News
Newsletter for the week ending 10th September
This week has been a most enjoyable week for us all. To have all the children back and with greater freedoms is a real pleasure and it looks like they are enjoying it to.
Welcome back to all of you who are returning this year and a very warm welcome to those of you new to us. We hope all of your children have enjoyed their first week of this academic year and if you have questions or concerns, please speak with any of us and we are here to help.
Please take a look at the News section of the school website every Friday. Unless it has been just one of those Fridays, this newsletter will be avaialble before the end of the school day. If it’s not there by then, it soon will be. The newsletter is aimed at providing you with information on what has been happening in all of the classes and other information that we hope is of interest to you.
Please read the main section of this news article and we wish you all a lovely weekend.
Best wishes from
Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND AND ABOUT THE VILLAGE
Please click here for open day events at Bideford College to help you choose your child’s secondary school.
Appledore Book Festival is soon upon us and there are some interesting events.
Taw Valley hockey club, based in Barnstaple, have a thriving junior section for beginners and existing players. They are laying on introductory programmes for children new to hockey and for more information please contact twavalleyhockeyclub@gmail.com
AROUND THE CLASSES
Welcome back everyone! This in Turtles and Dolphins (FSU) week we have been getting to know each other and helping our new children settle into Turtles and Dolphins. We have talked about holidays and painted pictures of them. We have also been busy in our garden digging up the weeds and getting the soil ready to plant some new beans.
This week it has been a great pleasure getting to know the children in Year 1. We have been reading lots of stories and using our imaginations to create interesting constructions in our ‘creative’ and ‘construction’ areas. In maths, we have been looking at patterns and sorting. The children have been applying this learning when visiting other areas of the classroom. In writing, we have learned about verbs. We have come up with a very long list of verbs that the children have done this week. I wonder if they can think of some verbs that they will use over this weekend? The children have particularly enjoyed PE this week. After our first PE lesson, one child said ‘school is amazing!’
Welcome to Lundy Puffins (Year 2)! We have enjoyed getting to know your children this week and are very much looking forward to working with you all over the year. We have been impressed with how well they have settled and how well they work together as a team – well done everyone! This week they have been getting used to new routines including using the hall for PE. They had great fun using the parachute and playing a team game with a hoop. They helped to create our class values which are: we work hard and try our best; we are kind and polite; we listen carefully to the speaker; we share and take turns; we walk calmly in the classroom and around the school; we take care of the classroom. A date for your diary is Thursday 23rd September when we will be visiting Quince Honey Farm. More details will follow soon once the details have been finalised. We have also planned a trip to Rosemoor on Tuesday 12th October.
Seahunter have transitioned to Year 3 well! They have enjoyed learning some of the new rules and routines, and playing on a new playground! We have spoken about what it means to be Super Learner. The children have been introduced to our new value ‘Inclusion’ and have given some good examples on how we can be inclusive in school and at home. The class have carried out their elicitation tasks for Maths and English ready to start our learning on ‘Place Value’ and ‘The Book of Hopes’. In Topic, the class have been introduced to our Topic ‘Deforestation’. Well done on your first week Year 3!
HMS Echo have made a great start to the term as Year 4s. They came back to school with positive attitudes and were really pleased to see each other again. This week, they have been assigned class jobs for the term, spent some time getting to find out about their holidays, agreed on some class promises and found out about our new value, inclusive. We read Giraffe’s Can’t Dance’ and the children discussed how and why Gerald was left out for being different and thought about all o fhte ways in which we are different but still have the right to be included. This afternoon, they have finished some great paintings and sketches of our class ship, HMS Echo to go on our classroom door. We are looking forward to a brilliant year!
Year 5 (Beechcroft) have returned to school with enthusiasm and ready to learn. This week we have been learning a new text, The Tear Thief, and have been story mapping and thinking about how emotions are used in stories. We have looked at what strategies we know about addition and using these to add 4-digit numbers with an exchange. Our new science unit is based on materials and the topic is looking at plastic in the ocean. Everyone now has a new role (play leader, vice house captain etc) and have taken on this responsibility fantastically. A great start to a new term!
Year 6 have had a busy first week getting back into the swing of things and have worked really hard. We have started Topic and Literacy work on ‘Climate Change’ and place value work in Maths (numbers up to 10 million). In Science, we are thinking about how to sort and classify plants and animals and we have really enjoyed our first session of Bench Ball in the hall. Please look out for the kit list for Heatree and hand stamps and postcard money in as soon as possible.
Music, French & RE Years 3-6: Year 3 had great fun in the hall when they began a unit of dance based on Encounters and the poem Open Hand Closed Fist. They explored different ways of greeting people and created dance motifs based on their ideas. Year 4 have also been dancing this week. They became the component parts of a machine and found mechanical movements that will eventually link together to make a recycling machine! Year 5 began exploring the pentatonic scale in preparation for writing original sea shanties about single use plastic and the oceans. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was the focus in year 6. The children listened to the pieces and will be exploring how different instruments create different moods and atmospheres. All key stage 2 revised some conversational French and began units of study in R.E. It was a fun but busy time!
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