School News

Nursery have been dancing this week with the Elephant movement from the Carnival of the Animals, to go with Grey week! They have also used body percussion to create sounds they could hear from the rainforest.

Reception have been singing their hearts out about oats and beans as they are getting ready for the upcoming Harvest Festival.

Y1 have focused on Dinosaurs these few weeks and we were creating our own song with different dinosaurs jumping, skipping, hoping and running up and down, we look forward to showing our dinosaurs in our assembly next week!

Y2 have recently started to learn how to play the recorders. They have been learning the notes, B-A-G, and have successfully played Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had a Little Lamb in our Music Lessons.

Miss Lau

The Nursery children have settled remarkably well into their new 'normal' of school life over the past couple of weeks.  As have the parents, grandparents and carers, who have let their charges go at the Courtney’s gate to the ‘choo choo’ of the Nursery train as we work our way to our beautifully set up room of learning through play.

When we arrive, the children all busy themselves in the small worlds of dinosaurs, fairies and farms; or make sandwiches, ice creams and smoothies in the café; or build the tallest tower or the longest line of cars on the construction carpet.

And, how I wish you could see their art, sounds and number work up on the wall and know that they are making friends and learning their way around the routine of the Nursery room and the school at large.  But, as this is not possible in the current climate, I wanted to share these photos which I hope will illustrate how happily engaged your children are.

Amongst them you will find images of the first day of Nursery at the Smoothie café, Launching Pink week, Castle and Fairies, Launching Blue Week, Synthetic Phonics with Tapping sticks, Animal Yoga, Maths longest and tallest towers, Builders site and Smoothie shop open for business, Dinosaur small worlds and the ever popular Handwashing!!!

As ever, feel free to write me a note in the home/school book or email me if there is anything you need or want to discuss.

Mrs Macartney

Children throughout the school have been attending the virtual Henley Literary Festival over the course of the week. 

Our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes did a drawing session with Marion Duchars on Tuesday which focused on Bob the Artist and gave the children the opportunity to draw their own cartoons.  They are definitely all budding artists!

The Reception children heard one of Judith Kerr's well known stories 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea', read by Russell and Laura Brand, which inspired the children to invent their own version 'The Lion Who Came to Breakfast'.  The children also enjoyed Katinka's Tail read by Louse Roe and Mackenzie Huskin and then Leah and Ricky Boleto with their baby retelling Mog The Forgetful Cat. 

In Years 2 and 3, the children had a session with Leila Rasheed; whilst Year 4 'attended' the Cressida Cowell; and Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohammed events.  Year 5 and 6 were treated to a session with Chris Riddell, amongst others.  

Year 4 have been learning about Sound and this week they have designed and made their own set of ear defenders to block out loud noises. There were some very inventive designs and, when we tested them, they actually worked too! Great inventing, Year 4!

Miss Gibbon

We want to welcome former pupil, Alexandra Dunn, and her fellow Reading university student, Lucy Potts, both of whom are currently undertaking their PGCE.  Miss Dunn and Miss Potts are primarily assisting the Year 1 and Year 2 classes but will also have contact with other year groups when doing games and playground duty.  They will be at Rupert House until the end of this term and we feel very fortunate to have them.

Year 1 enjoyed pretending to be paleontologists in this week’s topic lesson. We discussed all the equipment paleontologists would use on digs to discover fossils and dinosaur bones. Then we pretended we were on a fossil dig and used a tooth pick to dig chocolate chips out of cookies!  

Miss Ives and Mrs Harris

At 9am, Rupert House tuned into the Big Anti-Bullying Assembly, pledging, along with schools all over the UK, to put an end to bullying, celebrate diversity and continue to strengthen kindness within our community. 

Supported by a plethora of celebrities, who shared their own experiences of being bullied at school, the children were all encouraged to think about five people they might go to if they experience bullying themselves or see one of their friends being bullied.

This week, Year 1 have been learning about volcanoes which culminated in making a real erupting volcano in Forest School on Thursday afternoon. There were lots of 'ooh's and aah's' as the volcano erupted!

We have had a busy, fun filled week this week in Reception. The children have started their phonics lessons and have started to take home reading packs. These come home on a Wednesday and a Friday and need to be returned to school the following day (Thursday and Monday). They have also been very busy learning counting, sorting and number recognition!

We have had lessons with other teachers - Ms Nicholson and Mr Brown for PE and games, Madame Sheriff for French and Miss Lau for Music and ICT.  The children love these lessons, and all the teachers were very impressed with them.

We have been making the most of the dry weather and joining in with whole school assemblies outside on the lawn, socially distanced in our bubbles. The children sit beautifully and listen with the rest of the school.

We have been talking about ourselves and our families in our topic, ‘All About Me’ and the classrooms are full of lovely self portraits and paintings. 

Lunches are going well, and the children are trying new things they are unsure of. They are remembering their manners as well as using their knives and forks. 

Keep up the good work, Reception!

Thank  you,

Mrs Brown and Mrs Steer

Last weekend, Holly (Year 6) and Daisy (Year 4) White; and Elin (Year 6) and Alise (Year 2) Barr hosted a sale in aid of Cancer Research.  The event has been in the planning stages for months and, having been delayed several times, due to the restrictions surrounding Covid, was finally able to safely take place last Sunday outside Holly and Daisy's house in Marlow.  The children sold cakes (which they had baked themselves), books, toys and clothes from 10.30am until 4pm and successfully raised over £570 for this worthwhile cause.  Way to go!

This year many events have had to be adapted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and our traditional RHS Sports Day is no exception. So we decided we would hold separate Sports Activity Days for each year group, from Nursery to Year 6, whilst keeping the classes in their separate bubbles.

The format involved some traditional running and novelty races on our lawn and a selection of challenge activities on the Astro-turf. Nursery and Reception children enjoyed their Rugby race, Howler and Quoit throwing, and Target rolling. Year 1 and Year 2 had a Football dribbling race, a Taekwondo challenge, and Howler and Javelin throwing. Year 3 to Year 6 took part in a Sack race, Javelin throwing, Netball passing and shooting, and Hockey shooting. But the most popular event in every year group was the Egg and Spoon!

Points were collated from every year group and the Sports Day House Cup was presented by Mrs Lynas in assembly. Congratulations to the winning house, Everest!

Year 6 did a fantastic performance of Disney's Beauty and the Beast this week. This was particularly impressive given the social distancing restrictions and the limited time in which they had to learn their roles. It was filmed and is currently being edited ready to be sent to parents to watch in the comfort of their own homes.

Bravo Year 6 and Miss Lau!

Year 6 entered this annual competition with our food project, split into 4 strands: Food Wastage, Meat Free Monday, Local & Seasonal Eating and Grow Your Own. We collated all our hard work, much of which we completed remotely, into a blog which the judges said would inspire future entries. https://fwells3.wixsite.com/website

We attended a virtual prize giving held by Greener Henley along with the Mayor of Henley, Councillor Mr Ken Arlett and we were very pleased to be awarded joint first prize along with St Mary's School.

Mrs Wells said "I'm so proud of all the Year 6 pupils who pulled together and were engaged and enthused by this project, even raising money for NOMAD through the sale of their beautifully designed Seasonal Calendar. (which are still for sale from the Front Office)."

Even during these unusual times, Year 6 were able to complete their First Aid course as part of this term's Science curriculum.  Suzanne from First Aid Matters joined us via the wonder of Zoom and enthusiastically delivered lots of super advice and skills for the pupils to use if they faced an emergency.  Instead of bandaging one another, they bandaged the limbs of a favourite teddy.  Even though I also had to join the bubble via Zoom, from the other side of school, I saw their smiles and enthusiasm following the session. Thank you Suzanne.

Mrs Wells

This week Year 2 have been learning about the author Anthony Browne. He uses lots of illustrations of monkeys and the Year 2 children and their families had a go at recreating some of his illustrations. Lots of them roped in brothers, sisters and parents to help.

Excuses

It caught on fire, Miss.

I dropped it down the drain.

The wind blew it away, Miss.

I left it out in the rain.

A crocodile munched it up, Miss.

A witch magic-ed it away.

My sister tore it to bits, Miss.

So... can I do it another day?

By Bella

On Friday 8th May, families from the Rupert House community, came together with the rest of the nation to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Second World War and to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day.  

Many of our pupils made bunting to decorate their homes, many more hosted 40s themed tea parties.  One of our talented pupils spent her day playing music from the era to residents at a care home (maintaining a safe distance!).

Year 3 have been simply amazing since remote school started. As it was Sasha's birthday on Wednesday, they celebrated by wearing funny head gear in their spelling lesson.  It certainly made us all smile and we hope it brightened Sasha's day.
Miss Jones

There has been such excitement in our pre-prep this week - following the arrival of the 'living eggs' on Monday, we are delighted to announce that all the eggs hatched and all the school have been enjoying seeing the young chicks.

On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day, both within School with a variety of activities and with the listeners of Heart FM! 

During the Heart FM breakfast show, four Rupert House children spoke to Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon, providing them with clues to their chosen World Book Day identities.  The children spoke really confidently and we were incredibly proud of them.

Our Whole School Assembly was a joyful affair.  All the children showcased the myriad of brilliant costumes they had chosen and we are incredibly grateful for all the thought and effort which went into creating them.  Staff then spoke about their favourite books, actively encouraging the children to give new genres of literature ‘a go’ and this was nicely complemented by the Book Swap, kindly arranged by the FoRH - very many thanks to Mrs Judge, Mrs Collin and the rest of their team for arranging.

Throughout the day, there were a number of literary activities including story telling in our Early Years classes which included reading a French story.  Our Prep children enjoyed putting speech into a comic; writing news and school reports; and creating menus in a ‘Book Tasting Dinner’ exercise.  During their French classes, they were encouraged to to talk about what they like to read and what their favourite book is. 

Year 1 have enjoyed learning about capacity this week. They used a special green potion to investigate how much different containers held. They counted carefully and were ecstatic when they noticed a ‘bubble’ skin on the top of their filled containers!

On Tuesday 25^th February, Year 6 took a trip to Henley Town Hall, as part of their 'Citizenship' provision, to meet Henley’s current Town Mayor, Ken Arlett.  The children were very impressed with the vast rooms within the Town Hall and were shown the Mayor’s ceremonial gown and the ‘Chain of Life’, both of which are worn on official occasions. 

The children were then given the opportunity to participate in a mock council meeting in the Council’s Chamber, where Isabella Miles-Kingston was given the role of Deputy Mayor and Monty Fordham the role of Clerk and all the children were invited to ask questions.  Mrs Lynas took advantage of the moment to ask about designated parking for our minibuses.

The children thoroughly enjoyed the trip and came back to school having learned a lot about the Mayor, what his job entails and our home town.

Year 1 had a fantastic day at the Winchester Science Centre. Highlights of the day were trying on a life-size astronaut suit, visiting space from a comfy reclining chair and watching a space movie on the planetarium ceiling! The children were ecstatic to use real purple rocket fuel and to shoot their rockets across the ceiling.

Last year, our former Year 6 pupil's came runner's up in the Henley Schools Environmental Science Competition, winning the School a Bramley apple tree and a peach tree. These were delivered into school today by Patrick and Andrew from Greener Henley, and both Mrs Wells and our Year 5 pupils had great fun planting them in the school grounds. The first step towards self-sufficiency.

This afternoon, our Year 3 pupils took a trip to the River and Rowing Museum. They enjoyed doing experiments to get a better understanding of rivers before an informative walk along the riverbank in the brisk February air. We braved Horse Bridge and we were impressed with the power of the water at the weir. A wander through the galleries and the Wind in the Willows Exhibition completed a super day.

This afternoon, three of our Year 6 pupils attended a debating competition organised by The Oratory. Although they were pipped at the post in their section of four schools, they spoke very professionally and with much humour, verve and passion. The motion they were given was: ‘This House Believes Books are More Important than Television,’ a subject which they supported and which they, of course, won before an audience full of English teachers! No one knew any of the various topics until an hour before the debate started! In the morning events, Sophia Mason won her ‘Balloon Debate’ (where you are a character in a sinking balloon and you have to persuade the others not to throw you out) against eleven other prep schools. She chose to be Ariana Grande, and cleverly cinched the winning argument by pointing out she weighed the least so there was little point in evicting her! Molly Crichton bravely did ‘Just A Minute’ twice and Annabel Buff teamed up with a pupil from another school in the ‘mini-debates’ section. I was so proud of them all, as were the parents who were in the audience.  They were a great credit to Rupert House and several people commented on how wonderful they were.        

Independent school inspectors have found the quality of a Rupert House School education to be ‘Excellent’ – the highest grade on offer - in a report released following an ISI inspection of the school on 14-16^th January 2020. 

This was just one of the glowing tributes in the report that judged Rupert House School, an independent prep school for children aged 3-11 in Bell Street, Henley on Thames, to be  ‘Excellent’ in both headline categories:  the pupils’ achievements and their personal development.

Inspectors observed the pupils’ excellent personal development with regards to general behaviour, self-confidence, self-awareness and social skills, as well as noting that the children exhibit ‘extremely proficient communication skills’.  They attributed this strength of self-confidence and resilience to the teachers’ encouragement and ‘have a go’ attitude.

Staff were also commended for their ‘highly enthusiastic’ and ‘highly effective’ teaching, offering a high level of challenge and support.

The school was praised for its attitude towards learning and achievement.  Pupils’ achievement is deemed to be ‘Excellent’ overall with their reading, writing, comprehension, mathematics, knowledge and understanding all being advanced for their age.  Non-academic achievements were adjudged to be ‘outstanding’.

The report highlights the strong emphasis placed on the Arts and Sport by leadership and governance. It also states that ‘Rupert House fully meets its aim to deliver excellent opportunities for every pupil’ and underlines the fact that ‘pupils are highly successful in obtaining places at the destination schools of their choice’.

Mrs Lynas, Head, is extremely pleased with the findings. She said: ‘This report has recognised both the commitment and the caring approach of our excellent staff team and the personal development and rounded achievements of our pupils.  The inspectors were quick to perceive what a magical place this is.  I couldn’t be more delighted with the outcome.’

You can read the full inspection report here

Our Kindness Week was a HUGE success: the children managed to achieve over 1,000 acts of kindness in just over 4 days, which was astonishing.  Many thanks, indeed, to Leonie Brown for instigating this and to all the staff who encouraged the children and helped display all the multi-coloured hearts around the school so beautifully.  There is nothing more important than learning to be kind, so the initiative will certainly continue.
 
Heart FM Breakfast show, with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden, came to visit us, LIVE, in assembly on 31st January, as our 1,000 Acts of Kindness matched so well with their 1,000 Feel-Good deeds!   We also had a rather exotic producer with us for an hour or two, which livened up the morning, and the local press came along to catch the fun.  All rather nerve-wracking for Mrs Lynas, but it went very well in the end and the children were great.  

You can listen to the show on demand and Rupert House is featured approximately 2 hours and 5 minutes into the Breakfast Show.

On Thursday 17th January, Year 1 took part in the RSPB’s Big Bird Watch. Children recorded lots of Red Kites, Wood Pigeons, Magpies, Crows and Black Headed gulls in addition to a small number of Robins, Collared Doves, Blue Tits and Chaffinches.

Year 4 welcomed Rabbi Zvi Solomons to school today to consolidate their learning on Judaism.  The Rabbi is a regular visitor to Rupert House and asked the girls some insightful questions about religion and spirituality in general. He was incredibly impressed by the girls’ mature and thoughtful questions about Jewish practices and customs. Year 4 enjoyed wearing and learning about the significance of some of the garments Jewish followers wear, as part of their faith.

On Tuesday 13th November, we were excited to welcome Team GB and Reading Hockey player, Jo Ellis, to officially open the school’s new all-weather astroturf pitch. Our Chair of Governors, Charles Lowe, accompanied by other governors, parents and children from local primary schools were invited along for the occasion. Jo Ellis spoke to the children before cutting the ribbon across the entrance to the pitch.
 
Jo has represented GB & England 87 times. She played in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as part of Team GB, she was European Bronze medalist in 2009 with England, part of the GB Hockey Centralised Programme from 2009-2011 at Bisham Abbey and she then captained the World Cup Masters Gold medalist team in 2018.
 
Twenty eight Year 4 pupils from both Nettlebed and Valley Road Schools then joined our Year 4 girls for a hockey masterclass held by Jo Ellis, accompanied by our own Olympic hockey internation, Ms Nicholson.  The children had a great time practising their dribbling, tackling, shooting and defending skills. They then had the chance to watch Jo in action as she demonstrated the different methods of shooting at the goal followed by a Q&A session and a delicious match tea.

Year 2 tested their creativity and resourcefulness this week by making authentic Victorian toys. They gathered materials from home and have followed well thought out plans to put them together. We’ve had doll houses, spinners, tea sets, a rocking horse and much more!
 
They also went on an adventure into the past, at Milestones Museum, where they went shopping in a Victorian shops, explored a Victorian train station and tried not to get the cane in school! The children really enjoyed seeing the real steam engines and machinery and imagining life as a Victorian!

The talent of the Lower School never ceases to amaze and they excelled themselves with a fantastic production on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  Despite the climbing temperatures in the hall the children were just super and remembered their lines and songs.  The play was written by Anne Wheeler and Susie Newman as we wanted to engage the children with the need to look after our planet and they certainly succeeded in that, as anyone who witnessed the final song ‘Earth We’re In It Together’ will testify.  Jennie Breen wrote some of the music.  Thank you to everyone for all their hard work  - you were just amazing. 

Alison Shawcross

At the end of a very busy week at Rupert House the children showed their PSB skills off beautifully in Rupert House’s Got Talent. Collaboration, independent working and presentation skills were seen in abundance. On the lawn, in the sunshine, there was singing, dancing, musicians playing, acting, gymnastics and comedy, an enthusiastic and attentive audience and a happy, encouraging panel of judges.

A huge congratulations to all the entries and to the student council for coming up with the idea, creating posters and sign-up sheets, helping to organise and judging in such a positive way. 

Choosing the winning acts was the final, incredibly difficult act for our student council this term. The winners were...

• Libbie White, Mia Rosai, Jemima Brewer, Hope Hawkins, Madeleine Tooley and Sophie Pendlebury, amused us all with the duck song.
• Darcey Hogan, Charlotte Lumlock, Ellie Dent and Tilly Heverin sang and told us a lovely story.
• The granny gymnastics from Freya Hillman, Mary Yan and Millie Cullen-Highway was very funny
• Leila Cranstoun, Malika Stubbs, Annabel Buff, Chloe Pendlebury and Molly Crichton sang and danced a super routine.

And a huge well done to all the other entries who practised and worked so hard on their acts. We all loved watching them.

On Saturday 12th May a group of brave Teachers and Assistant Teachers from Rupert House walked the 26.2 mile Moonwalk around London in aid of breast cancer research. The 'Rupert Ramblers', made up of Mrs Lynas, Mrs Burns, Mrs Lamb, Mrs Stirling and Mrs Newman, walked through the night raising a total of nearly £2000 between them. Mrs Newman said "we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and felt it was a big achievement. It was wonderful to support and encourage each other throughout what was a long night, and we developed a real camaraderie. It was hard work, but worth it knowing how much money we have raised for such a worthy cause. For both of these reasons it was very emotional crossing that finishing line. The organisation of the event was excellent and we were helped through the night by an army of cheery volunteer marshals. Would we do it again? Ask us when the aches and blisters have subsided!"