News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 11th September
A warm welcome to all our new families and welcome back to all ‘previous’ families. The children have returned with boundless energy and enthusiasm and we look forward to the year ahead with you. We also warmly welcome Mrs Hamilton and Mrs Reaney in Year 1 and Mrs Cooper in our art studio.
Please set a reminder on your phone (or whichever device is your preference) to log on to our website Friday evening to read our weekly newsletter. The weekly newsletter includes information relevant to all of you and also a weekly round-up of what has been happening in each of the classes.
Please be aware that Kingsley Avenue is a private road and cars are not permitted to park there at drop-off and collection. Free car park passes for Oden Road car park are available from admin@appledoreprimary.co.uk upon request for your use. If local residents or school staff ask you not to park on Kingsley Avenue, please be respectful in your response as we try and support the neighbours of the school.
Please see here for an online safety parent’s guide and here for on aimed at under 5’s online safety
If you like to support very worthy causes, please click here following requests from a number of you to share this request.
Dates for the diary:
- Free martial arts taster sessions om 12th September see here
- For information on DadFest 18th, 19th & 20th September please see here
- 6th October Atlantic Academy open evening for pupils in years 4, 5 & 6 see here and here for details of their Christmas Fayre
- For details of open mornings and evenings at Great Torrington school for current year 6 pupils see here
- For information on Kingsley School open days for entry into year 7 see here
Wishing you all a super weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been exploring our new classroom. We talked about our holidays and painted pictures of them. We also started a new topic ‘Ourselves’. We talked about who is in our family and what our house looks like. We also drew pictures of our family and house.
Sea Lions (year 2) have had a great first week back at school and have settled in really well. We have been very excited to explore our classroom and get used to our new routines. We are so proud of how resilient they have been! We have been getting to know one another and have enjoyed talking about our likes and the things that make us happy. We read The Very Hungry Worry Monsters by Lara Ede and discussed the things that can make us feel worried and what we can do to help ourselves feel better. The class were amazed to discover that a worry monster lives in our classroom! They had lots of fun creating their own worry monster friends for him.
Welcome to Year 2 everyone! It has been great getting to know the children this week and we look forward to working with you all over the coming year. They have completed lots of settling in activities this week which have included: decorating their new pencil cases; creating their self-portraits; making birthday cards; building challenges and creating their class values. Everyone worked together to create their class values and they are: be kind, be safe, be respectful and be ready. On Thursday afternoon, they enjoyed a session in the Art Studio to start their drawing and painting topic for the half term. A great start to the new school year!
It has been the very first full week in Year 3 and the children have done really well getting used to new routines. 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. In science we wrote about what we know about light and looked at light sources. We now know why the moon is not a light source. In geography we looked and named different climates around the world and looked at why some places are hot and dry whilst others were wet and cold. We used two world maps to find out about the climate in different countries. We are looking forward to reading more about the lost species in guided reading.
What a wonderful week we have had back in Year 4. The class have really blown us away with their positive attitudes and fantastic learning. We have learnt lots of new routines and been practising these consistently to ensure we are safe, happy and healthy. We have started our English work on Meerkat Mail and have been exploring the text, sequencing the story and identifying what makes a good postcard. In maths, we have started our place value work and recapped numbers up to 1000 – everyone’s books are showing exceptional presentation. In Science, we have begun to group states of matter and in Geography, we have identified the difference between renewable and non-renewable energy as part of our topic on sustainability. We started to read our Guided Reading book, The Witches, by Roald Dahl. It has been such a wonderful start and we look forward to a new week of learning next week!
Mrs Hughes and I have been so impressed with how well the children have settled into Year 5. They have been incredibly positive, enthusiastic and have made a fantastic start to the year. It has been lovely to see them getting stuck into their learning and showing such a great attitude. In English, we have explored the book The Tear Thief and really immersed ourselves in the text. In maths, we have been learning about ‘Dive Deeper’ questions and have enjoyed tackling some tricky challenges that have really tested our thinking and reasoning skills. In reading, we have started our new class book, Holes. We explored the first chapter and thought carefully about how Louis Sachar creates tension and makes the reader want to find out what happens next. In science, we have shown off our knowledge of materials and their properties, while in geography we have launched our new Fairtrade unit. Thank you for a fantastic first week, Year 5! Mrs Hughes and I are so proud of the positive attitude you have shown.
Year 6 have settled in well. They have been learning all the new systems and have done a variety of subjects to get them back in the swing of it all. In Maths, they will be learning about place value with numbers up to 10 million: this involves ordering, writing in words, rounding, placing numbers on a number line and changing the value of numbers by set amounts. In Literacy, they have read ‘The Princess’ Blankets’ and have started to look at the vocabulary before learning the story. In Science, they did a quiz about ‘Living things and their habitats’ and in Geography they have started looking at climate change. It’s been a busy, but very positive few days. Next week is the residential and we’re all very excited. Please make sure that you bring any medication and form for Monday.
