News
Newsletter for the week ending 12th January
Please readon to find out about Year 1 phonics evening, Thrift Club and what has been happening around the classes…
AROUND THE VILLAGE
Kingsley School Open Days
Kingsley School are holding their year 7 Scholarship and Entrance Day on Friday 19th January. If you are interested in coming along on the day, please let Lou Wivell know on admissions@kingsleyschoolbideford.co.uk and she will be more than happy to help them understand the scholarships and bursarial support that can be made available to pupils and their families.
AROUND THE SCHOOL
Thift Club
Next Thift Club is Monday 29th January.
Year 1 Phonics Evening
Parents of year 1 (Sea Lions) are invited to a Phonics Evening, Thursday 8th of February from 5:30 in the Year One classroom. A letter with the information has been sent out with more information.
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week FSU have started our new topic Space but focused more on the difference between day and night first of all. We have looked at all the things that happen during the day including animals, the sky and our routine and all the things that happen at night. We have cooked some sun and star biscuits. We loved reading the story ‘Night Monkey, Day Monkey’ and looked at night and day through their eyes. Our P4C question was ‘Would you rather be Night Monkey or Day Monkey?’ We also looked at how shadows are formed and loved playing around with the torches. Our Open Afternoon for this term is on Tuesday 27th March at 3pm.
This week we have read ‘Oi Frog!’. We have discussed the book, and the characters from the story. We pretended to be characters from the story and asked each other questions. We have also looked at question marks, exclamation marks and identified commands and questions. In Maths we are looking at place value, we have been focusing on the teen numbers. We have used lots of different resources to make teen numbers, and we have used ten frames to help us understand teen numbers. In Science we have walked around the school, looking for signs of Winter. Our value this term is ‘Inspirational’, in our Philosophy session we watched a video of the athlete Jonnie Peacock. We thought of lots of great questions and discussed the question ‘Why didn’t he give up after he lost his leg?’.
This week Lundy Puffins have been story writers and were writing the story of ‘The Baboon on the Moon’. There was lots of descriptive language and some children were thinking hard about spelling – well done! In Maths, they were learning about finding totals of amounts of money and giving change. If you’re out and about this weekend try to practise this skill. In Science, we’ve been finding out about the basic needs of humans and other animals: food, water and air. Our India topic has continued and we have used world maps to identify continents, seas and oceans and have also located India. The value this term is ‘Inspirational’, so we have watched a clip about the paralympic athlete Johnny Peacock. The P4C question from this was: Should you ever give up if you can’t do something?
Seahunter have enjoyed getting to find our more about the Caribbean this week. We read the story of Gregory Cool by Caroline Binch, which is set on the island of Tobago. The children enjoyed the story as well as finding and collecting evidence about life on the island. They have started to create some lovely booklets about island life. We also took a journey to the Caribbean with the help of Google Earth and discovered where it is in the world. In Maths, they have worked really hard on partitioning numbers in different ways using images. They have been really developing their ability to explain what they have done and discovered. It has been a busy but very successful first full week.
This week in Maths HMS Echo have been learning about positive and negative numbers and solving calculations involving them. We used the context of temperature to help us to learn the skill and the children went on to write their own worded problems for their partner to solve. In English, the children have really enjoyed beginning to learn about our new story ‘Winter’s Child’. The class discussed their likes, dislikes, puzzles and patterns, drew story maps and did some writing using a range of sentence constructions from the story. For Philosophy this week we watched a video linked to our new value ‘inspirational’. The children came up with a few big questions which we will continue to look at until our next Philosophy session. In Science, the children observed the changes of the egg shells that we left in different liquids for a week. From this they discussed how the egg shells had changed over time and which liquids did the most and least damaged. They used what they had learnt to write conclusions and even went on to make PowerPoint’s to teach others about our experiment.
Beechcroft have really enjoyed writing their ‘space logs’ for new planets discovered whilst exploring the universe. In topic work we have been finding facts out about the planet Venus. In numeracy we have been learning how to correctly use a protector and then measure and draw angles accurately. We have been doing daily Take 10 en francais and learning to sing the songs Aloutte, Des Os and Gouzi-gouzi. So we are learning French as well as getting fitter. In PE we have been improving our tennis skills ready for a tournament at the end of the month.
We listened to the story of ‘The Boy who Cried Wolf’ in our P4C session and decided to discuss the question ‘Is it right to lie to get attention?’.
Year 6 have had fun designing their wands this week in art: each has its own special wood, core material and takes on the characteristics of its wizard – they will be made next week hopefully. In literacy, we have been identifying the writing techniques of J. K. Rowling as well as using figurative language (similes, metaphors, personification, alliteration). In science, as we discover about inheritance, we have been looking closely at features of people and similarities in families that come from shared DNA. Maths has required much concentration: multiplying and dividing fractions. We will move onto ratio and proportion next. Children have been asked to collect a bottle or suitable pot for potion making later in the term so please check before you recycle your bottles.
Best wishes from
Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
