Pre-Prep News Archives - Page 3 of 21

Last Monday we started the week with an assembly about Teamwork. One of the examples I used was that of geese flying in a V formation. The leader has to make the most effort due to air resistance and the theory is that this formation is used to save energy. The system is a good one as there is no constant leader and all the birds take their turn in being at the front.

However, if you look into it further; flying in a V is not just about staying in the right place, according to the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, National Geographic, by Ed Young, it is also about flapping at the right time.

What is quite incredible is that this skill is learnt and not inherent, a fact that seems extraordinary.

There is irony to the fact that, this time last week, I had no idea of the position we would all find ourselves in today. We are in unprecedented times with minute by minute decisions being made in order to preserve the health of our nation.

At School we have pulled together, much like the geese, and in V formation are taking it in turns to be experts in our field to guide our community through the air turbulence.

What is also clear, however, is that it truly is not just about the leader it really is about everyone ‘flapping at the right time’. Never before has it been so vital that staff, parents and pupils pull together to ensure stability, continuity and progression as we continue our migration forwards.

We were not taught the skills to deal with this situation but, just like the geese, we can learn them.

Teamwork truly is the order of the day!

Thank you to everyone who has asked questions and given feedback, we hope we have ironed out any immediate issues. Further information will follow in a day or two about the Trinity Term learning, in the meantime, please keep safe and well.

Mrs Mitchell
Head

Following on from my letter of last week, the Government has now clarified the most recent scientific advice on how to further limit the spread of COVID-19. If children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading.

That is why the government has asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible, and asked schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend. As you know, staff have been extremely busy, and will remain so, providing education remotely for those children with us who are working from home.

As Head, I am asking for your assistance and help in adhering to the Government guidelines.

Please, therefore, follow these key principles:

If it is at all possible for children to be at home, then they should be.
If a child needs specialist support, is vulnerable or has a parent who is a critical worker, then educational provision will be available for them.
Parents should not rely for childcare upon those who are advised to be in the stringent social distancing category such as grandparents, friends, or family members with underlying conditions.
Parents should also do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue to spread the virus. They should observe the same social distancing principles as adults.
Residential special schools, boarding schools and special settings continue to care for children wherever possible.

If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision. I have attached advice from the Government which outlines the categories for key workers:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision

Nicola Mitchell and I have already received some contact from parents who fall into the above categories for key workers. If you have not done so then please can you email me by 3pm today so that we can support those in our care. We will only be able to assist those who have made themselves known to us by this time.

Later on this afternoon, Mrs Mitchell and I will be in touch with those who have registered to confirm what support will be in place next week.

Since my last communication and the government announcement on Friday, a number of pupils and families have taken the precaution to self isolate following an assessment of their symptoms. We are dynamically risk assessing each case and the risk of exposure to our wider community and can confirm that to date there are no tested confirmed cases. As a community, we are sending our thoughts to those affected during this difficult time. I am most grateful indeed to all those who are using the parent portal to update us on their respective situations as this is an essential way for us to communicate, remain aware and inform our planning.

This week, both the Prep and the Senior School will be setting in motion a ‘Remote Learning Trial’. This is in preparation for any school closure, should this occur, and to therefore ensure continuity of education:

Senior School

On Tuesday (17 March), Year 12 will have a remote learning trial day, but this will take place in school. On Tuesday evening, there will be no after school activities and no prep. Instead, there will be a Senior School remote learning trial evening from 7:00pm – 8:30pm. More information will follow about this including detail of what is being shared with pupils today.

Prep School

Mrs Mitchell will be in contact with regards to plans.

May I also ask all parents to have a plan in place for the possibility of your child being sent home due to illness. If you are not able to collect your child in person then you must have somebody on standby (not aged 70 or above) who will be able to do this for you in your absence.

Please find attached an updated list of events that have been postponed and/or cancelled. As previously advised, all sporting fixtures have now been postponed for the remainder of the term. Individual emails will be issued with regards to events where payment is a factor.

I appreciate that this is a worrying time for everyone but please be assured that the School is being proactive in its approach for every eventuality and, as a community, will support you as much as we can. You are not alone. If you have any concerns or queries then please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.

I shall be in touch again this week with further updates as they come through.

Shona Norman
Head

A message from Graham Watson, Chief Executive of Seckford Foundation:

I am pleased to announce that the Board of Governors of the Seckford Foundation has appointed Clive Schlee as its new Chairman, succeeding Roger Finbow who retires from the role at the end of February. Clive will bring a broad range of experience to the Foundation, after spending the last sixteen years as Chief Executive of Pret A Manger.

Clive helped to grow Pret into a billion-pound business with strong values and over 500 stores in ten countries. Prior to that he spent 17 years in restaurants and financial services at Jardine Matheson & Co Ltd, the Hong Kong based conglomerate. He is also Chairman of Itsu, the London based sushi chain.

During his career, Clive has a track record of giving back to the community. He championed the Pret Foundation, greatly increasing its income and starting to offer jobs and accommodation to the homeless in addition to distributing unsold food to hostels every night.

Clive spent much of his childhood in Suffolk and has lived in Bromeswell for over 20 years. Following his retirement from Pret in October last year, he plans to spend more time in Suffolk and hopes to use his business experience to help the local community.

Roger Finbow, our current Chairman, said: “It has been a great privilege to be Chairman of the Seckford Foundation over a ten year period which has witnessed many changes in the fields in which the Foundation is active. I am delighted that Clive has been appointed to succeed me and am confident that he will find the role as challenging and enjoyable as I have.”

Clive Schlee said: “It is an honour to be able to serve the Foundation as it plays such an important role in the lives of so many people in Woodbridge and Suffolk.”

I am sure that you will join me in welcoming our new Chairman to the Foundation as he begins to immerse himself in the broad range of our work. There will be opportunities to thank Roger for his huge commitment to the Foundation in due course.

Graham Watson
Chief Executive, Seckford Foundation

There was a wonderful sense of community at this year’s Speech Day – even the sunshine joined in. The grounds looked wonderful; the prefects’ ushers’ carnations were in full bloom; the Dome was at its best – dazzlingly full of Mrs Mulcahy’s beautiful flowers; and the Swing Band upped the tempo and raised the smiles with its own fantastic set of joyful melodies under Mr Shepherd’s expert baton.

Mr Finbow set the scene with a perfectly judged overview of the Foundation’s aims, aims which seeks to nurture and guide young and old through its impressively diverse set of responsibilities, with our School main amongst them. Miss Norman, building on an early spontaneous round of applause to acknowledge the first female Head of the School, embraced the ideals of community and care in her inspirational vision for what a Woodbridge education stands for: young people growing into adults who understand their central commitment to others, and with a keen understanding of their responsibilities to each other and to the world around us. Of course this played well with Miss Norman’s guest, Professor Pretty, who, having enjoyed the potted biographies and admired the book choices of our prizewinners, laid out his own vision for all of our futures.

Despite the bleakness of some of his statistics, and where simple extrapolation would leave the world in as little as seventeen years, his message was full of hope. Hope, because he sees the power in small actions, and the relative unnecessariness of so many ‘things’. He exhorted us to look around, to enjoy moments, to see colours anew, to relish flavours, to preserve rather than use or destroy, to plant rather than cut. His eleven essential props, bracketed by an oak timber 8000 years old and an oak sapling no more than a year or two, each told vital stories – destruction and spoilage; but also redemption and harmony – Balinese rice fields and the Avocet, but plastic from the Arctic and avian extinction too. He called us to arms. Every little bit we can do matters. Hence the oak tree as Britain’s greatest home for biodiversity. And the richest nations must take the lead, so we should start if no one else will. So, consider your actions (or inactions) and work for the next generation (perhaps something the last few generations have begun to forget). And by way of advice, he offered the Japanese ideals: eat properly (four colours on your plate!), exercise regularly, socialise, keep on learning, and garden!; he reminded us to find value in ‘things that are not things’: a sunset, birdsong, colours, harvest and growth; he exhorted us to produce less carbon dioxide; and he left us with Mary Oliver’s poem:

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

And then to cap a truly inspiring and uplifting occasion, Head girl and boy, Poppy and Toby, offered our thanks to Professor Pretty with a beautifully judged, and immensely sincere and touching, double act. And the day’s best joke.

This time of year brings around the annual league tables, grade analysis and comparisons between types of school in a bid to find ‘the best’. I should note here that we are delighted with the results of our Senior pupils who now take the next step on their learning journey with a box filled on their CV.

How do we reflect though on how we teach and how we prepare our students to take control and responsibility for their own learning? When it comes to exams, ultimately we can fill heads with knowledge but utilising this information, synthesising and being able to access intelligence is another matter altogether.

We are preparing children for a dynamic world. There are uncertainties and changes that we could not have predicted a decade ago. A deal or no deal for Brexit; how would our students be preparing their businesses in this time of uncertainty? Micro-plastics in the Arctic; how are our future generations going to preserve the planet? Million dollar prizes for computer game competitions; what jobs are valuable and worthwhile? How will our students measure ‘success’?

Last year I was fortunate to meet and listen to the author of Cleverlands, Lucy Crehan. Her research has taken her around the world on a quest to find out what can be learnt from other countries and their systems.

What shines through in her research is that, “Teachers’ belief and expectations have a powerful effect on student outcomes in themselves.” This was highlighted in the news this week as an inner city school in London which through its methods ‘which aim to instil private school-esque order’ has done particularly well in said league tables.

Setting high expectations is one thing but imposing them is another. Crehan discovered that in Finland teachers are motivated to continually increase their own knowledge and aim high which impacts positively on their pupils. Whilst in Japan they overtly teach ‘moral education’ discussing the kind of people they want their students to be. In China they focus on praise for effort and not just achievement whilst also allowing for practice so that learning becomes intuitive – just like learning to serve in tennis.

So how does all this impact Woodbridge School Prep? We are constantly evaluating and reflecting on what we teach and how we teach it. The battle cry of the so called ‘Tiger Mother’ highlighted by Crehan in China, is that parents understand that nothing is fun until you are good at it and to get good at something you have to work.

The difference at Woodbridge Prep is that we aim to inspire the children to work because they want to, not because they have been asked to. This means a diet that includes a range of motivation, different experiences and types of learning . You can only inspire young children if they know that they can trust you and that you are on their team. We have high expectations because we know every individual has untapped potential. They will not all achieve the same results in years to come but we want them to want to learn, to follow what they love, to be able to react to an ever changing world in a positive way.

The Canadian approach to motivation leans on building a strong sense of community and at Woodbridge School we most certainly have that in abundance. So CleverChildren can they be made? We can certainly ensure that every individual is valued, encouraged and has the opportunity to excel. As we continue to reflect on and develop our methods we all continue to learn and grow together; I would prefer CleverSchool.

It is with great sadness that we must inform you of the death of Nicholas Garrett who passed away earlier this week. Nick was the very much loved Master of the Abbey from 1997 to 2015. He was appointed from St Andrew’s School, Eastbourne, and after leaving Woodbridge became Headmaster of a school in Abu Dhabi. He was diagnosed with cancer last year. An event to mark his life will be held in Woodbridge School at a later stage. I am sure you will join us in prayers for Nick’s widow Ruth, his daughters Anna and Lara (who are both teachers), and his wider family. Since his return from the UAE, Nick and Ruth have been living in Eastbourne, and we will forward to Ruth any correspondence received.

May he rest in peace.

Exams. One simple word can stir up a huge range of emotions. For some it is an opportunity to show off acquired knowledge and is a validation of hard work and effort. For others it is a memory test that strikes fear and insecurity and is a disappointing finale on a period of hard work and effort. For many it is just another activity to do during the day.

There are many advantages to being part of a 4-18 school and the lack of exam pressure is an important one. In so many schools across the land Year 6 can turn into ‘flat SATS practice’ or ‘past paper pain’ an overload of repetitive paper exercises designed to ensure a particular hoop or exam is successfully negotiated. To be fair, it works. A dull diet of test and retest ensures that pupils are able to rollout formulated answers and number crunch to get the desired grade. However, and you probably guessed there was one coming, when the children move on to their senior school and are expected to utilise this knowledge they don’t know how to apply what they have learnt because that was not why they memorised it in the first place.

The traditional route into independent senior school, through the exams known as Common Entrance (common due to the fact all pupils sat the same papers into all senior schools) has been called into question as Patrick Derham OBE, Headmaster of Westminster School states, “The reality is the exam has become for us an exit test rather than a genuine entrance examination.”

In truth these exams have been under threat for a while. Many schools have turned to group activities, interviews and problem solving puzzles to test how pupils are able to apply their knowledge, work with others and demonstrated resilience and independence of thought. Senior schools want to see that pupils can connect their thoughts, join up theories and understand and enjoy their learning.

As Mr Derham also notes, “This exam heaps pressure on pupils, parents and teachers, fuelling unnecessary anxiety and stress.”

Fortunately we are not constrained by this curriculum and the need to tick boxes to ‘exit’. Our Year 6 curriculum is vibrant, varied and full of opportunity and development the right way, in my opinion, to celebrate all that has been learnt during the magical time that is prep school. There are still exams (or tests!). However these occur at appropriate points throughout the year from Year 2 onwards and the children see them as an opportunity to find out what they can do and a chance for further learning. They are not an event to be scared of and when GCSEs and A-levels come round our children are not scared.

I am delighted that this change will allow more schools around the country to benefit from the curriculum we already enjoy. Removing Common Entrance will allow schools to “use this freedom to develop their curriculums in ways that are even more rigorous and inspiring… and enable young minds to flourish,” Patrick Derham.

Nicola Mitchell

Quotes taken from “Common Entrance exam is a burden children do not need” by Patrick Derham OBE, Headmaster of Westminster School writing in the SATIPS publication, Prep School, Spring 2019 Issue 94.

Prep school education is incredibly well regarded around the world and the benefits of a broad and wide ranging curriculum are clear, if tricky to quantify. In recent years there have been a number of excellent initiatives run by different organisations to try and make up for the shortfall that primary aged children are missing out on due to the constraints of the National Curriculum, class sizes and budget constraints in some primary schools and the demands placed on family life. The National Trust’s ‘50 things to do before you are 11 and three-quarters’ is an excellent list of fun, outdoor activities that all the family can become involved with. The Girlguiding Association and The Scout Association have been advocates of outdoor learning, problem solving and adventure challenge for years. I am delighted to note that the Education Department has now launched ‘My Activity Passport’ a list based on a vision for every child to have the opportunity to enjoy new and varied experiences. This comprises of key areas; “drive and tenacity; sticking at the task at hand; understanding how to work towards long term goals when reward might be a long way off in the future; and being able to pick yourself up and bounce back from life’s challenges.” www.gov.uk

This initiative is long overdue and a wonderful step in the right direction for all children. Behind the excitement of finally understanding the value of lessons learnt not sat at desks, is the realisation that for some children this way of thinking and being does not come naturally. We are so fortunate to have the wonderful grounds, the resources and the staff to facilitate these core skills being embedded into our curriculum alongside our unique Learning@Woodbridge ethos both within subjects and as stand-alone discrete lessons. Forest Schools, Mindfulness, Engineering, Food Technology, Drama, Music and PE are fundamental pillars of the experience at The Abbey. Together with House Captains, Leaders, Librarians, Eco-Committee, School Council and a myriad of other opportunities the skills of confidence, resilience, and involvement are woven throughout the curriculum.

This initiative should, in time, slowly start to enhance learning for all children and not just those who are fortunate enough to already benefit from this positive step forward.

The Reception children took part in their first Nativity Play this week “Lights, Camel, Action!”
They performed their dances beautifully and joined in enthusiastically with all the songs.