News
Newsletter for the week ending 24th September
it seems a long time since we were able to take the children on trips, so it was a pleasure for us to take some of our younger children to a honey farm this week as part of their eco topic on bees. Next week brings another feeling of normality for our Year 6 children who are looking forward to attending a residental week on Dartmoor.
As ever, the school has been a hive (see what I did there?) of activity this week and please read on to find out what has been happening in and around all of the classes.
A small number of children are arriving very early to school unsupervised. Please be aware that pupils should not be entering the site before 8.40pm and the breakfast club is available should you need support.
We wish you all a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued to sing ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ but we have also looked at another spider rhyme – Little Miss Muffett. We have made actions up for this rhyme. Then in groups we decided to change both rhymes and make up our own. We enjoyed performing these to each other. We have finished making our spider pom poms. We have also printed tubes and turned them into a spider.
I cannot believe how quickly this week has gone in Year 1. The children have been busy creating all sorts of interesting things throughout the week. On Thursday we explored the outdoor learning area to create our own habitats for minibeasts. We will study these in class over the coming weeks to observe new facts. The children have really enjoyed our PE this week. On Wednesday we learnt new gymnastic shapes and explored rolling in different ways. In maths we have been counting forwards and backwards to find one more and one less than any given number. In our writing we have been writing information about woodland animals in the UK. Have a relaxing weekend.
The highlight of the week for Year 2 was definitely our trip to Quince Honey Farm. They were able to pour their own jar of honey and watch a beekeeping demonstration as well exploring the nectar gardens and completing a bingo challenge. They were all incredibly well behaved and asked some brilliant questions. In Maths they have continued with place value and ordering numbers, whilst in English they have been learning about verbs and adjectives. In our topic work, they found out about the different parts of a bee and learned a bit about what bees do
The mood changed in the Year 3 dance lessons this week as the cheery greetings that inspired the first part of our dance gave way to anger and aggression to suit the dramatic change in the music. From changing numbers we now danced in unison with great energy and despite being very excited the children worked sensibly and safely. Year 4 explored staggered time and dancing in unison in their dance lesson as we built the whole machine for the first time. It was working well! Year 5 and year 6 explored different versions of stories from holy texts in RE and created a French phrasebook that they can use and update in all their French lessons. C’est manifique!
This week in Year 3 the class have been continuing their learning on Place Value. They have learnt how to represent numbers to 100 and how to place numbers up to 100 and 1000 on a number line. In English, the children have learnt how to write simple sentences and complex sentences and what rules to follow when punctuating dialogue. We are continuing our learning about Deforestation in Topic and the children have begun researching on the ChromeBooks to create slideshows. For Science, linking to our topic of ‘Light’, the children have learnt how light can be dangerous and that we need to protect our eyes. The children created posters to teach others about sun safety!
HMS Echo have had a busy week. They enjoyed time in the woods on Wednesday, finding out about health and and safety using tools ahead of their outdoor learning. Whilst half the class were in their session, the rest enjoyed some cricket on the field and showed great team spirit and cooperation. In philosophy we explored a Pingu episode looking at how and why people sometimes make decisions because of pressure from others and thought about how they could be sure to speak for themselves and support others in order to be more inclusive. Today, we started our weekly ‘Fitness Friday’ sessions in the hall, doing a 20 min HIIT workout. We were very impressed by the children’s commitment and determination!
Beechcroft (Year 5) have been busy publishing their own stories based on The Tear Thief. These will be put on display in the main building. In maths we have been looking at secure methods for subtraction and the importance of an ‘exchange’. We had an outdoor learning session, looking at the gardens and plants growing in the polytunnel. We picked the vegetables that were ripe and put out for sale. Our topic work has been looking at the history of plastic whilst in art we are drawing mackerel fish and thinking about the impact of plastic in the ocean. There are some amazing plastic sea creatures in the classroom which were completed for last week’s homework. Swimming sessions have now started for those less confident in the water and everyone will have a chance to do some cooking this half term.
Year 6 have completed their unit on Place Value in Maths and moved onto the Four Operations – focussing on addition and subtraction and inverse operations this week (including arithmagons). In Literacy, they have completed some informative writing about the greenhouse effect and are now looking into climate change in more detail. They have also thought about their carbon footprint and how they could reduce it. Science has been all about classifying and building on work from year 4. They need to know what makes a mammal, a mammal and a fish, a fish etc – they found it quite tricky to know. For values, they spent time thinking about how they include each other and celebrated their differences – they all found positive things to say about each other which was great and entailed some lovely surprises for some children when they realised what others actually see in them. They have also been preparing for their residential next week and we hope to have lots of fun!
