News
Newsletter for the week ending 22nd March
A busy week with much going on in and around classes, including an all week visit from Mrs Recycle. Please read on to find out more…
Dates for the Diary – PTA run events
Friday 29th March, children’s Easter bingo. 3.30-5.00pm (please note NEW END TIME now 5pm)
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
Spring craft workshop – free
10am – 12.30pm, Saturday 13 April, The Arts Centre, Bideford FREE. A workshop for families. Decorate a flower pot, make flowers from tissue paper and recycled materials, create a Faberge inspired egg or your very own ‘dragon’s’ egg. For further information and to book:
Visit learndevon@devon.gov.uk. Call 01237 472462 or 0345 155 1014 or Email learndevonbideford@devon.gov.uk
Glidden & Squire Cross Country
Well done all our children and parent runners and thank you for representing the 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
The school is considering providing hot school meals for children in years 3-6 from September 2019. 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.
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
FSU started off the week with someone coming to read us a story about a turtle who ate the plastic in the sea and what we could do to save our seas. We have taken part in the activities with Mrs Recycle on Wednesday and Thursday and we have visited The Jungle looking for natural and man made materials. We have loved exploring the magnets and finding out which materials stick and which ones do not, and trying to think of reasons why this happens.
This week started in a very exciting way; we came back after break to find a big mess and a video of a dinosaur in our classroom! The next day he had been back and left poo for us to investigate, we had to decide if the poo was from a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore. We have also been learning about Mary Anning, we have watched clips and read books about her, then we discussed the similarities and differences between the clips and books. We have also pretended to be Mary Anning and answered questions as her. In Maths we have been learning about mass and capacity, we have weighed objects by comparing them and solved problems. We have also estimated how many children would be the same length as a dinosaur and how many of our shoes would fit in a triceratop footprint. On Monday we used salt-dough to make dinosaur teeth, we drew bones and fossils and we helped Mrs Recycle to make a mural using bottle lids.
Lundy Puffins have been reading the story ‘Augustus and his smile’ and thinking about what sort of story it is. They picked out all the verbs that the author used and decided that these were really effective for showing how the tiger moved. In Maths, they have finished their work on pictograms and block graphs and will be beginning to learn how to tell the time to the nearest 15 minutes. On Thursday afternoon, they worked with Mrs Recycle to create a whole school piece of art work. For science this week they learned all about ice and how to turn it into water. They were each given an ice cube and had to work out how to free the toy stuck inside. There were some great ideas. This week, they have started to sew their puppets, which they will then decorate.
Seahunter had an exciting to start to the week when they received a letter from Willy Wonka inviting them to design a new chocolate bar for his factory to make. They are now busy finding out all about how chocolate is made and how to write persuasive letters. Miss Knill is leading this work, which will end next week with some delicious products and letters ready to post. I wonder who will get the golden ticket! As part of our science work, on Tuesday we visited Rosemoor gardens for a workshop about rocks and soils. The children learnt some amazing facts about soil; how it is made, what is in it and how important it is. They were particularly amazed by the fact that it takes 100 years to form 1cm of soil!
This week, HMS Echo have been busy practising their drama skills rehearsing for our Roman play for which you will be able to find the date for on the school calendar next week. We have also had the opportunity to take part in another HiiT fitness session with gym instructors from Torridge Pool! In Maths, we have continued o work on decimals numbers. In Literacy, the children have planned, wrote and edited their versions of ‘Winters Child’ which they have also now started to publish to go on display next week. In Art, we have been finishing making our Roman shields and the class have also had a session working with Mrs Recycle! Our big question from Philosophy was ‘Should you ask for something that you won’t respect?’ from reading the book ‘Little Inchkin’.
Literacy this week has involved finishing publishing our Planet work on the computers and beginning a text called ‘Women in Science’. We will shortly be writing a biographical style text on some amazing scientists and astronauts that we will be creating. In maths, our knowledge of fractions is growing: we can now find fractions and percentages of amounts as well as convert between fractions, decimals and percentages. In RE we have made poems and sayings about making the world a better place – these were linked to Buddhist beliefs. We have been looking about the waste with Mrs Recycle and making art with bottle tops. It has been a time consuming event, but we have almost completed our moon buggies – there has been much concentration and resilience shown as not many worked well first time! Thank you to all those who have paid for ‘We the Curious’ (Wednesday 27th March) and sent in SOE3 forms – please check and send if you haven’t. Also, a reminder to reply to the Sleepover (March 29th) by Monday, so that arrangements can be made.
This week, year six have started to write up their ology books and have drawn their pictures for the front covers. In maths, we have been doing statistics (graphs and calculating the mean of numbers) and are carrying on with metric measures with Mrs Evans. Mrs Recycle has come in to talk to us about making a bottle top picture which has Keen To Be Green along the middle. We were also sorting bottle tops into their colour groups. In art we have started to create dragon tiles ready for printing. Reporter: Isabella
Have a wonderful weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
