Dear parents and guardians,
Although the mornings remain dark I am very thankful that, at the point of writing, we are all enjoying 34 minutes of extra daylight at the end of our day compared to the start of term. Now we need the rain to stop and the clouds to part for long enough to enjoy it!
At the start of the year I introduced our learning habits which are shared amongst all at Rosedale House and Madingley. These are: collaboration, creativity, curiosity, resilience, responsibility and tolerance. Our focus for this half term has been creativity, this is not an attribute that comes naturally to all but our learning spaces inspire creativity and our teachers ensure that the challenges and tasks that your children face on a day-to-day basis help to develop a creative disposition. To see this creativity in full flow (quite literally on some occasions!) look no further than our Twitter feed @SPFRosedaleHse. Here you will find a weekly insight into the goings on during our school day.
Creativity flows beyond the classroom too and I am pleased to include a number of news reports from various activities and experiences that your children have taken part in this term.
Our InspireMe programme goes from strength to strength. Our pupils have turned up in droves to continue their love of listening to guest speakers deliver to a room full of interested Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils. It goes to show how connected our pupils are to the world around them. The naivety of being a child in the 80s with the ambition of being a footballer or perhaps doing something on ‘telly’ does not echo the ambitions of our learners, I hang my head in shame! They have a genuine interest in finding out more. If you would like to feed their interests then please do contact rgw@stephenperse.com to express your availability.
Recently, our pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 were treated to a fascinating lunchtime InspireMe talk by Dr Meritxell Nus from the Cambridge Cardiovascular research centre at Cambridge University. Dr Nus spoke about her research into cardiovascular disease. The specific focus of her work is on the interaction of diet and the immune system in the formation of plaques in the arteries, which ultimately lead to heart attacks and strokes.
This was a unique opportunity for our pupils to gain an insight into the real world of scientific research, with some cutting-edge research presented in an imaginative and accessible way.
After listening with great interest to Dr Nus’s presentation, our pupils were then treated to some interactive activities, including crawling through a model artery, meeting some cuddly ‘blood cells’ and applying their mathematical skills to analyse the area of plaque build-up on actual microscope images of arteries.
We are very grateful to Dr Nus and her colleagues for taking the time to come out and deliver such a stimulating session, which has helped to inspire some doctors and medical scientists of the future! Reports on some of the other talks that have taken place can be enjoyed on our news page: https://junior.stephenperse.com/news/?pid=505&nid=34
Year One celebrated their new topic 'People Who Help Us' with a 'dress up' launch day. Children came to school dressed as doctors, firefighters, chefs, police officers and lawyers and discussed their roles in our community. Year 1 Madingley decided to make their own community. They created an ideas 'popplet' with all the buildings and services they wanted in their town. Their town is evolving everyday, with a new mosque and a 'Flamenco' dance school planned. Do pop in and visit Madingley's town. Year one Rosedale House have enjoyed having parents in talking about how they help people as part of their jobs. So far they have learned how an emergency doctor, dentist and artificial intelligence programmer help people. They are also looking forward to having a geneticist, police officer, Amey Cespa representative (who collect our waste) and more doctors coming in to speak to them!
As part of their ‘Thinking Detectives’ theme, Year 4 set off on a treasure hunt around the local museums. The day began by reading about the quest in the interactive book, ‘Hidden Tales’ by Mark Wells. We discovered that we had to free a secret world by unlocking the seven portals around the city and breaking the Keeper’s power. Equipped with the key skills in our SPF thinking toolkit, we headed off to the first portal - The Fitzwilliam Museum. We had to use our enquiry skills to interpret the clues in the museum. A lot of time was spent in the Egyptian gallery, trying to crack the code that accompanied the clues. In each portal we also had to work out which character was trapped there along with their special object. After reading the next chapter in the adventure, we headed off to the second portal, The Whipple Museum. There we explored a weird and wonderful selection of clues, from sets of teeth to astrolabes. Our third and final stop was the Sedgwick Museum where we met some frightening creatures, such as the ‘counterbalanced terrible claw’. Over the next few weeks, we will be spending time back at school discussing the clues and codes as well as drawing all our conclusions together. We have now handed completion of the quest over to Y4 pupils and their families - will anyone visit the other 4 portals and solve the entire quest?
As we approach the end of this half-term I would like to draw your attention to a number of key events...the creativity keeps on coming!
Year 5 and 6 have their Performers Platform at Rosedale House. Our Year 1 and 2 children from Rosedale House and Madingley will be performing their production ‘The Bee Musical’ on 14 February at the Senior School - they hope to see as many of their parents there as possible.
With best wishes
David Hewlett
Head of Rosedale House and Madingley
