News
Newsletter for the week ending 8th July
Such a busy week that has included trips to Lundy, The Wake Park, Rosemoor and St Margaret’s for a football match. Please read on to find out more.
Don’t forget it’s sports day on Friday 15th July and the details are available by clicking here. We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.
In addition to our afterschool club (AOOSC) we will continue to offer after school art club and we are very pleased to inform you of the return of our popular afterschool eco rangers club in September. The eco rangers club provides the children with fun outdoor opportunities. Art will be on a Monday and Wednesday and eco rangers on a Tuesday and Thursday. Information on how to book places will sent out before the end of term.
On 24th July The Rotary Club of Bideford is organising the Bideford Water Festival. The theme this year is PIRATES and they want to get as many children as possible involved in the fancy dress competition. The parade will begin at 1.10pm outside the Harbour Master’s Office. For more information please click here.
There is a meeting on Thursday 21st July at 7pm at Appledore library to elect the committee for the PTA. Everyone welcome. Please click here for more info.
Have a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we walked down to the Quay to wave the Year 6’s off to Lundy on the Oldenburg. Then we started our topic on Pirates. We have changed our role play areas into pirate ships. We have drawn pictures of pirates to find out what they wear and what they look like. We had great fun making pirate hats from a piece of paper!
This week in year 1 we have carried on with our Castles learning and started to think about who would live in a castle and what job they might have. In Science we drew around Louie and then as a class labelled the drawing of the body with as many labels they could think of. They thought of lots of different body parts, including the appendix and veins! In writing we have finished our Tell Me a Dragon book and Mrs Flame luckily took her dragon eggs home before they hatched in our classroom!
Lundy Puffins had a great time at Rosemoor yesterday finding out about what plants need to grow. They were a pleasure to take on the trip and worked and played well together. In Maths, they have learning about mass and how to measure grams and kilograms. In English, they have finished their amazing dragon writing and have now started to look at a new book about seaside poetry.
Year 3 explored how to read sheet music when they played a familiar tune on the chime bars. This will help them when they compose their own melodies next week. Year 4 looked at how different religions celebrate important milestones in a person’s life and rehearsed a song before performing in singing assembly. Year 5 also rehearsed their song with instrumental accompaniment in preparation for performing in a sharing assembly and continued their study of theism, atheism and agnosticism by looking at the views of famous scientists who are also Christians.
This week in year 3, the children have been learning what an acute, obtuse and right angle is, understanding direction of turns in shapes and the properties of 2D shapes. In English, the class have written up our shared writing ‘Iris and Seawigs’ and planned their own independent version for next week. For Topic, the class learnt what a shaduf is and how this was used in Ancient Egyptian times. Using all of their learning on our Topic, they imagined what it would have been like to live there at the time and wrote a diary entry.
HMS Echo have been busy developing their scientific knowledge of sound; how it is made, how it travels and how it can be changed. They did some great work not only using their knowledge of sound, but also drawing upon their Year 3 and 4 learning about light, states of matter and electricity too. They explored and suggested reasons why we see planes before we see them and see lightning before we hear it as thunder. They were able to explain how and why light travels more quickly than sound. They enjoyed playing chime bars and other percussion instruments to explore how to alter pitch and volume. In their values work, they have discussed how everyone will and can make different choices; that we should respect their decisions and make responsible choices ourselves. They read about the choices of some cartoon characters (food, activities, hobbies) and designed a hotel that would cater to all of their needs.
Year 5 have enjoyed writing pages for their own ‘ology’ book based on the Dragonology book. They are busy publishing their work so it can go on the writing display in the main building. In maths we are focusing on ‘volume’ and knowing how to correctly record our answers. We are busy with our ‘arts award’ and getting all the evidence together for this. Many of the class are spending the day at GTS to gain experience of a secondary school. I look forward to hearing all about it next week.
This week year 6 have all been back in after transition and so we’ve been rehearsing the play and trying to finish topic work on Lundy. We enjoyed our visit to the Island and were able to see the human and natural geographical features for ourselves – as well as dolphins in the sea! We have also been lucky enough to have a workshop about peer pressure from Paul Stevens and had our SATs results. The class worked so hard in the build up to SATs and each and every one of them should be proud of what they have managed to achieve – it shows that hard work pays off! I feel that they are equipped with some great skills for secondary school and ready to build even more independence into their learning! We have also had a trip to The Wake Park to celebrate the end of year. Thank you for all the photos that have come in so far for our ‘When we grow up’ slides – please send any more as soon as possible. We will start clearing some books etc over the next week so please send your child in with a spare bag to take things home in. Costumes for the play will be needed next week so they can start coming into school from Monday. I will speak to the children again about what they need.
