News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday13th September
The end of our first full week and I think everyone is ready for a weekend. A new school brings so much change and new experiences and the children are adapting well. Please do speak to your child’s teachers if you are unsure about anything or you have any concerns about something. We are all here to help.
Open days and evenings for secondary school are organised (or will be soon) and information is available here for Bideford College, Great Torrington, Chulmleigh, Park, Pilton, Kingsley, West Buckland and Shebbear College.
Appledore Library had a great summer with lots of children signing up for the Summer Book Quest and encourages them all to finish by collecting their stickers, certificate, keyring and free book. Please note the last day to finish by is Saturday 13th September which is also the same day as the Appledore Book Festival Family Fun Day and the library will be open longer than normal and holding a sea themed Lego & craft session with a curiosity table run by the North Devon Maritime Museum.
Volunteers have been working hard in our woodland to prepare the area for our new outdoor area for our nursery children (thank you all) and cameras motion sensor cameras installed to capture wildlife. So far, there have been sighting of a range of animals (eg foxes and squirrels) but as yet no hedgehogs… despite our best efforts to create a hedgehog friendly environment. We will be participating in a big North Devon hedgehog project soon and more information can be found about that in the Dates for the Dairy section below.
Dates for the diary
- For Book Quest and Lego and crafts activities this Saturday at Appledore Library please see here and here
- For North Devon Biosphere family fun activities this Saturday as part of the Book festival see here
- To find out how you can help hedgehogs as part of a big project underway in North Devon and Appledore, see here for more information on 20th September
- Harvest festival years 3-6, 2pm 8th October, St Mary’s Church (please see around the classes section for more details)
Wishing you all a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
PS – apologies if last week’s newsletter wasn’t published when we messaged you about it! Please do read it too for useful information.
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been talking about ourselves and our families. We have talked about who is in our family and what our house looks like from the outside and then the inside. Today, we designed a new house to live in. We have used different resources (clay, straws, beads, wool etc) to make faces.
A fantastic first full week in Year 1. We have enjoyed reading a book called Naughty Bus and playing with our own red toy bus in class. We loved reading about all the cheeky things the bus got up to in the story. We had our PE lessons where the children got changed for the first time, they did so well and loved taking part in the warm up and games. On Thursday we went to assembly with the whole school called ‘Open the book’ for the first time, we will be going each week where we will hear stories and sing some songs. Next Friday we will have our first outdoor learning session which is really exciting. We will send a reminder about bringing things in next week. Enjoy the weekend!
This week Year 2 have started their learning topics for this half term. In English, they are reading the book Traction Man and putting the pictures from the story in order. In Maths they are looking at 2-digit numbers and making them with tens and ones equipment. In their Geography work they sorted pictures into human and physical Geography, whilst in Science they used the chrome books to research different habitats. They had their first Art session in the Art Studio on Thursday and are looking forward to an outdoor learning session on Friday. An action-packed week! There will be a trip to Rosemoor coming up next month and details will follow shortly.
Rehearsals are now in full swing for our Year 3-6 harvest celebration. The children are singing in parts and performing complex choreography in canon. They have also written some beautiful readings for the occasion. We hope you can join us at St. Mary’s church for this lovely event.
It has been a very first full week in Year 3. We have started our new text, Lord of the Forest, and looked at using adjectives, adverbs and prepositions to write interesting sentences. In maths we have been using numbers up to 1,000 counting in 10s and 100s. We looked at light sources in our science and now know why the moon is not a light source. In geography we looked at different climates around the world and looked at why some places are hot and dry whilst others were wet and cold. We discussed, and agreed, our class rules. We wish Donny good luck as he leaves us, to start a new school, much closer to home.
In Year 4 this week, the children have been busy getting to know the story Meerkat Mail in English where they have learnt and remembered a page and they have practised writing in the different present tenses. In Maths, we have been learning how to draw number lines and recapping numbers to 1,000 where we will move onto representing and partitioning numbers to 10,000. In Computing, as part of our e-safety work, we looked at how others online can pretend to be someone else, including my friends. In Geography, we learnt about lots of different ways electricity is generated, including renewable and non-renewable ways. In PE, we learnt about how to make different shapes with our bodies as part of our dance topic and how we can link this together as a routine. In Values, we watched the video The Frog and the Scorpion and discussed the question ‘Am I always responsible for my actions?’ which the children thought deeply about. In Science, we learnt about the three states of matter and we sorted objects into the correct groups.
This week in Year 5, we’ve made an exciting start to our new English writing unit based on The Tear Thief by Carol Ann Duffy. We read the story together, explored its rich and descriptive vocabulary, and created story maps to help us understand the narrative structure. In Maths, we’ve been learning about Roman numerals and place value. We’ve really challenged ourselves with “Dive Deeper” tasks that stretched our understanding and problem-solving skills. Our Geography lessons have introduced us to the topic of Fair Trade. We began by sharing what we already know and explored a learning organiser to get a sense of what’s to come in this important unit. In Science, we kicked off our unit on Properties and Materials with a fun magnet investigation! We discovered that metals containing iron are magnetic, which led to some great hands-on learning. During Reading lessons, we’ve started our new class text, Holes, and have also been enjoying our class novel North and the Only One. There was great excitement when some of us correctly predicted that the main character’s mum had turned into an AI robot! In PE, we’ve been focusing on handball, practising a variety of ball skills to improve our technique and teamwork. It’s been a brilliant start to the term – well done, Year 5!
Year 6 have worked really hard this week. In maths, it has been more place value and in Literacy using ambitious vocabulary to retell the story verbally, using speech punctuation accurately and using subordinate clauses. In Science, they have begun to use classification keys to sort living things and in Geography they have been revising the difference between weather and climate as well as finding out about the effects of climate change around the world. They have also asked a lot of questions about the residential next week and are now hopefully ready to pack and excited for next week. Thank you for handing in forms promptly – it’s greatly appreciated! Homework will be given this week, but it won’t be due until 2 weeks time.
