Category: Prep News

Today our Year 6 Chamber Choir visited the Seckford Almshouses, where they sang Christmas songs and carols to the residents. The children really enjoyed interacting with the residents and singing some of their favourite Christmas songs. All of the residents joined in with the singing, which was wonderful to see. The children were brilliant representatives for the school, performing with exuberance and confidence.

Some comments from the residents include:

Julian said that he loved the Rudolf actions and the singing and carols! – Henry Shaw

Julian said that he supported Ipswich town and that our singing was lovely and that he loves Christmas. He said he had an advent calendar! – Oscar Rendle-Grist

Frank said he loved our singing and he really enjoyed the carols. – Izzy Deacon

The residents said we sang so beautifully it made their day. – Georgie Phillips

They said our singing was amazing. – Finlay Clench

They said to me that we all did really well. – William Bedford

They said our school sounded so beautiful and it really made their day. – Toby Hill and Millie Johnson

They said that we sang very well. – Aidan Holliday

The residents thanked us for coming today. – Ellen Hall

The singing was joyful and everybody looked like they were having fun. Charlie Hattan

One of the residents said the singing was absolutely brilliant and it made them remember when they were a child. They also said they had really been looking forward to it.’ Bee Morton-Wright

Your singing was great and you made our day. – Sophia Waterer

They hoped we would come back soon. –  Fred Bartlett-Smith

They said the singing made them feel really Christmassy and happy. They thought we were polite  and that Marina looked like her when she was younger. Polly Scoggins and Marina Pommier

One of the residents said that the singing was lovely and it made her feel enthusiastic and exuberant about Christmas. – Isabella Williams

On Wednesday 22 November some of the year 5 & 6 girls played a fun match against Woodbridge Primary School. We were mixed up with members of each school in each of the four teams. We rotated positions giving each one a try, using lots of the different passes and catches we had learnt about last year. It was a perfect way to refresh our skills and start thinking about the Netball season which starts in January. It was great fun and everyone played really well despite the cold weather.

The results were as follows:
4th Green Team
3rd Yellow Team
2nd Blue Team
1st Red Team

The members of the Red Team were: Millie Johnson, Zara Mansfield, Ruby Field, Tabby Cranfield and Amelia Moreton.

By Thea Langdon

U11 A Rugby v Moreton Hall
We played Moreton Hall and we scored some cracking tries. Moreton Hall were a good opposition, but The Abbey came through for us. The first try was held up by four people from Moreton Hall. The second try was right in the far corner almost pushed out of the line. The third try was passed a lot and then got to a very good runner who took it over the line.

The tries were made by William, Luca and Jonjo.

We had some excellent rucks by Jack P and good breaks from Lexie.  And everyone else played their best which I thought was amazing. We play very well as a team and we did some good passing. We drew 3 – 3.

U11 B Rugby v Moreton Hall
We had a great first half of the match. Edward, Henry A and I, all scored two tries. We scored them quite easily because most of the opposition were up front so we could run the full length of the pitch. They managed to score two tries in that half so that by the end of the first half it was 30-10 (6-2) to us. The second half was just as successful if not more so becuase George played some great rugby and instead of scoring the try himself he passed a metre or so from the try line. Aidan scored but they both did well. A few minutes later Dominic scored, he did well to get that try because he had to dodge a lot of tackles. I scored one last try but then a few minutes later Justin scored his first try and ran very well. Later they scored two tries in about 5-10 minutes but then the whistle blew and the match ended. The Abbey won 12 – 6

The results have just landed on my desk from the gala on 28th September. Firstly I was extremely proud with all of the swimmers, as they performed extremely well and conducted themselves in a brilliant manner. Many swimmers competed in extra races and relay legs without complaint or fear regardless of the stroke, which was particularly pleasing. Results as follows (Lowest points win) U11 Abbey 25 – IHS 35, U10 Abbey 14- IHS 7, U9 Abbey 39- IHS 39.

On Monday 13 November the Under 9 Boys Hockey Teams travelled to Rushmere for the 2017 Hockey Festival.

We were due to play 4 rounds against some very good schools.

The A team’s first nail-biting match was against OBH and we drew 0-0

Next we were against the home team, Ipswich Prep. Although we played better as a team, finding each other to pass to, unfortunatley we lost. Orwell Park and South Lee are all good teams and we all played our best and learnt from our day

Although not the top scoring team on the day, I think we were definitely winners as we all had such respect for each other, encouraging each other and coming together as a team . We had great fun.

The Abbey drew 3 – 3
On Wednesday the 15 November 2017 The Abbey A team went out to play a nail-biting hockey match against Holmwood House. As the first whistle went the match kicked off. In the first seven minutes Holmwood House had scored a goal, Amora tried really hard, but it just slipped in into the corner. Then Holmwood House scored another goal. Next when the ball went into our D, Issy did an amazing hit all the all the way up to Selina who did an amazing dribble up to the other teams D then passed to Charlie who whacked it to Georgie, who was waiting patiently on the post who then hit it in the back of their net. 2-1 was the score now. After half time Ellen did an amazing tackle and passed up the wing and later in the half I intercepted Holmwood House who were heading fast towards our goal. We then scored another goal. It was now 2 all. It was nerve racking when Holmwood House had got the ball in our D. They flicked it up and Amora did an amazing save with her stomach. At the end of the match it was 3 all.

It was a very close match and we had some missed opportunities but we all played our best and learnt a lot of new things. What an exciting match!
By Marina Pommier

U11 B Hockey v Holmwood House
On Wednesday we played a fantastic match against Holmwood House. Bee played really well and didn’t give up until the end. Lara and Georgia scored an amazing goal and our goal keeper Amora did a couple of brilliant saves. Milly did some great tackling and Rosie did some impressive passes. Polly did really well in defence and had some amazing hits. In the end Holmwood House won 6-1 but we played our best and at the end of the day the player that stood out for the girl of the match was Bee as I think she was so determined and on the ball.
By Captain – Sophia Waterer

U11 C Hockey v Holmwood House
The Abbey won 1 – 0

The sun was shining and the air was chilly as we walked through the forest in search of extra-terrestrial life…As part of the Year 5 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ topic the children assumed the role of UFO investigators and set out to gather evidence to support their views as to whether or not the alien landing in 1980 was a hoax. The UFO tour in the forest led to many different theories being put forward as to what actually happened. These included an alien landing, a US Military cover up and a crashed Russian spy satellite. Over the coming weeks we will attempt to uncover the truth…

On Monday 6 November a team of 5 girls from Year 5 represented The Abbey at a STEM Olympiad day at Old Buckenham Hall. Georgia P, Thea, Juno, Lara and Sasha travelled to OBH with Mrs Martin.

The journey was such fun as we were all chatting and singing and before we knew it we had arrived. There were quite a few other schools that had been invited. STEM subjects are Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Our first task was to go to the computing room where we were set a coding task on Scratch. This technology task was a great start to our day. We were programming our characters to move and do lots of different things including: changing colours, going round and round and speaking.

Next we moved onto Engineering (Mr Smith would have loved to see us complete this task). We had to create and build a wind powered car. We had no instructions, only materials that included; a sweetie bag, a piece of cardboard, two straws, a thin oval shape of wood, 4 cardboard wheels, a cup, masking tape and playdough. Unfortunately it did not go that well because the wheels kept falling off!

After that it was time for Maths. We had to do lots of different puzzles and it

was really good fun. We had five minutes for each task and then the buzzer went off. We learnt that the key to success was TEAMWORK!

Next up was Science – a fantastic experience of Chemistry. We had to work out how much Vitamin C was in different fruit juices using a chemical called DC Pip. Then we made elephant toothpaste so that when you added the yeast it exploded! We couldn’t believe how much it grew!

We all worked so well together and supported each other in all the different tasks; we had a great day too! We are all really excited about the STEM subjects now.

By Georgia, Sasha and Lara

We were so lucky to have Mr Bates, a forensic scientist, at The Abbey for two days this week. He was entertaining and very informative about his career working at crime scenes. He was very impressed with how the children worked together solving the crime and I have enclosed a paragraph of the email he sent to me. The detailed report about the day was been written by James Hattan.

What a marvellous school! I thought all the classes I worked with showed excellent manners and great enthusiasm and creativity – bombarding me with ideas about what had happened in the crime. I was struck by the very effective way they worked in teams, sharing tasks very well and talking to each other about their findings – crime investigation really does require cohesive teamwork! I must say that the fact that the children were such good team workers reflects very positively on the ethos of the school and is a great credit to the staff.

On the evening of Sunday 12th November some robbers broke into the Abbey School and stole some very expensive computers. The police have three suspects and Year Six was called in to find out who it was. As we entered the hall, we saw a dummy with bruises on his head lying unconscious on the floor in the corner. We all sat down and were told what we were going to do, by a real forensic scientist! Next we were put into our groups. We learnt how to do all the things that the police do to find out who did the crime including; checking for blood on clothes, checking their handwriting and the ink of their pens and putting together a smashed brake light of a car. By lunchtime we knew that Davie Davies and Jackie Jackson were behind the crime but we still had two mysteries to try and solve, how did they get in through the window without smashing it? and who was the 10 year old boy, Jake, who lied to the police?

After lunch, we did an awesomely fun fingerprint competition and then learnt about evidence from mobile phones. We checked Jackie Jackson’s deleted emails and found some very interesting information. It turned out that the cleaner had let them into the building! Although we had all this evidence of who did the crime, we still had to be one hundred percent certain, so we went to Court. Milly played the judge and had to put on a really funny wig!

I was a member of the jury and we had to vote who was guilty and who was innocent. We decided that Jackie Jackson and Davie Davies were guilty and would go to prison for 10 years. After much questioning, we finally found out who Jake was as well

, it turned out he was Jackie Jackson`s brother!

We had such a fun experience and I loved being a forensic scientist for the day!

I had the pleasure of taking some of our Year 6 students to the Almshouse’s Remembrance Service. The students from our Abbey Chamber sang with commitment and were respectful members of the congregation. After the service many students in our group had the opportunity to interact with the residents of the Almshouse’s, listening attentively to their stories of remembrance.