Newsletters

Buddies 

Today our children were paired up with another child/ren as their buddy for the rest of the school year. It is a wonderful opportunity for our elder children to mentor their younger peers.

Dates and Reminders

Bank Holiday Monday - School closure

Please sign the user agreement form for computing and send it back to school and photo permission form for all new starters.

Tuesday 20th September 5pm - Welcome meeting for Years 4, 5 and 6. 

Tuesday 20th September 5:45pm - Protecting your child online with Mrs Rafferty. All parents and carers from all years welcome.

Instrumental Music lessons – September 2022

Instrumental lessons are timetabled during class music lessons, lunchtimes and after school only for half hour. Please note, pupils will not be charged for homework club if waiting for music lessons and receive a drink and snack at the end of the school day.

If you would like your son or daughter to have instrumental lessons please complete and return the Instrumental lesson letter that can be found on the parentportal section of the school website. Please return the letter to reception electronically or print off and send into school

At St Bernard’s Prep the music department have teachers for the following instruments:

Recorder >>> Flute - Year 2 – 6

Recorder >>> Clarinet - Year 2 – 6

Violin - Year 1 – 6    

Drum kit - Year 2 – 6

Classical guitar - Year 3 – 6

Electric guitar - Year 5 – 6

Saxophone - Year 5 - 6

Piano - Year 1 – 6  

Celebrating Success

Thank you to all our families who sent in their child's achievements from over the summer. We plan to publish a newsletter celebrating these achievements next week, so do let us know if your child has received any awards so that we can include them. 

National Handwriting award

Handwriting is part of every day school life at St Bernard's Prep. We are often complimented on our children's immaculate books by visitors.  Every year, we enter our children in to the prestigious SATIPS National Handwriting Competition. The children work very hard on perfecting their entries, and I am delighted to announce that after achieving the overall second place school award last year, this year we have been crowned the joint winners!

In addition to being the overall winners, we also achieved 5 individual pupil awards in their age categories! These awards are testament to how hard the children work to develop an extremely high standard of both cursive and Italic style handwriting. We are so proud of their dedication to learning and their fantastic achievement! 

Mrs Weait, Handwriting Coordinator

 

National Schools’ Comp Joint Winner 

2022	Aahva S 1st – Class B – Age 7-8	Year 4
2022	Dhaani A 2nd – Class B – Age 7-8	Year 4
2022	Ayesha A 2nd – Class C – Age 9-10	Year 4
2022	Sahas T 1st – Class D – Age 11, 12 & 13	Year 6
2022	Arush G 2nd – Class D – Age 11, 12 & 13	Year 6

Sahas and Arush have now moved onto their secondary schools, but their handwriting legacy lives on.

Key Stage 2 SATS

Every year we enter our children into the national assessments for KS1 and KS2, SATS. As an independent school we are not obliged to do these tests, but I feel it provides our parents with a good benchmark for comparison. We are very proud of our standard of teaching and the SATS are a true refection of the children's level of learning. It also provides very useful data for the secondary schools, whether that be a grammar, independent or non-selective school. 

For the last two years these exams have been suspended, due to Covid, but we have continued to do our own in-house SATS assessments with past papers. This summer was the first time since 2019 that we have had these exams marked externally and I am delighted to share with you a fantastic set of results.

Our old Year 6s may have flown the St Bernard's nest, but we would like to extend our congratulations to them, and their teachers, their new secondary schools are lucky to have them!

100% reached expected standard in Maths.
100% reached expected standard in SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar).
97% reached expected standard in Reading.

We also had a significant number of children working at Greater Depth:

86% working at Greater Depth in SPAG.
75% working at Greater Depth in Maths.
61% working at Greater Depth in Reading.

Music successes

Hailee Yr 6 Piano Grade 8 with distinction

Tulisi  Yr 5   Piano prep test

Isabella  Yr 5  Piano Grade 1 with merit 

Shaan Yr 5 Piano Grade 1 with merit

Nainikka  Yr 5  Music theory Grade 3 with distinction

Congratulations to all pupils who passed music exams over the summer break. Please let the school know of pupils that have taken music exams on any instrument so we can celebrate their achievements.

Design & Technology

The children in Transition (Year 4) have designed a light box for their bedroom. They made an electrical circuit with a switch.

National Teaching Assistant Day

Our school community is greater than the sum of all its parts, but without each and every person we couldn't do what we do. On National TA Day, a huge thank you to all our Teaching Assistants who work tirelessly to support our children and teachers. 

Boomwhackers!

Upper Prep (Year 2) performed a wonderful rendition of London's Burning in class this week on the boomwhackers. We are enjoying learning about the history of this fire and the children did a great job of learning and performing the tune. Well done!