News
Newsletter for the week ending 4th October
For me the highlights of this week have been two days on Dartmoor with Year 6 and joining a class for their P4C (Philosophy for Children) lesson, debating the question they raised after hearing a short story Is it ever OK to kill an animal?
Please read on to find out more of what has been happening in and around the classes and parents’ evenings that start next week…
AROUND AND ABOUT THE VILLAGE
For children wanting to start a brass instrument
Appledore Band are offering a free starter group at St Mary’s church hall at 6pm on Wednesdays. Please contact Neil Hamilton on nemohamilton4@gmail.com if interested.
AROUND AND ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Parents’ Evenings
Next week and the week following these will be held on various days after school, so please take a look on the calendar on the website for the dates and sign up on the list outside the classroom or contact the school to book an appointment. If you can’t find the information, pleassde just give us a call on 01237 474365.
Ear Rings
Please note that staff are no longer permitted to tape over a pupil’s ear rings during PE or other activities, so if a child attends school wearing ear rings that are not possible to remove any related injury is the responsibility of the parents / carers.
Communication
Please ensure that we always have your current contact details, including address, email and all telephione numbers. Thank you.
AROUND AND ABOUT THE CLASSES
This week in FSU we have continued with the theme of colour and looked at The Rainbow Fish story. We have talked about what makes a good friend and we can share our toys in school. We have painted pictures of the rainbow fish and started to create a mural for outside – check out our page on the website next week for a picture of it. We have sorted objects into shiny and non shiny and thought about why some objects are shiny. We really enjoyed our colour day on Tuesday, talking about our favourite colours and we had great fun on Wednesday when we experimented with water and skittles – ask us about the results!
This week in Year 1 we have written our own versions of Dear Zoo. We have edited them to make sure we have included capital letters and full stops and are now writing and illustrating our own books ready to go on the writing display. In Maths we have made number lines and learnt about part whole models. In the Art Studio with Abby we drew observational drawings of plants we found in the Jungle. Our Philosophy session was based around the story of The Prodigal Son. We discussed the question ‘Why did he spend all the money?’
Lundy Puffins had great fun on Monday using their toys to create their own Traction Man style story. They have now been written and they tried really hard to use their imaginations to create different scenarios for their characters. Maths this week has been all about counting: counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s and investigating different patterns. Please continue to practise counting at home. In Science this week, they have learnt all about habitats and were able to investigate the various mini-beasts living in the jungle. They have completed a 1km run for the personal best challenge and will aim to improve on their times over the next couple of weeks. The philosophy session this week used the video clip: Am I always responsible for my actions?
Seahunter have had an amazing week. It started with a trip to The Eden Project where they trained to be Rainforest Rangers. They learnt key survival skills before venturing into the rainforest to find plants for food, water and shelter. They worked very hard, with great enthusiasm and there are definitely a few budding future rangers in the making! The children also behaved politely and respectfully making the trip enjoyable and purposeful. Following the trip, they wrote some beautiful poetry using adjectives to describe the rainforest experience. Some examples of these will be on display on the writers wall. On Wednesday, we had a poetry writing workshop day. he children came to school dressed in a whole array of costumes, from a police officer to a flamingo! They then planned, wrote, edited and published ‘How to be a…’ poems. They were very dedicated and worked well together to complete their work before sharing it with parents at the end of the day. Their books will be on display on and below the writer’s wall.
HMS worked hard to finish publishing their ‘Meerkat Mail’ books and presented them beautifully. We have now started a new non-fiction unit in Literacy and have been using an information text ‘Penguins’ to learn some of the skills needed. In Maths, we have been working on adding and subtracting 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s. For P.E, we have continued to work on our tag rugby skills focusing on passing to our team. In Philosophy, the class looked at some scenario cards in groups and discussed whether or not they thought the person in the situation had been responsible.
Beechcroft have worked extremely hard this week and have really settled into the routine of Y5. They have completed the following: Literacy – Writing a report on a sea animal, thinking about the impact of plastic pollution; Grammar – Identifying and writing relative clauses; Reading – The ending chapters of Holes; Maths – Using the column method for addition and subtraction; Science – Understanding reversible and irreversible changes of materials; Topic – Further research on plastic pollution; thinking of ways we can help our Earth; RE – Investigate how different parts of a cathedral show a Christians belief in God (focus on St Pauls and Notre Dame); PE – Learning the rules of ‘dodge ball’ and having great fun playing the game; French – Naming parts of the body and pronouncing the word correctly and ICT – Research skills and internet safety. Well done Y5 for working so hard, completing so much work and developing such a positive attitude to you learning.
Year 6 have had an amazing time at Heatree Residential Centre, dartmoor, and pushed themselves to the limit! There has been fantastic teamwork and a great spirit between them. I think they’ll be needing a fair bit of sleep over the weekend.
Have a wonderful weekend everybody.
From Jeremy Cooper and all the staff and children.
