Headteacher’s Commendation

Congratulations to the following pupil, who obtained the award this week: Emilia Z in Year 5 for winning the award this week for her excellent and extensive

reading habit.

Well done!

Dear Parents, I find it hard to believe that Half Term is upon us already! I hope you will be glad of the extra day’s holiday this week, making the break feel longer but not too long a break in academic study for the children preparing for entrance exams. We were delighted this week to be visited by sev-eral of our Year 6 pupils from last year, resplendent in their new school uniforms and oozing con-fidence. They spent time with this year’s Year 6 and regaled them with stories of entrance ex-ams, first days at school and stressed the importance of keeping in touch with your old friends. It was lovely to see them - they are always welcome. Now that the weather seems finally to be turning to Autumn, we would like the children to re-turn after Half Term wearing their Winter uniform, please. It was good to see you all at Parents’ Evenings this week and the part-time staff were glad of the chance to put faces to names. We are always happy to meet with you to discuss your children’s progress. Year 6 gave us an excellent assembly on Thursday about their trip to Hooke Court. It was all their own work – lively , professional and very persuasive. Year 5 can hardly wait for their turn! I wish you all a very happy Half Term. Anne Dobell

Link Romania You will be receiving leaflets for this very worthwhile cause. Perhaps Half Term is a good time

to think about putting your box together. Thank you for your support.

Friday 21st October – Friday 28th October

inclusive

Half term

November

Monday 31st October Year 6 Extra Lessons begin. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of each week until Wednesday 23rd Novem-ber. Please remember to give your child an extra snack.

3.30—4.30pm

Tuesday 1st November Years 3 and 4 Football and Netball v Heathfield 2.00pm at home

Wednesday 2nd November

Individual Photographs and Siblings Photographs 8.40am

Thursday 3rd November

Year 5 Netball A and B Team v Kew Green Prep 2.00pm Away

Friday 4th November

Year 3 Cake Sale

Year 4 outing to Verulamium Museum Coach

leaves at 9.00am

Link Romania Shoeboxes to be delivered to school

Sunday 6th November

Year 5 and 6 Barnardo’s Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Please could Parents drop their Children at the Royal Albert Hall at 10.15am, the concert begins at 6.30pm and will be finished by 9.15pm. Packed lunch and tea and water bottles for the day to be carried in Kew Col-lege Rucksack.

10.15am

DIARY DATES

NOTICES

Reminder for Parents – School Photographs The school photographers will be in school after half term on Wednesday 2nd November 2011 to take individual and sibling photographs. Please ensure that your child is wearing smart winter uniform and a blazer. Thank you.

KCF DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES Kew College Friends would like to remind you of some upcoming dates for your calendar:

The Infant Disco will be held on Friday November 18, 2011 in the Sedum 3.00—4.30pm. The Junior Disco will be held on Saturday November 19, 2011 at the Barn Church Hall, At-wood Avenue, Kew 5.00—7.00pm.

Tickets will be on sale on November 9th, 10th and 11th - more details to follow after half term.

Songfest at the Wathen Hall, St. Paul’s School Songfest is a Scandinavian idea that Dr. June Keyte brought to England and these festivals of song have been organized by SATIPS (support and training in prep schools) for 10 years.

Kew College’s Year 4 were the first to arrive at this airy and spacious concert hall with a shiny Steinway Grand piano. Eleven other IAPS schools from the Southeast filled the auditorium and we began with warming up, getting our hearts beating more quickly and slightly out of breath. Lin Marsh, a composer, arranger and inspirational choir director, then taught a Christmas song with emphasis on the ability to communicate fully the meaning of the song by facial expression, tone, focusing eyes, so that everything we did looked totally convincing. Alexander L’estrange, also a composer and Jazz musician, then taught us several African songs, again with fun and ap-propriate actions, teaching us about singing ‘one up’ and ‘two up’ as is done in backing vocals. Lin Marsh continued with ‘O Lord, what a Morning’ and another of her compositions about Space travel. The final session was a concert with all the songs, rounds and performances of items from several schools, which included Year 4’s lovely performance of ‘Yellow and Orange and Brown’. The whole day was an exceptional and valuable opportunity to be to be completely im-mersed in music-making and meet other schools and share in their singing. Mrs Thompson Head of Music

On 17th October, the motion for the debate was ‘This house believes that the Pound should be replaced by the Euro.’ This motion was rejected by 13 votes to 3 with 1 abstention, reflecting the children’s strong be-

lief that the Pound represents British pride, history and tradition. Perhaps the most compelling

argument against the motion was the loss of British autonomy to Europe should we join the sin-

gle currency, forcing the British people to accept decisions that are not in the best interests of

the country. The most powerful arguments for the Euro stated the convenience of having a com-

mon European currency, as well as highlighting the potential dangers of Britain’s isolation.

The Tower of London After a long a tiring coach journey, we eventually arrived at the car park. Slowly, we get out of the coach and line up, we walked up some steps and crossed the road to the Tower of London. We all got our stickers, which said ‘Educational Visitor’. Like a crocodile we walked two by two to the park, where we sat and had our snack and waited for the guide to start our tour. After about 30 minutes, the guide arrived dressed in a costume. He asked us if we could help him stop Catherine of Aragon being beheaded because he was related to her. We walked down some steps and sat on some other steps and he started to talk about all the wives and where they came from and why they got beheaded. We discovered that they were mostly beheaded because they could not give birth to a boy and therefore and heir to the throne. Some of them he just didn’t like and one, Anne of Cleeves, because Henry compared her to a horse. We went to see a Beefeater near the Ravens, he told us facts about the Ravens. If all the Ravens flew away from the Tower of London, legend said that the White Tower would crumble down to a pile of rubble. After a long and inspirational morning, we went to have lunch back in the park. Everyone had a chance to talk and catch up. After everyone had finished their lunch, we went to go and see the Crown Jewels. A very nice gentleman let us through so we didn’t have to wait long in the queue! We saw lots of jewels on swords, sword cases, spoons and dresses then went into a different room and went onto a moving pavement and saw all the crowns. Some were big, some were small, especially Queen Victoria’s, which was tiny because her bigger one had too many jewels on it and it was too heavy to carry on her head! After we had seen all the jewels and crowns, we went to the White Tower. The White Tower had all the suits of armour. In the first room we saw a dragon which was made out of armour and guns, he was very big, had red lights in his eyes and looked magnificent! In the second room there were lots of inter-active games. The first game was answering questions with swords and axes, which was very confusing. The second game was not really a game, but a video, you put your head in a knight helmet and through the eye holes you could see a video. Unfortunately I could not see it because he was too tall and the small knight had a big queue! The third game was really hard, it involved pulling back on a rope as if you were trying to shoot an arrow and aiming for the best score. My result was “not far from target” so I nearly got it! On the last game there was a knob you had to turn and a button you had to press. On the screen there was a canon which, with the knob, you could change if it was shooting high or low. An army on the screen moved back a forth, and you had to try and hit them with the canon, which was very hard, but I did it! After all of that, everyone was very excited! We climbed some stairs and we onto the next floor. At the top were lots of suits of armour of varying sizes. We all had to get a piece of paper and a pencil and draw our favourite piece of armour. I drew the horses head armour. After climbing down the stairs, we slowly went towards the exit. We all got out of the White Tower and we to the Dungeons where if you shut the big gate, it would be airtight and no-body would be able to breathe so they would die – we didn’t want to stay for very long! After our fun packed day we all got on the coach feeling very tired and came back to school. I’ve been to the Tower of London before, but I learnt more things to-day, and we had a really great time! Thank you for taking us Kew College! By Olivia 5S

Congratulations to our Golden Sentence winners this week!

Year 2: Andrew H 2B

Year 5: Charles 5S

Jade 5S Emilia 5S

Matthew 5L Madeline M 5L

Jessica 5L

Year 3: Lauren B 3B

Ian D 3B Anya 3S

Year 4: Molly 4L

Charlie 4L Francine 4L Lauren 4F Camilla 4F

Celia 4F

Year 6: Beth

Arthur Georgina

Our trip to the Junior Road Safety Officer Annual Meeting It was an early start as we took a taxi into the middle of Twickenham for the Junior Road Safety Officer annual meeting. We excitedly hurried into the building and quickly met some interesting people. The aim of the JRSO is to keep people safe near the road or on the road, and to use envi-ronmentally friendly ways to get into school, such as walking, scooting or cycling. Throughout the morning we were taught by the Road Safety Officer for Richmond Council, and he talked to us about what we were going to do throughout the day, as well as instructing us how to make an interesting assembly. After a short break for brownies and drinks we split up into four groups. Ned was in the red group, and made amazing assembly on cycling, although a few people did forget their lines. Jade was in the blue group and made an equally interesting as-sembly about scooting safely, but the teacher ended up doing most of the talking! Finally, we all moved outside to have a picture taken for the local press with the Deputy Mayor of Richmond and the fantastic JRSO mascot, Debra the Zebra. After a long day we got goody bags that included notes of the day and some posters. Overall, the day was brilliant, it was a great ex-perience and we learnt a lot about safety on the roads. In the future we plan to make a notice board for the playground and present assemblies to the school. By Ned 5L and Jade 5S

Christmas pudding design winners Congratulations to the following children, who were awarded prizes for their excellent designs for Christmas puddings: Isabel R in Nursery, Olympia K in Year 3 and Victoria T in Year 5. Their designs were beautiful and will grace many puddings this Christmas. Well done! The chil-dren have each won a £10 book token. Please remember that the competition to design Christmas CARDS is still

open and we hope for many more of these after Half Term.