News
Newsletter for the week ending 1st February
So much to read about in this week’s newsletter that includes future PTA run events, workshops in robotics and with the Devon Junior Jazz Orchestra, netball matches, sports festivals and much, much so please do read on…
Dates for the Diary – PTA run events
Friday 1st February, Disco, Nursery-Y2 5pm-6.15pm & Y3-Y6 6.30pm-7.45pm
Friday 21st June, summer fair. Details to follow.
Friday 8th March, Quiz and bingo night for adults (parents, relatives, friends…). Time tbc. Details to foloww.
Friday 29th March, children’s Easter bingo. 3.30-4.30pm. Details to follow.
Friday 21st June, summer fair. Details to follow.
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)
AROUND and ABOUT THE VILLAGE
Glidden & Squire Cross Country
This Sunday is the last race and medal presentation at West Buckland School. Please keep an eye on the organisers website to check it is still on https://northdevonxcleague.weebly.com/ and good luck to all our runners.
AROUND THE SCHOOL
Netball v Kingsley School
We braved the weather, evening staying on after the Kingsley children were sent home, to have two hours of great fun netball! The girls were ace, nearly as excited to play as they were to see the snow (I’ve never seen a field of play empty so quickly mid attack to get a closer look of the falling snow from a window before!) and so well organised by pur parents helper. Many thanks.
A group of our musicians attended a DYJO (Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra) worskhop at Instow School where they learned how to play a piece of music with many different musical instruments. the children also listened to musicians play some of their own music and were taught dynamics and tempo.
Traffic at Drop-off and Collection
once again we have had some near misses as a result of people entering Kingsley Avenue and entering it unsafely and irresponsible parking on Richmond Avenue. Please, please, please be aware that Kingsley Avenue is a private road for access across only and of the children and parents crossing the roads.
World Book Day
Thursday 7th March is the annual World Book Day. Children may come to school dressed as a character from a children’s book. Throughout the day, children will listen to and share lots of stories. Children will be given a £1 book token which they will be able to spend in most book shops. If you are stuck, here are some costume ideas:https://www.worldbookday.com/dressing-up/
Robotics at West Buckland
Some Yr and Y5 children visited West Buckland School for a robotics workshop. They were separated into 8 groups, with a pupil from each school to work with for the day. The challenge was to build and code a robot set of Lego-Mindstorm to navigatre a maze.
Cross Country Meet
Good luck to all our runners this afternoon!
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in FSU we have looked at how Paramedics help us. On Tuesday Cathy came to school feeling poorly so we talked about whether we would need to phone a paramedic or not, we decided not and that we better phone the doctors – thankfully Cathy is feeling much better now! We have looked at scenarios where Paramedics can help us. Towards the end of the week we talk about being healthy and the things we can do to look after ourselves, we had a visit from Pete at Asda who brought lots of different fruit for us to try. During PE we have been completing some simple circuits and feeling the affects on our body.
This week in Sea lions we have really enjoyed Mr McGrath teaching us Maths. We have looked at bar models for the first time, then we used the bar models to help us find related facts. We also used part whole models to find related facts and used greater than and less than symbols to compare number sentences. In Writing we have finished our Oi Frog inspired stories, they are now edited and published and ready to view in the Writing Corridor. Our weather diary has been interesting this week with a temperature recording of 2 degrees and hail. In Philosophy this week we read the book ‘We’re All Wonders’ and had a great discussion about the question ‘Why is it good to be different?’
Lundy Puffins have been writing about birthday parties in preparation for our new writing sequence of work about celebrations. In Maths, they have continued with multiplication and are beginning to get to grips with the 2, 5 and 10x tables. In our topic work they have been looking at maps and atlases and locating the continents and then trying to find India. For art they have been sculpting Indian elephant heads from newspaper and masking tape. On Thursday, in the Art studio, they were able to use ModRoc to cover these. The final stage next week will be to add the ears and paint them.
Seahunter have enjoyed their first week of Miss Knill teaching Maths. They have been learning about addition and being able to explain their reasoning. In English, we have continued to work on Gregory Cool, a story set in the Caribbean and the children wrote some amazing letters from the Caribbean to family back home in the UK. They were able to demonstrate some amazing writing skills as well as their knowledge of life on a Caribbean island. They will be planning and writing their own Caribbean stories next week so look out for them on the writer’s wall.
In Maths, HMS Echo have been learning how to multiply by partitioning and using the formal written method. In Literacy, the children have written their own imaginary explanation texts following our class innovate ‘How a Gumball Machine Works’. We have also then carried out some vocabulary work and further work on writing in 2nd person. In Topic, we looked at Cassius Dio’s description of what Boudicca looked like, from this the children sketched what they thought she looked like. In Philosophy, we watched a clip from ‘Despicable Me’, and the children came up with and discussed ‘Should you always have hope when you know you probably won’t achieve your goal?’
This week Year 5 have been busy again. In maths we have finished multiplication/division and started our new unit on measurements. In English, we have now designed our own contraptions for Wallace and Gromit and some of us have even started to write up our explanation about them. In topic, for home work, we have selected a space activity to complete – some chose to create a solar system, some even baked and wrote down the recipe – we enjoyed sharing the results! In class we have been finding out more about the planets and how they move. Keep looking at the sky each night, it’s been clear to see the stars some evenings – which constellations can you detect? In PE we played bench ball again and realised how much our skills have improved. Make sure your children know all 1-12 times table questions as there is an upcoming Times Tables Rock Stars competition between the houses.
This week in Year 6 we have started our fact books on explorers (north and south poles) which is based on the book Shackleton’s Journey; some of us have researched Scott, Amundsen, Bancroft or Fiennes. In maths we have focused on division and multiplication of fractions. On Wednesday, Kim, a dental nurse from Torrington, came into our class to tell us about oral hygiene. We disclosed our teeth to show us how we should be looking brushing our teeth and gums and making sure we have healthy mouths. We have had a really busy week including the following events:
ARC Multi-skills Festival: On Thursday morning all of Y6 went to ARC to join others schools for a multi-skills festival. We were put into animal groups to play: hockey, basketball, football, tennis, dodge ball, chase tag, throwing, cricket and an obstacle course. We all had lots of fun with the other schools and worked really well in our teams. Mrs McMorine was really impressed by the good behaviour and sporting attitude of the class.
