News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 10th July
A trip to Lundy island, dancing with the Royal Opera House in support of children’s rights, a school play, a visit to Appledore Library, Open the Book at Appledore Baptist Church, working with an environmental ranger in our woodland, inspirational environmentalists and insulators…so much for winding down towards the end of term!
As holidays approach and children have more time on their hands, please consider a review of safeguarding settings on their devices. See here for a range of organisations that provide good advice.
Here is a message from Citizens Advice we received this week…we know that having the kids at home for the holidays means spending can go up on essentials like food and energy. If you’re having problems meeting your outgoings this summer, get in touch with us at Citizens Advice. We can: Provide energy efficiency advice to help save money; Look at whether you’re eligible for grants to help pay your bills; Make a budget to balance your income and outgoings; Check you’re receiving all the benefits you’re entitled to; Provide a voucher for your local food bank if you’re struggling to buy food; Help make a plan to deal with any debts you’ve accrued. If you need advice this summer, you can reach us by phone, email or in person. Free Adviceline: 0808 278 7999 Energy advice team: 01237 879 233, energyadvice@citizensadvicetnmwd.org.uk
Our opening hours vary from office to office, so please check our website before coming to see us. Our office opening hours can be found here.
Dates for the Diary and local events
- For information about Appledore Library events this summer see here and for the Summer Book Quest see here.
- Dadsfest and and South Devon Fun With Dad camping details are here and here
- Atlantic Racquet Centre (ARC) FREE Family Open Dayon Saturday, 18th July, from 1pm – 4pm for a free community Open Day see 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
- DICE is a 4 week (4x 2hour online sessions) free universal support for parents/carers of pre-teens and teens who are worried about parenting in the modern world, with the risks and challenges this presents. For information on dates and course content see here and here.
- Bideford Rugby Club taster session for children in years 2-8 of all abilities Sunday 6th September 11am-1pm see here
- 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 continued learning about Appledore and we have focused more on the boats and in particular the fishing boats that we have in Appledore. We watched a video and labelled a picture of a trawler boat. We have made boats using boxes, paper and playdough. We have talked about the words floating and sinking and we tested different objects to see which ones float and which ones sink. Today, we went to the library and changed our books for the last time and we really enjoyed having an ice cream afterwards.
In Year 1 this week we have been changing the story of How to Hide a Lion at School and made our own story maps. We thought of great ideas of where we might go on a school trip and where the lion might hide. In Maths we have been learning about money. We have played games, done coin rubbings and ordered coins to help us remember what each coin is worth. These days the children don’t see coins and notes much anymore so any practice at home would be appreciated! We also walked to the church on Thursday morning to watch the last Open the Book assembly of the year which we really enjoyed. In the afternoon we made our fruit salads! We loved designing our fruit salads and were so excited to make them!
Year 2 have had a good penultimate week of the school year! They enjoyed walking down to the church in the sunshine on Thursday morning for the final Open the Book Assembly of the year. On Tuesday afternoon, they were able to watch the Year 6 leavers’ play which was very entertaining! In English, they have been making their final writing about the Appledore Dragon into a book and completing final reading assessments. In Maths, they have completed their end of year assessments and have completed their final unit of work around position and direction. In History, they thought about why people went to the seaside 100 years ago and compared this to the reasons we go to the seaside today.
All key stage 2 classes took part in create day for the Royal Opera House’s Dance for Rights. This was a two hour live streamed event where hundreds of schools, up and down the country, came together online to dance. Using the choreography, motifs and performance skills explored in the preparatory lessons the children danced an original ballet based on a child’s ’ right to an identity, to play and to have hope. At one point over 100 children were linked together, in the hall, in one fabulous shape which breathed as one. It was a wonderful event to be involved in and we will be hoping to repeat it with the Big Ballet at in February.
It has been a week of performances for Year 3. First the class took part in the Royal Opera/Ballet live lesson, they watched the Y6 dress rehearsal, listened to the Rock Steady bands and then auditioned for the Appledore’s Got Talent competition. We have completed our Egyptian information booklets and these are now on display in the main building. We completed the end of term maths assessment (good progress made this term) and wrote about the role of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. Our final science session was out in the wooded area, working with Jamie (an entomologist) looking for minibeasts and identifying them.
The penultimate week of Year 4 and again it’s been another fantastic week. We have had lots of fun events, including: Dance for Human Rights which Year 4 took part with the other KS2 classes, we watched the Year 6 production and everyone thinks that they were fab-u-lous (as Craig would say!), we went to Church for our Open the Book assembly. We also revised some key grammar in English including sentence types and possessive apostrophes, we completed our Maths assessments and many of us showed great progress and we looked at symmetry to finish our shape work. In Computing we finished programming our games, we thanked Lord Shaftesbury in history with a letter to saw how grateful we are for his tireless work in ensuring children’s quality of life was improved, we researched inspirational environmentalists and created a fact file about them and we learnt about sound insulators in Science. In PE, we continued our stance skills and worked on ‘keeping away and intercepting’.
Today, the Year 5 children thoroughly enjoyed taking part in a cricket session, where they developed their batting, bowling and fielding skills while working brilliantly as a team. In Reading, we have been immersed in our exciting Dragonology unit. The children have designed their own job adverts for a dragon slayer, created imaginative spells to tame a dragon and invented their own magical dragons. It has been wonderful to see their creativity, and they really enjoyed sharing their fantastic ideas with one another. In Maths, we have completed our unit on negative numbers, with the children showing increasing confidence when comparing, ordering and solving problems involving negative values. In History, we concluded our Ancient Greece topic by investigating whether the story of the Trojan Horse was myth, legend or history. The children worked collaboratively to examine a range of evidence, including ancient artefacts, written accounts and archaeological discoveries, before reaching their own conclusions. They demonstrated thoughtful historical enquiry throughout the lesson. A reminder that on Wednesday next week, we will be visiting ARC. Please ensure your child brings their full school uniform to change into afterwards.
Wow, what a busy week! Year 6 visited Lundy on Saturday, accompanied by Mrs Mitchell, Mrs Evans and Mrs Halloway. We had a great time and learnt about the fauna and flora, including the exclusive Lundy cabbage and Puffins. On Tuesday morning, we joined in a live broadcast and performed a dance about children’s rights. On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, we performed our play ‘Gigglebox’. It was a great success and we have had many positive compliments – thank you. We led the Open the Book assembly down at the Baptist Church, retelling the story of The Storm and received a booklet about moving on to secondary school in September. Finally on Friday, we enjoyed cricket and tennis!
