We have enjoyed two very strongly supported Open Mornings for Prospective Parents in the last week. Demand is very strong and I am particularly grateful to our Year Eight Ambassadors for their excellent efforts in showing our guests around.

This week we have welcomed Mrs. Norma Rowlerson,  [pictured right] authoress and travel writer, into school. She enthralled the boys with her exploits that led to her entry in the Guinness Book of Records as  the first woman  to ski in all continents.

On Wednesday we welcomed Mr. William Rees to school. Mr Rees is the Tutor for Admissions at Eton School. There is a growing interest from our parents in Eton as a possible destination school and it was great to have many questions answered about Etonian entry procedures.

Finally, after the Government debacle this Summer over the marking of Key Stage tests at 7 and 11, we have decided to abandon this method of assessment. We have decided that our own assessment methods are far more reliable and efficient. 

Kind regards, as always

Thanks to my Year 8 Ambassadors for their tour guiding skills on our own Open Morning last week. Year 7 have enjoyed a History visit to the National Archives and are involved in the Merchant Taylors’ Maths Challenge and an Organ demonstration today. Years 7&8 have a dedicated Study Skills Day on Monday to help with learning, memory and revision techniques for their school exams. School revision packs will be available at Target Setting on Friday, 24th October as usual.

Congratulations to Alistair MacLean (7B) who was third in his age group in the Moor Park charity run recently and to Julian Man (7W), Rishav Shah (7B) and Teshan Wijesuriya (7W) who are the first boys in Key Stage 3 to receive their Silver Awards for 50 house points.

A reminder to pupils and families that next Friday is a MUFTI and Cake Sale day. 

The sheets are now proudly on display in Junior School and it is one of the many displays that parents will be able to view when they visit us for the Parents’ Consultations on 22nd -23rd October. Recent events in JS have included the Drama Workshops (as photographed), this time based on the theme of ‘The  Circus’, and a visit from John Harris, the  storyteller. Junior School boys should have re-told one of John’s stories to their parents when they got time, so passing on the great tradition of  storytelling. We have welcomed   volunteer parent-storytellers this week and our thanks go to the mums of Aemya Dabral, Jaimin Sheth, Harshu Vyas, Henry Wareing, Elliot Craft, Kyle Shah, Daniel Rowlands, Toby Michaels, Anish Morjaria, Aman Thakkar, Ted Melville, Freddie Broomhead, Nikhil-Manav Varodaria, Patrick O’Sullivan, Eashan Kapoor, Alexander Saunders, Devan Sheth and Christopher Gardner. Boys in Year 2 are looking forward to visiting the National Archives at Kew next week and details of their day will be included in the next newsletter.

This time we congratulate
Samay Unadkat Y4
Y8 Ambassadors
Rishil Kota Y7

This time we congratulate
Luke Esson Y6
Jake Keisner Y5
All of Y3B

Here is a flow chart showing the pathway of enquiry in Senior School. Parents requesting to see staff before or after school are respectfully requested to check availability via the School Office prior to the event and not to proceed directly into main School or playground – we have to follow stringent rules regarding access to pupils. Messages can also be conveyed via letter, email or the Personal Organiser.

In July Roman Mitra (5T), Kavan Kothari (6F) and Rohan Pau (4E) competed in the Chess Gigafinal at Wellington College. All played well and Roman qualified for the Terrafinal-Challengers where he won the best U9 and U11 title and prize money of £75! Roman also competed along with Tarun Malhotra in the British Chess Championship in Liverpool. Roman won 3.5 games out of 7 and Tarun 4 out of 7.  Roman has continued with his chess success this term by winning  an U10 tournament in Enfield and a good performance trophy in a Barnet Knights tournament. Last weekend two Northwood Prep U10 chess teams competed in the Caldicott Chess Trophy against Caldicott, Colet Court, Magdalen College, Ridgeway, Westminster and Yateley Manor. Both the A team comprising Tarun Malhotra, Roman Mitra, Alexander  Mellis (5T) and Nikil Shah (5J), and the B team of Thomas Goulde (5J), Adam Lalani (5T), Jai Thakrar (5J) and Hao-Lam Chan (5J) played well. The A team finished an     excellent 2nd place. Thanks to Miss Bangert for being at Caldicott with the boys.

First of all the boys learned a little about the history and purpose of the National Archive and discovered a few facts. The National Archive has 100 miles of shelving in its five giant storerooms. On these shelves are stored 10 million cardboard boxes and over 100 million documents are stored in them. The oldest document in the collection is over 1000 years old! Anybody over the age of fourteen living in this country can visit the Archive and request to look at particular documents.

There were five documents which we got to research. Before this we did a practice exercise about a suffragette (women who fought for the right for women to get the vote), we found out about her and then in our  groups went off to do five other document investigation, these included documents on: The Coronation of Henry the Eighth, A census return from1880, a World War 2 propaganda poster, a Map of London dating from 1667 (the year after the Great Fire of London) and a nineteenth century Prison record book. At the end of the workshop each group of boys had to give a presentation about what they had learned about these documents.
It was a very enjoyable trip and we can’t wait to go again next year.

The squad of 15 played with good spirit throughout the tournament and with increased confidence and teamwork in the last two games. Northwood showed true potential in just missing out to Gayhurst the eventual winners by only one try. Northwood went on to beat Thorpe House in their last match by the only score. This followed some outstanding defence by the team and some exciting running. Strong performances in particular by Neel Bhalla and Gus Machado are of mention throughout the tournament.

The boys had great fun learning how to warm up their bodies and focus their minds before exploring how  to care for the masks, the discipline of mask work and a variety of performance techniques. The Drama department has also invested in sixteen different character masks which the boys will experiment with this term towards a final presentation in assembly. We would also appreciate the donation of any unwanted hats, scarves and wigs to support the Year 5 mask work, which can be given to Mr Hinton at the theatre.

We split up into groups and had a handling session and had a look around the museum. In the handling session, we looked at real artifacts and replicas (copies). On one table they had roof tiles and floor tiles which were really heavy! On another table they had things from the kitchen like pots, plates and a frying pan with a folding handle (easy to carry around) which is a really clever idea! In the museum we saw the Roman coins and learnt about Boudicca’s revolt, the theatre and trading.

After lunch we went to go and have a look at the Roman wall which was 7 meters high and 3.6 km long. We were shown a theatre which could  sit hundreds of people but we could not sit there as it was too grassy. We were taken to go and have a look at a Roman bathroom which had heated floors and walls. Wooden clogs had to be worn in the bathroom as the hot floor would burn the soles of your feet! Everyone had enjoyed this visit and I am sure no one will forget it for a long time to come.

We urgently require current NP branded uniform for our next Sale to go ahead on Wednesday, 22nd October. Only your best items (clean and labelled) will be accepted into the School Office from the Monday beforehand. Please click on the link for more details http://www.northwoodprep.co.uk/pa_uniform.html