News
Newsletter for the week ending 19th January
Please read on to find out about our art being in a local gallery exhibition and what has been happening in and around the classes…
Burton Art Gallery, Bideford
We have submitted art by our children to the Schools Exhibition that opens 27 Jan, 2018 – 05 Mar, 2018 that is free to view.
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
Our theme this week in FSU has been what do we see in the sky? We have had some amazing ideas – the sun set and the sun rise to name a few. We have made telescopes to look at the sky and made sculptures of the sun and moon for our display. We have read stories about the moon and the stars and used non fiction books to find out more about the stars, sun and moon. We looked at Vincent Van Gogh’s painting ‘Starry Night’ and recreated our paintings using a range of media.
This week we have continued our work using ‘Oi Frog’ as inspiration. We have worked together as a class to adapt the story. We made story maps and then wrote the story, trying to remember to use capital letters, punctuation and joined up handwriting. In Maths we have compared groups of objects and numbers using the ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ symbols. We have also ordered groups of objects and numbers. In Science we have started to keep a weather diary, we have used thermometers to take the temperature. In Philosophy we watched a video about Mary Seacole and then discussed the question ‘How did she get brave enough to help the soldiers?’
In Maths, Lundy Puffins have moved on to multiplication. They practised counting equal groups and drawing pictures to match. Next week, they will be looking at the 2, 5 and 10 times multiplication tables so please keep practising. In English, they have been finishing their ‘Baboon on the Moon’ stories and have started to write an information text about birthday parties. In Science, they have been looking at the basic needs of humans and other animals and with Mrs Harvey, in Art, they have been drawing elephants. For P4C, we read Dr Seuss ‘Oh, the places you’ll go’ to fit in with our theme of ‘Inspirational’. Our question was: Can you do anything you want if you set your mind to it?
Sea hunter have had a challenging week in maths, getting to grips with decimal numbers. They have explored what they mean through images of chocolate bars, printing the numbers with paint and creating pizza images in tenths. They have worked hard to understand and have impressed us with their ability to explain their mathematical thinking. In philosophy we chose to explore the story of an inspirational person, Marie Curie. We read her story then though of some questions. The question we chose to discuss was ‘why didn’t she save money for her family?. ‘ The children debated whether she should have used her money to go to university or support her poor family back in Poland. They had some thought provoking suggestions and most children concluded that her work inspired women to prove themselves and she saved many lives so she did make the right decision. What do you think?
HMS Echo have had a brilliant first week swimming. For maths this week, we practised rounding 3 and 4 digit-numbers and learnt how to write Roman numerals up to 100. The children then solved calculations involving Roman numerals! The children have now completed their Number Sense unit and will be learning new skills linked to multiplication and division for the next couple of weeks. As a class, for our English unit, we planned our own version of Winters Child – Summers Child. The children then wrote the first few paragraphs using the skills we have focused on. In Philosophy this week, we looked at a book called ‘Great Women Who Changed the World’ and focused on the page about Anne Frank. From this the children came up with the big question ‘How was she inspired to be so positive?’ For Science, we have now completed our unit on digestion and teeth and are ready to start learning about our new unit, electricity.
Beechcroft have really enjoyed continuing to write their ‘space logs’. We have been writing about the planets Underwater Evolution, Volatile (reminded the class about our playtimes), Utopian Disturbance and Inedible Danger. We have continued to work on our geometry skills, learning more about quadrilaterals, polygons and the angles on a straight line. We have been finding out about the scientists Copernicus and Galileo. We listen to the story of ‘The Conquerors’ by David McKee in our P4C session and discussed the question ‘should you only listen to the people in charge?’
Year 6 have written about a meeting between two wizards using figurative language in literacy and are now embarking on inventing gadgets for the new generations of wizards. In maths they have been securing ratio and proportion, linking knowledge of fractions and percentages. Science has explored adaptation and what this means in scientific terms – they looked for adaptive traits in plants and animals. Art involved wand making – the finishing touches are still required before they will be on display.
Best wishes from
Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
