We paint a lot in Nursery (you might have noticed 😊) and so our easel gets covered in paint, but luckily our Nursery children are very good at helping and they soon cleaned off much of the paint! 

I am a lucky teacher as I get to keep the nursery children with me next week! This has enabled Miss Hayley and Miss Wilton to plan home visits for all the children who will be in reception next year - a valuable part of our transition process. The children will be very excited to see their new teacher in their home! 

So to confirm Nursery hours as normal on Monday, Tuesday and half day on Wednesday. 

 

We had a glorious day in our woods on Monday! We invited Gabby from Wild Beginnings to come and help us practice some Forest school skills. The children all created their own wooden badges using a saw and a hand drill. We collected firewood, lit the fire and heated delicious hot chocolate. We were so pleased to be joined by so many of our parents and families who helped us to toast mashmallows and came to play and explore the woods with us. We hope you all had as much fun as we did! 

Thank you so much for organising photos, wrapping paper and magazines to support the children with decorating their new SOLE books. We have them all ready for Year 4! :) 

We had such a fantastic day on Friday exploring Paignton Zoo! We loved seeing Predators up close and faced our fears getting up close and personal to a variety of unique reptiles. We were lucky enough to explore and learn more about animals and their skeletons - Did you know that all mammals have the same bones? Did you also know that birds have an extra breastbone called a keel which supports their muscles while flying? Thank you for all of your support to make this trip possible. Hopefully the photos show what a great day the children had. 

Last week, Year 4 had an exciting opportunity to visit Colyton Grammar School. Mrs Bean and some Year 9 students explored figurative language with us. We created a poster in groups thinking of the connotations identified in a poem by D.H Lawrence. We had a really lovely day and even had the chance to explore changing fonts and colours in their computer suite! 

What a glorious day! Today we had the wonderful Gabby from Wild Beginnings here with us in our Woods. Gabby is a trained Forest School teacher and helped our children and families to practice some Forest school skills. Every child used a saw and drill to create their own wooden badge and some of the parents had a go too. The children showed great concentration, care and focus. It was wonderful to see children that were initially unconfident overcoming this with bravery and a 'can do' attitude. The children collected fire wood, lit the fire, toasted marshmallows and enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate. We had lots of volunteers and so many of our families were able to come and join in the fun too. Thank you for showing your support we hope you enjoyed our magical woods as much as we do. It was a truly wonderful day and a great way to start our final week together! Well done to the children - I am sure you will have happy memories to share and will sleep well this evening!

A massive thank you to the PTFA, all of you who made cakes and all of you who bought cakes at our Year 5 cake sale! We have managed to organise a Fun Splash as an end of year treat for the children as well as buying all of these amazing games for the children to use next year.

Year 2 were very lucky on Thursday to have some adult helpers support us with upcycling old tshirts into new bags! We have been raising our awareness of recycling and the impact our rubbish is having on ocean life.  

We have had a wonderful day at Paignton Zoo.  We were blessed with the weather and got to see a lot of different animals and experience different things in our groups. Some children got to meet a keeper in the crocodile swamp who showed the children a shedded skin, others met another keeper in the gorilla enclosure and learnt about their eating habits whilst another group had a snake climb up the enclosure (to pose for a picture!).  It was a great trip and everybody was fascinated by all the facts they learnt along the way.  Miss McManus’ class loved that they could add to the British Sign Language knowledge due to all the placards around the zoo.

 

This was all topped off by a fantastic workshop where they learnt about skeletons including exoskeletons, skeletons of birds and mammals.  

 

Did is you know  that all mammals have the same bones, they are just different in shape, how they sit and the density?