News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 25th June
A stop start week for us all and thank you for your patience and understanding as we try to navigate the school safely through this challenging weather. The children have responded well in school and we also managed to safely complete offsite trips and activities. Thankfully, the temperature dropped enough to enable us to reopen the school today. We ask that you continue to send the children to school with sun hats, sun cream applied and water bottles and normal school, shoes please with a closed to (no Crocs too please).
Dates for the Diary and local events
- School Summer Fair Friday 3rd July 3.30-5pm
- For information about Appledore Library membership and their Summer Book Quest see here.
- Dadsfest and and South Devon Fun With Dad camping details are here and 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 staffThis week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been learning about the lifeboat. We talked about what we already know about the lifeboat and the station. We watched a video about the lifeboat in action and we compared the inshore and offshore lifeboats. We painted pictures of the sea and created a collage of the lifeboat.
In Year 1 this week we have been busy with our castles topic. On Tuesday we made our cardboard castles and, although it was tricky to cut the cardboard, the children had brilliant ideas for their castles and could explain all the different features they had included. Then on Wednesday we had our trip to Tiverton Castle! Despite having to make the trip shorter due to the heat, we had such a lovely time looking around the castle and learning about what it was like in the past. The children showed amazing behaviour and listening and asked some really insightful questions! Thank you so much to the parent volunteers who gave up their day to help us in the sweltering heat! Our trips would not be able to go ahead without your help!
Last Friday Year 2 enjoyed a lovely trip to Rosemoor. They found out more about how plants grow, planted some peas to take home, collected petals and made some art work. They even had time to play and explore some more of the gardens. This week, they have been drawing pictograms in Maths and asking questions about them. In English they have been writing descriptions of dragons after they received a letter to say there were dragons on the loose around Appledore. In their History work, they became ‘History Detectives’ and looked at lots of photographs and paintings of seaside scenes 100 years ago.
Year 3 spent a glorious and not too hot day at West Buckland School on Tuesday when they attended a singing and music festival. The children sang some fabulous songs with the other schools who were attending and then sang and signed The Rainbow Connection for their individual piece. Together with West Buckland’s chamber choir the sound was stunning and the children had a very enjoyable and valuable experience. Back at school the key stage 2 classes began the preparatory lessons for a Nationwide dance lesson taking place on 7th July exploring the United Nations charter for children’s rights. The children expressed many excellent ideas about this important subject and enjoyed exploring it through contemporary dance displaying some excellent partnering skills.
A week to remember. Despite remote learning for one and half days this week, Year 3 has still managed to achieve some wonderful things. They spent the day at West Buckland and sang amazingly and although the trip to the burrows was cancelled managed this change really well. The short time in the classroom has seen a newspaper report planned and written; comparing angles (right angles, acute and obtuse); find out about the importance of the River Nile and learn to cope with the heat! Well done Y3 for showing resilience.
It has to be said – it has been rather hot this week! And despite the classroom being rather warm, the Year 4s have continued to show resilience and plenty of teamwork throughout. In Maths, we looked at different types of triangles and polygons. In English, we have started our non-fiction text which we will use as a model for our inspirational environmentalists work in values. We have researched the victorian classroom and what this was like for children during that period. In computing, we continued to design our games. We spent some time listening to our class story outside in the shade which was some relief from being inside and have continued working through our guided reading text, Street Child. This is also helping us to envision what life was like for children in the past.
In reading, Year 5 have continued learning about inspirational people. This week, we explored the life and achievements of Georgia O’Keeffe and discussed how her determination and unique artistic style made her such an influential figure. In maths, we have been learning how to convert between metric and imperial units of measurement, as well as recapping our knowledge of time through a range of problem-solving activities.We have also been busy completing our Art Awards. As part of this, the children evaluated their Ancient Greek clay pots, reflecting on the techniques they used and considering what they did well and what they would improve next time.Today, the children worked in groups to film their videos for the Royal Society project. They showed fantastic teamwork, creativity and enthusiasm, and we are looking forward to seeing the finished videos!
On Monday, Year 6 completed a maths challenge to refresh our skills and enjoyed playing Countdown. This certainly improved our 75 times table! The play is really taking shape with children now knowing their lines and the song lyrics. Hopefully they are starting to gather their costumes. If you need help, let us know! We have investigated light and how we see with various experiments. We have one more thing to do; shadows. Fingers crossed this can be completed next week. Thank you for the photos. Please send them in if you haven’t already.
