News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 1st May
Mrs Avery had a beautiful baby girl and her name is Rosie. We send them all our best wishes.
Children at Appledore School participate in lots of climate change and environmental activities and learning and a requirement of the DfE is that we record what we are doing in a Climate Action Plan. Our Climate Action Plan is available to view here.
School has been contacted by local residents, eg Richmond Green and Scott Avenue, asking you to ensure parking is considerate of the need for them to get our of their drives and for emergency vehicles to be able to get through. Please be aware that we can issue free car parking permits for the car park on Oden Road.
Dates for the diary:
- For details of free wildlife walks (including a night bat hunt) this weekend organised by North Devon Biosphere, see here
- Sports Day Wednesday 20th May all day for Years 1-6 and the afternoon for Reception/Dolphins. Tuesday 16th June is back-up day should the weather be bad in May. More details to follow nearer the time.
- Appledore’s first ever Pride will take place around the village on Saturday 6th June (see here) and please see here for a competition for children to win £50 and here for story reading in the library
- Tabsfest, in memory of an Appledore Pupil, is a family music festival at The Big Sheep, Saturday 13th June. See here for info.
Wishing you all a lovely bank holiday weekend and we look forward to welcoming you back on Tuesday 5th May.
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have carried on reading the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. We have read several different versions and talked about the similarities and differences between them. We have enjoyed acting out the story and creating pictures of the giant. We talked about and created pictures of what we thought Giant Land might look like and what we would like to find at the top of the beanstalk. Today we had a letter from the Giant saying thank you to us for finding his key.
In Year 1 this week we have been learning more about the oceans. We recapped the names of the 5 oceans and then labelled them on a map. Then we looked at the different layers of the ocean, the differences between them and animals that live in each layer. In Maths we have been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and have looked at equal and unequal groups of objects. In writing we have been linking sentences together using conjunctions. We also went on a bug hunt to see what minibeasts we have around school to help us next week when we write our own minibeast fact booklets!
Year 2 had a great time on Wednesday at the beach. They searched rock pools for creatures, looked at different types of seaweed and carried out a beach clean. They even brought some sea creatures back to school for a short while to observe in a tank. They listened well and asked brilliant questions. Thank you to the adults that came along to support us. In English, they have carried on with the ‘Dragon Machine’ book and have been looking at how the book is written and trying to write sentences in the same style. Finding halves and quarters has been the focus in Maths and many children have been able to make a link between this and division. Keep practising telling the time at home as this will be our next topic. In their Geography work, they looked at how different artists have depicted the weather and had a go at creating their own watercolour paintings to show different types of weather.
Year 3 have been busy showing their writing skills to write sentences connected with Cinderella of the Nile. They have used literacy and emotive language to write about Cinderella and used imperative verbs to give commands. In maths we have started our new unit of work on fractions. We have been adding and subtracting fractions and finding the fraction of an amount. In science this week we planted seeds. We have planted sunflower seeds to see who can grow the tallest sunflower and in class set up an investigation with pea seeds.We will let you know the results in a few weeks time. We looked at the vocabulary for our work on rivers and started to think about where these words are used on a rivers journey. The class have enjoyed having a work experience student in with them for the week; thank you Marlie.
This week, Year 4 have been incredibly focussed in their English lessons, where they have recapped noun phrases, adverbial phrases and speech. We have planned ideas for our ‘magical and enchanting’ shared writing. In Maths, they have learnt to compare, order and round decimals. They continued their e-safety focus in computing, identifying bots. In Geography, they studied reservoirs in Wales, why they were built in that environment and used four-digit grid referencing to help find human and physical features on an OS map. Their values work helped to explore different stereotypes and how we can better understand how this may make people feel as well as stand up to certain stereotypes to create a more ‘inclusive’ community. In Science, Year 4 identified electrical components and drew diagrams of these after building them to see if they would work. They are keeping up with their times tables and have finished Chapter 3 of Wind in the Willows. The children have written about Pentecost in RE and been learning about weather in French. What a fantastically busy week it has been!
In Year 5 Maths, the children have now completed their unit on area and perimeter. They have worked hard to develop their understanding and have shown great perseverance when tackling more challenging problems. In Literacy, we have finished our unit on explanation myth writing. The children have put in a fantastic amount of effort and have produced some fabulous stories. Today, they completed their final published pieces, which we are very proud of. These will be displayed in the corridor next week for everyone to enjoy. In Science, we have been learning about mammals and their life cycles. The class showed great curiosity and asked thoughtful questions as we explored how mammals grow and develop. In Geography, we carried out some exciting map work based on a real-life event from January 1992, when 28,800 bath ducks escaped into the ocean! The children mapped where these ducks were later found and discovered how ocean currents played a key role in their journey. The children also enjoyed their PE sessions this week. They had a great time at ARC playing pickleball, and we had another fantastic tennis session in school yesterday afternoon with Alex. The class particularly enjoyed playing a game of “ghost.” In Values, we have been focusing on being inclusive, with particular attention on stereotypes and how these can be challenged. The children contributed thoughtfully to discussions and showed a mature understanding of the importance of respecting differences. Well done to everyone for their continued hard work and we hope everyone has a lovely bank holiday weekend.
Year 6 have been busy refining skills in maths this week and have worked hard on their reading skills. Their Ice Bear stories are nearly finished and illustrations will be added next week. As well as this, they have had some fantastic games of rounders where skills of throwing and batting have greatly improved. They have also enjoyed tennis and cricket.
