News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 11th November
A super week with lots going on in all the classes, so please click on more to find out more. before you do, please take a look at the diary dates below.
- In recognition of ant-bullying next week it’s wear odd socks day on Monday (14th November) for all the children and staff.
- Friday 18th November is wear stripes and/or spots for Children In Need for an optional donation. If you donate, please can it not include coins less than £1 due to banking restrictions?
- Wear odd socks to school to stand-up to bullying is on Monday 14th November. As bright and odd as they like (just for the one day!)
- Years 3-6 Christmas Service Friday 16th December at St Mary’s Church in the afternoon. Likely time 2pm tbc
- Sports Day for Dolphins and years 1-6 is scheduled for Tuesday 23rd May
- A visiting theatre group will be performing to all the children on 2nd February. Thank you to the Friends of Appledore School for funding this event.
We have been contacted by a couple of local charities that may be able to support families struggling to pay for presents for their children and/or to feed them this Christmas. If you are in need of help, please contact jeremy.cooper@appledoreprimary.co.uk to find out more. Any contact will be managed sensitively.
Schools’ funding has already been greatly affected by rising costs and central government cost savings and imminent announcement of more reductions in funding will have a very noticeable impact on richness of the children’s current educational provision. Appledore School will not be exempt from that. If you feel strongly about school funding, please click here to join a petition to government https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/627130
Next week’s safeguarding focus will be on bullying for children and staff and information will be in next week’s newsletter for parents.
Have a great weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been learning about Remembrance Day. We talked about why we wear poppies and some of the children talked about their family members being the Services. We have painted pictures of poppies and made collages. On Wednesday we walked around the village looking for poppies. We saw the knitted ones on the anchor and in pairs we walked out to it to pay our respects.
In Year 1 this week we have carried on with our book ‘What do you do with a tail like this?’ in our writing lessons and have made sure to use interesting verbs in our sentences. In Maths we have been using the part-whole model to help us write addition sentences and have enjoyed using physical equipment like counters to show our working. We started our new topic this week which is Coasts. We started by looking at maps and discussing how they were from a bird’s eye view, then we went on to draw a map of the classroom. In Science we were looking at animals we might find at school and discussing what animal group they belong to.
Year 3 learnt the Lord’s Prayer and identified the theme of forgiveness. They then thought about times they had been forgiven or given forgiveness themselves. Year 4 looked at the very difficult question of what is the Holy Trinity and designed symbols to represent their understanding of it. Year 5 created wanted posters for the Messiah using the information from the prophets Isaiah and Micah and Year 6 concluded their study of Jewish festivals by looking at Passover and the Seder plate and thinking about how important gratitude is to Jews.
Year 3 have had a brilliant week. We began our new science topic learning all about rocks. We used our observational skills to think about whether all rocks look the same. We looked at a variety of different rocks and sorted them according to whether or not we could see crystals. We then chose our own sorting criteria and sorted the rocks in a different way. We even explored some of the different bedrocks around the country using a geological map. In English, we planned and then wrote our own stories based on ‘The Lord of the Forest’ which we have really enjoyed writing. In Geography, we have continued our learning all about Saint Lucia. This week, we explored the island in more detail and thought about some of the human and physical features that you might find there.
In HMS Echo (Year 4) this week, the children have been consolidating their learning on addition and subtraction and are swiftly moving on to finding the area of shapes, ready to move on to multiplication and division before Christmas. In English, children are beginning to write the story of The Girl and the Fox, where the aim is to create mood and atmosphere, with careful vocabulary choices and figurative language, such as similes, alliteration, personification and metaphors. I’m excited to read them! In PE, we are developing our Netball skills by progressing from a chest pass to a bounce pass, and when it is appropriate to use particular passes. The children had fun practising this with a game of piggy in the middle. In Science, we are consolidating our learning on States of Matter, ready to move on to learning about teeth and digestion. In History, we have begun the Romans – and the children are very enthusiastic! They are mini historians in the making…
Year 5 has just started to read and discuss the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, Beowulf. They have been writing a character description for Grendal, the monster, using a range of interesting adjectives. The text relates to our current history work on the early invaders. We walked up to Bloody Corner, in Northam, to read the stone and discuss the battle which is said to have taken place here between the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. In maths we have been finding factors of numbers and common factors. Our science work has started to explore ‘forces’ and in outdoor learning we look at micro climates and worked in groups to create an art picture.
