and beanbags at the ready, the children cosied up in front of 'Arthur Christmas' with popcorn and sweets.
The children and staff have also been working hard to prepare for the big event, our Nativity, Christmas Recipe. We spent a lot of time practising our singing and stage directions. It was a little trickier this year trying to work around the giant bowl! Once lines were learnt, we could then start to get stuck into performance and have a little more fun with it. The children were tremendous! They showed a huge amount of courage, but they also had the best time doing it. The Form 1 tech team, led by Mr Brown were superb and they helped bring the play to life. Mrs Haddon’s set and props were perfect and effective as always. Thank you to all that were involved!
Nativity Photos (2024)
On our final day of term, after prize giving, the children got dressed up in their party outfits and headed to the beautifully decorated dining room for our delicious Christmas lunch. They enjoyed turkey, pigs in blankets, Brussel sprouts – pretty much the cast of the Form 6 Master Chef scene! The table was decorated with creative wreaths and bobble hats that the children have been making in After School Club.
After lunch, we went to the front hall to watch the amazing spectacle that is the staff pantomime! This is always hilarious and a highlight for all the children.
We then started our reels – Dashing White Seargent, Virginia Reel and Strip the Willow. The children were amazing! To have children so young, dance three reels so brilliantly is really special. They are now all set for their reels night when then they get to Forms 1 and 2.
This wonderful day culminated in our 'Carols Round the Tree' – a perfect mix of traditional Carols and fun Christmas songs, enjoyed by the children and their families, in the warm glow of the giant school Christmas tree. Mince pies, hot drinks and a catch up with parents followed, before everyone headed on their way for their Christmas holiday.
Read on to discover our Pre-Prep teachers' highlights from the term and to hear from Mrs Lang about the children's adventures in Outdoor Education and After School Club.
Outdoor Ed
Pre-prep Outdoor Ed has seen all three classes focus on the changing of season – what this means for the environment around us, and the wildlife within in.
Pre-prep have foraged, studied and collected natural treasures to create nature art in celebration of bonfire night, fireworks, patrols and Christmas!
The children have been working hard to make bird feeders to sustain the small birds through the colder snaps, to create spiderwebs with sticks and twine to encourage spiders to further spin under our surveillance, and discovering, identifying and documenting bugs.
We have enjoyed den building, teamwork activities and games in the shrub, on the front lawn and down on the beach.
It is fair to say that we have wholeheartedly embraced the colder conditions and the darker days! Forms 6, 7 and 8 all enjoy a good dose of fresh air and wilderness in and around our Belhaven habitat.
Mrs Lang
ASC
After School Club has seen us through many a project – and recipe – this half term, from finger knitting to a variety of friendship bracelets, pompoms to mini woolly bobble hats to hang on our Christmas trees!.
We have made snowflakes and Christmas decorations; paper wreaths, pine cone Christmas trees and gnomes.
We have played board games, had Lego competitions and made patrol paintings for our classroom boards. It has been busy, creative...and a super dose of fun!
Mrs Lang
After School Club Photos
Classwork
Form 8 have had a very busy end of term! Everyone has completed their numeracy unit in addition and subtraction. This meant that the whole class was assessed, and we’ve used the last week to make sure there are no gaps in their learning!
We have continued with our phonics lessons alongside our weekly spelling lessons which focus on spelling rules, rather than a single sound. It has been lovely to see everyone give their Friday dictations their absolute all. It has been even lovelier to see their faces when they achieve a high mark after all of their hard work!
In Science we have moved on to learn about materials and had a very lively class discussion about the difference between a rock and a fossil. Understanding what material an object is made from and why that might be, is an important outcome. Some of the children were very excited by the shiny materials!
Our role play station was transformed into a post office and everyone in class has enjoyed writing letters home, to their friends and to Santa! The highlight for most people was using an envelope and popping a stamp on the front.
Mrs Gibson
Form 7 have enjoyed learning about 2D and 3D shapes in recent weeks. The children are becoming much more confident when using mathematical language to describe the properties of these shapes. Remembering the names can be quite tricky, but the children have been so good at making connections to their real-life experiences, for example, Rory thinks a cylinder looks like a tube of Pringles and Struan thought a triangular prism looked like a tent! Perhaps over the Christmas holidays, you can go on a shape hunt with your child and take some pictures of what you find!
Form 7 have finally finished writing their Great Fire of London books. This was the culmination of all their learning in English and Topic over the term, and the children were so proud of themselves. Mr. Purkiss, Head of English, was so impressed when he came to see their books that he offered every child a Commended for their hard work and determination!
The Form 7s have continued working hard on their weekly spelling rules and have thoroughly enjoyed using Spelling Shed to practise. It’s so pleasing to see their scores improve week on week as the children become stronger spellers. Well done to Jasper who has scored 100% on every assessment to date! Don’t forget to keep up the hard work over the holidays!
Miss Birrell
Form 6 have finished their ‘time’ topic in maths consolidating time to 5 minutes and working out from a certain time, what time it will be in an hour. We have also been learning about Roman numerals and how these can show us both dates and times.
In literacy the children finished their diaries writing as Om from our book ‘Stone Age Boy’. They have typed this up on their iPad, putting into action the skills they have learned in typing club. We have been looking at expanded noun phrases and working on broadening our vocabulary to make our writing more descriptive and interesting to read. The children wrote a beautiful description of a winter scene. A couple of my favourites were: ‘The tall, jagged trees were covered in cold, glistening snow’ and ‘The bright, shining stars were dancing in the moonlight’.
The children have been enjoying our new spelling scheme, Spelling Shed, and they have been working hard on their tricky spelling rules. This week we have been learning 'challenge words' that don’t follow the normal phonics rules such as 'enough', 'bicycle' and 'answer'.
Mrs Johnstone
Our Pre-Prep staff's favourite moments of the term:
Mrs Macdonald’s favourite moment was during After School Club thread skills, where the children learnt how to make little woollen hats – the concentration and effort that went into their hats was fantastic. Of course, as ever, I thoroughly enjoyed the Scottish country dancing lessons where the children brought so much energy and enthusiasm. I was particularly impressed to see the children who are new to dancing, getting really stuck into the dances! Thankfully I didn’t scare them away with my love of ceilidh dancing.
Miss Birrell’s favourite moment this term was watching the joy and enthusiasm during Form 7 and 8’s weekly French lessons. The children have really blown me away with how much they have retained. It’s so impressive to hear them engage in simple conversations with their peers, asking, “what’s your name?”, “how old are you?” or “how are you?” with such confidence! The children have loved using their puppets to help with their conversation skills and this has been so effective.
Mrs Gibson’s favourite moment this term was when Baby Jesus was subject to a little bit of rough and tumble during the Nativity dress rehearsal. Thankfully he was well looked after in the performance for the parents. It was absolutely brilliant to see all of the children on stage, enjoying their performance.
Mrs Johnstone’s favourite moment was the Form 6 Master Chef scene – it was full of fun and Mrs McGrath really made the roles perfect for them! I can still hear Hamish’s laugh and sometimes find myself starting the 'Pigs in Blankets Rap'...!
Happy Christmas! Have a wonderful time and we look forward to seeing you all in the new year.
