News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 30th June
We have booked a live online safety parent workshop on Monday 3rd July at 5pm delivered by Devon County Council Safeguarding Team. You can log in from your own device by clicking here or view it in our school hall on a big screen. It will last for approximately one and a half hours and we have deliberately scheduled it just before the summer holidays when children typically spend more time online.
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we received a letter asking us to build ‘wolf proof’ houses. We decided the letter must have been from The Three Little Pigs. We decided to go down to The Jungle and make them some houses. We made signs to keep the wolf out and we painted pictures of The Three Little Pigs. We have read the story and talked about what happens in the beginning, middle and end. On Thursday we had our annual Turtles and Dolphins Sports Day.
Year 1 had a shock on Monday to find the dragon egg had disappeared! We found a note from Mrs Flame to say that the egg was ready to hatch so she had taken it home. Luckily she had left us some treats to say thank you for looking after it. In Maths we have been doing position and direction so have been learning our left and right. This has been a bit tricky so please keep practising at home! In topic we learnt about the different people that would have lived in a castle and wrote about their job roles. In Writing we have started our new book ‘How to hide a lion at school’. We really enjoyed thinking of different places we could hide a lion in our school!
Year 2 had a great time this week at Rosemoor Gardens. They were able to take part in a plant workshop and explored some of the gardens. Everyone planted a pumpkin seed which they will look after in school until the end of term. They will then be able to take them home to carry on looking after them. In English, they have continued to write poems based on the seaside and will make a booklet of their poems next week. In Maths, they have finished learning about position and direction and are now looking at addition and subtraction. Their history learning has involved them looking at drawings and photographs of seaside scenes in the past. On Friday morning they were excited to spend the time in their new classroom.
In music, Year 3 learnt the second recorder part for a German folk tune and then head a brave attempt at playing the piece in two parts. Year 4 matched the instruments to the character from Peter and the Wolf and drew the instrument. Year 6 researched the development of the orchestra across the different musical periods that they have been learning about in singing assembly. In RE, year 3 look d at how a person’s faith can lead them to try and make the world a better place. Year 4 looked at ceremonies from different religions that mark a person’s rites of passage. Year 6 looked at how faith can help a person in difficult times and considered what different religions say about the afterlife.
Year 3 have had a brilliant week! We discussed our trip last Friday to Burton Art Gallery and all of the great things that we learnt about rivers and bridges. In PE, we continued to learn how to play tag rugby and learnt that you can’t pass forwards in this game so we practised our backwards passing. In our values lesson, we were very lucky to have Barney’s mum come and talk to us about her job as a paramedic. She answered all of our questions and it really helped us think about the qualities that make someone inspirational. In English, we have been planning our own poems where we have challenged ourselves to use noun phrases and poetic devices such as similes and metaphors. In maths, we have continued learning to tell the time and we have been exploring years, months, days and hours and comparing durations of time.
In HMS Echo (year 4) this week, we have started a brand new unit in English based on the folktale Firebird, which should inspire them with their story writing in a few weeks time. In Maths, we have finished shape and are moving onto statistics, where the children will be interpreting different graphs, and drawing their own line graphs. In Geography, we have been looking at why earthquakes occur and where they occur, where they have used an atlas to identify countries that sit on a fault line. In Science, we conducted an experiment to see what sound can travel through, such as through solids, liquids and gases. In our Values sessions, we have been looking at the inspirational environmentalists Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, and what similarities and differences they have. In PE, we have been practising our skills in football, where the children have been practising controlling the ball from a part of their body. Finally, the children have had a great morning this week with their new class teacher for next year and getting to know Mrs McMorine – they are all very excited!
Year 5 had a fantastic trip, across the river, on the Appledore Instow Ferry. Some amazing sand art was completed on the beach and all enjoyed their Hockings ice-cream. It was lovely to hear so many wanting to repeat their experiences on the water and asking about joining the sailing club. We have continued to write about the coastline in our writing, both information writing and poetry. In maths we have looked at multiplying decimal numbers by 10, 100 and 1000. Our science session looked at the human life cycle and to identify the key changes. Half the class spent a whole day in the art studio, completing work for their arts award. The others completed art installation activities in the classroom. Groups will swap over next week and repeat the activities. We hope to share all our work with parents before the last week of term (possible Thursday 13th July). All enjoyed their morning in Y6 and meeting the new staff and learning about future challenges.
Year 6 have had lots of transition this week – leaving only 5 pupils in on Thursday! Despite this, earlier in the week, the play was taking shape – the songs are gradually coming to life with a few dance moves. They have also completed some experiments in science about light and some children have built amazing models with Knex to learn about gears. Friday has involved lots of sport with tennis and cricket – it’s brilliant how much more confidence the group have and how much their skills have improved. Thank you for all the SOE3 forms that have been returned for the trips so far and photos of your youngsters – please send them in as soon as possible if you haven’t.
