Friday 14th October

  Good afternoon everybody - Happy Friday!

 Another really busy week, ending today by dressing as scarecrows for 'Dingle Dangle Scarecrow Day.'  Thank you for all of your efforts, the children looked superb and many thanks for the kind donations, they have been distributed to people in need in our local community.
This week, Hazel class have been working hard and have produced some super creative writing, inventing their own fairy tale based on the story of the Princess' Blankets, with some great results. Those that had finished, extended their writing genres by writing a letter from a doctor, suggesting a cure for the Princess' coldness, or writing a prologue telling the back story of the Princess' curious malady.  We have worked hard in Maths, completing our assessments for place Value and demonstrating good progress and then looking at our next unit Addition and Subtraction.
The children have had a double Music session with Miss Boyce this week, really getting to grips with the steel pans. Those of you who were able to join us in the church this morning for the Harvest Festival, will have seen how far they have come with 4 weeks practise - they were amazing!
 We enjoyed a P.E. session in the hall on Wednesday, working on our gymnastic skills and today we had our penultimate Netball session with Mrs Edwards.

We also have an exciting challenge to look forward to, linked to the upcoming London Marathon.  As you know the London Marathon is run over 26 miles. To celebrate this, all of Key Stage 2, will take place in a mini marathon, which is a tenth of the size at 2.6 miles.  We will be running this next week - hopefully, it will be a bit drier!

New spellings are out the paper copy is out and the digital copy is on Dojo.   There is a digital copy of this half term's Wider Curriculum Home Learning on Dojo and the website.  For this, there is a choice of activities, I would like to see 1 completed activity by Monday 31st October, which is the first Monday back after half term. Although this is our optional home learning, the activities are creative and fun and there is lots of time to complete this so I would be delighted to see some really good quality pieces. (See photos for example)
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  In terms of home learning, can I remind everybody that the expectation is that children read for at least 10 minutes at home every day, this can be magazines, newspapers, manuals, cookery books, as well as their reading books, as it is all reading. This is to promote reading for pleasure as there is nothing better than a good book. Remember, that you are your child’s greatest role model, so if they see you enjoying a good book, it really promotes good learning habits.
  I would also like children to spend time working on their times tables, which are vital in so many areas of the Maths curriculum.  They can do this through Times Tables Rock Stars, on which, I would like the children to spend 25 minutes a week, this can be 5 minutes every day, or blocked to fit around what you are doing at home. I will be posting a list of great websites to practise on for over the half term break. (If children can't remember their password to log on, ask them to tell me and we will record it in their Reading Record for them.)
 
Next week, the children will be completing their work on Addition and Subtraction in Maths, working on our new text in English, in Science, we will continue to look at Separating Mixtures and in Computing, we will work on Digital Networks.  Good luck to our own Lionesses (Girls KS2 football squad) next week, who will be playing in a tournament in Tavistock on Tuesday.

On Friday next week, there will be a Parent Sharing assembly - 21st September at 2.30 in the hall, when you can get a flavour of the learning that has been happening in each class over the last half term.  
 
Have a great weekend whatever you are doing, get outside and enjoy yourselves.
 
See you on Monday
 
Mr F