Frday 6 May 2022 - Week 3
RSM Website RGS Website
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Music forms an important part of a child’s educational experience. RSM was founded on a choral legacy in 1950 and from the beginning music has been weaved into the fabric of the school. We remain one of only 40 choir schools in the country and this tradition forms the foundations of the modern music curriculum we have today. Not only do the children have exciting timetabled music lessons every week, they also have many extracurricular choirs, ensembles and a peripatetic instrument programme to choose from.
It was a fantastic start to the week when, on Tuesday morning, a delighted Mrs May returned from the Reigate and Redhill Music Festival with a triumphant Lower School choir. They had won not only an Honours Certificate but also the winning trophy. The trophy was last awarded in 2019, and RSM won it then too, so it was lovely to bring it home again in 2022. Ben Castello the judge described the thirty singers as having given an 'expressive little performance and said that the pirate song was delivered with, 'plenty of nautical swagger.’ The intermediate choir also attained an Honours Certificate and were judged to have created a 'magical little journey,’ where ‘various characters and scenery had emerged vividly.’
Our children always step up to the occasion and it was lovely to hear these nuggets of positive feedback which confirm their outstanding motivation and creativity. I could not be more proud of them all! A huge thank you to Mrs Whitehead and all the performers for the hard work they have put in and also for the joy that is evident in their performances. We wish good luck to the Young Voices for their upcoming concert, to the clarinet quartet who are rehearsing diligently for their performance at the festival and, of course, to all the solo performers. There are also London Academy of Dramatic Arts reviews on Sunday so best wishes to everyone involved in this too. It is wonderful to see the performing arts back in full swing.
On Wednesday, the Year 5 and 6 toy sale proved once again to be a most popular initiative amongst the children and I am grateful to the team who organise and support it. On Thursday morning the Sports Hall was transformed into a lovely French style café for the Early Years Carers Breakfast. Mrs Selkirk and the Lower School team were delighted to welcome so many people to this lovely occasion. The smiles on everyone’s faces said it all!
Last weekend several of our children took part in the YMCA Fun Run in Priory Park. It is always lovely to see them enthusiastically taking part in community events and they can be very proud of challenging themselves to complete the course.
It was wonderful to be able to resume House Assemblies this week. It has been some time since we have been able to have these and it was evident that the children across the year groups enjoyed them immensely. So we can now say that we are fully back in earnest, grasping the opportunities to meet, talk and have fun with each other.
Have a lovely weekend.
Annette Wright
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Acceptable Use of Mobile Devices Policy for pupils
A number of smart watches which include cameras have been worn by children in to school. Such devices are not allowed in school for the safety and well-being of all and we would be grateful if they remain at home as per our Acceptable Use of Mobile Devices Policy for pupils. Thank you.
General Site Security
With the term well and truly underway and the electives programme in full swing, the gates to the school site are in constant use at the beginning and end of the school day. To ensure the safety of all the children at these times, below are a few security reminders:
- Do not give your children the gate code
- Check the gates are not left open inadvertently when you are entering or leaving the site.
- Ensure unaccompanied children do not follow you in or out of the gates.
Warm Weather
As the forecast is looking bright and sunny, please may we remind you to ensure that your child has a named sunhat and water bottle in school with them every day and also has had sun cream applied.
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Please note the following amendments to next week's printed calendar above:
The U9 Boys Cricket Fixture on 12 May has unfortunately now been cancelled.
The U10 Girls Cricket on 11 May will now be played at Reigate Priory CC.
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Virtual Year Group Updates
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We are renaming the Virtual Coffee sessions to Year Group Updates. All parents are encouraged to join as year group information is shared and discussed. Dates are as follows:
11 May 9.15am - Year 1 Parents
12 May 9.00am - Year 2 Parents
19 May 9.30am - Year 5 Parents
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We are currently advertising for the following posts at our schools;
If you know someone who may be interested in applying, please ask them to download the information from the relevant school website or contact Dawn on 01737 222231 or hr@reigategrammar.org.
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Summer Holiday Clubs
RSM and Camp Beaumont
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Dates for the diary - more details to follow shortly.
RSM Holiday clubs are now available to book via SchoolsBuddy.
RSM Early Years Holiday Club – 4 July to 26 August 2022
Weekly themes are as follows with an optional dress up day on Friday each week;
Week 1 (w/c 4 July) – Teddy Bears Picnic
Week 2 (w/c 11 July) – Dinosaurs
Week 3 (w/c 18 July) – Gruffalo
Week 4 (w/c 25 July) – Pirates
Week 5 (w/c 1 Aug) – Super Heroes
Week 6 (w/c 8 Aug) – Circus
Week 7 (w/c 15 Aug) – Mini beasts
Week 8 (w/c 22 Aug) – Seaside
RSM Holiday Club - 4 July to 22 July 2022
Camp Beaumont – 25 July to 26 August 2002
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For the very first time since before Lockdown the children from Reception to Year 6 were able to join a House Assembly with their peers and teachers. It was lovely to see all the children together outside, the older children thoroughly enjoyed helping the younger members. For many children it was their first opportunity to enjoy participating in activities with their House ‘family’.
Throughout the Summer term the children will have the opportunity to represent their House, collect valuable House and Music points, whilst working together within their team during Inter-House competitions. Something the Heads of House are very excited about!
Mr Williams, Mrs Rushby, Mr Alden and Mr Austin
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Eshan Finds Out About Lego Sustainability
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Eshan in Year 4 is passionate about two things - sustainability and LEGO. He was curious to find out how the worldwide LEGO business was managing its environmental impact and wrote to them to ask a number of questions about this. He was thrilled to receive the following interesting responses from their head office which we are delighted to share with you:
How is LEGO reducing its CO2 impact?
The LEGO Group has committed to a science-based CO2 reduction target. This means that we are committed to reducing our absolute carbon emissions by 37% by 2032 against a 2019 baseline - and we are hard at work to get there. Among other things, we continue to invest in sustainable materials research to reduce the carbon footprint of LEGO® products and work closely with our suppliers to help them reduce their impact. We also work to increase energy efficiency throughout our operations, expand the renewable energy capacity at our factory sites and design facilities to the highest environmental standards
Is LEGO using sustainable materials?
We have an ambition to make LEGO® elements from more sustainable sources by 2030 without compromising the quality and safety our products are known for. In 2018 we started making a range of botanical LEGO elements from sugarcane and in 2021 we announced our first LEGO brick prototype made from recycled plastic PET bottles. We are also hard at work to make all our packaging more sustainable by 2025.
What are your Zero waste goals?
By 2025, our ambition is to ensure no waste from any LEGO® factory, office, or store reaches landfill and we are on track to meet this target.
Fascinating. Well done Eshan!
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It’s just over two months until La Dolce Vita Ball! We’ve been busily working behind the scenes on the look, menu, music and will be revealing what you can expect over the next few weeks on our Instagram page. If you don’t already, please follow us:
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Ticket sales close at 8pm on Friday 20 May, so if you plan to join us in our Italian Piazza and dance the night away, Prosecco in hand, with your amici, book your tickets pronto!
To coincide with the Ball, we’re also running a brilliant raffle of hampers. Your form reps will be in contact to reveal the theme for your year group hamper and how they would like to administer this. To help, we will have collections for items at drop off and pickup on Friday 13 and 20 May. We’ll send more information about how to purchase tickets for the raffle after half term. Please donate as generously as you can. If we have fantastic hampers, we sell lots of tickets and this in turn benefits the whole school community.
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Early Years Carers Breakfast
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We were delighted to welcome all the Early Years carers that came to breakfast this week. It was lovely to see all the smiling faces and a great way to start the day!
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Well done to the U10 and U11 Girls cricket teams who had their first fixtures this week. The U11's recorded two wins against Aberdour with some great teamwork and support on display when both batting and fielding. The U10's played away at Rowan. The opposition took some great catches, and these proved costly and meant we scored less runs than them. Overall, our U10 A,B and C teams bowled well and are starting to communicate with more confidence when running between the stumps.
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We have had a brilliant first full week of cricket fixtures. The U8’s enjoyed their first experience of cricket matches on Tuesday afternoon against Caterham. The A’s batted and bowled superbly, winning their game comprehensively and the B’s enjoyed an incredibly close game, finishing in a draw. On Wednesday, the Colts teams travelled to Caterham and finished the afternoon with victories in all 4 matches. Congratulations again to Aarush in the Colts A team to achieved his second hattrick in successive weeks. A remarkable feat.
The U9 A and B teams put in an excellent display of batting and bowling against Caterham this week, winning their respective games quite comfortably.
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Year 3 have been enjoying their Forest School elective. They have been busy hammering to press wild flowers, fire-lighting, whittling and making potions! Well done Year 3!
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Festival
As Mrs Wright has already mentioned, our Lower School and Intermediate Choirs both delivered Honours winning performances at The Reigate and Redhill Music Festival on Tuesday with our Lower School Choir winning best in class and bringing home the trophy. Congratulations to all who took part and a special mention to our soloists Noealla K and Lucy C. Sofie M and Joshua T also had great success this week in the violin solo classes and are very pleased with their trophies. Our clarinet quartet will perform on Saturday and there are also lots of other pupils in individual classes over the coming weeks too, so the very best of luck to them – please keep us informed of the results!
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ABRSM exams
ABRSM exams will take place on Saturday 25 June and run throughout the day. For those children who learn an instrument in school and are ready to take an exam, Mrs Johnson has already been in touch with more details. There is a VERY limited amount of examining time remaining for those children who learn externally and would like to take their exam at school this session. Please contact Mrs Johnson via the School Office and we will try to help.
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Young Voices
Please see the email that was sent out regarding extra rehearsals. We are in the process of ticket distribution – please bear with us.
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Green Shoots
Drawing and Colouring
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This week Green Shoots children have enjoyed looking for minibeasts in the garden as well as drawing and colouring pictures of them too.
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Kindergarten
Mini-Beast Hunt
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The Kindergarten children were excited to go on a Minibeast Hunt on Wednesday afternoon! The children looked in the flowerbeds, wormery and under plant pots, using the magnifying glasses and minibeast word mats to support them to look for minibeasts and to identify them.
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Reception
Heroes and Heroines
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Reception have been enjoying the Supertato books as part of their Heroes and Heroines topic. We started with everyone creating their own Supertato complete with mask and cape. We then thought about what our Supertato might say and used this to help us write a speech bubble. Everyone was very inspired, made great models and did some excellent writing. Well done Reception!
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This week Year 1 enjoyed being palaeontologists for the day. They found lots of dinosaur bones in the digging area by carefully moving soil and rocks around. All of the children were excited by their finds.
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Year 2 have been continuing their work on recognising, naming and writing fractions. Today they have been working in pairs, practically matching number fractions to corresponding picture fractions.
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In science this week Year 3 have been investigating the amount of fat present in different foods. The children found out about the different types of fat and why having some fat is important in a diet. They then carried out the experiment carefully and were surprised at some of the results.
They have also been putting together this display showing some of their favourite books. The speech bubbles tell us why.
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A huge ‘well done’ must be given to the Year 5 team who organised the toy and game sale this week. The money raised is going to be divided between, Children in Need and The World Wildlife Fund.
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This week in Art, Year 6 have been focusing on the work of artists who create collections. Taking inspiration from the artwork explored, they ventured outside to gather a selection of natural materials. On returning to the Art Room, they then worked collaboratively to create their own collections, whereby they had arranged the pieces carefully and thoughtfully to form a wonderful array of compositions. Super artwork Year 6!
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SMaSH
SMaSH is the St Mary’s Social Hub, open to all parents and carers linked to RSM school. We currently run 3 clubs, all of which can be found via the search feature on ClassList. Join the groups to receive updates and to find out more.
Dog (or no dog!) Walking Club
We usually meet every fortnight on a Wednesday after drop off. We walk for around an hour and finish up with a coffee. Recent locations have included Gatton Park, Brockham castle and Betchworth. Please join ClassList for details of our walk next week. Everyone is welcome.
Book Club
Thanks to those who came to Book Club last week. The next book will be the Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery novel set in 1950s India, Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan.
We will meet after drop off at priory park cafe on the last day of half term, Friday 27 May.
Running Club
We meet twice a week on a Monday and a Wednesday after morning drop-off. We usually congregate in Priory Park (by the cafe) at 8.30am. If you’d like to run with us please join our ClassList group. It’s a fun, gentle run group - we usually do about 5km and there’s the option of a coffee afterwards.
If you need any other information or have a new idea for a club we would love to hear from you at Smashclubs@outlook.com
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