News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 23rd September
Getting back into the swing of school routines following one residential trip and preparation for another pending residential have occupied the minds of our older pupils this week, but there has been no rest for them! A beach clean this week go them all out and about again!
This and much more has been going on around and about school, so please do read on to find out what all the classes have been up to and for other information, including dates, important to you. If you are accessing this from our website homepage, please click on ‘more’ at the end of this post to view all the information..
The past two weeks have seen all staff participate in their annual safeguarding training to refresh their knowledge and understanding and every two weeks staff receive training on a specific aspect of safeguarding. Please keep an eye on this weekly newsletter for resources to support you, such as online safety. To ensure children are safeguarded on school premises so a reminder please to not use your mobile school on school premises
Wishing you all a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND AND ABOUT THE VILLAGE
- For open events in September for Pilton School click here, for Park School click here and for Great Torrington School click here
- West Buckland School and Kingsley School (both local fee paying independent schools) have open days coming up and please click here and here respectively for more information.
AROUND THE CLASSES
Ever considered primary teaching as a career? If so, please click here to find out about Devon Primary SCITT. We are one of about 50 training schools that host students on this Ofsted rated Outstanding provider.
AROUND AND ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Harvest Festival dates are as follows:
- Years 3-6 Wednesday 5th October, 2.15pm at St Mary’s Church, Appledore. Parents and guardians are welcome.
- Years 1&2 Friday 14th October, 2.30pm in school hall and back to classrooms to see their workbooks.
- Turtles & Dolphins Tuesday 18th October, 2.30pm in school hall and back to the foundation stage unit to share learning journeys.
- For all of the above parents can take their children after and also their siblings. Nearer the time we will provide details about how we as a school community support a local homeless charity at this time.
Sports Day
- Sports Day for Dolphins and years 1-6 is scheduled for Tuesday 23rd May. Save the date and fingers crossed for the weather! More details to follow much nearer the time.
For parents of children in Year 6 it is time to start thinking about visiting secondary schools with open days and events typically held in September and October.
Our Tuesday and Thursday afterschool Eco Rangers club is now up and running and children have been enjoying engaging with our outdoor spaces through various fun activities. There are a few spaces left, so please contact the school office on 01237 474365 or admin@appledoreprimary.co.uk to book places. For more information and how this club links with other aspects of school and community life please click here
We have a couple of vacancies on our governing body on our resources committee, principally focused on school finance and staffing. If you are interested in finding out more, please click here and then contact the school on admin@appledoreprimary.co.uk
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued learning about The Gruffalo. We have had a discussion around whether the Mouse was good or bad and whether we would want to be friends with the mouse. This also led to a discussion around whether we would want to be friends with the Gruffalo. We also thought about questions that we would like to ask the Gruffalo. Today we made apple and blackberry crumble. We have made collages and 3D models of the Gruffalo.
In Sea Lions this week we have carried on our Maths learning and looked at finding one more and one less of a given number. We also started our P4C lessons this week and thought about important behaviours for P4C and discussed questions we had about the story we listened to. In RE we made posters about the Creation and thought about what Christians think God is like. In Music we are looking at hip hop and had another go at rapping!
This week in Lundy Puffins we have been learning about verbs and adjectives using our story Traction Man. We have written our own sentences and expanded noun phrases. In Maths we have been partitioning numbers in different combinations of tens and ones. We have also been placing tens numbers on blank number lines. In PE we have started learning how to play Tag Rugby and were very excited to wear the belts and tags! In Science we toured the school looking for things that are living, are no longer living and have never been alive. In Computing we learnt how to stay safe online by not sharing personal information with people we don’t know.
This week, Year 3 have continued their topic learning on rainforests and started their journey to become rainforest rangers. We imagined we were in a rainforest and listened to all the sounds that you might hear. After exploring what a rainforest is, we used maps to locate the world’s rainforests. In maths, we have been looking at 3-digit numbers. We explored different ways to represent 3-digit numbers, including using base 10 and part whole models and then we challenged ourselves to partition 3-digit numbers in different ways. Year 3 have been showing so much creativity in their PE lessons, where we have been enjoying our dance lessons and everyone has been showing off their excellent dance moves!
This week, HMS Echo has been busy planning to write a postcard from a dream destination – we’ve had some fantastic ideas, including sending one from the Taj Mahal, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Dubai and many more exotic locations. I can’t wait to read them! In Maths, we’ve begun learning about numbers to 10,000, exploring different ways to represent the numbers, partitioning numbers in different ways and linking four digit numbers to real life contexts. We also warmed up with some PE where we are practising coordination and balance and the children have shown such perseverance and determination when attempting some tricky footwork sequences! The children have also shown great skill when it comes to using a Chromebook and we’ve been exploring the importance of internet safety, particularly focusing on cyberbullying.
Another very busy week for year 5. We have planned a new story for the tear thief and began to draft this. In maths we have secured a column method to add 4 and 5 digit numbers. We have looked at ways to separate materials in science and learned about the World’s oceans in geography. The beach litter clean, with Northam Burrows and MCS, was a huge success and we collected 3kg of litter, much of which was plastic. This data is being shared in a national database and we will look at this information, for our topic of plastic pollution, next week.It was a fantastic sleepover at the end of last week. We had fish and chips followed by choc-ices to eat followed by sparklers and a night walk wearing our glow bands. The highlight of the evening was playing hide and seek in the dark. Sleep finally happened at midnight!! but everyone slept until 6am the following morning. We are all now ready to take on the Y5 residential in a few weeks time. A kit list and SOE3 form has been sent home but please make sure you have informed Mrs McMorine of dietary and medical needs.
Year 6 have been getting back to work this week after their exciting residential. They are grasping routines now and have been working hard on settling quickly. Maths has been all about place value, whilst literacy has been around our topic on Climate Change. They have also enjoyed a trip to Northam Burrows to find out about World War II and to take part in the Marine Conservation Society Survey looking at waste found on the beach. We hope to share some residential pictures with you soon.
Miss Carr writes Year 5 looked at how the story of the man in the well helps Hindus to understand the need to try and lead a good life despite difficulties. They continued to work on their harvest dance and song and completed a French crossword by filling in the names of animals. Year 3 finished their pictures showing the awe and wonder of nature which will be mounted in a collage in their RE floor book. They put some movement into their year group song for the harvest service. Year 4 looked at the importance of prayer to Muslims and designed their own prayer mat. They refined their part in the sowing and reaping dance and had time to update their French phrasebooks with new vocabulary.
