News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 26th May
Th weather was neither too hot or too cold, nor too wet or too dry, for a thoroughly enjoyable sports day. Thank you for your attendance and support, Friends of Appledore for the refreshments, staff for organising it so well and the children for being such good sports. Well done to Arctic for winning on the day!
And well done James for winning a Pupil Nature Award at the North Devon Biosphere Pledge for Nature awards night on Monday. James’s prize was a bat box.
This week staff have relieved safeguarding training on online safety. We are aware our pupils are speaking more frequently about online influencers – please click here for a short online guide for parents on influencers – and some promote inappropriate views and material for young children.
Dates for the diary
- Carnival queen disco is Friday 25th May 6-8pm at the social club and entry is free
- Please remember that term starts again on Tuesday 6th June
- Live virtual parent workshop on online safety scheduled for you all on Monday 3rd July at 5pm with login details to follow nearer the time
Have a lovely half term everybody
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have carried on our learning with Jack and the Beanstalk. We explored what Giant Land might look like and we wrote letters to Mr G, the Giant asking him questions. We have looked at the life cycle of a bean and planted some potatoes. We picked our broad beans that we planted back in September and we cooked them, they tasted delicious. On Thursday we went down to The Jungle to make our own beanstalks.
Year 1 have had a great last week of the half term! We are so proud of how the Sea Lions tried their best on sports day and didn’t give up, even when they were tired! In writing we made a new type of slime and wrote our own instructions for how to make it! In topic we carried on thinking about how litter can get into the ocean and did a litter pick at school. We did a tally of all the different types of material that we found and then turned that into a graph. We found lots of plastic and paper! We hope you have a lovely half term, enjoy the sunshine!
The highlight of the week for Year 2 was Sports Day. Everyone took part brilliantly and they were great at supporting and cheering on each other. In English, they have written brilliant descriptions of dragons and information about how to catch the dragon that might be roaming around Appledore. In Maths, they have continued to learn about time and have been working out how many hours there are in a day. For their Science work, they continued to learn about changing the shape of objects by stretching and tried to beat the world record for stretching a Curly Wurly!
Year 3 explored how a local church reaches out to the local community in a way that follows Jesus’ main teaching. They found lots of ways in which they do. Year 4 came up with their own metaphors for The Holy Spirit to help them understand the concept. Year 5 performed the frozen pictures they had planned in order to retell the story of The Centurion’s Servant in a dramatic way. Year 6 researched a variety of Christian organisations to find out how they are seeking to make the world a better place. To support their whole class ensemble teaching, the children listened to a recorder concerto to fully appreciate this much maligned instrument!
Year 3 have had a wonderful last week of this half term. We finished our learning on plants in science by learning all about a plant’s life cycle and then learnt about how seeds are dispersed in different ways. In maths, we challenged ourselves to apply our knowledge of finding fractions of amounts to different word problems. In Geography, we explored the impact of flooding in Bangladesh and also looked at some of the ways that Bangladesh are trying to reduce the impact of flooding in their country. We all thoroughly enjoyed sports day and the children also had their last tennis lesson and it was wonderful to see how many new skills they have learnt over the half term.
In HMS Echo this week, it sure has been a busy one! We started a new English sequence on Monday, based on the book ‘A Walk in London’, and we are looking forward to continuing that after half term. In Maths, we began Time, beginning with years, months, days and weeks as well as hours, minutes and seconds. It would be really helpful over half term if children could revise their skills of telling the time, on an analogue and digital clock. Sports Day was a huge success; it was lovely to see the children’s sporty talents, as well as being enthusiastic spectators. We are looking forward to having an electrician, who works for the National Grid, visit us at the end of the week, linking to our electricity topic in Science. On Friday, the children are having a walk around Appledore, learning lots of facts about the village, linking to their English sequence. The children are also going to get stuck into some outdoor learning Friday afternoon, to finish off the half term. I’m sure they’re absolutely exhausted; it’s been a very busy week! They have certainly deserved a very restful half term.
It’s been a very ‘sporting’ week for Year 5. A fantastic effort from you all on sports day; really impressive support given to the younger pupils during the afternoon activities. We also took part in cricket and tennis coaching sessions. Our writing has continued to explore good report writing techniques and in maths we have been showing our skills on reflecting shapes in horizontal and vertical lines. Our work in science, on living things and their habitats, has concluded this week. Luckily the caterpillars have finally become five beautiful butterflies; they have been released into the school environment to continue with their life cycle.
Year 6 have done themselves proud on Sports Day with all their help and encouragement for their teams and for organising and setting up so many activities – they had a small treat to say thank you. We’ve had some play practice, they have performed and filmed their dance and written comments for their school reports. Homework this week is research for their art pictures related to ‘The Last of England’ and can be found on Google Classroom. We have had a half class day: one half in the art studio printing and another in class investigating all about electricity. Another busy week so I’m sure they’re ready for a rest – have a lovely half-term.
