News
Newsletter for the week ending Friday 22nd September
The North Devon Cross Country League races are fast approaching. These very well organised races are open to children and adults of all abilities and are a great way for your children to burn off any excess energy (particularly if that is needed at the weekend!). They certainly appeal to those who enjoy mud. More information can be found by clicking here. Please be aware that registration for the first race is now and if you want to register as running under Appledore School please let school know and you can borrow one of our running vests.
Thank you to Book Relief UK for a substantial money donation to help us with the continual restocking of our library. Thank you to those of you who donated clothes that resulted in us raising over £200.
Please click here for a QR code with very helpful parent guides for many aspects of internet safety.
Diary Dates
- Get your crabbing buckets at the ready! Appledore pirates crabbing competition in association with Appledore Book Festival returns this Saturday 23rd September !! Team registration opens at 11am from the Pirates gazebo on The Quay The competition will run from 11:30am -12:30pm, teams can be any size BUT must use NO MORE than 4 STANDARD lines (no nets allowed!!) and an entry fee of £5 per team is required Crabbing for the competition will only be permitted from the quayside, not the slipway or steps and remember it’s size that counts! We’re looking for the team with the 3 BIGGEST crabs NOT the most caught with a special bonus prize for the biggest overall crab caught The Appledore Pirates will be marshalling the Quayside to ensure that it is a fair event for all. Everyone welcome
- Year 1&2 Harvest Festival, 2.30pm, Friday 20th October, our school hall
- Year 3-6 Harvest Festival, 2pm, Tuesday 10th October, St Mary’s Church. Relatives of year 3-6 children welcome
- Parents Evenings are being organised, so please keep an eye out for communication from school on how and when to book
Wishing you all a super weekend
Best wishes
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been exploring our environment using our senses. We were hoping to go on a senses walk around the village but the weather put paid to that so we used the school grounds instead. On Tuesday we had a visit from ‘Asda Man’. He brought in a lovely range of fruit for us to all try. The adults were very impressed that all of the children tried all of the fruits. Today we had a visit from ‘Tennis Tom’ from Arc Tennis Centre. He taught some tennis skills.
Year 1 have been working on their listening skills this week and remembering to put their hands up which they are doing really well with. We completed a listening activity on Thursday where they had to listen carefully to instructions in order to complete their picture correctly and they all managed to complete it and showed brilliant sharing with their partners. In Writing we are still doing the Naughty Bus story but have had a Naughty Helicopter come to the classroom! The class had a think about all the naughty things the helicopter might do and then made a story map. In Maths we have been looking at one more and one less within 10 and have been working really hard to make sure there are no backwards numbers in our books.
The highlight of our week for year 2 was our trip to Quince Honey Farm. We had a great time; making our own beeswax candles, collecting seeds, a tractor ride and of course a play in the Soft Play area! Well done to the children for their excellent behaviour and manners. We had a Tennis Session with the instructors from ARC. We have continued our work on partitioning 2-digit numbers. We have also looked on Google Earth to find the school.
Year 3 drew beautiful pictures to show the order of creation. They tried to capture the awe and wonder of nature in their artwork. Year 4 looked at how Muslims worship and designed their own prayer mat. Year 5 continued their work on why Hindus try to be good by interpreting the story of the man in the well. Year 6 wrote their expressive piece “An Artist’s View of Harvest” some pieces of which will be read out as part of our harvest celebration which is really coming together now.
Year 3 have had a wonderful week! In English, we wrote our own diary entries as the tiger and used lots of exciting noun phrases to describe all the things that the tiger might hear or see in the forest. In Maths, we have continued our learning on place value and have been learning how to find 1, 10 and 100 more or less than a given number. In PE, we have been focusing on dance. We explored how to make different standing and floor shapes and then practised moving between the different shapes in time to some music. In Science, we set up an investigation to test whether transparent, translucent or opaque objects create the darkest shadows. In preparation for our exciting author visit next week with Isabel Thomas, we have been reading ‘The Bedtime Book of Impossible Questions’ and we have thought of our own most curious questions to take with us next week.
In HMS Echo (year 4) this week, the children have taken part in some outdoor learning which is linked to their Science, where they looked at how water can change state through heating and cooling. In Geography, we looked at how Appledore School can be more sustainable, and the children designed a poster to encourage this around the school. In English, the children have written an informal postcard from a holiday destination, which I’m looking forward to reading! In Maths, we have been busy with Place Value, where we are looking at numbers to 10,000 on a number line. In our Values lesson, we looked at what anti-social behaviour is and what it means to be a ‘bystander’.
Year 5 are enjoying drafting their own story based on ‘The Tear Thief’. They have created a new key character, story mapped their ideas and are now busy developing the paragraphs of later publishing. In maths we have continued with our subtraction skills and looking at rounding numbers to estimate answers. In geography we discussed the question ‘Why does Marco Polo visit the UK every eleven weeks?’ Great mapping skills were applied when we looked at an OS map of Southampton and there were a lot of surprises by how much the country imports from China each year.
Year 6 have been back in the swing of lessons this week: Maths, all about place value; Literacy, revising punctuation skills; Art, drawing a Dragon’s eye; Reading, comprehension skills with the text ‘Skellig’; PE, fitness and benchball; Geography, how Gambia is affected by climate change as well as starting work in other subjects such as computing, RE and French. I have been pleased with how they have settled and responded to taking on responsibilities in school – it’s certainly been a busy week. Homework is starting this week, so please check Google classroom (spellings Mrs Evans, other task Mrs Mitchell).
