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Newsletter for the weekending Friday 3rd February
3 February 2023

It’s been quite a week! From bewildered nurses in Year 1 (I’m not sure they were fully prepared for 30 very excited children) to a visiting theatre group entertaining the whole school yesterday (thank you Friends of Appledore School (renamed PTA) for making that happen), and not forgetting squeezed in between such events was our Year 5&6 girls football team winning a local tournament. That’s just a taster of what has been happening all week, so please read the whole post to see what has been happening Around the Classes.

Have a lovely weekend everybody

From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff

AROUND THE CLASSES

This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have been learning about France. We have found out about the Eiffel Tower and made 3D models of them. Today Bella’s Mummy came to talk about life in France. Bella’s Mummy taught us how to say hello, goodbye, thank you and please in french. We loved tasting some french food on Thursday.

Year 1 have had a very exciting week! On Tuesday we had a visit from some local nurses to help us with our Nursing topic. We had prepared some of our books to show them the learning we have done and enjoyed telling them all about Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell and Mary Seacole. Then the nurses had an opportunity to tell us all about the different jobs they do and we were able to ask them questions, which we had a lot of! They brought in lots of equipment for us to look at and try out, such as surgical hats, stethoscopes and a SATS probe! We loved listening to each other’s heart beats. Then the nurses did an experiment with us to show us how quickly germs can spread, they started with 3 children and put glitter on their hands. Then these children went and shook hands or high fived as many children in the class as they could, and we could see how the glitter spread around! After this the nurses taught us how to wash our hands properly to get rid of all the germs. It was a great afternoon, we will add some photos onto Google Classroom over the weekend to show what they got up to.

Year 2 had a great time at their outdoor learning session on Monday. They found out about different life cycles and went on a treasure hunt around the woodland area. They had a look at some pond water and were excited to find lots of creatures, including three newts! Their Grace Darling topic continued and this week they became history detectives to answer the question: How do we know about what Grace Darling did? In Maths, they are continuing with multiplication and have started to learn about division. In English, they have been writing about sea creature features.

Year 3 thought about what is wrong in the world today and then sorting them according to whether they were able to do anything about this problem or not. Once they had done this, they made a pledge to do something simple that would contribute to making the world a better place. Year 4 looked at Islamic stories about different prophets and tried to work out what these prophet are known as in the bible. Year 5 looked at different cathedrals and then considered how the architecture of the buildings reflects the nature of God. Year 6 watched some stunning footage of the night sky and listened to the planet suite before writing poetically to express their thoughts and beliefs about the universe and creation.

Seahunter class (year 3) have worked so hard this week! In English, we explored the Brownstone family vault in the story ‘Arthur and the Golden Rope’ which is filled with artefacts that the family have collected on their many adventures. We then used noun phrases and prepositions to write a description of what you might find inside the vault. In maths, we have been learning how to multiply and divide 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers and then we have applied our learning to different word problems. In PE, we have really been enjoying gymnastics and this week we focused on different ways of travelling around. In computing, we have been learning all about desktop publishing and we had a go at creating our own invitations and learned how to change the style, size and colour of the font we were using.

In HMS Echo (year 4) this week, the children have begun a new unit in Maths about length and perimeter, where they will learn how to convert between kilometres and metres, and eventually be able to calculate the perimeter of rectilinear shapes. In English, the children are finishing writing their fantasy stories, where they have taken a huge amount of time and effort to perfect them. I’m looking forward to seeing them published. In History, we have been learning about the effects on people’s diet in the past during the first and second world war, including when convenience food was first introduced in the 1950s due to more women wanting to work. In PE, the children had fun practising their coordination skills by passing a ball around their bodies without dropping it on the floor – this was quite impressive!

Year 5 started the week with our outdoor learning session.  We looked at how far the planets were from the sun using a range of different fruits and worked out the planets diameters.  In English we have continued to look at the Cracking Contraptions with Wallace and Gromit and have designed our own invention.  In maths we have looked at using different methods for division.  For science we have looked at how the Earth moves to create day and night.   Next week is Bikeability for the second group.  Bicycles can come into school from Tuesday.

This week in Year 6 we have continued with our text Pig Heart Boy but have been writing in an informal style. Hopefully, the children will be able to understand how a Monologue works now;  It has been fun listening to their creative language and points of view.  Maths lessons have continued with Algebra and being able to solve two step problems.  They have shown great understanding. During our science lessons we have continued with adaptation and evolution and the demise of the peppered moth.  Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was the background for our experiment looking at how finches on the Galapagos Islands adapted.  Maybe the children could explain their findings to you? The school pond is progressing with groups of children going out with Sarah to clear the pond of plants and creatures before it is extended.  It will bid dug out during the half term.

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