News
Newsletter for the week ending 3rd May
It’s been a hugley busy week in school this week, not least with trips to the synagogue, Exeter tunnels and Dunster Castle so please do read on to find out about this and much, much more…
AROUND AND ABOUT THE VILLAGE
Girls Cricket Festival
Using a soft ball, there’s a girl’s cricket festival at Bideford Cricket Club Sunday 5th May for KS2 girls.
Please email annemarie.presswell@devoncricket.co.uk for more information.
AROUND AND ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Dates for the Diary – PTA run events
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.
Communication
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 THE CLASSES
This week in FSU we have started our new topic about Dinosaurs. We had a great discussion on Tuesday finding out what we already know. We have named a few of them, described them and talked about where they live. We have painted pictures of them and made some of them out of paper plates. On Wednesday we attached dinosaur feet to our feet, stepped in paint and then walked like dinosaurs – it was great fun!
Year 1 have had a great week, including a fantastic day at Dunster Castle. The children behaved brilliantly and got to take part in some very interesting workshops. We learnt about the features of a castle, what life was like inside the castle, we heard the story of the Dunster Dragon and even got to take part in jousting. Thank you to all the parents who came with us and helped make the day run smoothly. This week we have also continued our work on ‘The Disgusting Sandwich’, we have written sentences using conjunctions and planned our own story. In Maths we have made and found arrays and then written the number sentences to match them. We have also doubled numbers. The beans we planted have grown well and we are recording their growth in our Bean Diaries.
The highlight of the week for Lundy Puffins was the trip to Dunster Castle. They found out what it was like to live in a castle, looked at why castles were built and looked at the features of the castle. They listened to a local the legend: the tale of the Dunster Dragon. Most people’s favourite part of the trip was finding out about knights and how they trained and then having a go at some of the training activities themselves such as hobby horse jousting and sword drills. Their enthusiasm and knowledge was praised by the staff at Dunster, who said they were a credit to the school. In the Art Studio this week, they created pen drawings of dragons to go alongside some writing about dragons. They were also able to design their own coat of arms.
Seahunter have had a busy week working on time, report writing, Egyptian calendars and rugby skills. In Maths, everyone has worked hard on the elements of time telling that they need to work on. Many children have continued beyond the classroom, practising at home too, which is great to see. In English, we have read several pages from ‘Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World’ by Kate Pankhurst. The children have explored the lives and achievements of particular women in order to develop the skills they need for report writing. They have gathered interesting facts, written and answered questions about each others’ work and some have taken a turn in the ‘hotseat’ to be questioned in role as one of the women. Eleanor gave a particularly impressive and convincing performance as Mary Anning! In Topic work, we have found out about the Ancient Egyptian calendar and why it only had 3 seasons linked to the River Nile. Finally, in P.E., we have been developing some rugby skills ready to start playing mini matches next week.
HMS Echo have continued learning about decimals and fractions in Maths and have looked further at equivalent fractions and making a whole number. In Literacy, we have read our new text ‘A River’ which links to our Topic. The class have practiced using a range of conjunctions to write complex sentences. Our art is also linked to our Literacy text and the children are focusing on the skill ‘drawing’ this half term. In Science, we have started our new unit ‘electricity’ and have looked at electrical safety in the home.
This week we have been learning about geometry in maths and the nets of different 3D shapes; we had to work out how many different nets there are for each shape. We have also looked at 2D representations of 3D models made with small cubes. In literacy, we have been working on a book called The Ice Bear, generating vocabulary and thinking about expanded noun phrases. In science, we have been learning about forces and Isaac Newton and newton meters. We have also enjoyed cricket on Friday for P.E and we have an Australian person in to teach us – we might try and find out more for our Australian topic!
This week, year six have been on a class trip to Exeter Synagogue and the underground passages where we found out the history of how water got into the city centre and where Jews worship. In art, we used water colour pencils to draw a sunset and finished our sketches of different beaches. In literacy, we have written about all of the facts that we’ve learned about the Exeter passages and Exeter Synagogue. In maths we have done a reasoning and an arithmetic paper in preparation for our SATs in just over a weeks time. Reporters: John and Isabella
Have a wonderful long weekend everybody
From Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children
