Happy Easter everybody, after a successful return to school after Lockdown and a busy few weeks, we have finally reached the Easter holidays and it's started with some glorious weather - let's hope it lasts!  
This week, we have said goodbye to Miss C after 17 years at North Tawton, she has left lots of great memories and some big shoes to fill, which I am sure Miss Penny will be starting to do next term, ably supported by Miss C, who, we hope will continue to visit us often - she is always welcome.
  
This week, we have continued our work on Extreme Animals in English, moving on to write in the style of the text for an Amazonian animal of our choice, to fit with our Geography topic. We very nearly finished our work on fractions, moving on to multiplying fractions by integers. We have continued to look at career choices this week in PSHE, thinking about what our ideal job would be. In Music, we continued with the ukelele and in RE, we covered the Easter story - linked to a great assembly by Mr Weldon and Mr Cutler (thanks for not pieing me!).
We continue to run everyday and I have been very impressed with the children's efforts, with some people completing a mile and a quarter in 10 minutes! Look out Mo Farah!  We have also established our Talk Rules and expectations for our Oracy work in class and have been using it to good effect this week. We have also re-designed our reading corner and will continue to develop it next term. 

Well done everybody for a good few weeks, we have some nice challenges and learning to look forward to in the Summer term. Until then, let's hope the weather lasts and we can make the most of a well earned break.

Enjoy your holiday - don't eat too much chocolate!

​Mr F

It's Friday, again, it only seems like two minutes since last week's blog.
This week we have: begun work on our new English text Extreme Animals, thinking about the text layout and the type of text it is, as well as its features. In Maths we have continued to work on fractions and have begun to have Maths Talks - a short discussion based around a concept or idea. In Science, we have been finding out about Forces, with a focus on Gravity.   In RE, the children have continued with Judaism, in Music they are playing the ukelele, in PSHE, we continue to think about jobs and careers, this week we thought about our skills and qualities. Finally, in PE, we have run, performed Yoga and played team challenges to work on teamwork. 

Spellings came home on Monday, I will post the digital copy on Dojo and we will have a test on Tuesday. It is a shorter week next week and we finish on Thursday, as it is Good Friday. The Times Tables Challenges that I have been working on will be out this weekend - they took a little longer than I expected! Next week, we will continue to work on Extreme Animals in English, Fractions in Maths and Forces in Science. We are also beginning a huge focus on Oracy - our children's speaking and listening skills. These are incredibly valuable, as it allows children to rehearse and structure what they are thinking about before they record it. Have a look at our new Class Talk Rules for this on the photo below.

There will be a new reading challenge for home next term, but for now, Mrs Ware has asked for a photograph of your child/children, reading in their favourite places, please could these be sent in ASAP as we would like to create a display in school around reading, with these at the centre of it. Send them in via Dojo and I will print them for Mrs Ware. Look out for mine on Dojo this weekend.

Have a great weekend everyone, enjoy the outside and I will see you next week.

Mr F

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Happy Friday everyone,
We have now been back for two weeks and the children are happy and settled. 
This week we have been working on shapes in Maths, including making our own set of 2D shape Top Trumps. In English, we have worked on our use of commas, using the text Eat, Shoots and Leaves. We have also been working hard on our general use of punctuation, using Kung Fu punctuation to help us remember our punctuation marks, where and how to use them - the children have mastered it pretty quickly this week, so I look forward to seeing the results in next week's work!

For our work in the wider curriculum, we have been working on Judaism in RE, we have been developing our use of Google Slides in Computing to include animation, in Art we have continued to look at the work of Banksy as an artist and in PE we have continued to work on Yoga and our outdoor team games, with our Saints South West coach - Mr Stronge. As well as this, we have continued our 10 minute run every day, and today, we managed to total 401 laps - our best yet- well done Hazel class.  That will be going on Travel to Tokyo!

Thank you to those people who came in dressed in red today and contributed to Comic Relief, the money raised goes to fabulous causes everywhere. 

Next week, we will be working on and completing our fractions unit in Maths, we will be working on an information text (non-chronological  report) in English, using the text Extreme Animals, that you were able to read during Lockdown. In PE we will continue with Yoga and team games, whilst in French we will be looking at shopping. RE will continue to be Judaism, but we will focus on the Easter story in the last week of term. In Geography, we will continue to discover the Amazon Basin and in PSHE, we will continue to work on Career choices and jobs that we aspire to have. 

In terms of home learning, there is the expectation that children will read for at least 10 minutes every day, I know some people already do a lot more than this, so well done, spellings will come home on Monday and I am going to set a times tables based home learning to ensure that children really know their tables, as these are incredibly important to so many areas of the Maths curriculum and real life.   There will be a topic based home learning after Easter based on our Summer Term Topic. 

I look forward to seeing the children back on Monday, for another action packed week. Have a great weekend, whatever you are doing.

Mr F

Happy Friday everyone. 
It's great to be back to having a whole class to teach. We have enjoyed reconnecting this week, both with our friends and with learning. This week we have worked on what it is like to be back, exploring our emotions through various PSHE activities and through poetry. The children produced some very successful pieces of poetry based on emotions which have taken various forms, including Haikus from Japan and Kennings from Scandanavia.   
We also worked collaboratively as Maths detectives to solve a mystery by figuring out the clues which required different mathematical skills and a lot of reasoning.

This week we have also reintroduced reading with our Reading Reflection Journal, in which, the children record their thoughts and questions on what they are reading, both during and after they have read.   We finished English this week, through writing a story based on an image. We were concentrating on our use of language: expanded noun phrases, similes, powerful adjectives and verbs and using phrases that really paint a picture for our reader. 

In our wider curriculum, we had Music with Mrs Mathews and have begun to explore our new Geography topic of The Amazon Basin. This week, we looked at the continents and their positions and we found out more about them. Next week, we will focus on South America. 

We were lucky today to meet Mr Stronge, our Saints South West coach in person and had great fun in our PE session, which focussed on teamwork and throwing and catching skills. We look forward to next week's session.   

We have tried everyday to get out for an active break and have set a collective target of laps to beat the following day as a target. This week we are closing in on a collective total of 300 laps of our KS2 playground in 10 minutes - that's 12,000m or 12km in 10 minutes!

It has been brilliant having the children back for the first week and I very much look forward to seeing them all on Monday. 
Have a great weekend everyone - try to avoid the rain!

Mr F

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Today we had the last CWC - hopefully ever and your last log on to remote learning at home whilst in Lockdown, as of Monday, we are back, hopefully fit and raring to go!
This week, we enjoyed the World Book Day theme of Share a Story for the whole week in English and I have read some amazing spooky 100 word stories, Fairly Stupid Tales and some Topsy Turvy Fairy Tales. The ideas have been superb and some people's sense of humour have really shone through in their writing. Maths has been a constant this week and we will continue with our Fractions unit next week. 
We ended CWC this afternoon in style with an outside environmental tidy of the outdoor learning area and then toasted marshmallows - YUM! There are some fairly good gardeners in the making in year 5 and 6 - so parents, get them busy outside this Spring.
On Monday, we will return in very much the same way as in September, please see Miss C's Class Dojo post and the newsletter this week regarding drop off and collection times (for us, it's 8.45 and 3.20).  There will be no visitors on site, apart from those who have pre-arranged appointments.   We will be continuing our regime of hand washing and sanitising at regular intervals and will need to be prepared with our own equipment, as we can't share resources at the moment. So please have a pencil case ready with a black pen, pencil, rubber, scissors, coloured pencils, a ruler and a glue stick. Also, please bring your reading folder and book in from home ready to change it as reading and enjoying books is going to be a high priority when we return and it would be great, if you could bring a pair of trainers in so that we can have some active breaks. 
If you haven't already, please check your uniform and make sure that your t-shirt hasn't become a crop top over Lockdown!  

I am going to finish this week, by saying a huge thank you and well done to the pupils, parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, older siblings and relatives who have helped to keep our children safe, secure, happy and learning over Lockdown.  Well done - you have all been amazing! 

Have a wonderful weekend and I very much look forward to seeing you all - in person- on Monday.

Mr F

Good evening evrybody - Happy Friday. 
We are at the end of another week, and after the Prime Minister's announcement on Monday, now nearing the end of Lockdown, so we will be back on Monday March 8th. This week I have been very impressed with the work coming in, the Maths has been superb, as has the creativity I have seen from people undertaking our cross curricular afternoon choices, where amongst other things, I have seen a French family tree! 
  We have had a good end to the week with the weather and I hope that people have been able to get out and about, we certainly made the most of the sun this afternoon at school with an orienteering afternoon, out in our fabulous school grounds. The children had great fun.

Next week, for the last week of lockdown, we will continue with Maths as we have been, but English will be based on the theme of World Book Day (which is on Thursday) - Share a Story. So we will be working on various story themed activities for English, with more on Thursday for World Book Day itself. Even though we won't all be at school, we are celebrating World Book Day in the traditional fashion by dressing up as a story character - I know people can't go out and get things, so see how inventive you can be with your costume for Thursday - I will look forward to seeing all of you dressed up, I will have to get my thinking cap on now for a costume idea!

If you could start thinking about getting ready to return, we will be working in a very similar way to the one in which we were in September. Therefore, we will be asking people to bring their own stationery in and getting used to routine hand washing and sanitizing.   Also it would be worth getting into a good routine of getting up at the time you would normally for school and regulating your sleep pattern. 

It looks like the Sun is going to be with us for a few days now, certainly over the weekend, so please get out and enjoy it - don't forget to log any activity that you do on Get Set Tokyo, so that we can reach our 47,000km target, we are currently at 26,000, so a great start to the challenge this term, let's keep it up and get to Sydney, which is our next destination.

I have posted some highlights of the week below as a photo gallery.  I hope that you all have a great weekend, enjoy whatever it is that you are up to.
Mr F

We've reached the Spring half term already, I can't believe it. Can you believe that our year 5s are now halfway through the year!   This week we had a great week of story writing and telling, basing our own legends on Dartmoor. I have had some great stories so far and a few retellings via video or mp3, which have been great, keep them coming in. In Maths, we completed our unit on Multiplication and Division and have moved on to fractions, we started this week with a recap to see what the children have remembered from their previous learning in fractions. 
Today we had a great Zoom session with our coach Mr Stronge (see photos) and revisited all of the exercises and challenges that we have covered this half term - there were some red faces in the hall - including mine (under the mask obviously).
Many of you have been really active and have sent some pictures in showing your activities, well done for logging this as we have now reached Rio and are on our way to Sydney next in our Travel to Tokyo Challenge. (So far we have travelled over17,000 km in total as a school.)

Then our afternoon sessions have been choice based and the variety of activities have been well received.  We will continue in this way for our period of home learning after half term and wait to see what the Prime Minister has to say on 22nd February, regarding return to schools. 

We had a few nice examples of Perfect Earth's for Miss Radbourne's challenge, look out for the winners in the newsletter. 

Don't forget, if you require a device as you are struggling to access the remote learning, contact Miss C directly, as she still has a few devices which can be allocated. 

There is no home learning for half term, all I ask is that people pick up a book and read it, or share it with an adult, or sibling. Just for fun, there will be a quiz challenge on the School News page of the website: it is quite tricky but see if you can guess who The Masked Adults are!
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Have a great half term everyone
​Mr F

We've reached the end of another week, that's felt like it's passed by very quickly. A huge thank you and well done for your continued efforts at home with the remote learning, there have been some excellent pieces coming in.  I have really enjoyed talking to you via Google Meet or Zoom and being able to teach some of you virtaully via video link when there are things that you need guidance with. I have also enjoyed having the children in for CWC at school, as it feels like a very tight knit group. This week, you have been looking at Multiplication and Division, this unit will come to an end on Wednesday next week with our end of block assessment. We have also nearly reached the end of our work on The Lost Words, our English text and I have had some fabulaous poetry coming in. Monday will be the last day to send in your completed work, as I would like to create our class book from your work. We will then be moving on to a short, but creative 4 day English block on Tuesday - more details then...
This week has been Children's Mental Health Week and I know that people enjoyed the assembly for this. I loved the onesies that people were wearing for PE today, although you must have been very hot! We had a great afternoon at school expressing ourselves through art, model making and outdoor play, I hope your afternoon was as good. Please send your photos/videos or pieces of writing/art in, so that I can see how you expressed yourself this afternoon.

As of next week, the afternoon sessions will be different and a bit more fluid. After the results of our Parents Survey, we will keep the expectation that Maths and English is handed in daily but there will be no due date on the afternoon sessions - although still an expectation that people do the activities - the activities will be there for you to choose from, so if you are running short on time, pick one that you can fit in and complete. There are a lot of exciting and fun activities for the week next week and I hope that you will enjoy them.  Among them is a Geography Challenge, set by Miss Radbourne - this is a competition, so you will need to return it earlier in the week if you want to be entered. 

Well done to those of you who are getting out and about, logging this for our school team has meant that so far as a school we have travelled 16,000 km and have 31,000 remaining before we get to Tokyo.  Our next stop is Rio and we have just under 4000 km to go before we get there. Please remember to log your activity - every kilometre counts!  I know some people have ordered and had their skipping ropes delivered for the skipping challenge, have you ordered yours yet? There's still time, have a look at the link on Whole School Story for more information. 

Finally, one of the struggles that we have had during lockdown is access to good reliable devices. If you are struggling with your access to the remote learning because your device is slow or old, Miss C still has a few devices that are available for parents to support with learning at home. Should you require one, please contact Miss Chauhan directly and she will endeavour to make a device available to you.

I hope that you have a great weekend whatever you are up to.

Mr F

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We've reached Friday again, at the end of a wet, wild and windy week.  I will start by saying a huge thank you to everyone for their continued efforts with the remote learning, you are all doing brilliantly with it, pupils and parents alike - keep it up, as together at the end of Lockdown we will have children who have edevloped a variety of skills not least of which has been computing and will stand them in good stead for the future.  
This week, we have explored our new text The Lost Words in English and I have had some very thoughtful and insightful predictions as to what it is about p- we will explore it in greater depth next week.   Maths has continued to have been well executed and the move to Google Slides this week has been fairly painless - it seems to work so much better as the work is all together on one document. I have really enjoyed seeing people's artwork based on Banksy coming in (see photographs) we will work more on this next week as there have been some great ideas for your own murals in the style of Banksy. 
My working highlight this week has been the quality of the writing that I received on Wednesday based on Jewish children during the Second World War. People have really got into role well and empathised with the children's plight at the time of the Jewish Holocaust. I'm sure Miss C will want to share an example in assembly on Wednesday.  
My real highlight is getting to see you all everyday, whether it be face to face or virtually, it has been amazing to talk to you, experience PE together and read to you all the end of the day - I hope that you're enjoying The Ice Monster, it seems very popular in school!
As well as seeing you, your videos and photographs have also been amazing as an insight into the leaarning, whether it be academic or real life skills, it has been a pleasure to see what you have all been up to at home, so please keep these coming in.
On Monday, there will be a Parent's Survey based on the home learning that we have offered so far, please take the time to respond to this, as it will help us to shape our provision as we go foraward.

Finally, this weekend is the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch - Miss Radbourne has posted details of this on the Class Dojo Whole School Story, this is a link to ideas, tips resources and how to be a part of this great annual event. Please get involved, it only takes an hour and you may discover birds that you have never seen before (if you do, send your photos in).

I hope that you all have a great weekend.

​Mr F

Another strange week is over and we are becoming more and more competent with our use of Google Classroom. There have been many people editing and resubmitting their work following feedback this week, so well done, it really makes a difference to the finished product. It has been really good to see so many of you on Google Meet or Zoom this week, make sure that when we meet, if you have any questions about the work, that you ask, as it is a great opportunity to discuss misconceptions or solve any problems that people are having. 
  Another great Zoom PE session this morning - see the photos on Dojo - it left the children at school red-faced and challenging themselves to try to beat their targets, I hope you enjoyed it at home too.

Some very creative words and defintions coming in for our pages for our class book of words, keep these coming in so that I can compile the book next week. We have also come to the end of our Maths unit, so will finish with an assessment on Monday and then start a new unit on Tuesday. A reminder on our remote learning that there is a Flashback 4 set of Maths questions everyday, some people seem to have overlooked these and tackled the Maths activities straight away, remember that the video link is there to help you with the Maths, so make sure that you watch it first. 

Next week, I am looking forward to setting you an art project to work on, I am really excited to see the results and ask that you take photos of this and send them in.

We have started well on our Travel to Tokyo Challenge as a school. Please sign up to this if you haven't already and if you have well done - only 47,000 km to cover. I also posted a link to free Yoga sessions to use at home. This is a really good program of activities to use and although at first, some people feel silly doing it, it really is excellent for our physical and mental health and is superb to help people relax. 

Whatever you manage to do this weekend (I think the weather looks pretty awful!) enjoy it, try to get outside and stay active.

Stay safe and well
Mr F