News
Newsletter for the week ending 21st May
A fun, albeit wet, week in school. Please do read the main body of this article to discover what has been going on in the classes, because as always everyone has been very busy!
Well done Lottie for wiinning a very worthwhile competition to design a wooden belly board for a scheme with Plastic Free Torridge. The board will be rented out in Westward Ho! over the summer to reduce the use of polystyrene boards. Very proud parents Lottie, so well done you!
PETROC are holidng a range of webinars for adults 19+ years focusing on starting careers in specific areas; education, salon services, healthcare and construction.
Best wishes for the weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dokphins we have continued learning about The Three Little Pigs. We have acted out the story drawn pictures of the story and today we wrote our own version. We have thought about questions we would like to ask the wolf. We also read The Wolf’s Version of the story and thought about whether he was being kind or not. We have tested out different materials to see which materials are strong and which ones are waterproof. We also made some pig biscuits.
Despite the weather this week we have been having a hoot in Year 1. Excitement has been growing amongst the children as we studied our magic beans this week. Some beans are already showing some pretty impressive root structures, which the children think look like aliens. The most rapidly growing bean grew an impressive 6cm in 2 days. The children are convinced that this bean is actually one of Jack’s magic beans! In our topic learning this week, we have been looking at rubbish and other treasures found on our local beaches. The children were visited on Wednesday by Sadie who does lots of work with surfers against sewage. She shared a true story with the children about a whale called Nelson who gets trapped in a fishing net. The children are very excited about our beach clean next week and have been role-playing this on the playground. The children’s sense of responsibility and attitudes towards such a mature subject has really impressed me. Well done team
This week Lundy Puffins have been writing part of a new story based on the book ‘The Dragon Machine’. Next week, they will be using their writing skills to plan and write their own stories. In Maths, they have completed their work on fractions and have been able to show what they know about halves, quarters and thirds. They used the book ‘Bog Baby’ for the philosophy session and generated the question ‘ Is it OK to tell a lie?’ On Wednesday, they welcomed Sadie from Plastic Free Torridge into the classroom, who read them a story about a whale in the ocean and talked about the problems of plastic in the ocean. They are very much looking forward to carrying on this learning at their beach clean next week.
Seahunter have been working on a new book in English this week; Oliver and The Seawigs. It is about a boy who has lived his life with explorer parents who have travelled the world. He encounters many adventures and makes many new discoveries including a talking albatross and a mermaid called Iris! They wrote letters from the perspective of Oliver and created and described their own sea wigs (wigs for walking islands that collect treasures such as seaweed). In Maths they have been amazing learners, taking on and using new vocabulary; parallel, perpendicular, horizontal and vertical. P.E. involved learning some rugby skills and developing teamwork through a game of ‘steal the bacon’. The class were brilliant at team talks to evaluate their performance and develop more effective strategies.
Year 4 this week have continued their learning on ‘Money’ and have now begun their learning on ‘Time’, in Maths. In English, the children have written up their versions of ‘A Walk in Appledore’ including some of the skills we have learnt. They have been taking particular care in their editing to improve their spelling, punctuation and grammar. For P.E, they have continued learning key tennis skills and progressing with them. In Philosophy, we read the story ‘The Lion and the Mouse’ and the children came up with our big question ‘Should you lie or be honest to get something?’
In topic, Year 5 have been finding out about The Spanish Armada and why the mission failed for the Spanish. In literacy, they have finished their cracking contraptions and published their work. In maths, they have moved onto geometry and have been studying angles. Science has involved more work on forces and friction and art has entailed trying to complete textile work on sunflowers. They have been testing each others quizzes in computing and have looked forward to tennis and cricket in PE. They have also refined skills in drumming in music and learnt more about Humanism in RE. For values, they have been completing an honesty questionnaire to try and determine how honest they really are.
In maths year 6 have been finding the area of a triangle and understanding the operations needed to find the means. We also have been measuring with a protractor which tested our memory of how well we remembered how to use it. We have also done two tests so we could see how much we need to improved on the topic that we have never done before. We did a test on the properties of a shape. In English we have been completing our Arts Award work which goes towards a certificate. We are planning a performance from this and how we will put on an exhibition of work. The main piece of work will be used for the Appledore Book Festival. In topic we have been learning about the ship Lady Ebrington.This is a ship that was launched on 3rd June 1852 and heading to Australia for families to take part in the gold rush. We have also been doing graphic design in art which involves lots of typography and self portraits. We have had two visitors this week. Lydia who we will work with on some heritage work and is part of a research project. We will also work with the Appledore Library on this project. Due to the bad weather we did not do cricket today but we did meet our new coach, Oliver. We are excited about learning new cricket skills from next week. Reporters: Amy and Emilie
