A leading independent prep school in Somerset, offering excellence in education for 3-13 year olds
The scores are in and the winning House from this year’s virtual sports day is… Quantocks! Very well done to you all and a special mention to Tommy (Year 7), Sam (Year 4), and Daisie (Year 3), for a superb set of individual scores. Many thanks to our wonderful Director of Sport, Mr Sheldon, for all his hard work in the run up to this event and throughout the year – and, of course, to our brilliant parents and staff for their help in motivating and organising the children. Full results: 1st Quantocks, 2nd Mendips, 3rd Brendons, 4th Blackdowns.
Year 2 have been studying famous people and looking at how the different views and attitudes of people in the past have shaped our world today. They particularly enjoyed learning about political activist and suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, before having a go at writing their own speeches about women’s rights. The resulting work, which includes the lines ‘We are women, we can do anything’ and ‘We all deserve to be the same,’ is outstanding. Well done, Year 2; Ms Williams and Mrs Skiverton are extremely impressed!
Our Nursery children have been reading ‘The Rainbow Fish’ in class and loved stopping in the Rose Garden to look at the fish. As part of their literacy work, the children also made robot masks and then used their ‘robot’ voices to sound out and spell items in the classroom, such as p.e.n and b.o.x. Our biggest thanks to Miss Fussell, Miss Hand and Mr Shortman, along with Miss Becky and Miss Sarah who are supporting from home.
We are over the moon to announce that Perrott Hill has been shortlisted for Prep School of the Year at the Independent Schools of the Year Awards 2020, in association with Independent School Parent. This follows our triumph at last year’s awards, when we walked away with the coveted Pre-Prep of the Year award! What a fitting tribute to the hard work and dedication of our talented team – and it couldn’t have come at a better time, with the whole school back together! Proud to be Perrott.
Our Year 8 pupils had a ball making their own music video to Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ this week. Huge thanks to the brilliant Sharky and George for an immersive and engaging session as part of the Year 8 Leavers’ Programme – and roll on the virtual disco in a few weeks! Many thanks to Bryanston, Canford, Sherborne Girls and Foxtrot Tango Events for brilliant activities for our pupils, with more to come this week!
To promote and build upon their investigative skills in science, Mrs Layfield has established ‘Fun Friday’ for our Year 5 and 6 pupils. Each week, they get sent a mystery envelope and have to complete the challenge. Last week, the children explored Geodesic domes, looking at what makes their structure so strong before making their own (using spaghetti and marshmallows) and balancing books on them! This week’s challenge is making chromatography hair for the Trolls – and we can’t wait to see the results. What fun; thanks, Mrs Layfield.
We are very excited to launch this year’s Virtual Sports Day, with points going towards the coveted House Cup! Events include standing long jump, target throwing and long distance, as well as timed sit-ups and squat thrusts, with a maximum of 6 points per exercise up for grabs. The deadline to submit your scores is Friday 26th June, with the winning House being announced on Friday 3rd July. All info is on Teams. Good luck, everyone.
This week’s Headmaster’s Assembly focused on the hugely important subject of racism, the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. The accompanying hymn was the original recording of ‘The Ink is Black’ composed by David Arkin and Earl Robinson and sung by Peter Seeger. Inspired by the 1954 US Supreme Court decision to outlaw racial segregation in public schools, it says:
“A child is black, a child is white,
The whole world looks upon the sight, upon the sight;
For very well the whole world knows,
This is the way that freedom grows, freedom grows.”
We are proud that our pupils are taught kindness and compassion from a young age, and that they will take these values with them into the world.
Our Nursery and Reception children got well and truly stuck into their new theme of ‘animals’ this week. As well as a magical mystery adventure to the ‘African plains’ where the children used their binoculars to find giraffes, flamingos, elephants, snakes, zebra, lions and butterflies, the Reception class also took part in animal yoga on the North Lawns and made their own orang-utans. Meanwhile the Nursery children were delighted to have a visit from Mr Silk’s chicks!
Congratulations to three of our Year 7 pupils for outstanding achievements in music over the past few weeks. Erica and Annabel both passed their music exams with distinction (Grade 3 horn and Grade 1 piano respectively), while Grace took part in Eric Whitacre’s incredible Virtual Choir project alongside more than 5,000 people from over 97 different countries! Grace also sang a beautiful duet with Year 8 pupil, Octavia, for this week’s assembly hymn, Spirit of God as Strong as the Wind. The duo were superbly accompanied by Head Boy, Seb, on the violin. A fantastic few weeks of music; very well done to you all.
