News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 16th October
Amazingly, next week it the last week of this half term and it has gone so quickly. The children have taken great strides in settling into new teachers, routines and learning spaces and are certainly ready for a break. Thank you for all your support this term.
Reminder to all parents and carers of pupils in Year 6 that the deadline for applying for secondary schools on the Devon County Council portal is 31st October.
Dates for the diary:
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- Thursday 22nd October Year 1 & 2 harvest festival celebration 2.45pm in the school hall
- Nursery and Reception classes Harvest Festival 2.30pm 20th October in the school hall
- Year 7 Assessment & Activity Day at West Buckland School, taking place on Wednesday 28 October, see here
- Friday 6th November 5-6pm Reception – Y2 Halloween Disco and 6.30-7.30pm Y3-6
- Friday 4th December School Christmas fair 3.30pm
Wishing you all a good weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued to learn about Autumn. On Tuesday we read the story ‘Pumpkin Soup’ and made our own soup with bread. On Wednesday we went to the woods to look for signs of Autumn. We made pumpkins using salt dough and we talked about the celebrations that happen during Autumn. Have a look at the website for more information.
This week, Sealions (year 1) have begun learning how to write a recount. They have all tried hard to write about a fun and exciting adventure they have been on. We have also started using simple conjunctions in our writing, such as ‘and’.
In maths, we have been practising adding one more and discussing how numbers get bigger when we add one. We have enjoyed exploring adding one more to lots of different numbers. We have also been excited to learn all about animals that live in hot and cold places around the world. We have discussed how their bodies are adapted to help them keep warm or cool in different environments. The children made wonderful sunset paintings which included African animal silhouettes.
Year 2 have been looking at the book How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth and writing their own instructions for washing a woolly mammoth. They talked about the different types of sentences in the book and wrote their own commands, statements and questions. In Maths they have been looking at number bonds to 10 and using them to find related facts to 100 (if they know 2+8=10, they also know 20+80=100). If you want to practise number bonds, this is a good website: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button Choose Make 10. In their Geography work, they looked at Google Earth again to find roads and houses around the school. In Science, they went outside to find different creatures in the woodland area.
Year 3 have been thinking about how God made the world to be good and have now looked at how we should be looking after it. Year 4 considered the problems Muslims face of fitting in their 5 daily prayers into busy lives. Year 6 looked at the story of Moses so they understand what Jews are remembering at Passover. In music year 3 continued with their graphic score, year 4 continued to explore cyclic patterns and year 6 listeners to Autumn by Vivaldi in preparation for some work on ostinato and drone for a climate change song. We absolutely have not started talking about Christmas in our music lessons.
Year 3 has enjoyed reading the new text about interviews with animals; so far we have met the tiger and snow leopard. They have been looking up the meaning of interesting words used in the text and finding the noun phrases for description. In maths we have been looking at adding 3-digit numbers using a written method and checking we know numbers bonds to 100. The geography session looked at the different layers in a rainforest and the water cycle. They had a really good morning in the art studio exploring blocks of colour using oil and chalk pastels. The class continued to improve their cricket skills and enjoyed being able to get out on the field.
In English this week, Year 4 have been learning about fronted adverbials including prepositional phrases and punctuating these correctly with commas. We have also planned our shared write about Polly and the Moon. In Maths, we have looked at area and counting squares. We have then compared the area of shapes. In Science, we looked at the water cycle and the key processes linked to evaporation, condensation and precipitation. In Geography, we did a mini quiz to see what we have learnt so far and to prepare us for our visit to the Recycling Centre in Exeter next week. In RE, Year 4 continued their learning around Islam and mosques/prayer. The class had art this week and did an assessment using their light and shade skills to create a life drawing of a mug and an apple. In Values, we looked at people within the community who have a responsibility and what these responsibilities are. We thought about our own responsibilities within the community. In computing, we explored how websites are presented through the world wide web.
Year 5 were on a residential trip at St George’s House, Georgeham, and completed many activities with enthusiasm and high energy…and finally, they got to sleep! With the weather perfect, the enjoyed canoeing, fencing, archery, treasure hunting, beach visits and more.
Year 6 have been busy calculating in maths this week: working on speed and accuracy with column addition and subtraction. In Science, they have found out about Carl Linnaeus and his legacy – learning about the classification system. Literacy has involved writing their own stories and showing an awareness of the skills in grammar that we have been working on over the last few weeks – there are some very interesting stories being created. In PE, they did small sided games working on teamwork and moving into space – it’s been great to see the improvements. Another busy week.
