News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 19th April
Welcome back and a warm welcome to our new families who have joined us this term and to new staff too. We hope you all had a good Easter break.
For information about the Northam May Fair medieval and Viking fancy dress and hat competition on Saturday 4th May 2024 and an application form please click here and here
Diary Dates:
- Sports Day Tuesday 21st May – more details to follow
Wishing you all a very happy weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have started our new topic ‘Fairy Tales’. On Tuesday we found a letter asking for our help. The giant had lost his key and we had to find it. We decided it was the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. We have read different versions of the story this week. We made a beanstalk and each day new things had grown from it. Outside we have planted potatoes and vegetables. We have drawn pictures of a castle and we have also drawn around feet and measured them using cubes.
Year 1 have had a great first week back after the Easter holidays! In Maths we have started Multiplication, focussing counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. It would be great if the children could practise counting at home too. We have started our new topic ‘Oceans’, discussing what we already know and what we would like to learn through this topic. The class came up with some amazing facts they already knew and exciting questions they would like to answer. In Writing we have started a new book ‘Hidden World: Oceans’ which we have loved looking at together and finding out about all sorts of different creatures. Some baby news: Mrs Wilkins has had a little boy and they are both doing very well.
Welcome back Year 2 after the Easter Break. This week they have started a new unit of learning in Maths all about Fractions. They have been learning about equal and unequal parts and how to find and recognise a half. In English, they have been reading a new book called ‘The Dragon Machine’ and have been creating maps to go with the story to help them learn parts of it. Our new Geography unit is all about the weather and they recalled the different types of weather they learned about in Year 1. Their outdoor learning this week was Science-based. They remembered the pushes and pulls they had been learning about and used this knowledge to create rocket mice. Everyone had great fun. Some baby news: Mrs Stephens had a baby girl this week and both mother and baby are doing well.
In music, all key stage 2 children began work in what will be our entry for a brand new school song competition . They learnt to play it on the recorder in whole class ensemble teaching and were joined by the rest of the school in singing assembly to learn how to sing it. Year 6 began to compose the middle eight and will be using Yu Studio, a digital audio workshop, to produce the track. We are being realistic about our chances of making the live final but in the meantime we are working together to make it the best it can be and having a lot of fun. When the track is finished we will share it with you
Year 3 have had a great first week back. In Maths, we learned all about volume and capacity. We used millilitres and litres to measure different volumes and we worked out equivalent measurements using our knowledge of the fact that there are 1000 millimetres in 1 litre. In Guided Reading, we began reading the poetry book ‘The Lost Spells’. We read the poem called ‘Jackdaw’ and discussed the author’s use of certain sounds in the poem to create rhyme and rhythm. In Science, we began our new topic on plants and we dissected daffodils to find the different parts of flowering plants. We then researched the different functions of the parts. In Geography, we began our topic on rivers and we recapped the water cycle and drew and labelled our own version using key vocabulary. In Values, we thought all about the different communities that we belong to and discussed the meaning of this half term’s value, ‘inclusivity’.
In HMS Echo (year 4), the children have settled in really well after the Easter break and started our brand new units. In English, we have read Leon and the Place Between and the children wrote some excellent sentences today improving nouns and verbs to improve their vocabulary. In Maths, we are continuing with decimals, where we have looked at what hundredths are and what happens when we divide a whole number by 100. In Science and Geography, we did an elicitation to see what they already knew about electricity and the children took a guess to see what is the world’s most precious resource. Some of them guessed – water! In PE, the children began their swimming lessons and the children recapped their tennis skills which they will be doing in school this half term. For our Values, the children had a lesson on puberty and how our bodies change as we get older which we have caught up with from last term.
A great start to the summer term for year 5. We have completed the usual maths and reading assessments and great progress seen across the class; well done year five for all the hard work you have done in the spring term and the readiness for the summer term. We have started our new writing unit based on Shackleton’s Journey to Antarctica. We have selected one of the crew members to research and follow their journey as they start their voyage on The Endurance. In maths we have started a new unit on shape and in science we have started to look at different animal life cycles. Our new geography unit will be looking at the impact of plastic in the oceans and exploring how oceanographers have found out alot about our oceans from a plastic duck! The visits to Primrose House have started this week so everyone in the class will get an opportunity to visit the residents there.
Year 6 have been busy this week trying to get their brains up to speed. In maths, they have revised place value, addition and subtraction and some measures. In Literacy, they are enjoying ‘The Tempest’ and working hard on advancing the action through speech. Outdoor Learning has involved science about light – half the class will catch up next time. They have also played benchball in PE and showed great team skills. Please respond to whether you would like your child to be involved in SATs breakfast or not so that we can sort provisions.
