News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 12th June
The weather is changeable and we are really hoping we can host Sports Day on Tuesday 16th June. We decide on Monday if it will go ahead, once we have been able to assess weather forecasts, and let you know either way.. Fingers crossed this time!
Dates for the diary:
- Sports Day has been rescheduled for Tuesday 16th June all day for Years 1-6 and the afternoon for Reception/Dolphins information is here.
- Summer activity camps at West Croft School 27th July – 14th August 5-13 years old, open to all and free for those on benefit related free school meals. See here
- Tabsfest, in memory of an Appledore Pupil, is a family music festival at The Big Sheep, Saturday 13th June. See here for info.
- If you like to run or walk (or run and walk!), Families in Grief is holding an eight mile run or walk and one mile run for children called Barney to Beach on Sunday 13th September. For more information see here
Wishing you all a lovely weekend.
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been learning about summer. We have talked about what we like to do in summer and how and where this season fits into the season cycle. We really enjoyed taking part in our annual Turtle and Dolphin Sports Day. Have a look on the website at some of our photos. We used magnifying glasses to look at some shells and we talked about the patterns that we could see. Afterwards, we had a go at drawing them.
Year 1 have had a busy week! We have been looking after our dragon egg and checking on it everyday, we were so excited to see it has grown! We have been doing more writing about dragons and using adjectives to describe them. In Maths we have been using directional language such as left, right, forwards, backwards, above, below and ordinal numbers. In our Castles topic we learnt about the Battle of Hastings! The children were so engrossed in the story, asking amazing questions and remembering so many facts after! We also had our multi-skills morning at ARC on Tuesday. We got to participate in a range of activities and enjoyed making friends with the other schools there.
Year 2 have been writing different types of sentences in English and remembering to use the correct punctuation. In Maths, they have continued to tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes. Some children have been finding this really tricky, so it would be great if you could practise at home with them. In their History learning, they started to find out about some of the things people did at the seaside one hundred years ago and discovered that some things are the same as they do today. In their Science work, they completed the unit about materials by carrying out an experiment to find which would be the best material to make a raincoat. Most children said that although tin foil was waterproof, it would be a bit uncomfortable as a raincoat! They are now moving on to learning about Plants in science and are starting this in outdoor learning on Friday. Next week is a busy one: don’t forget Multisports on Monday (PE kits can be worn to school), Sports Day on Tuesday (fingers crossed for good weather!) and the trip to Rosemoor on Friday (packed lunches needed).
Year 3 sang through the songs they will be singing at West Buckland School in the singing festival. It is a lovely selection of songs and they are sounding fabulous. In RE, having considered everything that is wrong with the world today, the children considered why humans tend to make mistakes and what might help humans to make better choices. They also pondered what this world would be like if everyone followed the golden rule. Having listed the landmarks that can occur in a person’s life, year 4 looked at how different religions mark some of these moments. In music, they began some whole class ensemble teaching on the recorder. Year 5 took a quiz to discover how Humanist they are and then explored a Humanist website to better understand Humanist philosophy. Year 6 considered the benefits of expressing gratitude more routinely. In music, they listened and appraised the hip hop tracks they have created complete with original raps. These will receive their public debut in the Leavers’ Assembly.
Year 3 have really enjoyed their DT day this week. They have designed and made a card which has a lighting up element to it; all are very excited about being able to send them! For our writing this week we have been writing instructions on how to mummifiy an ancient Egyptian and we listened to the poet Matt Goodfellow. We have completed our work on time; this week we have been solving time problems. In science we compared how things move on different surfaces and showed our results in a table and bar graph. We looked at artefacts in history, thinking about what they tell us about Eygpt’s past. It was wonderful having Jamie in today to tell us more about insect life, especially bees, in prepartion for our visit to Northam Burrows. Well done to all those who took part in the swimming gala at Torridge Pool.
Firstly, I would just like to say a huge well done to all the Year 4’s who have completed their times table check. Each child answered all the questions and showed excellent resilience. In English we wrote and planned our own version of Firebird and we will be publishing our writing next week before we move onto our Penguins non-fiction text. In Science, we will be starting our new learning around Sound. In history, we delved into what it was like to be a child during the Victorian era and wrote job descriptions to see if we had what it takes to be an employee in the factories and workhouses. In our values lesson, we were introduced to our new theme, ‘inspirational’ and discussed people who may be inspirational to us and why. In PE, we are focussing on football skills and using agility, balance and coordination skills to support this. We continue with our swimming and it is wonderful to see how much our stamina is improving. It’s been another really successful week and Miss Newcombe and Mrs Athey continue to be so proud of all the hard work we see.
This week in Year 5, we went on a ‘senses’ walk around the school grounds. The children carefully observed what they could see, hear, smell, touch and feel, collecting rich vocabulary to inspire their writing. They explored the use of similes, metaphors and personification to create vivid imagery and worked hard to develop descriptive language. We have also been focusing on sentence structure, experimenting with combining long and short sentences to create different effects and engage the reader. In Reading, we have been analysing a range of poems, annotating them and discussing the language choices made by the poets. The children have been unpicking the meaning behind the poems, exploring the impact of specific vocabulary and considering why authors have chosen to write in particular ways. We have also discussed the emotions and atmosphere created through poetic language. This will hopefully inspire their own poetry writing next week! In Maths, we have been learning about reflection and translation of shapes, as well as strengthening our understanding of coordinates. The children have shown great resilience when plotting and moving shapes accurately on a grid.In History, we recapped the story of the Trojan Horse and explored the key events that led to the fall of Troy. The children sequenced these events and then demonstrated their understanding by creating detailed and imaginative comic strips.In DT, we enjoyed designing our own pizzas and salads before spending a morning preparing and making them. The children worked brilliantly together, showing excellent teamwork, organisation and cooperation. We finished by tasting our creations and evaluating them, considering what had gone well and what we might improve next time.
It’s been a busy week for year 6. On Monday, some of them went to Bideford College, whilst the others were busy building Ferris wheels using a kit. We have started rehearsals in the hall to get the idea of the stage. It’s really important for them to learn their lines so that they can deliver them without their scripts. On Tuesday they were down the Burrows, exploring the varied habitats and what plants and animals live there. Next week, children need a cardboard box (shoe box size if possible) for our Design and Technology work next Monday – thank you for those who have already brought a box in.
