MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
NEWS FROM THE PREPARATORY DEPARTMENT OF MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
THE DECEMBER 2016 ISSUE: Welcoming our Reception class. Celebration and Awards Evening. A Dahlicious Dress Up Day. Our Happy Harvest. PLUS MUCH MORE...
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Whatd'se i ns i COVER STORY
Welcome to Reception class SEE PAGE 4
Harvest Special 6
Creativity 12
Green fingered girls Harvest festival
Learning in virtual reality Magnificent magnets Funny bones Wheelie work
Exploration 8 Year 2 at Chester Zoo A change in the seasons
Feature 10 Celebration and Awards Evening
The Arts 14 Dahlicious dress up day A sense of place
Sports & Health 16 Victorious cross-country team Dental health matters
Welcome A warm welcome to the latest edition of our Prep Talk magazine; a publication that we hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoy collating. This issue showcases some of the highlights of the autumn term 2016 here in the Preparatory Department of Manchester High School for Girls. This term started with an inspiring Celebration and Awards Evening at the Bridgewater Hall. Our Prep Choir performed beautifully with the choirs of the Senior School, a fitting chorus to the engaging and uplifting words of Guest of Honour, Emma Barnett. Emma is an awardwinning broadcaster and journalist and former pupil of MHSG. Emma’s illustrious career started at the age of eight when she joined our Prep Department and she described how her life ‘…started changing overnight’ after becoming part of a school community that celebrates learning and success. We do have high expectations of our girls at Manchester High and we are ambitious for them. However, this ambition sits within a community that also cheers them on to do their personal best. Feeling secure means that risks can be taken and the essential skills of contemporary life are developed before our girls move on to the next stage of their academic careers in the Senior School: resilience, intellectual curiosity, independence of thought and the ability to clearly articulate an opinion. Future success and the discovery of personal interests do indeed start young. This magazine demonstrates only a small selection of the myriad potential passion-sparkers that our Prep girls have had the opportunity to experience this term: from the social to the scientific; the artistic to the practical. Our girls are exploring and learning while developing those interests and skills that will see them into their secondary education and beyond. Happy reading! Mrs E C Nash Head of Preparatory Department
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Cover Story s Poppy Clas
Welcome to Reception class
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Cla Sunflower
Girls in the Reception class have enjoyed a fantastic start to their educational journey at Manchester High. They have been very busy getting to know their new friends and teachers, and finding their way around school. Mrs Anderson, Reception teacher and Assistant Head of Prep said: “We are so proud of our new Reception girls who have all settled into school really well. They have enjoyed some fantastic welly walks, baked some bread, learned about Elmer the Patchwork Elephant and thought about how they are all different and special just like him.” The girls have also been learning to read and write their first sounds and words; with all the buzzing activity it is no wonder why they are so tired at the end of the day!
Welcome to school, girls, we are delighted to have you!
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Harvest Festival Prep pupils put on a wonderful show for fellow students and their families as they marked the school’s annual Harvest Festival on 4th October. Parents came to watch their daughters’ performance and saw for themselves what a huge amount of food had been donated by everyone. Beneficiaries were the Fallowfield and Withington Foodbank and Platt Church, with all donations going to families in need. A huge thank you to the Prep community for the fantastic donations and for making the event such a success.
When I look up to the stars, there’s a burning deep inside me and I feel a power growing in my soul. There is something I can sense, deep within a dream to guide me, and I know that I am reaching for my goal.
Green fingered girls Our Prep girls showed off their green fingers by producing a bumper autumn harvest from the school garden. The budding horticulturists grew spinach, onions, beans, peas, pumpkins, squash, potatoes, chilies and a variety of herbs that Mr Titchmarsh himself would be proud of! As a result, the girls have been awarded a Rocket Gardens voucher for plants that will arrive every term throughout the year. In autumn, pupils will receive a variety of winter vegetables and in spring we’ll be planting cauliflowers, seed potatoes and lettuce. A collection of fruit bushes and strawberry plants have also been scheduled for the spring.
I can do anything at all, I can climb the highest mountain, I can feel the ocean calling wild and free. I can be anything I want, With this hope to drive me onward, If I can just believe in me. An extract from BELIEVE - Singup (Lin Marsh) The song the girls sang at the festival.
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Exploration Year 2 at Chester Zoo Girls in Year 2 enjoyed an exciting trip out to Chester Zoo recently to learn all about animals. In the morning, the girls attended a classroom activity where zoo rangers taught them about different life processes. After lunch, they explored the site and watched the animals. Everyone had lots of fun and the girls are all looking forward to finding out even more about animals this term.
MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
A change in the seasons Our Bluebell and Daffodil classes in Year 1 enjoyed going on an autumn walk around the school grounds as part of their science work in October. They had great fun looking for signs of autumn and playing in the fallen leaves. The girls noticed that trees were starting to look bare, flowers were dying and that all the leaves were turning wonderful shades of green, red, orange, yellow and brown. To their delight, the girls also saw squirrels playing outside the classrooms, albeit for the last few weeks this year, and found nuts they had hidden under the large beech tree.
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Feature
Emma Barnett cautions girls against the ‘cult of perfection’ at school awards evening. Manchester High School for Girls welcomed back former pupil, Emma Barnett, as Guest of Honour at its annual Celebration and Awards Evening on Monday 10th October at the Bridgewater Hall. The return of the award-winning journalist and broadcaster to her alma mater coincides with her recent takeover of the BBC 5Live morning show (Wednesday to Friday) which she presents from London and MediaCityUK.
Emma also regularly hosts Woman’s Hour and is the youngest presenter in the programme’s 70 year history. She writes a weekly column for the Sunday Times Magazine and is co-host of a weekly political debate programme on Sky News. Themed around ‘ambition’ the event celebrated the accomplishments of past and present pupils and saw the presentation of GCSE certificates and awards for achievement, effort and contribution to the life of the school community. As part of her key note speech, Emma Barnett reflected on her own time at Manchester High, speaking about the realities of life post-school and how dangerous the ‘cult of perfection’ can be to female ambitions. She recalled, “I did well in my GCSE’s, securing a string of A*s and As. My parents were thrilled but I distinctly remember telling them, and most importantly believing, that ‘…it just isn’t good enough’. I was comparing myself to girls who had achieved straight A*s across the board and I was disappointed in myself. Sometimes, as girls and women, we need to accept that on most days ‘good’, and not perfect, is plenty good enough.”
Mrs Hewitt, Head Mistress of Manchester High School for Girls, commented: “When we discussed this year’s theme we debated whether we should go with the title of ‘aspiration’ or ‘ambition’. After all, there is the perception that ambition is often a harsh and ugly trait in females. “However, to shy away from a theme of ‘ambition’ would be to do our girls a gross disservice. At MHSG there is nothing embarrassing about working hard or being good at something. We are committed to ensuring that none of our girls ever feel shy about admitting their desire to get on in life and succeed. Instead of associating ambition with calculating, ruthless behaviour, we view our ambitious girls as having courage, heart and conviction.” The evening also celebrated the achievements of the school’s recent A-level cohort whose examination results gave MHSG the highest percentage of A* to B grades across the North West in The Times newspaper rankings. Ceferina Penny from Didsbury, winner of the school’s Warburton music competition which has been in existence since 1935, performed ‘Adieu de l’hôtesse arabe’ by Bizet and the audience also enjoyed renditions from the school orchestra and choirs from both the Preparatory Department and Senior School.
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Funny bones This term our Year 3 classrooms have looked more like a Halloween party; girls have been busy creating their own skeletons as part of our Science lessons.
Learning in virtual reality
Working in groups, pupils have learned about the bones in the body and their various functions. Some superb skeletons were created that we bet some of our older students wouldn’t be ashamed to use in Biology lessons!
Girls in Year 5 have had a fascinating start to the year by discovering a new and exciting digital resource, IntoScience. The resource enables pupils to engage in a 3D world of science with virtual experiments and digitally simulated real-world environments. Sasha explained: “The website is fabulous; we can track wild animals in the Biodome, be a homewares designer or fix a monorail! We all look forward to Thursdays when we can enter the wonderful world of IntoScience from our very own classrooms.” Camille added: “Some of the activities also include talking
to Lawrence the Robot (he is great fun) and learning new and interesting facts. We love learning with IntoScience!”
Wheelie work Magnificent magnets Budding scientists in Year 1 have been investigating magnetic and non-magnetic properties of various items in the classroom. The girls explored the rooms using their magnets to find out which things were attracted to them. To their great surprise, the girls discovered that not all coins have magnetic properties!
Engineers of the future designed their own vehicles as part of a Design and Technology project. Our Year 2 pupils began their Design and Technology week by learning about fixed and free axles. They then drew pictures and collected photographs and models to help them with their designs. Using boxes, wood, dowelling and wheels, the girls produced some amazing creations. Each pupil evaluated their final product by looking back at the original design and were all proud of the finished article.
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Dahlicious Dress Up Day
The event was organised in support of Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity. There were Twits, Matildas, Willy Wonkas and a range of other wonderful creatures from all of Roald Dahl’s books. Some of the highlights included joining the Virtually Live Roald Dahl Show online with hundreds of other schools. The girls watched a performance from the cast of Matilda the Musical, illustrated alongside Quentin Blake and went behind the scenes of The BFG.
A big thank you to everyone for their support with costumes and donations!
“A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.” Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Roald Dahl
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A sense of place Budding artists from Year 6 made the most of the beautiful weather recently by spending time outside to sketch the school grounds as part of their ‘Sense of Place’ art project.
On 13th September, our Prep girls skipped to school with additional excitement as they had transformed themselves into Roald Dahl characters for a Dahlicious Dress Up Day.
The girls raised a fantastic £174.88 for the charity, which exists to make life better for seriously ill children and young people around the UK.
MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
They studied plants in the rose garden as well as the architecture of the school and nearby buildings using perspective and shading to show the distances, shadows and shapes. The girls loved working in the sunshine and taking the time to really study their beautiful surroundings.
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Sport & Health
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Victorious cross-country team On an unusually hot September day, Milla, Hannah, Coco, Jemima, Pako, Maddie, Matilda, Emilia, Caitlin and Natasha took part in the South Manchester Primary Schools’ cross-country meeting in Wythenshawe Park. Coco said:
“We would like to thank Miss Floyd and Miss Diamond for coming with us and cheering us to victory. We were surprised but really happy to win the first race and cannot wait to compete in the finals!”
The team was a little nervous on arrival but any anxiety soon disappeared as the girls began to race. Securing first place, Manchester High’s Prep cross-country team has now qualified for the finals which will be held at school later this year.
Dental health matters Girls in Year 4 enjoyed an exciting afternoon recently when a dentistry teacher from the University of Central Lancashire, Mr Smith, visited Prep to talk about dental health. Mr Smith brought four of his students along to teach the girls about teeth and their different functions. The team also talked to the girls about the foods that are good and bad for your teeth. To everyone’s amusement, puppet Ralf also came along and showed them the best way to clean teeth! Meanwhile, Minaal and India got to try out what it feels like to dress up as a dentist.
Manchester High School for Girls Grangethorpe Road, Manchester, M14 6HS. T 0161 224 0447 F 0161 224 6192 E
[email protected] www.manchesterhigh.co.uk
