News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 26th April
Another of the Covid shackles has been cast aside with the resumption of our weekly visits to a local dementia care home and also us receiving visitors each week from Northam Care Trust, both providing such mutual benefit for our children and the residents and clients of these organisations.
For details of a ‘Crazy Science Praise Part’ being held at the Baptist Church at 4pm on Saturday 18th May, please click here for more information.
This week staff have received safeguarding training on County Lines. For more information on this issue that does affect North Devon and involves primary age children, please click here for a parents guide.
Wishing you all a super weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued to learn about the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The Giant left another note for us on Tuesday thanking us for finding his key. He told us that he loved living in his castle. He asked what we would like to find at the top of the beanstalk and then we drew what we thought Giant Land might look like. We have also planted cress in different conditions and predicted whether it would grow or not. On Thursday we found out about the bean cycle and we went down to the woods to make a beanstalk.
This week in Year 1 we have started learning the songs we will be performing at the Big Sheep in a few weeks. The children have been very keen to practise the songs at home, you can find links to the songs on Google Classroom. Warning it is hard to get them out of your head once you’ve heard them! In Writing we have been using adjectives to describe Ocean animals and have been gathering information about Rockpools. During our Outdoor learning we went on a hunt to find different materials and thought about how we can identify them. The children have shown their creative side making amazing sea creatures using different types of materials. Our classroom is going to look like an underwater world once they are all completed!
This week, Year 2 have been writing sentences about the dragons in the book ‘The Dragon Machine’. In Maths they have been learning about fractions and finding halves, quarters and thirds of different fractions. In their Geography work, they looked at how a range of artists depict the weather in their paintings. They became artists themselves by using the watercolour paints to create their own weather paintings. In PE, they have been practising their balancing and jumping skills. For outdoor learning they had great fun designing and making kites using different materials.
Year 3 looked at how the parable of the Good Samaritan exemplifies the teachings of Jesus. In music and they performed their classical Indian dance which told the story of Krishna and the mountain and linked with their work on Hinduism. Year 4 drew dramatic pictures to show the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost and then wrote as if they were present when it happened to try and capture the wonder of the moment. Year 5 looked at the imagery and messages of the Sermon on the Mount which followed on from their exploration of the story of the wise and foolish builders. Year 6 identified some of the major problems facing the world today and the. Researched a list of Nobel Peace Prize winners to see which of these problems have been addressed.
Seahunter class (year 3) have had a wonderful week! In Maths, we finished our topic on capacity and volume by adding and subtracting different volumes and then comparing volumes. In Science, we designed our own investigation to find out what plants need to grow and survive. We planted four bean seeds, one with soil, water and light, one without soil, one without water and one without light. We then discussed our predictions for which plants we thought would grow and why. In Geography, we learned all about the journey of a river and made our own glossaries to learn some of the key vocabulary. We then watched a video that showed us the journey of the River Severn all the way from the source to the mouth of the river. In Computing, we learned that an animation is a moving picture and we then created our own flip book animations.
In HMS Echo (year 4), the children have been busy continuing learning about decimals, where they have been making wholes with tenths and hundredths and partitioning decimals. Next week, we will be beginning time, so at home it would be really helpful to go over the basics of telling the time, both on an analogue clock and digital clock. In English, the children have continued practising using high quality nouns, verbs and adjectives to improve the quality of their writing, as well as using adverbials to give more precise information and detail. In Geography, we began our new unit of water by looking at the cholera outbreak during Victorian times and the effects of not having clean water. In Science, we have looked at electrical appliances and had a play around with making an electrical circuit. In PE, the children began playing tennis on a Thursday with Lottie from ARC, so if children have their own tennis racket at home, they can bring it in on this day.
Year 5 have really enjoyed learning about how Shackleton and his crew arrived at the Antarctic, with their dogs, and learn more about the start of the expedition on the Endurance. We joined an online author talk and found out about how the author Pari Thomson wrote Greewild – the world behind the door. In maths we have been estimating and measuring angles and making sure we can use a protractor accurately. Our science work has continued to look at different life cycles and we now have the additional excitement of 5 caterpillars in the classroom; in 3 days they have doubled in size! We have discovered all the countries plastic ducks have been found in after their spillage from a container ship in 1992 and how they are helping us to understand the oceans currents. We have taken part in an outdoor learning session (planting) and a group went to Primrose House.
Year 6 have had a another busy week refining skills – they have worked really hard and are starting to see it all coming together. Some children still have a few skills to master and need to look for the help on google classroom for this or remember to keep asking in class. We had fun in either art or science on Thursday afternoon – sewing or making periscopes. Hide and seek is a lot harder with a periscope! Thank you for all the responses for SATs breakfast – we can now start organising things. It’s been great to do tennis again and we’ve been practising catching tennis balls ready for cricket!
