Category: Prep News

Year 6 have just come back from a very successful week at Marchant’s Hill Outdoor Adventure Centre in the beautiful Surrey hills. The beech woods rang with enthusiastic laughter as the children abseiled, whizzed through the air on zip-wires or launched their home-made rafts on the lake.

The children have had enormous fun and have learned such a lot. They seem to have grown in confidence and stature having confronted their fear of heights, learnt the best way to support and encourage one another and to look after themselves whilst away from home, sometimes for the very first time.

PGL and Abbey staff were very impressed with the resilience and determined attitude of all the children.

We would like to thank PGL staff, our GAP student Beth,  Mrs Clubb, Mr French and Miss Ballam for all their help.

PGL Comments from Abbey Pupils

• It was the greatest experience of my life.
• I loved flying through the air.
• Joint favourites were the giant swing and rifle shooting, but a friend of mine thought Abseiling was the best!
• The songs the Groupie got us to sing were cool!
• At times it was scary, but it still was fun.
• The girls in my group managed to stay on their raft just until the end and then we fell in – we couldn’t stop laughing.
• I tried all the activities. Even though I am frightened of heights I conquered my fears. I feel pretty proud of myself.
• Mud, mud glorious mud! We got covered when we ran round the Challenge course and splashed through water.
• Thank you Mrs Clubb for being the most amazing group leader and to all the staff for encouraging and supporting us.
• It was so much fun. I didn’t want to leave.

EADT article “Woodbridge School pupils experience how to run a business with charity day” about The Abbey Prep School and its Stepping into Business programme for Year 6 pupils can be found here.

The Abbey Musical, Joseph, is currently being performed by Years 5 and 6 at the Seckford Theatre.. The pupils have thrown themselves into this production. There have been some very impressive individual performances, but what is most remarkable is the spirited and animated singing and acting by the entire cast.

The pupils have very much enjoyed performing to huge audiences in the theatre. Well done to all!

We were delighted to welcome Olympic athlete Donna Fraser to Woodbridge yesterday. Donna spent the afternoon at The Abbey teaching pupils from Year 5 and 6 at The Abbey, and Year 9 pupils from the Senior School.

An amazing experience for them and a very enjoyable one for Donna who wrote to Mr Simpson to say how much fun she had working with our terrific pupils.

Thank you to everyone who was so generous in donating gifts to our Harvest Festival service. Following The Abbey service the gifts were donated to worthy recipients. The retiring collection went to WaterAid. Our grateful thanks to all.

On Friday 6 of October we had some visitors to The Abbey! Excitingly, a group of students spanning Years 9 to 13 facilitated some Dance workshops for Years 4 and 6. It was a great day and The Abbey students really benefited from learning from the older students. The dance material was choreographed especially for the session and, as a teacher, it was very special to see two school communities come together as one to share, show and learn.

On Thursday Year 5 pupils from The Abbey, all bright-eyed and enthusiastic, visited the Senior School for an exciting morning of outdoor activities, fun and learning in the Valley. Everything was devised and led by our experienced CCF staff (Major Garvie and Captain Capjon) with expert assistance from a fine team of sixth form cadets. Ever keen to get going, Year 5 were quickly assigned to their groups, the smiles on their faces as bright as the sunshine; and so began a wonderful morning. Each small group rotated around a carousel of activities: the Drill stand, where the youngsters learnt Drill actions under the benign instruction of the senior cadets; the subtle ‘arts’ of camouflage and concealment (it is a lot harder than just slapping some camo cream on your face!); in the woods, and the chance to take on the Assault Course (how they climbed, stretched, crawled and leapt, supporting each other all the way!); and the Command exercises… intently listening to the sixth formers before trying to work out their own ways of accomplishing the tasks armed only with limited supplies, and sometimes even blindfolded…

Regular much-needed refreshment; masses of encouragement; briefings and debriefings; successes and ‘opportunities’…. What a day! So many smiles… and from a group of enthusiastic individuals at the start of the morning, to a group of successful collaborative learners all grown in confidence by the end, with challenges embraced and overcome (the first of many, no doubt!). Well done all, and many thanks to the cadets and officers for making the morning such a success.

Yesterday’s Stepping Into Business Market Day was a huge success – the children in Year 6 loved setting up their stalls, serving their numerous customers and managing their money. In total, the businesses generated a humongous £1942.08 of sales! The teams have been busy this morning completing their profit and loss sheets, with the profit they made to be split between prizes, experiential business prizes (going to see real-life work in action) and charity donations. More information to follow on donations once the children have chosen the charities they would like to support.

As all teams impressed us so much with their hard work, fantastic learning and mature approach to such a grown up task, each team member will be receiving an individual prize after half term:

Best team work – Tropical Tribe (Mocktails)

Best branding – Just For Pets (Pet treats)

Best marketing campaign – Artify 5 (Painted stones)

Most profit – Abbey Dogs (Hot dogs)

Most innovative product – Quick Bake (Ingredients in a jar)

Most ethical business – Second Hand Gang (Second hand items)

Project management and production award – Bath bombs

Fastest sales and most units sold – Illuminators (Slime)

Environmental award – Record 5 (Vinyl bowls and popcorn)

There will soon be a selection of autobiographies from successful entrepreneurs in The Abbey library for the children to further build their understanding of business and innovation – and to inspire younger year groups for their Stepping Into Business Journey when the time comes!

Many thanks to everyone who came to support the event as well as to all parents who assisted in the run-up, including our very well qualified Business Angels.

Well done to all of Year 6…a huge achievement for their first steps into the business world!

Since returning to school after the Easter holidays, Year 6 have been working tirelessly on their ‘Stepping Into Business’ enterprise project. It began with an inspiration talk from a group of business savvy Year 6 parents, who have kindly assumed the role of our Business Angels. This gave the pupils the motivation and enthusiasm to begin the process of independently creating their own mini-businesses. The children completed a series of workshops – on topics such as innovation, marketing and finance – before preparing a pitch to present their ideas back to the parent panel in a Dragons’ Den style presentation. The pitches were a fantastic testament to the children’s hard work and newly acquired business skills. All the pitches were sufficiently impressive enough to receive an investment from the Business Angels and so the next couple of weeks will see the children producing and marketing their products, putting into practice the fantastic advice given by the Business Angels.

A huge thank you to our Business Angels  – Bryan Laxton, Paul Field, Bee Kemball, Melanie Welsh, Michael Barrington-Hibbert  and Camille and Nick Glendinning – for their invaluable input into the project so far.

We look forward to welcoming all parents and their families to our Stepping Into Business Market Day on Thursday 25 May at 3.50pm. Bring lots of change as the Year 6 children are sure to sell you something!

Year 4 thoroughly enjoyed the History trip to Colchester Castle on Tuesday. We all found it extremely enjoyable. Firstly we went upstairs to build a Roundhouse and a Roman Villa. We looked at a video and then we made them. After that we had a snack and play outside the castle. Then we went back inside to go into the vault. The vault was made in Roman times, it was under the castle. We learn lots of facts – like Boudicca burnt down lots of temples like the one in St Albans and the one in Colchester for revenge. We also went into the prisons. There were bloodstains on the floor and the keys to the cell, speakers and a monitor. It was then time for lunch – we ate outside in the castle grounds. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the museum, finding fascinating information about the Romans. It was a great day.

By Theo Pommier and Charlie Langdon 4T