General (115)
We thoroughly enjoyed Larch class assembly on Friday. The children shared what they have been learning about Victorians and showed us some wonderful artwork and performed their assembly songs for Pre-Prep and their parents. Well done Larch Class.
Pre-Prep had a fantastic day and it was wonderful to see the children in their lovely costumes. Throughout the day the children were transported to Venice for carnival, Wales, France and Great Britain. They created beautiful Venetian masks ready to become incognito during the carnival. In Wales they celebrated their national flower and created lovely daffodils. In France they became engineers to rescue The Eiffel Tower and help build it strong and tall. In Great Britain they created something special to celebrate The Queen's Platinum Jubilee which will soon be available for you to view in our exciting project. We were so proud of the children, and it was a wonderful way to celebrate all of our cultural heritage which comes together in our Grove Family.
Mrs Collins
Pupils in each house in Prep rotated around 4 activities run by the staff from each house. The Arden staff ran an activity celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. After learning about the Queen and her life in the Royal Family, pupils created their own images to celebrate her reign. The results will be available for parents to see in the near future.
Mr Wakley
We had a great time on House Day celebrating some traditions from English culture. We started off by looking at recipe for a traditional scone and mixing up the base, we then cut them out and sent them to the school kitchen where Hayley kindly cooked them for us. We followed this up with learning about a traditional English tea and by choosing to eat our scone with either clotted cream, jam, or both! They were delicious! We then made some cups of traditional English tea in a tea pot and sampled it with milk and sugar. After all this eating and drinking we went outside to practise the traditional English game of ‘cats cradle’. This is a game played using a piece of string, the object is to pass it between yourself and your partner, it is quite tricky and requires lots of patience! It has been lovely to see in the following weeks some children practising this game during their break times!
Mrs Carlin
Our achievement assemblies take place once a month, for the whole school, at the end of each month during term time.We start the assembly with our Foundation and Pre-prep class awards where two children from each class are awarded a Class Award either for exceptional effort with something or an outstanding piece of work. We then award any children in Pre-prep with their Star Awards for anyone who has achieved 25, 60 or 100 stars this term. Well done to all the children for this months awards.Next we handed out the MK Festival certificates and and medals for the Drama festival the previous week with a total of 43 certificates and 11 medals awarded!These were followed by some Swimming medals for Frederick Lancaster and Alice Alder who took part in the Oxon and North Bucks County Championships in January.We then awarded the Acacia and Pine (Year 6) science prizes which went to Lily Gibbin, Aaryan-Krsh Sagar, Emily Foster and Tabitha Simpkins, we will tell you more about their projects next week.The U11 boys hockey team then received their medals and trophy for their 1st place in the shield tournament in the ISA national hockey tournament earlier in the month. Each month Credit certificates are awarded to anyone in Prep who has achieved 25, 60 or 100 credits. Congratulations to Aron Sonander who received his 25 credits in February the first Prep pupil to reach 25 this term. For pieces of work above a credit level we award a Commendation which are for exceptional pieces of work. Well done to Sophie Hartley-Wiley for your Commendation for your Spanish work, a fantastic achievement. We finish the assembly by awarding the credit badges for each house which go to the pupils in Junior, Mid and Senior prep with the most credits for that month, they keep the badge for the whole month. Well done to George Payton, Aron Sonander, Sophie Hartley-Wiley, Ipsa Rachaik, Alexander Pearce, Oyin Omotosho, Kacie Padhiar, Patrick Kingsman Shreyan Kothari and Anirudh Balaji for winning the badges this month.We finish our assembly with our own birthday song for all the pupils and staff with birthdays in February.Well done to all the children who received something this month and we look forward to seeing what you can achieve in March!
On Friday morning Rowan Class shared their class assembly with Foundation, Pre-Prep and parents. It was a wonderful assembly and we enjoyed learning about the continents, hearing the children sing their songs and seeing your fantastic artwork. Well done Rowan Class. Here are a few photos and one of the songs from the assembly.
This February pupils across all ages at The Grove shared a variety of performances with us and their parents at our latest Lunchtime Concert. We had some gripping speech and drama, wonderful guitar pieces and some fantastic piano playing. Well done to all our performers keep practicing and we look forward to seeing you at the next Lunchtime Concert.
Cedar class shared their assembly with us on Friday. During the assembly they showed us their World War II model Anderson Shelters and talked to us about what they have been learning. They also acted out a scene from within the on-stage Anderson Shelter. Here are some photos from the assembly and two of the songs which the children sung for Pre-Prep, Foundation and their parents during the assembly. Well done Cedar.
Song from assembly:
Song from assembly:
The first concert of the New Year was short but sweet!
Layla began proceedings with a piece by Bartok that lived up to its name beautifully. The ‘Dialogue’ between left and right hand sounded mysterious in its minor key, Layla played it with great clarity. Nathaniel and Anoushka treated us to ‘Sock Song’, their speech and drama poem. They gave a clear and confident performance, working together well.
Onyinyeomachi, another one of our speech and drama experts, performed her poem ‘I tried to do my homework’ with an amusing and up to date list of excuses including links to videos of dancing cats etc. What a lot of words to learn! Onyinyeomachi definitely did her homework for this concert!
Isabel played ‘Firefly’ with lots of confidence. She showed off the big bold arpeggios you can play on the piano with both hands working in co-ordination. Well-done Isabel.
Chikamso had us giggling away at her poem ‘Falling asleep in class’ and then right at the end, after much slobbering and dribbling, she turned out to be the teacher! Hilarious! Calvin was very happy to share his speech and drama poem ‘My hat’ with us and especially his dad. He’d learnt it beautifully.
Our two woodwind players Timothy and Giovanna howed off their great articulation. Timothy’s clarinet piece, ‘Apple Pie and Custard and I Like Chocolate Milkshake’ was tastily performed, with some very smart rhythm and tonguing. Giovanna’s ‘Tiptoe and Tango’ was exactly what it said on the tin; tiptoe-ing in the higher register and tango-ing slinkily down in the lower. Well-done guys.
Greer impressed us all with her ability to remember ‘Harry’s choosing of the wand’ scene. Mr Ollivander would have been impressed too, Greer. Oluwadamilola shared her beautiful poem ‘The Moon’ with us. It was very atmospheric and made me want to own a book with that poem in so I can read it myself. Two budding poets; Isabelle and Ipsa entranced us too. Isabelle’s poem was the wonderful ‘Dogs are great’ that she read with pride. Ipsa’s poem ‘Mysterious Unicorn’ was beautiful too and very inspiring!
Tabitha played us a great piece on her cello. Technically it was all about using her first finger and string crossing at the same time and called ‘So There!’ We all loved her big brave bowing sound. Nicole was the last pianist of the day. She played us ‘Train Ride’ with some brilliant dynamics; her quiets were extra quiet and her louds extra loud, so her performance was full of interest just like the concert as a whole.
Keep practicing!
Mrs Hodges
Birch class shared their assembly on Friday 21st January 2022 with Pre-Prep, Foundation and their parents in the audience. The children shared some of their work with us during the assembly and sung two songs. An extract from one of the songs is below with a few photos.
Monday: Please arrive by 8:30am to enable us to depart on time. We will be traveling to Caythorpe Court in Grantham for Travel Week 2021. We will make a short toilet stop on the way and have our lunch in the grounds at the centre.
Update: We have had a great week so far, lots of exciting activities and perfect weather. Today (Thursday) is our last full day of activities and tonight we will have a campfire together. It has been more challenging than usual to get the photos online (and update this page) but most of Tuesday should now be online and I will aim to get some of Wednesday morning online at lunchtime today.
Photos: During Travel Week we aim to upload as many photos as possible, a selection of photos will be uploaded here, the rest will be uploaded to our gallery website. If you require a password reset, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if the data connection is reliable enough we will also upload occasional photos to Facebook and Twitter. The group photos will be taken and published when we arrive and re-taken for any children who are arriving later in the week.
http://www.groveindependentschool.co.uk/index.php/lvac/itemlist/category/6-general?start=14#sigProId58996e367e
We had our September 2020 Achievement assembly on Wednesday 30th September. The children were able to watch the assembly live in each classroom with their form teachers handing out certificates and awards whilst Mrs Berkin (Principal) delivered the assembly from her usual spot in our school hall. Mrs Hodges was on hand with the piano ready for the monthly birthday song which was broadcast to the rooms at the end of the assembly.
More...
Foundation
Pre-Prep
Prep
Yew & Aspen Attend Orchestral Day at Uppingham School
Written by JCRandall
Our Yew and Aspen pupils have been learning to play brass instruments in their music lessons since September. Their progress has been so good that we were able to take them to the Orchestra day at Uppingham school just before half term. We also took a number of other orchestral musicians from other year groups.
The day included sectional rehearsals in the morning and a full rehearsal in the afternoon. A number of other prep schools were invited, and the full orchestra comprised nearly 300 musicians. The theme of the day was ‘Out Of This World’ and the Head of Music at Uppingham selected a number of pieces on the theme of space.
At the end of the day there was a concert for parents and teachers, it was lovely that a number of our parents were able to make the journey to attend. The concert started with Also Sprach Zarathrustra (Richard Strauss’ piece used as the them for the iconic film 2001 a Space Odyssey). This was followed by the strings playing Fly Me To The Moon and a medley from the Planets Suite. The wind and brass then played Fanfare For The Third Planet and The Forge of Vulcan. The concert concluded with the whole orchestra playing a very challenging arrangement of melodies from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The pupils worked very hard and focused through long and challenging rehearsals. The brass players are hoping to be able to perform a little closer to home in the near future.
Thanks to Mrs Lawrence, Mrs Hodges and Henry Berkin who supported the pupils throughout the day.
Mr Wakley
The year eight group went out today to complete the first section of their fieldwork investigation, for their common entrance project. The students went to Oldbrook, in Milton Keynes. They are also going to complete a self-led investigation in their own street with their parents, over half term to give them an opportunity to compare areas. This fieldwork links to their current unit of work, that looks at: House design; environmental quality; crime statistics and perception of place.
The students carried out a range of surveys in the area and were also fortunate to meet a local councillor who told them about transport around the borough. The students had the opportunity to visit a range of different areas and enjoyed looking at the difference between them. They are now going to be writing up their first of many projects to help them as they progress into secondary school next year.
Mr Thorne
