News
Newsletter for the week ending 2nd December
If last week signaled the start of Christmas in school with the sound of festive rehearsing for all our coming celebrations (see dates listed below), the wearing of Christmas jumpers today and hanging of the Christmas hoops in our main corridor certainly cemented the festive excitement! If you haven’t seen the hoops in our main corridor please do come inside and have a look. They are quite special!
An impressive £289.47p was raised in our poppy appeal. Thank you for supporting this extremely worthy cause.
We wish you all a super weekend and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible here for the events next week, including the Christmas Fair on Friday. 3.30p-6pm.
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
PS – Please click on ‘more’ for dates for your diary and to find out what has been happening in and around all the classes.
Diary dates:
- St Mary’s Church, Appledore, Christingle Service 4pm Sunday 4th December (and 10am Saturday 3rd if you want to help with the making)
- Turtles and Dolphins nativity Tuesday 6th December 2.30pm and 6pm
- Years 1&2 nativity Wednesday 7th December 2.30pm and 6pm
- Christmas Fair Friday 9th December 3.30pm-6pm
- Christmas lunch Wednesday 14th December
- Years 3-6 Christmas Service Friday 16th December at St Mary’s Church, 2pm
- Sports Day for Dolphins and years 1-6 is scheduled for Tuesday 23rd May
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been reading the story Stickman by Julia Donaldson. We have ordered different lengths and items. We have painted pictures of Stickman and thought about other things that we could use a stick for. Today, we went to The Jungle to make Stickman. We have also been busy practising our Christmas Play.
In Year 1 this week we have been getting ready for our Nativity performance! We have been learning the songs and our lines really well, we are very excited to show you all next week! In writing we are still using our Three Little Pigs book and had a go at sequencing the story using pictures from the book and our story maps to help us. In Maths we have started learning about 3D shapes. We have been matching shapes to the correct name and finding the shape that is the odd one out in a group. In RE we have learnt about welcoming a baby in Islam and listened to The Call to Prayer.
Year 3 have had a brilliant week. In English, we wrote vivid descriptions of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and we challenged ourselves to use powerful verbs and noun phrases to make our descriptions really exciting to read. In science, we explored the rock cycle using chocolate and used the chocolate to make igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. We learned that one type of rock can become another type over time and that very little rock on the surface of the earth has remained fixed in its original rock type. In maths, we have been learning how to use estimating and the inverse to check answers to addition and subtraction problems. In geography, we used the maps that we created last week to help us write directions to different places in Saint Lucia. We even explored how to use compass directions to help us. This week, we also had great fun creating Christmas stars using different coloured wool to create decorations for our Christmas hoop.
In HMS Echo this week, the children have started planning for their own piece of non-fiction writing where they are writing about an animal of their choice. Some children are letting out their more creative side and designing their own new species, which I’m looking forward to reading about! In Maths, we are learning our multiples of 9, 7, 11 and 12, and practising becoming more fluent with reciting them. In Sport, we looked at pivoting in Netball, and learnt to not move with the ball. For part of our Science, we had a dentist visit, where she told us how to look after our teeth, the different types of teeth and showed us some rather gruesome pictures of teeth that are not looked after properly – hopefully this will inspire the children to brush their teeth!
Beechcroft (Year 5) have now written their own Anglo-Saxson stories, based on ‘overcoming the monster’ structure, and look forward to sharing these with their Y2 reading partners. In maths we have completed assessment on multiplication and division and started the next unit of work on fractions. In our outdoor learning session, which links with science, we have been investigating gravity and air resistance. Well done to the class for learning the Christmas play lines and getting costumes ready. These can start coming into school but please put them in a named bag. We watched a performance about internet safety and then had a follow up workshop afterwards. We are more aware of how much time on the internet can change our personalities and what the age requirements are for using social media. The Christmas decorations that we made last week at RHS Rosemoor are now hanging on a hoop in the main corridor and on the class Christmas tree. These will come home at the end of term.
Year 6 have completed their class text ‘Skellig’ by David Almond and found it an amazing and intriguing book. They have enjoyed how snippets of information have been dropped into the story – they can’t wait to watch the film (hopefully before Christmas). In maths, it’s more fractions – adding and subtracting – skills are beginning to build and they are starting to notice how making choices on ways to calculate is important – maths is often like being a detective thinking about what you know! In Literacy, they have completed their final diary entry following a brilliant outdoor session about rationing and times in WW2 – they will now find out all about Harry Clement, who was evacuated to North Devon during the war. In Science, they have explored a practical version of the circulatory system – it left them slightly out of breath! Watch out for the science homework this week – it’s all about pulse rates! Thank you for your quick responses to secret santa – all very exciting!
