Thank you to all the parents and children who attended the Home Reading Workshop last week.

The session was a great success. Alison Andrews from Devon  Library Services gave us some great tips for encouraging your child to read at home. She shared with us the benefits which children get from reading which included better mental health and increased reading skills which enable children to access all areas of the curriculum. We talked about the challenges of finding the time to read with, and hear our children read (something that is a nationwide issue).  In the session we talked about the importance of both hearing your child read and reading with your child in equal measure. We also discussed the importance of your child reading a variety of texts including: school books, library books, comics, catalogues, newspapers etc. Basically, anything to capture their interest! Our school librarian explained how we have an impressive collection of books for the children to choose from and we shared some of the latest books to engage readers.  The children told us  how the Read to Succeed scheme encourages them to read at home  and how D.E.A.R (Drop Everything and Read) lets them read more at school- they also get to find out what the other adults in school are reading too!

Here are some of the resources we shared which might help you engage your child with home reading. We will run this session again next year so please sign up!

Wow- this half term has gone by in flash! Last week we enjoyed acting out our non-fiction penguin report using story maps. This helped us to learn the structure of the text and we added great actions too!

In Science, we learnt the scientific names for the bones in the  human skeleton. For example: the skull = cranium and mandible, thigh bone = femur, knee cap = patella. We worked in groups to name the bones.

Reminders:

The  year 3 children have been doing lots of home reading and we will get the results of the READ TO SUCCEED draw on Friday. Could you win a book? Which class has read the most?

We look forward to seeing you all at Parents’ Evening this week. Don’t forget that the book fair is here this week too, so have a browse while you’re waiting.

Finally it is harvest time please bring in any goods to donate to the food bank.

HAVE A HAPPY HALF TERM

It has been another outstanding week in year 6. On Wednesday we finished our letters to a loved one. On Thursday we tea-stained our writing and drew some pictures to accompany our work on display. We are really proud of our work.

We have learned lots about the causes of World War Two. We are looking forward to finishing our history booklets next week.

Written by Jack M and Lewis P

This week, the children have been busy investigating different materials and their properties. They discovered that some materials could be either bent, twisted, stretched or squashed and some could achieve all four!

We have started a new story in English – Caterpillar Shoes – and the children have really enjoyed acting out the different parts. See if they can retell the story to you using lots of description.

We are looking forward to seeing you all at parents evening next week. If you cannot make your appointment, please let us know so that we can rearrange.

After half term, we will expect the children to come in independently and would greatly appreciate your help with this.

On Tuesday this week Mrs Mabin’s Mum, Mrs Holland, came into visit us as part of our History topic; we have been learning about ‘Changes in Living Memory’. She was born in 1946…..  a LONG time after dinosaurs roamed the earth but many years before we were born or our school building was opened. Mrs Holland showed us lots of black and white photographs and brought with her some of the toys she used to play with. They didn’t have many in those days….. a couple of dolls and some lovely jungle animals made from lead. We were shocked to find out that they didn’t have a freezer or a washing machine and that there were no supermarkets! A few lucky people in the early 1950s owned a TV but the picture was in black and white and there was only one channel to watch – it’s very hard to imagine now-a-days!

In other news, the children have all worked extremely hard this week writing their version of “I Love Pets”, based on the “I Love Bugs” book. In Maths we have been learning how to use the correct mathematical symbols for ‘greater than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’. The children have really enjoyed this and are now turning into experts!

To round off our hard-working week, we went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds on Thursday afternoon. Lots of leaves and twigs were collected and we all loved looking out for different trees as they begin to change colour. Glorious!

Enjoy your weekend. Please could we ask for our £3 cooking donation to be handed in next week.

Many thanks – The Year 1 Team

Year 4 have come to the end of another very busy week. All children are now in a good rhythm and have enjoyed the variety of activities including our first trip. This week I have invited interested volunteers to write our school blog. The Year 4 team intends to rotate this as we believe it is a super way for children to express their own views and ideas about their learning.

This week in Year 4, we have been on a ‘Red Coat’ tour to learn about the Romans. We met two volunteers, Susie and Julie who enjoyed showing us some real Roman walls. We especially enjoyed the ‘tortoise formation’ and their march, we were then asked to try it our for ourselves.

Faith

On our trip, we enjoyed finding out about different facts from our Roman guide and had a chance to look in the museum. We saw examples of the kind of protections that the Roman soldiers would wear during war. We followed the Roman wall in town, and the wall was very long!

Ella

This week in RE we have been learning about the Holy Trinity. We learnt about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the importance of baptism to Christians. We looked at different pieces of artwork and then sketched pictures of Jesus in the water being baptized by John the baptist. We then wrote an important passage in our best handwriting saying ‘When Jesus was baptized, he went from the water to heaven. Then behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending  like a dove, then a voice said “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased’.

Ollie

There were some hard fought campaigns this week as children put themselves forward to be our School Councillors for this academic year. We are pleased to say that the results are in and the chosen candidates are below.