week ending 20th January 23

Dear Parents

I hope you are all well.

Sport has been somewhat curtailed this week as a consequence of the icy conditions which have made the
pitches rock hard and the courts rather slippery – hardly ideal for rugby and netball
respectively! Nevertheless, I can see that the pupils and staff are buzzing to get playing so I do hope things
improve somewhat over the coming days to allow us to get fixtures going next week.

I have a neighbour who works in retail and I always enjoying chatting with him about his work; he regales
me with humorous tales of the latest “management speak” employed by his company. Over the years, he
has expressed his particular annoyance with being asked “not to push water uphill” and that he should
“avoid the low hanging fruit”. Last week, a colleague of his suggested that he “decompose to a lower level
of granulation” – I do not think my neighbour was too keen on that one either and certainly could not be
bothered to work out what it means.

I have to say that I have not really come across too much “management speak” during my years in
education, but as an English teacher I do enjoy witnessing the employment of language and the way that
words and phrases drop in and out of fashion. Each year, Lake Superior State University publishes a list of
the ten words or phrases that they would like to see banished. For 2023, “GOAT” tops the table, with the
rest of the list including “quiet quitting”, “amazing”, “moving forward” and “it is what it is”. I am not sure
what happens if you do utter these words on the university campus but it did get me thinking about the
words that pupils at Sevenoaks Prep might want to see banished. I think I will ask them!

Best wishes

Luke Harrison

Dear Parents,

This week kickstarted with our wonderful pianists playing for the Pre-Prep
children as they walked into our celebration assembly. Thank you so much to Fleur, Greta, Emily and Sophie.
The house points are building gradually, this week’s winners are Seal house, with 109 points! Well done to
all of the children for their joint efforts.

We began the week with a little flurry of snow which didn’t turn into much but the children kept warm in
their classrooms and Kindergarten walked into a change around of furniture in their classroom, which was
hugely exciting. Miss Owen and Miss Jenkins are focusing on their continuous provision for their classes and
having received some training only last week, they decided to put some of this to good use. The children
were so keen and interested and they absolutely love the changes.

Further up the school, Year 2 are really enjoying their Chopsticks topic. I hope parents will have seen our
social media posts showcasing their fabulous opening to the topic; preparing a stir fry and then cooking it
over the open fire in our forest school.

We are very much looking forward to an exciting creative arts week, lead by Mrs Hougham and we shall be
sharing information about this in due course.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend.

Best wishes,

Helen Cook