News
Newsletter for the week ending 11th March
Today the children were decked out in yellow and blue in support of those in Ukraine undergoing hardship and those who have fled Ukraine and undergoing hardship. We have established a JustGiving account named Appledore School non-uniform day for voluntary contributions to ShelterBox and in less than 24hrs we achieved the initial target. At time of writing this today we were at a staggeringly generous £898! If your child is worried about the events unfolding in Ukraine, the NSPCC has useful advice on how to discuss this with your children.
If you believe your child is at higher risk from coronavirus the department for health has published information that is available here
We wish you all a happy weekend
Best wishes from
Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have found out more about London. We have talked about how Appledore and London are similar and different. We have looked at how the River Torridge is at the edge of Appledore whereas the Thames goes through London. On Thursday we made a boat and took a virtual boat trip down the Thames. We had an ‘I Spy’ booklet that we used to tick off the sights of London. Today we walked down to the Library to change our books.
This week in year 1 we have carried on our Literacy work around the story The Disgusting Sandwich. We have received more challenges from the badger and have completed them all so far! We have been writing sentences about the story using conjunctions such as: and, so, because, but and when. In Maths we have carried on working on Place Value to 50 and we are now really confident at partitioning numbers into tens and ones. In our topic lessons we learnt more about the Great Fire of London and answered questions about what happened, showing how much we had remembered. We have also had Outdoor Learning this week where we voted on what vegetables to plant and got the beds ready for planting soon!
Lundy Puffins were excited to start their new topic this week: What does it take to be a great explorer? They had pictures of different people and were told that these people all did something for the first time. They were challenged to decide what this might be. There were some really great discussions and they were then able to match up the pictures with the name of the explorer. Their work in English has continued; they are reading a biography about Amelia Earhart and will be writing their own biographies next week. In Maths, they have been learning about fractions: 1/3. They also learnt that 2/4 is the same as 1/2. They have finished their science topic and could say what humans needed to be healthy. In philosophy, they have been discussing ‘friendship’ which is the value for this half term.
Year 3 considered the similarities and differences between Hindu worship at home and at the temple. They then explored this further when they continued retelling the story of Krishna and the Mountain trough the medium of Indian classical dance. Year 4 had a further two workshops with Andrew and the songs are sounding great. They also recorded a performance of their cyclic patterns which were played on djembe drums. After a trying lesson with j flutes, we reverted to recorders for year 5‘s whole class ensemble teaching with much more success and you could recognise a famous tune from Mary Poppins. Year 6 added more maths revision facts to their reworking of a George Ezra track and continued considering the significance of the Easter story.
HMS Echo have been great writers this week, writing in the style of ‘Until I Met Dudley’ by Roger McGough. In the book, there are suggestions about how everyday objects work, such a snake in the hoover and polar bears in the fridge. Then there are factual explanations. The children have created their own ideas and written some fabulous descriptions of how a submarine could work, such as being tugged down by whales or hamsters running on a wheel to motor a propeller. They make very entertaining reads! They enjoyed two visitors from some choir teachers from Exeter Cathedral this week, who helped them to prepare for their schools concert in the cathedral next Friday. On one of the visits, some of the Year 6 choristers came along and the children enjoyed listening to them sing, singing with them and asking questions about their lives.
A super busy week for year 5. We have continued to write our Space Logs, visiting five new planets (some very weird and wonderful adventures!) It has been great to see the class really thinking about their choices of vocabulary and using the thesaurus to find better words for their writing. We have revised our knowledge on fronted adverbials to show time, frequency, place, manner and possibility. We continue with our work on fractions, securing how to change a mixed number to an improper fraction and vice versa. These skills were then used to play a maths game at the end of the week. We have started to answer the question ‘What is the solar system?’ which should help support this half term’s homework. We are continuing to improve our skills on teams games in PE and improve our fitness with the weekly park run. PE kits should be in school all week (especially trainers)! Another group have made their ‘window biscuits’ with Mrs Evans and today were are planting our seeds in the polytunnel.
Year 6 have been solving equations with up to 2 values this week and looking at linear sequences in algebra. In Literacy, they are still perfecting their celebration writing and have been very imaginative. Science has included recapping the digestive system after a messy outdoor learning session. In P4C, they have been discussing issues to do with having friends and building lasting relationships with people – a topic on their minds with finding out about secondary school places. Please keep a look out for help sheets coming home from time to time with preparation for SATs. Booster classes will be on again next week – please ensure we know what the arrangements are for your child to go home.
