News
Newsletter for the week ending 23rd March
Read on to find out about Bake Off, Mr Bishop leaving, surfboard painting and much, much more around and about the classes…
AROUND THE SCHOOL
We say goodbye today to Mr Bishop, our SCITT trainee teacher who has been with Year 3 this term, but before he left he was able to judge the hotly contested Bake Off between Mrs Avery in the school office and Miss Goodman. Both are talented bakers, but Mr Bishop judged Miss Goodman’s peanut butter and chocolate muffins to be the best. Other than his ability to eat copious muffins, Mr Bishop has been an inspirational teacher and we wish him every success in his future teaching career.
AROUND AND ABOUT TORRIDGE
Children’s Craft Workshop – St Mary’s Church Hall
Children’s Craft Workshop that is being held in St Mary’s Church Hall, Appledore on Good Friday, March 30th from 10.30 to 12.00pm. It is free entrance, open to everyone, but children under 8 to be accompanied by an adult. Refreshments will be available. We will be making Easter gardens, Easter decorations, bonnets, cards etc. This event is hugely popular and a lively start to the Easter celebrations, we look forward to welcoming pupils from Appledore School.
After School Surf Club
The North Devon Surf School are now offering your child the opportunity to learn to surf with professional instructors at their award winning Centre of Excellence in Westward Ho!
Lessons will run on Fridays 3.45pm – 5.45pm from the Surf School in Pebbleridge Road, dates are:
Friday 20th April, Friday 4th May, Friday 18th May, Friday 8th June, Friday 15th June, Friday 22nd June, Friday 29th June and Friday 6th July
This is priced at £96 per child for the eight week surfing programme and includes wetsuit, boots, surfboards and tuition with fully qualified coaches. Children must be 7 years old and above and have a good swimming ability to join.Spaces are limited so please call Emma at The North Devon Surf School on 01237 474663 to reserve your child a place by 30th March 2018. Lesson payments to be made by cash or debit/credit card to the Surf School direct.
Parent Workshops
All courses will take place at Barnstaple Library and will run from 9:30am until 2:30pm each day. Refreshments are provided but not lunch. Supporting a Child with Challenging or Aggressive Behaviour – £30 Monday 12th & Tuesday 13th March 2018 [2 day course] Understanding and supporting an Autistic Child – £30 Monday 16th & Tuesday 17th April 2018 [2 day course] Understanding & Supporting Autistic Individuals with Demand Avoidance [PDA] – £15 Monday 21st May 2018 Understanding & Supporting Individuals with Attention Difficulties [ADHD/ADD] – £15 Tuesday 22nd May 2018 There are only 24 spaces per workshop and we are expecting a good uptake so book early to avoid disappointment. To book a place go to: http://www.bis-net.org.uk/services-autism-challenging-behaviour/northdevon/ If you cannot book online please contact us directly on 01392 813028
Safer Internet Use
UK Safer Internet Centre is excellent at providing advice and tips for safe use and can be found at www.saferinternet.org.uk School are also due to receive a jargon-busting guide regarding children’s use of social media and we will share this when we receive it (see http://www.itv.com/news/2017-09-29/jargon-busting-guide-to-help-children-understand-social-media-small-print/)
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in FSU we have started to think about Spring even though we had great fun playing in the snow on Monday! We have looked at the life cycles of frogs, chickens and butterflies – drawing, painting and writing about them. We visited the Jungle on Thursday to see if we could see any signs of Spring. Just a little reminder about our Open Afternoon on Tuesday at 3pm, please come and listen to singing and share our Learning Journeys with us.
This week we have written non-fiction books about David Attenborough. We researched his life, recorded facts about him and then choose headings for our pages. We then edited our writing before making our books. In Maths we have been measuring. We have measured ourselves using lots of different resources and then used cubes to measure objects around the classroom. Next we will be using rulers to measure accurately. Our beans are growing nicely, some have even got leaves, although some don’t seem to be growing at all. Our Philosophy session used the book GRRRRR, we discussed the question ‘Why did Boris steal Fred’s GRRRRRR?’
Year 2 have been writing their own stories related to Augustus and his Smile. There are some really imaginative ideas – well done everyone. In Maths, they have continued with shape and have been investigating 3D shapes. Have a look at what 3D shapes you can find at home! In Science, they have started to look at habitats and spent some time in the ‘Jungle’ investigating the different plants and animals living there. Daisy even found a newt! They have started to design a hand puppet which they will begin to make next week. Homework for the India topic will be shown on Monday, so please send in any that has been completed. I’ve been very impressed by the standard of work so far – well done!
Year 3 said goodbye to Mr Bishop this week, but before he left they were able to complete an art project that enatailed painting one of his surfboards!
This week HMS Echo have been carrying out some end of term tests for both reading and maths, to show what they have learnt. In English, the children have been writing stanzas in the style of ‘The Sound Collector’. We have looked at the punctuation and rhyming in the poem as a focus. During our art session, the children printed their patterns onto their shields ready to create a Roman battle formation next week! In science the class made some ear trumpets and experimented how the volume of the sound changed. The children are now ready to take their end of unit assessment for sound next week. Our big question this week came from the book ‘The Empty Pot’. The question we discussed was ‘if you got given something that didn’t work, would you keep it or chuck it away?’
Beechcroft have now complete their explanation writing about their inventions, these can be seen in the main building. In numeracy we have completed the end of term assessments and ordering fractions. We did printing in the art studio this week and created some good space scenes. We then evaluated our printing block and final piece of work. We have continued to discuss this half terms value of ‘honesty’ and looked at how the Bible tells stories on this value. Our P4C story this week was ‘Crispin, the pig who had it all’, and the question we later discussed was ‘Are our friends worth more than possessions?’. The trip to Bristol as been rearranged for Monday 30th April.
Year 6 have been busy working this week, despite the disappointment of postponing Bristol (we hope to go on April 30th instead). We have been exploring pie charts in maths, writing instructions in literacy and thinking about fossils in science. Look out at home for the pack to help with reasoning in maths. We have made dominoes to refine our skills with fractions, decimals and percentages and fortune tellers to learn our tenses. Please keep learning spellings from the lists that have been sent home.
We wish you all a super weekend,
Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
