Headmistress’s Newsletter

Issue 146 28th May 2021

Sports for Champions

Today a former GB Olympian in

Gymnastics came to visit us to
put us all through our paces.

Children were raising money to

help prospective athletes with
their training and equipment

We competed in an athletic
circuit of spotty dogs, star
jumps, press ups and lunges,
then had an assembly where
Natalie showed us her Olympic,
World and British medals. There
was even a chance for a few
children to show us their
gymnastic skills with cartwheels
and handstands a plenty.
Unfortunately, all were upstaged
when Miss Walters executed a
perfect cartwheel (in high
heels). Very impressive!

A huge thankyou to all our

children and their families as we
raised a total of £790, amazing!
Page 2
 Page 3

Courtesy Week 2021

In last week's newsletter, we featured our first ever Courtesy Week and promised you some more
information. As you can see, Year 2 enjoyed completing their 5 challenges during the week and Arran,
Jotham, Bea and Tara are pictured proudly displaying their booklets.

The week was more about insides than outsides - after all, we can say 'thank you' and not really mean it.
Therefore, the most interesting part of the week were the responses written inside their Courtesy Records.
Bronte children felt that the week had been important to them because "it helped me to look at my facial
expressions, improve my caring for others' feelings, it all makes a better learning atmosphere, it helped me
to gain my confidence, it reminded me that being polite is not just about opening doors for others and
saying thank you, I made new friends and I feel like I am in a family with people who smile and encourage
me".

In addition to these quotes, we have

learnt that the week
impacted attitudes too. Records included
"changing my tone of voice and the way I
play, listening to others, being more
thoughtful, not getting grumpy over
things, not thinking bad thoughts and
supporting others through
encouragement.”

Some children were very honest,

commenting that their behaviour had
altered, saying that they had "let people
go in front of me, played with new people
and not annoyed my sisters for three days
in a row!”

I am sure you will agree

that after Courtesy Week,
Bronte School is an even
happier place in which
children learn. This impacts
everybody's wellbeing and
helps all children to
experience their 4 rights: to
learn, to be safe, to respect
and to play, within the
Bronte School family.
 Page 4

Maths in Year 2
Maths this week has been taught by Mrs
Nonagon and Mrs Squareliss!

The class have been learning about the properties

of 2D and 3D shapes by constructing their own
using marshmallows (as vertices) and sticks and
straws (edges). The children created a fantastic
collection of cubes, cuboids, triangle-based
pyramids, square- based pyramids and a range of
prisms including Geeva’s hexagonal Prism and
Zach’s octagonal prism.
 Page 5

When the pupils become the teachers!

Recently in Year 5, the children have been stepping up their Maths
learning. Miss Walters and Mrs Lippard took a back seat while
Milo, Ayrton and Tommy taught an interesting and informative
lesson about circles.

The boys researched and put together a ‘Slides’ presentation to

accompany their lesson and they even asked the class to have a go
at a tricky question on their whiteboards! Thank you to all three
boys for sharing their knowledge of radius, diameter, circumference
and Pi with Year 5.
 Page 6

Safety in Action
If we were in a 'normal' year, Year 6 would have gone to Cobham Hall, to undertake a series of
talks and investigations, all based around staying safe in a variety of environments. As this is far
from a normal year, SALUS, the organisation that runs this event, went to great lengths to present
the information via Zoom.

Some of the topics covered were: knowing when you feel safe in a relationship (and this included
people that you may 'chat' to online) as well as knowing whether new friendships feel
comfortable or uncomfortable – both of these linked nicely to the children’s transition to
secondary school. They were also given breathing strategies for when they feel under pressure,
and were shown how to stay safe in the home, particularly in relation to fire prevention.

I would like to thank both SALUS and Year 6 for their patience and focus, particularly after so
much time spent on Zoom this year!!

Great news from last week’s

Sponsored Read!
Mrs Prescott is thrilled to announce that Bronte School has raised approximately
£1,500 through our Sponsored Read. With a 60% uplift from Usborne Books, we
will have approximately £2,400 to spend on books for school!!

Thank you so much to all the very generous Bronte families.

 A letter in the post...
Page 7

Four members of Year 6 were thrilled and delighted to receive a letter from
Robin Lewis, one of the Bronte Advisory Board members. He was so
impressed by their performance in the recent Mathletics competition, that
he wrote to them all individually. Not only that, but he also took the
trouble to personalise the content of each letter, and this made them even
more special. Certainly, receiving a letter through the post was a novel
experience for them and one that I'm sure they will remember.

Mathletics success was confined

to the Lower School this week,
with plenty of silver certificates
and a GOLD for Anand.
Well done to you all.
 Page 8

LAMDA
Yesterday, the whole of the Upper School took part in their school-based LAMDA exams. This was the first
time that both Year 3 and Year 4 had taken part, owing to the Lockdown last year, but all of their teachers
were extremely proud of them.

LAMDA, which stands for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, is an important part of the
Bronte calendar and a wonderful vehicle for improving confidence, public speaking, memory and team
work. The scale of difficulty becomes ever greater as the children progress up the school, beginning with
two poems in Years 3 and 4, one poem and one piece of prose in Year 5 and increasing to two poems and
a piece of prose in Year 6. The children can also choose to take part in the individual LAMDA exam, as well
as their class choral exam, which a number of children from Years 4 to 6, chose to do. Alice, from Year 6,
was just one of them, which meant that she learnt and performed the three pieces for her class choral,
plus an additional poem and piece of prose.

In addition to this, Year 6 are also learning their scripts for the forthcoming Shakespeare play! All of this
requires a great deal of dedication for all those concerned.

Mrs Prescott would like to thank all staff, children and parents involved for all of their efforts, and
whatever the outcome, everyone can be very proud of the tremendous effort that they put in.
 Page 9

Special Guest:

We were pleased to welcome another parent guest to

our bubble assemblies on Monday and Tuesday this
week, enabling the children in Years 3-6 to learn more
about the jobs people do and the necessary skills to do
them. Mr Rockall, parent of Leela (Year 6), was known to
many of the children through his judging on the panel of
Bronte's Got Talent in previous years. As a Label
Manager in the music industry who has met many very
famous people, he was able to share with us his love of
music which began at a very early age. He answered
some excellent questions prepared by the children and
told us that he has a collection of 22,000 vinyl records!
This assembly reminded us to work hard in all that we
do, and in particular, to develop our love of music by
listening to lots of different artists and styles.

Tristan in Year 6 was this term
presented with a Sports Award
by Mr Johnson, for sustained
improvement and progress in
PE. Well done Tristan.
Our passenger of the week this
week is Aditri (Year 3). It has
been lovely to see how Aditri
can be a good friend to others
on the bus, helping them when
they need it. Well done
 Page 10
GIANT TETRAHEDRON CHALLENGE

What an amazing end to this half term. On Wednesday morning Sam, from STEM, carried out an exciting
workshop for the budding engineers of Year 4.

The morning began by looking at the science, designing and engineering behind building structures that
withstand severe weather conditions and those that have lasted thousands of decades. Do you know which
shape is the best to make strong, long lasting structures? Find a Year 4 child, they'll be more than happy to share
their knowledge...The children continued their learning by building their very own giant tetrahedron structure.
Module one consisted of a tetrahedron made with 6 wooden rods. Module two was made from 4 of the Module
one structures joined together to make a larger tetrahedron. How many rods would that be?

Module 3 was made of four module 2 tetrahedrons and so on...

Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths all covered while building a giant tetrahedron on the school
playground.
Page 9