News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 3rd March
A busy week and you can find out what the week has entailed for each class by clicking on more.
Well done Minty and William who both have won a prize at The Schools art Exhibition at The Burton Gallery and we hope you like the winning entries to our photography competition om the previous post.
Safeguarding training this week included a rehearsal of our safety procedures should we ever need to secure the school at short notice.
For information on free Learn Devon maths improvement courses for adults, please click here.
Wishing you all a super weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
ROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have travelled to Africa and focused our learning on the Savanna and the animals that live there. We have changed our role play areas into jeeps so that we can go on safari. We have painted pictures of the animals and focused on their patterns. We have also made binoculars so that we can use them in our jeeps to spot different animals.
Year 1 have carried on learning about the Great Fire of London this week and have loved finding out more about what happened and how the fire started. In writing we have been thinking about what punctuation we need depending on the sentence we are writing. We have had a go at writing questions in the style of our book ‘What happens when…’ and tried to think of a funny answer to our question. In RE we are starting to explore Judaism and the children are starting to discover what is important to the Jewish community. In Music we are starting to understand what the terms pulse, pitch and improvisation mean and this half term we will be improving our glockenspiel technique!
Half of Year 2 started the week with an exciting but chilly morning at Northam Burrows as part of their Outdoor Learning. The other half carried out a Science investigation in the classroom. Next week they are looking forward to swapping over and completing the activities that their friends did this week. World Book Day was another highlight of the week. Everyone looked fantastic in their Pyjamas. We shared stories, watched videos of authors telling us about how their reading journeys began and took part in a fun quiz. In Maths we completed our unit on multiplication by looking at the connections between the 5 and 10 times tables. Our next unit is about measuring. Please keep practising times table facts at home as we will return to this throughout the rest of the year. In English we have started writing a biography about Julia Donaldson.
Year 3 identified the items on a Hindu shrine. They remembered an impressive amount from their previous work on home worship- puja. They then continued their work on classical Indian dance using hand gestures – mudra to tell the part of the story where the villages are preparing to pray to Indra. In French, they began looking at the French for the months of the year. year 4, looked at the changing emotions of Mary during the events of Holy Week. They found frozen pictures for key moments and plotted an emotion graph for Mary. Year 5 designed a board game based on snakes and ladders to help them further understand samsara – the cycle of birth and rebirth and good and bad Kama. Year 6 made a list of the the groups and individuals who could be considered responsible for the death of Christ. They then wrote to explain why they believed these people to be responsible. In French, the children labelled body parts on French and in music continued their work on composition by composing a 2 Bar refrain to evoke the sea.
Year 3 have had a wonderful week. In science, we discussed why animals including humans need food in order to survive and then learned all about the different food groups. In pairs, we then had a go at sorting various foods into the correct group. In order to answer the questions that we wrote about the Stone Age last week in history, we researched how people survived during this time and then created our own Stone Age survival guides. In maths, we have been comparing, adding and subtracting lengths in m, cm and mm. In English, we were very excited to plan and then start writing our own quest stories based on the Brownstone adventures. Year 3 came up with some really imaginative ideas for their stories and we can’t wait to finish them!
In HMS Echo (year 4) this week, the children have written their own poems in the style of The Sound Collector; some have been very creative, such as The Smell Collector, The Feelings Collector, which have been a joy to read. We are about to start our next unit, which focuses on writing an explanation text. In Maths, we have learnt about mixed numbers and improper fractions. In Science, we have begun looking at how to group living things in ways they are similar, such as mammals, reptiles, tetrapods, and many more. In PSHE, we began looking at our value ‘Being Healthy’ for this half term, and the children completed some First Aid training in collaboration with St John’s Ambulance on treating bites and stings. It’s been great to see the children dress up this week as part of World Book Day and celebrating a love of reading – the costumes have been superb!
Year 5 have had a busy week writing their space logs about the new planets we have been watching. They have needed to think about limiting their choice of words whilst still selecting interesting and descriptive vocabulary. These will be shared with their Y2 reading partner next week before going on display in the main building. In maths we have continued with rounding decimals to 1 decimal place and whole numbers. Our topic work has been focusing on Florida and looking at why the Kennedy Space Center was built there. On Wednesday we took part in a live lesson by linking with the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. We learned a lot about the solar system and enjoyed joining in with the experts. A team of girls took part in the second stage of a football tournament and enjoyed the experience of playing with other school teams. Next week the class will have another outdoor learning session so will need their wellingtons and warm clothes on Friday.
Year 6 have had another busy week. They have started planning their own Ice Bear stories and will be writing them next week. They have also been working with fractions and decimals in maths – linking skills together as well as refining skills with a protractor. In grammar they have revised tenses and spelling patterns – which will still need a bit of work! In art, they have worked carefully with knives and tools to complete lino prints which look amazing – some are on display in the main corridor. Outdoor learning has involved orienteering skills around school which was great fun. The highlight for many has been the arrival of the school hoodies which look very smart – please ensure that they are clearly labelled! We were also very proud of the girls who represented the school for football this week with their positive attitudes and team spirit! Don’t forget that if you are an Eco Ambassador, you need wellies for tree planting on Monday
