News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 7th June
Welcome back and we hope you had an enjoyable half term.
This week we took a squad of swimmers from across keys stage 2 to a swimming gala at the Northam pool and competed against 6 other local schools. We demonstrated our strength as a team, coming second, and individual talent with a number of first, second and third placings for fastest times. Some of our swimmers won multiple individual medals for fastest times. Well done everyone!
NDAC (North Devon Athletics Club) are pleased to let everyone know that entries for the Devon Open 3 fixture in Braunton, North Devon on Sunday 7th July are now open on the Roster Platform. Entry fee is £10 which allows juniors to take part in up to 3 events. Closing date is Wednesday 3rd July (12 noon). The link to entries is here: https://meets.rosterathletics.com/…/details/about
Attendance is always on our radar to ensure children have the best opportunity of reaching their potential. For our May attendance newsletter, please click here.
We wish you all a super weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have finished off our story of the three little pigs. We have talked about our own houses, what they look like and how they are the same or different to our friends. We have painted pictures of our houses. Today we wrote an alternative version to the three. They will be posted later on the website next week.
Year 1 has had a lovely first week back and started off the week with a drama lesson acting out parts of Jack and the Beanstalk. They thought about the words they would use to describe the different characters. We have started a new unit in maths on position and direction. They enjoyed giving and following directions to move around the classroom and playing some games to escape aliens. Our Maths also linked to our computing this week, learning how to programme commands for a sprite to move. The children really enjoyed exploring ‘Scratch Jr’. In Art they have finished their own ocean inspired collages using different textured paper. They drew and painted a sea creature using watercolour pencils. They look amazing!
Year 2 have had a great week back after the half term break. In Maths, they have been learning about tally charts, tables, block diagrams and pictograms and have been creating their own. In English they are looking at a new book called ‘Outdoor Wonderland’ and have been looking at the different types of sentences in the book. On Thursday afternoon, they had their first tennis session with a coach from Atlantic Racquet Centre. This will now be on a weekly basis, so please make sure full PE kits are in school. They are starting a new topic next week for History all about seaside holidays in the past.
I hope those of you who joined us at the Big Sheep for the singing festival enjoyed the evening. The choir performed magnificently and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to experience performing on a professional stage to a large audience. The choir have already moved on to the next thing and are now learning the harmonies for our school song. We are hoping to have three part harmonies in the chorus which will add to the children’s musical skills. The children are making good progress with playing the song on the recorder despite it being more challenging than anything they have played so far. I will attempt to record them next week so they can be included in the mix. The melody for the bridge has been finalized and the children have begun to learn to sing it. We will send out the arrangements for the recording of the song next week.
Year 3 have had a great first week back! In Maths, we learned the roman numerals to 12 and we have learned to tell the time to 5 minutes. In English, we have planned our own version of Cinderella of the Nile and came up with our own characters and settings. In History, we began our topic on ancient Egypt and explored what a civilisation is and created a timeline to show when in history the ancient Egyptian civilisation occurred. In Science, we began to explore our new topic on forces. We learned that a force is a push or a pull and we sorted different forces into a venn diagram. In Computing, we started the half term with an e-safety lesson and discussed why some online activities have age restrictions and why it is important to follow these guidelines. For our Value’s lesson, we watched the NSPCC assembly and created our own posters to remember some of the important information.
In HMS Echo (year 4) this week, the children visited Coldharbour Mill to begin their new History topic about the Victorians. They learnt about the factory, which is used to make fabric and yarn, and they learnt about how children would have been used to work there during the Victorian times. The children also had a go at some weaving where they made a bracelet or a bookmark. As well as this, the children have begun a new unit in English about a book called The Firebird, which is a Russian folktale that was also made into a ballet. We have been spending this week reading the story and understanding it. In Maths, we are coming to the end of time, where we have learnt about the 24 hour clock and will be moving onto shape. In our Values, we watched the NSPCC assembly ‘Speak out stay safe’, which looked at the different types of abuse. The children also did some outdoor learning about being an ecoranger in the sunshine!
This week has flown by in Year 5. We have started our ‘ology’ books; this is based on the dragonology book. We have written an introduction to our mythical creature and written some golden rules on how to approach them. In maths we have completed the unit of work on position and direction; this week focusing on reflection and symmetry. In science we have looked at how we see, labelling parts of the eye. We have listened to the story of the Trojan Horse and sequenced the key events. Skills are continuing to be developed in both tennis and cricket. Our work on the Arts Award is well underway; we have looked at graphic design and how to use typography.
Year 6 had a very practical First Aid Session this week which taught them about what to do in an emergency, the recovery position, how to respond to somebody choking and how to check a casualty and how to do CPR (with and without a defibrillator). Much of what they learnt is on an App by The Red Cross which can be downloaded onto devices. There is an adult and child version which helps you know what to do in an emergency; it guides you through steps quickly and easily. The steps they had to remember were DR ABC (danger, response, airway, breathing, circulation). They also learnt how to apply a bandage to a wound and had great fun bandaging each other! They have also started to act out the Leavers Play, completed science work on light and been writing about Year 6 for their reports.
