News
Newsletter for the week ending 4th March
Welcome back everyone and we hope you had a good half term. The children have returned from their break with their usual levels of infectious energy and thrown themselves back into school life – not least their enthusiasm for World Boy Day!
With the removal of staggered starts and ends to the day there is now a greater concentration of traffic and pedestrian activity around and on the school site. Please remember that Kingsley Avenue is a private road and permission is granted to cross it and not to park on it. We are able to issue parking permits for the Odun Road car park for you to park safely, so please contact admin@appledoreprimary.co.uk if you would like one. If you do park on the road, please park responsibly, including avoiding the yellow zig-zags, and when driving near to the school site raise your awareness for pedestrians. Please refrain from reversing into the school car park if you are turning around on Kingsley Avenue. Thank you for your consideration and support for the safety of the children and other pedestrians and road users.
Parent meetings got underway this week and for most classes continue next week. If you have not booked an appointment, please email admin@appledoreprimary.co.uk.
Best wishes to you all for a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND AND ABOUT THE VILLAGE
Shebbear College have an Open Morning on Saturday 12th March for Year 5 and 6 pupils who may be thinking about joining Shebbear in Year 7. More information, including sign-up form, is available at: www.shebbearcollege.co.uk/admissions/our-next-open-event.
AROUND THE CLASSES
In Turtles and Dolphins this week we have been celebrating Pancake Day. We loved making pancakes and we talked about all the lovely ingredients we would put on our pancakes. We read the story ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’ and talked about whether the characters were good friends or not and why/why not. We have also started our topic. We are learning about our capital city, London. We have found out who has visited London and the things that they have seen. We have also learnt that Appledore is a village and London is a city and why this is.
Year 1 have started a new book in Literacy this week called The Disgusting Sandwich. The badger from the story has been sneaking into our classroom and leaving us challenges! The first one was to make a story map of the story and add our favourite words to it, we loved choosing words that described how disgusting the sandwich was. In Maths we have been doing place value to 50 and practised counting in tens to make counting large amounts of objects easier. We have started our new topic this week which is The Great Fire of London. We have been reading the story Toby and The Great Fire of London and have been thinking about why the fire spread so quickly.
Welcome back Lundy Puffins! We hope you all had a restful break and are ready to start the new term. In Maths, they have started a new topic: Fractions and have been learning about halves and quarters of both shapes and numbers. In English, they have been reading a book about the life of Amelia Earhart. Over the coming weeks, we will be looking at different biographies, before eventually writing a biography of our own about a well-known person. In the Art Studio, they put the finishing touches to their art work for their Grace Darling books, whilst in outdoor learning they spent some time planting in the polytunnel. Science this week has been learning about the importance of keeping active, they completed a Joe Wicks workout and found completed a survey to find out about our favourite sports.
After a couple of false stars due to Covid and the storm, year 4 had their first workshop with Andrew Downton for Exeter Cathedral. He was very impressed with how quickly the children were able to pick up a melody. The missed workshops have been rescheduled. Year 3 began a new RE unit on Hinduism and began learning some classical Indian dance using hand gestures to tell a story about Hindu Gods. Year 5 had some whole class ensemble teaching on the J flutes which proved quite tricky but they began to learn how to read a musical score. Year 6 watched a stunning rendition of Gethsemane to introduce their new RE topic on Easter and sequenced the events of Holy Week before continuing with their maths revision song.
This week in Year 3, the children have been learning how to solve correspondence and scaling problems in Maths. In English, we have been planning our shared version of ‘The Beasties’ and writing complex sentences. Our new value this half term is ‘friendship’. We have been talking about what makes a good friend and what we value in a friend. In Topic, the class made pop-up booklets summarising Marie Curie’s invention during WW1.
This week, HMS Echo have had several wonderful experiences both in and out of the classroom. On Tuesday, they started some singing workshops led by Andrew Downton who works with the choristers of Exeter Cathedral. They are learning some songs to be performed alongside other schools in the cathedral, which will be amazing. They worked really hard in their first workshop and impressed Mr Downton with their commitment and enthusiasm. On Wednesday, we went swimming in the morning. Everyone is doing well and several children have surprised themselves with how far they can now swim. In the afternoon, we had outdoor learning linked to our science work. The children dissected owl pellets to explore their digestive process. They identified and sorted many tiny bones from the owls’ prey. Finally, on Thursday, the class were involved in the making of a film for The Cotidal Project, which explores life around the time and tide bells of the UK. As there is a bell in Appledore, Mandi McCormack (a film maker) worked with the children to produce art, poetry and interviews that will form part of a 24 hour and 50 minute film. The film will be available globally as an example of how our coastline is changing and has changed over time, with a focus on the impact of climate change. The children were really impressive in their knowledge as well as learning and developing interview techniques.They also had the opportunity to work with a range of film and photography equipment. It has been a very busy but fabulous week!
Year 5 have returned very excited about their new learning on Space. We have started to write space logs from visiting new imaginary planets. They are applying their many writing skills and really thinking about good vocabulary. It was great to see the class dressed up for World Book Day and they enjoyed Mrs Bannister reading them a story. In maths we have returned to our work on fractions; this week looking at how to add and subtract using fractions. In science we have been looking at solar and lunar eclipses and will learn more about the planets through the homework for this half term. We welcome Katie to the class and hope she settles in quickly and has fun learning with us.
Year 6 have been busy this week learning about algebra in maths – both writing and solving equations. In Literacy, they have planned a text about a celebration and will write it up next week (some have created new celebrations that are very imaginative). In science they have recapped the circulatory system and then recreated the digestive system in outdoor learning. Children are starting to be given work/sheets to take home and use for revision so please help them to collect, organise and use them at home. There was a good turn out to Booster sessions – please remember they are not on next week due to parents evenings.
