News
Newsletter for the week ending 16th December
What a week, what a term and what an amazing run of nativity performances with the curtain coming down on our term curtesy of Key Stage 2 (years 3-6) and Miss Carr performing Squeak at St Mary’s Church today! Thank you to everybody involved.
Last week we gave you a digital parenting guide and this week we have a comprehensive go to one page document with advice and warnings. Please take a look here before your children have more time on their hands to be safe online this holiday. The following links are for interactive activities for children aged 4-7, 8-10 and 11-18 to do to support them being safe whilst online this Christmas and beyond. They are from a reputable organisation called CEOPS and there is a section dedicated to parents.
If you have any concerns about the safety of a child contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) on 0345 155 1071 or email mashsecure@devon.gov.uk with as much information as you can. If the child is at immediate risk call the police on 999.
Please click on ‘more’ to find out what has been happening in all the classes this week. Happy Christmas to you all and we look forward to welcoming you all back on Wednesday 4th January
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been finishing off our Christmas decorations and cards. We went to The Jungle on Tuesday to decorate the trees for the woodland creatures and on Thursday Father Christmas came to visit us!
Year 1 have had a lovely festive week to end the term. We have been making Christmas cards, designing Christmas jumpers and made our own decorations for the classroom! In writing we have finished our own versions of The Three Little Pigs and enjoyed changing the characters to different animals. In Maths we have been looking at 2D and 3D shapes and in Art we have created our own paintings in the style of Kandinsky. We have had a lovely Autumn term to start us off in Year 1, we hope you all have a lovely Christmas and we look forward to Spring term!
Happy Christmas year 2 from Mrs Stanbury, Mrs Stephens and Mrs Halloway! We hope you have a restful Christmas and New Year with your families. This week they have been making natural Christmas decorations using twigs they collected from the outdoor area. They have also written the story of the first Christmas in their own words and illustrated these for our RE book. In Maths, they have completed their final work on shape and have made repeating patterns using 2D and 3D shapes. They have worked hard all term and are looking forward to a well-deserved rest. We look forward to seeing you all in January.
Seahunter (year 3) class have had a wonderful week leading up to the Christmas holidays. To finish off our learning on Saint Lucia, we used all of our learning from this half term to compare Saint Lucia with Appledore and then we wrote a postcard describing lots of the similarities and differences. In maths, we began a new topic on multiplication and division and started by recapping our multiples of 2, 5 and 10 and used our knowledge of these multiples to answer some problem solving and reasoning questions. In guided reading, we did some festive reading and read about how Christmas is celebrated all over the world. For Christmas, we also created our own Christmas cards by doing some paper folding to create Christmas trees.
For our final week in HMS Echo (year 4), the children have been busy finishing lots of their work. In English, the children have written about their chosen animal and have published it beautifully – it’s so lovely to see the pride and care they take doing this. In Science, we looked at our experiment which was investigating the question “Why do we get tooth decay?” To investigate this, we left boiled eggs in eight different liquids for a week and analysed any noticeable damage. Interestingly, vinegar and squash caused the most decay, and unsurprisingly water and sparkling water caused the least amount of damage. The children were surprised that orange squash had more noticeable damage than Coca-Cola! The children then had to write up their results and explain why some liquids had caused more decay than others. In History, the children have been looking at Hadrian’s Wall as part of our Romans topic, and why this was so significant. They’ll be moving onto looking at the formation of the Roman army and why they were so successful, as well as labelling the countries that were part of the Roman empire. Miss Carr has also been busy practising their performance for the Church on Friday, and I’m so excited to see the final piece – Merry Christmas everyone!
It has been a very busy end of term for Year 5. Assessments all complete and units of work finished. After many weeks rehearsing for the performance of Squeak illness has struck the class. A fantastic well done to those who have suddenly had to learn new parts to allow the ‘show to go on’. Whatever happens this afternoon your commitment and enthusiasm for getting this ready has been brilliant. You have not complained about the changes, going over scenes multiple times and persevered despite being tired and under the weather. Great work Y5; you deserve a well earned rest now. A big ‘get well’ to those who are still too ill to have taken part in the performance. I hope you are fully recovered by next weekend. Have a fantastic Christmas break with your families and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year and starting the spring term work.
Year 6 have been so resilient and so helpful this week as term draws to a close. They have risen to the challenges and we look forward to welcoming them all back in 2023!
