News
Newsletter for the week ending 15th March
Please read on to find out about PTA events for the children, survey outcomes and much, much more…
Dates for the Diary – PTA run events
Friday 29th March, children’s Easter bingo. 3.30-5.00pm. Please click here for details
Wednesday 5th June, sports day. Races for Y1-Y6 9:30am-12pm, lunch for all children and parents 12pm-1pm and afternoon activities for Reception to Y6 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Wednesday 12th June, reserve day for sports day (if bad weather 5th June)
Friday 5th July (NEW DATE), summer fair. Details to follow.
AROUND and ABOUT THE VILLAGE
Glidden & Squire Cross Country
The postponed final race will now be held on Sunday 17th March at West Buckland School.
Parent Survey Outcomes
Thank you to those who completed the parent survey. Common themes were communication (both positive and improvement suggestions) and extending school meals to years 3-6.
Hot Meals
In addition to the existing provision of school meals for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 as part of the Government’s scheme for free school meals for this age group, the school is considering making available hot school meals for children in Years 3-6 from September 2019 for parents to buy.. To understand level of demand, please follow this link https://goo.gl/forms/bhyAvjPYarhoXYKI2 and complete the survey before Friday 29th March
Communcation
Comments regarding communication were varied. We always try to get information to you as soon as possible and due to the intended audience and/or the nature of content it can necessitate communicating in different ways. In a further attempt to become more consistent we will endeavour to send letters originating from Appledore School as an email attachment and store a copy in the Parents/Letters & Forms section of www.appledore-primary.devon.sch.uk.
As always, please ensure we have the current email and mobile number of the primary contact because this is to whom messages will be sent.
Dogs Trust, Ifracombe
FREE Easter Activity Session @ Dogs Trust, Ilfracombe – EX34 8NU for children aged 4+. Come and join the some fun and exciting activities with Dogs Trust Education & Community Officer, Stacey Prosser. Monday 8th April 2019 – 1pm
AROUND AND ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Road Safety at During Drop Off and Collection Times
Sadly, I am having to remind parents that not only only are they not permitted to park outside the school on Kingsley Avenue because it it is a private road that only access across is granted, but that cars ignoring this are creating too frequent near misses with predestrians and particulalry children. We all teach the children road safety awareness and continue to do so, but attempts by school to stop what is a very small minority contuining to ignore requests, including being abusive with it, are falling on deaf ears. A very small number of parents have permission due to disability, but for all the rest please, please park further away (including the car park on Odun Road for which you are entitled to a free pass, please just ask) and walk before I am having to write to you with news of a child accident or possibly worse.
Year 6
This term and next are particulalry busy for our Year 6, so please do visit the school calendar to see all that is happening. Please be aware some timings are approximate and that you will recieve confirmation when more information for each event is sent out.
Disposable Cameras
With the rise in camera use for taking photos, please could you have a dig around to see if you have any rechargeable cameras you no longer use that you would be willing to donate to school. Please send any in with your child or drop them in at the school office.
School Funding
Please click here to read the letter sent to all families about the concerns cuurently circulating in the media about funding levels for schools.
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in FSU we have been looking at how the people in lifeboats and lighthouses help us, we had a great visit to the Lifeboat Station on Tuesday travelling in the mini bus. We have written about our visit and how much we learned from it. Our art focus this half term is printing so we have printed the seas, lifeboats and lighthouses. Today we read the story ‘The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch’ and went to the Jungle to make pulleys to send messages to each other up and down the Jungle, then we made our favourite sandwiches.
This week in Year 1 we have had a great time writing our own version of The Tiger Who Came to Tea, called The Dinosaur Who Came to Dinner. Everyone worked so hard to write very long stories using the skills we have been learning. In Maths we have been measuring using standard units and used rulers to measure dinosaurs. We had a great time at the Multi Skills festival at the Atlantic Racquet Centre, the children had lots of fun and learnt new skills.
Lundy Puffins have started reading a new book in English about a tiger who loses his smile. Over the next couple of weeks they will be writing their own animal stories. In Maths, they have continued to interpret picotgrams and tally charts. Next week, they will have a go at drawing their own. For their topic work, they read a traditional Indian story called ‘Jamil’s Clever Cat’. From reading this book, they have designed their own puppets and have selected the materials they will use to make these. On Tuesday, they received a letter from Jamil asking them to select a material to make a new sari for the princess in the story. The sari had to be waterproof and it had to be comfortable. To do this they tested all sorts of different materials to find which would be best to make the sari. They will discuss what they found out and write a letter back to Jamil. For their Philosophy session, they read the book ‘Beautiful Oops’ which is all about being very creative with mistakes. They chose to discuss the question: ‘Are mistakes ok?’
Seahunter have been learning about decimal numbers this week and have done amazing job being able to explain what tenths are. It all started with a pizza challenge and they have been keen to discover more, working with images of pizza and chocolate to support their understanding! They can draw them, order them, add them, writ them as fractions and put them on a number line. In English, they have enjoyed a week of drama based upon their visit to The Eden Project, which will lead to writing a diary extract for a rainforest ranger. The children will be sharing their drama and written work with parents at the end of term, so we’re not giving too much away yet! In philosophy, we read Little Inchkin, the story of a tiny samurai warrior who used creativity and determination to overcome difficulties in his life. The question the children discussed was, ‘Did Inchkin know his parents didn’t love him?’ which lead to some interesting thoughts about the difference between being looked after (given the things we need) and being loved.
HMS Echo have had a busy and exciting week! In the classroom, the children have continued to make their Roman shields using printing skills where they engraved their design into polystyrene, to then print using ink. They have been learning Roman songs linked to Topic also. We have continued our learning on fractions in Maths and will be moving onto decimals next week. The class have also been further practising the use of fronted adverbials in their writing in English. The Trip to Exeter Cathedral and Mosque went very well. The children learnt lots of facts about the Cathedral. The two guides for the two separate groups had masses of information to share with the children. After lunch, the class were able to watch the men’s Prayer Time at the Mosque. Afterwards, they were able to return to the Men’s Prayer Hall and The Women’s Prayer Area. It was great to be able to visit two such very different places of worship.
This week in Year 5 we have been learning about converting % to decimals and fractions. In English we have started writing up our leaflets for our made up planets that if were real you could come and visit. In art we have started to make elastic band powered moon buggies. This week year5 have been selected to help out with y1 multi-skills festival. We have also been invited to a choir workshop in preparation for the competition taking place at Bideford college.
This week Y6 have had a mock SATs week. We’ve done the three maths papers, the reading paper and the two SPaG papers. We started our own ‘ology’ books and we are doing geometry in maths. In art we drew pictures for our books. Then on Thursday we did a fitness activity. In topic we look at why we remember Anne Frank and wrote postcards from an evacuee. Reporter: Leo
Have a wonderful weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
