Very interesting day today. We observed several lessons which were all in Polish but did manage to learn some geography, Maths and a little of the LANguage. We visited the kindergarden which was very modern, has only been open 6 months and even has a playground on the roof. Well that’s it from us, by the time you read this we will be on our way home we’re looking forward to sharing our experiences with you. Mrs Chambers, Mrs Manship, Mrs Glenny and Mrs C-K
Farewell to Poland
May 28, 2012
Greetings from Poland
May 27, 2012
We arrived safely on Friday and had a fantastic welcome at the school from the children in the 0 grade. It was nice to catch up with the teachers from Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania and Poland, they were asking after you. Mrs Glenny presented Hattie and Archie’s anecdotes, the teachers were well impressed. Looking forward to telling you all about our trip. Good luck in your assessments hope you have all been working as hard as we have. Do widzenia!
Mr Priestley’s Marshmallow Assembly
May 25, 2012
I want to talk to you today about marshmallows. You might think that this is a pretty silly thing to talk about. Well, bear with me.
Imagine if you were four years old. You are sitting in a room and a strange man in a white coat comes in and offers you a choice. You can either have one marshmallow right now, immediately, or two marshmallows if you were prepared to wait a while, say fifteen minutes. Which would you choose?
Believe it or not, I haven’t made this question up. In fact, this very question was posed to a group of children by Walter Mischel, a psychologist working at Stanford University in the US – one of the best universities in the world – in the 1970s.
At the kindergarten on the Stanford University campus, Mischel put marshmallows in front of a room full of 4-year-olds, one on each of their desks. He told them they could help themselves to the one marshmallow now, but if they could wait several minutes, they could have two. He and his research assistants then left the room so that the four-year-olds thought that they were not being observed. In fact the scientists were observing their reactions secretly, to see how they would react to this dilemma.
Some of the children (the more impulsive ones) grabbed the one marshmallow almost as soon as the researcher left the room. Others, however, were able to wait. To distract themselves from the temptation, they covered their eyes with their hands, rested their heads on their arms, talked to themselves, sang, and made up games with their hands and feet. One child even licked the table around the marshmallow. These children were rewarded, after fifteen minutes of waiting, with two marshmallows.
But this was only the beginning of Mischel’s experiment. Mischel then followed the fortunes of the group and found that, 14 years later, the “grabbers” (the one marshmallow gang) suffered lower confidence and were more likely to be stubborn, prone to envy and easily frustrated. The “waiters” (the two marshmallow gang) were better at coping with life, were more socially competent and confident, more trustworthy, more dependable and more academically successful. This group even scored significantly higher in IQ tests. What can we deduce from this?
What Mischel’s famous “Marshmallow Test” showed was the importance of controlling your impulses. Sometimes we have to put off doing something nice now, for the sake of something even better later. This is called deferring gratification: deciding to give up something nice now, for the sake of something even better later. Those who are able to do this will tend to achieve greater success, not just academically but also emotionally and socially.
This is a really important message to think about – and it is important not just for you to think about, but for the staff here at Warminster Prep School. How can we encourage the boys and girls to develop these skills, which run so counter to most modern values in modern society? After all, we live in a culture in which we use our credit cards because we want things right away. We don’t want to wait until we actually have the income to pay for something. People become impatient if they have to wait more than a few moments at a drive-through McDonalds.
Yet in fact much of what we do here at school should be to resist that. Part of the point of education is the idea of investing in the future. Musicians who practise endless hours to perform a single piece of music, similarly, understand the importance of deferred gratification. Athletes and sportsmen and –women who devote hours and hours in honing their fitness and skills and make other sacrifices to prepare for an important match also understand the concept. Not all training is fun. Think of Olympic athletes who devotes years of their lives to prepare for an event that may last only a few minutes. So good luck to all of you in facing these choices and in developing these skills. They’re important. More than that, they are crucial – they’ll change your life.
Comenius is intended to be a lifelong learning programme, funded with support from the European Commission. It is a biennial European project in partnership with Romania, Poland, Spain, Italy and Turkey.
The aim of the project is to seek approaches that provoke students’ creative thinking, which generates ideas and interesting inspirations, to discover roads, unlocking the imagination and fantasies which stimulate the establishment of artistic images.
One aspect of the project has been a competition for writing the best anecdote on a school theme. The competition winner was Hattie Dunn and runner up was Archie Fogg.
Winner – Hattie Dunn
When I was in year 4 our Christmas pantomime was Peter Pan and I was so excited to be given the part of Lisa the Cook. Lisa was a very funny character; she was fat, jolly, with big rosy red cheeks and had some hilarious lines. I really enjoyed playing her and everyone said how funny I made the role, but I think my favourite part was towards the end of the performance. The audience were split into two sides to sing against each other in true ‘Panto-Style’. I led the right hand side singing ‘Pizza hut’ and performing the actions to it. It was so funny to stand on stage and look out at the audience, including parents, Governors, Mr Edwards our Headmaster and Mr Priestley the Senior School Headmaster singing their hearts out and waving their arms in the air all determined to out do the opposite side of the audience.
This will always be a happy, special, proud, funny memory.
Runner up – Archie Fogg
My favourite memory of school was when it was robotic week. Someone’s dad brought in a bomb disposable robot he brought it into our art room so we could draw it. It can crush a can in less than a second! It’s name was the Alfie. It can deactivate a bomb by doing something special. We had to bring our own toy robots for a robot race but my one lost.
Year 5 visited Farleigh Hungerford and Wardour Castles on Friday 4th May as part of their History topic on local castles. We had a great time! You can read the comments below to see what the children enjoyed the most.
Year 5 Bushcraft
May 12, 2012
Year 5 pupils have been living in the woods by the sea in the New Forest learning new skills with the Bushcraft Company.They created substantial shelters: these were so well made that pupils could escape the torrential rain all night long.
We cooked trout and homemade burgers on our own fires and cleaned off by swimming in the freezing sea. Three days of great fun and intense learning, it was pretty hard core.
Please visit Mrs Chambers Blog to view photographs and Year fives please leave your comments….
White Horse Painting
May 6, 2012
The first coat of painting was done on the White Horse this weekend and Steve from the army got some special paint from Germany.
All the volunteers doing the painting used rollers to paint and it was a very difficult job which they did really well and they had to be careful not to spill the paint from the trays.
For safety the painters had to be tied to the ropes so that they didn’t fall off the hillside.
So the White Horse is now looking really clean and very bright and it will be painted again next weekend to finish the job.
By J-P Y6MF
Please follow the French trip blog!
May 5, 2012
Please bookmark the following link if you would like to keep up with the events on Warminster Prep School’s 2012 French Trip. We will try to update the blog every day with photos and explanations of the activities we’ve done. Please leave comments and I’ll read them out every evening (wifi connection permitting)!
I Can Animate the Olympics
April 30, 2012
Year 6 been learning how to use I Can Animate 2 for stop-motion animation. Today they had to think on their feet and come up with an Olympic themed animation in less than 1 hour. Their results were great using both iPad and PC versions of I Can Animate but everyone agreed that setting the camera in the best possible position to begin with was the key to their success.
Take a look at Felix and Ellie’s work
100WC Week 28 Katie
April 29, 2012
The golden glow of the African sunset made Fauna smile. The sunlight danced onto the red sand as Fauna plotted her mischievous plan.
Fauna had always loved animals. It was in her name. Her name was a roman goddess of nature and animals She always did things for animals, but nothing ever like this.
Fauna crept into the entrance of the zoo. The zoo that made animals dance for laughter and money, that kept animals locked up, and worst of all, canned hunting (where people come to shoot animals when they have been captured and put into small areas with nowhere to hide).
Fauna was going to set the animals free.
Written by wps3456
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