From the Head

From the Head of Pre-Prep

Dear Parents,

This week I have been hearing the sounds of singing along the corridor as the children start to rehearse for our Nativities. Already favourite melodies are emerging and I was treated to a couple of year group performances alongside our Governor Adam Scarff on Thursday.

Mrs Smith and the Hive Team have been busy utilising our cardboard boxes and have made some enormous Christmas decorations. The nutcracker is particularly impressive and I am hoping Mrs Smith will let us have him adorning the Pre-Prep Hall.

A big thank you goes to Angela Korniyenko who took our Wednesday assembly and told us all about growing up in Kazakhstan. We learned all about the lake which is one half salt water and one half fresh water. Father Christmas has horses to pull his sleigh by the time he gets to the children of Kazakhstan; we assume the reindeer are exhausted by this point!

We will be saying farewell to Mrs Elaine Martin at Christmas. After 30 years with St Michael’s she will be leaving Pre-Prep to move down to the coast with her husband Ian. We will miss her hugely. She is part of the fabric of this school and so many children and families have benefitted from her warm and wise counsel.

Next week on Wednesday Year 2 will be going to the Horniman Museum; one of my favourite museums. I am sure they will have a lovely time.

Thank you all for sending your children into school adorned with yellow or spots today. You raised a terrific total of £310.92 for Children in Need.

Overheard in Pre-Prep: "You look older, you used to have blonde hair!"

Have a lovely weekend,

Zerrin Leech

A Message from the Deputy Head

Disabled parking and Prep drop-off

We have a limited number of disabled parking bays at St Michael’s that are needed by those who have a Blue Badge. They are deliberately situated close to the school for reasons of easier access and are therefore attractive to all drivers. However, if you are not in possession of an official Blue Disabled Parking Badge or an authorised parking badge from the school, please do not park here, even for a couple of minutes. They must not be used for child or equipment drop off or for just ‘popping into’ Reception.

At morning drop-off, I have previously indicated that I would like specific age bands (Years 3-5 and Years 6-8) to either be dropped at the main drive or the gravel drop-off/ pick-up area. From today, I am dispensing with this and asking that parents use whichever one they prefer and feel has a smaller queue when they arrive. The rule of not depositing your children until 7:57am at the earliest still stands, however. Dropping and leaving children before this means they arrive at the playground well before the teacher supervision arrives at 8am.

The above drop-off areas are the only two drop-off areas that should be used for prep children. Prep children must not be dropped at Pre-Prep and asked to walk up.

Lastly, the gravel drop-off/ pick-up area is not to be used for parking, please. Cars left here cause a lot of disruption at pick-up and significantly reduce the number of cars that can pick up children efficiently, thus extending the pick-up time and causing frustration.

Thank you for your assistance with this.

Mr Wiseman, Deputy Head (Pastoral)

St Michael's U11s become National and Kent Champions in one week!

IAPS National U11 Girls' Hockey Championships

Tier 1 Kent U11 Girls' Hockey Championships

Kent TV stars!

It was lights, camera and action on our Astro turf on Thursday morning as we welcomed KMTV to St Michael’s.

Spotlighting our girls' U11A and U13 Senior 1st teams' recent hockey success, we were delighted to welcome the Kent film crew to interview our hockey players and Coaches for their TV news channel.

KMTV’s Bartholomew Hall began by filming the girls in action, followed by interviewing Coaches Ruth Bingham and Joel Thomas and players Elizabeth A, Amelia Rose B, Erica W and Evie S who confidently answered questions about their experiences of the hockey tournaments.

We look forward to seeing the live footage once it is broadcasted

St Michael's U13s win futsal bronze

On Friday 10^th November, St Michael's U13 Senior 1st Team entered the Sevenoaks School Futsal Tournament. This tournament is an indoor 5-a-side football tournament but instead played with a slightly heavier ball.

Our team finished in a respectable 3^rd place from the 6 teams that entered.

We won our first game with a good win over Solefield School and went on to lose in two very competitive matches against Sevenoaks School and Hazlewood School, who both finished top of the table. We drew against Eaton House before finishing with a good win over Sevenoaks Prep.

There were a lot of good skills on show and the boys played very well against some tough opponents.

Well done to the team: Jack C, Charlie W, Oliver S, Louis H, Bailey H and Toluwa O.

Mr Fuller, Games Teacher

Drama Scholars trip is a theatrical delight!

This week, the Drama Scholars enjoyed their annual trip to London. We began the day with a yummy hot chocolate at Otford station and then made our way to London Bridge.

As we walked to the Globe Theatre on the Southbank, we took in some additional sites, including The Shard, The Golden Hind and famous prison, The Clink. Then we enjoyed a fantastic backstage tour of the Globe Theatre and learnt a lot about Elizabethan times, Shakespeare and the creation, and destruction of, theatres during that period.

The Drama Scholars eagerly asked a multitude of questions, some of which even managed to challenge our tour guide! After our tour, we were able to visit the permanent exhibition at the theatre which included lots of interactive fun - especially dressing up in some original costumes.

Next we visited the National Theatre, a short walk up to the Southbank, had some lunch and learnt a little bit about the building and its history. The National Theatre is currently housing a new musical production of Roald Dahl's The Witches and it was exciting to see all the posters and merchandise for the new production.

After our lunch, we crossed the River Thames and arrived at the Charing Cross Theatre to see the new musical of Daphne, Du Maurier's Rebecca. All the pupils thoroughly enjoyed the production and we were lucky enough to spend some time with Lauren Jones, who is currently starring in the show as the second Mrs de Winter. Lauren kindly gave up some time to sign programmes and entertain a plethora of questions from our Drama Scholars about the rehearsal period, getting into professional acting and the process of putting on a big musical in the West End of London. Lauren also shared some thoughts about her recent role as Bonnie in Frank Wildhorn's enormously successful production of Bonnie and Clyde at the Garrick Theatre. It was a fabulous day out and lots of fun was had by all. Huge thanks to Mrs Mottram for joining us on the trip and helping out.

Mr Powell, Head of Drama 

Year 5 go book dating!

Year 5 have been speed dating with books in their English lessons this week.

Paired in our Drama Room, the pupils took it in turns to present each other with a book of their choice. Following each book date, they rated their partners' book out of 10 and used an adjective to describe it. They then decided whether they would take the books 'on another date' (read them) or not.

Some examples of books 'dated' include Nizrana Farook's mysterious The Girl Who Stole An Elephant, Lois Lowry's interesting The Giver and Michael Morpurgo’s moving Running Wild.

A splash of colour for Children In Need!

A yellow glow could be seen across Pre-Prep today as the sun and Children In Need outfits brought a vibrant end to our week. Raising money for Children In Need, Nursery to Year 2 wore spots and yellow clothing to raise money for this very important cause. Thank you so much for your generous donations which raised an amazing £310.92.

Florence E for working hard on her phonics and using her sounds to write independently

Max M for great concentration and following the instructions carefully when creating his firework rocket model

Dilan D for wonderful independent word writing

Kensi W for ambitious sentence writing

Alexander K for wonderful writing using CVC words about nocturnal animals

Jasper D for being a brilliant model pupil all week

Rudy F for trying really hard to concentrate on his writing this week

Max Z for wonderful adjective choices in his dinosaur poem

Nieve P for working hard with fluency and expression in her reading

Annabella N for always putting maximum effort into every area of the curriculum

Sophia P for fantastic engagement and questioning in every lesson

Rowan T for his endless enthusiasm and effort in all of our lessons

Bertie D for writing a lovely, descriptive poem based on The Owl and the Pussycat

Zara-Autumn H for persevering when solving some tricky subtraction problems in Maths

Hugo E for excellent effort and enthusiasm in all lessons, particularly Maths!

Jenson D for always being kind, polite and eager to learn

Zihao G for an excellent story recount of The Owl and the Pussycat

Jasmine M for trying really hard in Maths lessons this week

Danny S for his wonderfully polished piano performance of Danny Boy in assembly

Thora W for her confident recorder playing in assembly

Hattie R for her simply beautiful piano performance in assembly

Elise A for her significant improvement on the piano and a wonderful performance in assembly

Florrie B for a superb piano performance in assembly!

Jude S for a confident and note perfect recorder performance in assembly

Emile M for a lovely model of a plant cell

Charlotte D for a lovely piece of work on penguins

Daniel B for a beautifully illustrated diary

Isla P for a lovely piece of work about a day out

Players of the Match - week commencing 13th November

Hot off the press

The Sevenoaks Chronicle recently featured an article about St Michael's Community Football Tournament: 

They also featured our U11 hockey girls' victory at the IAPS Regional Finals:

And our U13s success at the Kent Tier 2 Hockey Tournament:

Déjà Vu - St Michael's second hand uniform shop        

Déjà Vu is accepting payment by cash or by bank transfer. Due to poor reliability and increasing costs of the card machine, sadly we will no longer be able to accept card payments. We are now offering to buy donated blazers (sizes 4 and upwards) from you for £35 if in good condition. Payment will be in cash. We kindly ask that you do not cut out labels indicating the size if you are considering donating the item to the shop after use. It makes it very difficult to sell on if no size is indicated. Also, please make sure donated items are clean and in a sellable condition. Many thanks for supporting Déjà Vu by donating your uniform and buying from the second hand shop. It provides a unique benefit to St Michael's as well as helping the school to become more sustainable.

This week the Breakfast Club and The Hive have been busy painting and decorating a variety of different sized boxes and tubes to create one giant nutcracker.

Seashells have been tied together in The Hive and painted to make pretty snowman tree decorations and a plank of wood was decorated to make a beautiful nutcracker ornament.

Waves of sailing success for Edgar

Year 4 pupil Edgar has been making waves at Chipstead Sailing Club, having recently won the Class Captain's award for Most Promising Rookie. With a passion for sailing that began at a very young age, Edgar joined Chipstead Sailing Club in May 2023 and has been sailing with great enthusiasm every Saturday over the summer. Keep up the brilliant sailing, Edgar!

Clara is set to join the National Youth Choir!

Congratulations to Year 6 pupil Clara H who we are proud to announce has gained a place in the National Youth Choir.

Clara's audition took place during the October half term over Zoom when she performed her well-rehearsed rendition of To The Sky by Carl Stronmen.

Clara wanted to join the National Youth Choir to continue her enjoyment for choir singing and performing. She is also excited for the fun residential trips that the Choir has to offer.

Clara has been choir singing for 5 years, having begun at St Michael’s in Year 1. She enjoys singing beautiful harmonies and loves how singing as part of a group bonds and connects people.

Commenting on Clara's success, Miss Balcombe, who has taught Clara singing since Year 3, said: "I am not at all surprised and very proud of her."

Well done Clara, we can't wait to hear all about your experiences with the National Youth Choir.

Luke remembers with the Sea Cadets

A special mention to Luke S in Year 5 who took part in the Sea Cadets' remembrance parade last weekend. You looked extremely smart in your uniform and did the Cadets proud!

Half Term staff sports camps

Mr Thomas’ Christmas Hockey Camp

Mr Thomas will be holding his Christmas Hockey Camp at Hollybush Hockey Pitch on:

Monday 18^th December

Tuesday 19^th December

Please click here to book.

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