18 / 20
18 PREP NEWS
World Book Day
World Book Day is always marked
in a big way in the Prep School and
this year was no exception. The
theme was “Celebrate stories.
Love reading.” The corridors were
decorated with book themes: so
much work and thought had gone
into the various decorations. The
Prep 2s gave us a Harry Potter
themed corridor. The Prep 1s’ The
Explorer corridor came complete
with jungle sound effects!
Downstairs, the Very Hungry
Caterpillar munched his way along
the Alpha corridor.
During the week there was a story chair
situated next to the Library and every break
time the bean bags around it were crammed
with pupils waiting to hear stories read by
members of staff. The story theme continued
into Friday when everyone came to school
dressed in their PJs (yes, teachers too) to
prove that stories aren’t just for bedtime.
Our lovely Prep librarian Mrs Houghton had
arranged a visit
from master
storyteller
Vanessa Woolf
who entertained
first the Prep
1s and Prep 2s
with the thrilling adventures of nineteenth
century highwayman Jack Judd and his
black hound Lucifer. The room was totally
quiet as the pupils, and staff, sat engrossed
by the tale. Afterwards it was the turn of
the Alphas and Betas who were equally
enthralled, this time by three stories
including a retelling of the myth of Echo with
lots of audience participation. Neal’s (BLY)
reaction was typical, “She was wonderful. I
enjoyed the way we got to participate in the
second story.” Storytellers like Vanessa are
keeping the old oral traditions alive by telling
stories without the aid of a script or book –
everything is in her head!
PrimaryMaths Challenge
Bancroft’s Prep has seen another brilliant year, in fact
our best year yet, in the Primary Maths Challenge
(PMC) organised by The Mathematical Association.
The first stage of
the challenge took
place in November
2018 when our
pupils competed
alongside 67,000
children across the
country. Successfully
answering a variety
of multiple choice
mathematics
problems, the
sixteen Bancroftians
joined the highest
scorers who were invited to
take part in the PMC Bonus Round in February.
We had sixteen children invited to take part in the Bonus (Final) Round.
Our pupils received a total of fourteen medals with two of our children
receiving coveted gold medals. A total of only 1496 medals were
awarded across the whole of the UK and only 103 children nationwide
scored the 21 or more marks out of 25 to receive Golds. Eddie scored a
brilliant 23 marks out of possible 25 with Harshihi not far behind with an
impressive 22. In all, 2375 pupils were invited to take part in the Bonus
Round and of these only 5% were in the range needed for a Gold medal.
In addition to the two Golds, Bancroft’s saw seven Silver medals, five
Bronze and two pupils were awarded certificates for participating
in the Bonus Round. These prestigious honours demonstrate their
achievements as among the best young mathematicians in the UK.
Lesley Jones from TheMathematical Association said: “We would like to
offer our congratulations to Eddie and Harshini and all of the pupils who
participated. We received a large number of entries which reflects a real
appetite for solving maths problems and puzzles. We always try to make
the questions interesting and accessible, while giving pupils an opportunity
to apply fundamental maths skills. It is great to be able to acknowledge
brilliant young minds in the UK and nurture the future mathematicians.”
Science Museum
Visits Prep
Have you ever wondered what clouds feel like?
Or asked yourself how do you make instant
chocolate ice cream? Thanks to an entertaining and
informative presentation by Alex from London’s
awesome Science Museum (yes, that Science
Museum – the one in South Kensington) our Prep
1 and 2s know the answers to these questions and
many, many more. The visit was arranged by Miss
Ellery as part of British Science week.
Alex, one of the ScienceMuseum’s Outreach team, demonstrated
some of the forces which shape our world and used humour and fun
to introduce Isaac Newton’s first and third laws of motion. Amidst
much excitement, Alex launched Phil the Frog into space (well, the Prep
School Hall) atop an empty Pringles carton. Ice creamwas created
in seconds using three ingredients – cream, chocolate flavouring and
liquid nitrogen! Sadly, only Alex was lucky enough to get to taste this.
Poor Gerald the jelly baby suffered a sad fate when he was bathed in
potassium chlorate and burnt alive to demonstrate howmuch energy
is in the sweet. It was time for fingers in the ears when Alex ignited
balloons filled with hydrogen: the resulting flames and loud pops
showing the gas’ flammability. As for the cloud, this was also created
using liquid nitrogen. Everyone was eager to touch and we all agreed
that it felt exactly as we had imagined a cloud to feel like!
The Betas didn’t miss out on the fun as they were treated to a
dynamic and interactive presentation of The Bubble Show an amazing
spectacle featuring bubbles of all sizes.
This was an incredibly popular visit with the children describing the
experiments which they had witnessed as “cool”.