Belhaven Hill School

Co-ed Boarding & Day School for ages 5-13

Pre-Prep: Discovery, from a Snowdrop to Space

Pre-Prep: Discovery from a seed to space

'Exploration', 'discovery', 'innovation', 'courage' – these are just a few of the words that leap out from our teachers' accounts of Pre-Prep's learning in January – words which also encapsulate Belhaven's approach to education throughout the school and should typify a rich and happy childhood.  

The children have been typically busy and productive both inside and outside of the classroom, with a Burns Lunch and Chinese New Year providing exciting focal points in the first few weeks of the Spring Term. 

 

Photos (above): Form 7 in their tartan and Mr Dawson addressing the haggis

Our Scottish celebration saw the Pre-Prep donning their tartan and performing two traditional songs for the Prep School.  Miss Lloyd writes: 'Pre-Prep Choir learned a new song by Robert Burns 'Charlie is my Darling’ which, as well as being fun to sing, has the added bonus of providing the children with an excellent potted history of Bonnie Prince Charlie. The choir performed this beautifully in front of the whole school, ending with a rendition of ‘My Heart's in the Highlands’, which is back by popular demand and is becoming somewhat of a school anthem!  By focusing on volume, diction, breathing, posture, and memory, we developed performance skills which pupils can apply to their Spoken English talks in March as well as many musical performances in the future.   You can watch a clip of their performance here.

The Lunar New Year brought great enjoyment as the children heard the story of The Great Race and practised using chopsticks to fill the lucky red envelopes with pompoms and Chinese coins.

 

Photos (above): Form 8 practise using chopsticks with Miss Birrell 

Read on to find out what our young explorers have discovered this month...

Outdoor Education
BeBold, BeBrilliant and BeBrave; Pre-Prep take on the great outdoors in winter!  

The Pre-Prep started the new year with great intentions in Outdoor Ed, setting a variety of Environmental Resolutions, from turning the tap off whilst we clean our teeth, to reusing, reducing and recycling, to using reference books to look up our natural discoveries. We have discussed how to make small daily changes to help Mother Nature and have created some lovely posters to remind us to keep on track and to keep asking the questions!

We have been focusing on the small stuff in our ‘Explore the Outdoors’ module and this has brought great joy as we are beginning to see signs of spring on the horizon...

Read a full update from Mrs Lang here

After School Club
Woolly good times in ASC!

  

Mrs Lang writes: These ASC sessions are such a joy! The group have been learning new needlework skills in order to make some wonderfully woolly Valentine creations. Threading needles, learning different stitches and designing individual patterns. These sessions are calm and creative and never long enough!  

With baking, swimming, games, team building, arts and crafts and, the ever popular, hot chocolate and chats on Fridays, the children enjoy a fun, rich and varied programme of after school activities. 

  

Classwork

Form 8
In Form 8 we have stuck our teeth into a new book, The Boy Who Sailed Around the World. Some of our writing lessons have centred on the book and we have enjoyed making predictions, inferring a character's feelings and using antonyms to describe settings. In writing, we have also been focussing on non-fiction texts and have been locating answers as well as understanding the features in a non-fiction text.  

This term we are focussing on the themes of ‘exploration’ and ‘discovery’ and after a class discussion about what these terms might mean we are learning about, the children decided that they want to learn about dinosaurs. We have started the topic by comparing what the Earth looked like at the time of the dinosaurs to now. Form 8 have also began looking at the timeline of dinosaurs, for some of us it was new information that some species of dinosaurs didn’t co-exist with others.  

Our topic has linked very nicely with our Science, as we are starting to look at different animal groups and their attributes. So far, we have covered mammals and birds and will move on to look at amphibians, reptiles and fish.  

In Maths, some of the children are working on Place Value within 20 and others have been looking at multiplication and division. It is lovely to see the children growing in confidence and ability.  

Mrs Gibson

Form 7 
A real highlight for Form 7 over the past couple of weeks has been the introduction of our new topic. We’re focusing on the concepts of ‘mobility’ and ‘innovation’, with a focus on flight and space travel. The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the history of flight and hearing about some significant individuals from the past, such as Leonardo da Vinci, the Wright Brothers and Yuri Gagarin. I’m thoroughly looking forward to seeing where their interests take us next! 

In English, we’ve been reading The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers. The children have loved looking closely at the alien and using powerful adjectives to describe it. Impressively, the children can write expanded noun phrases (e.g. round, dark eyes) and use the conjunction ‘and’ to develop their sentences.  

In Maths, we’ve started our multiplication and division unit of learning. The children have learnt to identify, make and add equal groups, and most recently, have started using the ‘x’ sign to write multiplication sentences. Over the coming weeks, we’ll work on learning the number facts from the 2, 5, 10 times tables (3, 4 and 8 for some). No easy task! 

 

In Science, the children have LOVED learning about ways to keep their body healthy. We’ve tested ways to raise our heart rate; we’ve looked closely at the food groups and discussed what should only be eaten occasionally; and we’ve even taken a close look at the germs on our hands and how we can clean them to stay healthy! 

 

Miss Birrell

Form 6 
In Form 6 we have started our new book for our writing lessons called, ‘The Tunnel’. It is the story of a brother and a sister who are very different and don’t get on. However, a certain incident brings them closer together. The first short piece of writing we did was a prediction based on the details stated in the first few pages and what was implied.  Our most recent piece of writing has been writing character profiles to describe and compare the character traits of the brother and sister. In our spelling lessons we have been learning how to use a thesaurus, so this came in very handy when trying to develop their work with some powerful vocabulary. 

 

In Maths we have continued working on addition and subtraction, but it has jumped up a level as we look at 3 digits with exchanging. Part of the challenge is to remember which process goes with which, and it is also a real test of how well they know their number bonds and their ability to partition numbers. 

Having finished the topic of  nutrition, rocks are now the focus of Science lessons. We have been comparing different rock types, looking for similarities and differences between them such as crystals and layers. 

Our concepts this term are ‘Endurance’ and ‘Courage’ with a focus on Polar Explorers. We have discussed a number of explorers and the different challenges they face depending on the environment they are exploring. The first polar explorer we have been talking about is Captain Robert Scott. This has led us to discuss how exploration has changed in the past 100-150 years with the development of modern technology and equipment.

In Games sessions we have started playing netball, which is a brilliant team sport. We are in the early stages and have learned the different passes, how to shoot and how to use your landing foot correctly. Next we will be looking at the different positions and learning where they can and cannot go. Something that will take some getting used to!

 

Mrs Johnstone