News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 7th November
Welcome back everybody and we hope you had a good half term.
Individual school photos will be on Thursday 20th November. Siblings who are not at the school can come in from 8-9am to have sibling photos taken. Siblings who attend the school will have a photo taken together during the day. The door by the school hall will be open and photos will take place in the Harbour room- follow the signs!
The school Christmas raffle is gaining momentum and the current total (and rising) is over £800 worth of vouchers and prizes from local businesses! See here for more information and your child should have brought home some raffle tickets today. If they didn’t, or you want more tickets, please contact us.
We have recently partnered with the Mental Health Support Team (MHST) for schools in Torridge who work for Children and Family Health Devon, part of the NHS. They are an award-winning early
intervention service for children and young people, supporting schools to raise awareness of Mental Health, reduce stigma around asking for support, and providing families with targeted
support at an earlier stage of mental health difficulty. They have started support our school and will be starting to take referrals for either 1:1 or small group interventions to
address mild to moderate mental health needs such as anxiety or low mood. To understand more about us they would love to hear your views on what is already going well in your school with regard to
mental health awareness, provision and support and what you would like to see more of and have therefore created a 5-minute survey for you to complete. Please see here for more information and here for the link to the survey.
Our parent association is on the lookout for a few more parents and carers to join their committee! It’s a great way to get involved, meet other families, and help make a difference at school. No big commitment — just bring your ideas and enthusiasm! Come along to their next PTA meeting on Monday 10th November 7:30 in the school art room to see what it’s all about. They would love to have you on board and tea/coffee and cake will be provided!
This Christmas, Procoaching is running their holiday activity and food programme at West Croft Primary School again, including festive arts and crafts, sports, and various activities with a hot lunch for the children. Ages 5-14 years. There is a charge for programme and it is free of charge for children on benefit related free school meals and in care. For more information see here
If money is especially tight and you are worried about buying presents for your children this Christmas, please contact elizabeth.phillips@appledoreprimary.co.uk (our learning mentor) regarding requesting support from a local charity that can provide wrapped presents and a hamper of Christmas treats. Please be reassured of our confidentiality over this.
Dates for the diary
- Parent Association committee meeting Monday 10th November at 7.30pm in the art studio
- Children in Need – wear spots and/or stripes to school – Friday 14th November. Donations are optional, but if you do want to donate please note that we are not permitted to bank coins of less than a pound.
- Xmas disco Friday 28th November Reception 7 Years 1&2 @5-6pm and Years 3-6 @6.30-7.30pm
- Xmas fair Friday 12th December 3-5pm
- Years 3-6 Christmas celebration at St Mary’s church, Appledore, 2pm Friday 19th December
- Wishing you all a lovely weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been celebrating Bonfire Night. We looked at a photo of Guy Fawkes and talked about why he is linked to Bonfire Night. We also looked at a picture of the Houses of Parliament and we worked out this building is in London. We have painted pictures of fireworks and used sponges to create bonfires. We have compared the clothes that Guy Fawkes wore to the clothes that we wear today and we also talked about the Guards that found Guy Fawkes being similar to the Army today. This morning we went down to the woods to toast marshmallows and we are very much looking forward to our firework party tonight.
Year 1 have had a great week back at school. In Writing we have started a new book, Could a Penguin Ride a Bike? The children have loved thinking of funny answers for the questions in the book and have been having a go at writing their own questions. In Maths we have been using part whole models and number lines to complete addition and subtraction calculations. We have also started a new topic this half term, we are now learning about the Great Fire of London. We read a story about what happened and then sequenced the story and wrote a few sentences to explain what was happening at each stage
Welcome back Year 2 after the half term break. In English, they have started a new sequence of learning based on the book ‘Augustus and his smile’. It’s all about a tiger who goes on a journey to find his smile. They had some really great questions about the book and for the main character. In Maths they have been subtracting from a tens number. Number bonds to 10 are really important for this, so please keep using the games on google classroom to practise. They have started a new History topic about ‘Explorers’ and worked in groups to match photographs and paintings of explorers to where they had been. In Science, they were learning how animals use camouflage to adapt to their habitat and went hunting for pretend caterpillars in the outdoor learning area. They thought they might find the brightly coloured ‘caterpillars’ first and they were correct! They also had a visit from a dental nurse to tell them all about brushing their teeth.
An early heads up that the key stage 2 Christmas presentation will be at St. Mary’s church Appledore at 2.00pm on the last afternoon of the term as always. This year that will be Friday 19th December. As you may be aware, preparations have begun. I can only apologise if your child has been yodeling, slapping their thighs and asking that you buy them ledenhosen – you don’t need to. Very well done to the children on year 5 who went home and learnt their lines overnight. What commitment. The children seem very excited and there is already a buzz surrounding it. Sorry to mention Christmas so early in November!
It has been a really productive week in the Year 3 classroom. We have started our new class text, Escape from Pompeii, finding out about the lives of two children who managed to escape the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. We have used noun phrases, prepositions and conjunctions in our writing. In maths we have started work on multiplication. This week the focus has been grouping, drawing arrays and looking at the multiples of 2, 5 and 10. We have started a new history unit based on the Stone Age, thinking about what evidence we have to tell us about this early history. Our science this half term looks at rocks and soils. We have classified a range of rocks into three groups? Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. The new PE units this half term will be football and the Real PE will be improving our jumping and landing.
In Year 4 this week, we have read our new English text “A Walk in London” where they have learnt lots of facts about London. They also used a Chromebook to take a virtual tour of London to see all the different landmarks! In Maths, we have started our new topic Addition and Subtraction, where we recapped mental methods and we will move onto practising the column method for adding and subtracting four digit numbers. In Computing, we learnt about what the word ‘safe’ means in relation to being online and we discussed situations where they may feel unsafe online and what they can do about it. In History, we kick started our unit of the Romans by analysing different artefacts from Barnstaple Museum and what this tells us about the daily life in Roman times. In PE, we started our unit on Netball, where we learnt about the footwork rule and how to throw a ball using the chest pass. In Science, we looked at what evaporation means and we set up an experiment where we have put four different containers of water in different areas around the school and we will see which place is the best for evaporating!
In Year 5, the children explored the journey from the Romans to the Vikings by organising timeline cards into chronological order and using dates to help them understand when key events happened. They also completed map work to identify the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and investigated where the Anglo-Saxon tribes originally came from, and why. In Maths, we began our new unit on multiplication and division, with the children already showing great focus and enthusiasm. In Literacy, we launched our new Beowulf unit. The children examined the front cover, read the blurb, and made predictions about the story. We then enjoyed reading a children’s poem version together and practised memorising the key events. In Reading, we dived deeper into some of the tricky vocabulary from Beowulf, using dictionaries to find and record clear definitions. In our Values lesson, the children took part in a drama activity where they acted out qualities that make someone a good friend – or not! This led to a thoughtful discussion about the traits we look for in friendships.
Year 6 have revised their skills in short division this week in maths, and used these skills to do division using factors. In Literacy, they have begun reading Friend or Foe by Michael Morpurgo and have been writing diary entries from the point of view of the main character Davey. In History, they have been finding out about events that lead to the start of the Second World War and locating countries involved on maps. They worked in tight team units in PE with benchball – great skills and passing from all teams. In Science, they also looked at the ‘mouldy bread’ experiment to see where mould grew best – luckily we had wrapped the bread in plastic bags so that we didn’t need to touch the mould! They have also enjoyed their art sessions this week – their creations will be seen shortly. Thank you to all those who have already responded to the payment for our trip to the Martime Museum in Appledore next week!
