Spring Term 2015 January Week 2

The Bishops Nympton Primary School Newsletter

Dates for the Diary: (Dates may be amended or added) Thur 12th Feb - Open Afternoon Mon 16th to Fri 20th Feb - Half Term Thur 5th March - Parents Evening 1 Thur 12th March - Parents Evening 2 Wed 18th - Fri 20th March - Heatree Residential Trip for Years 4, 5 & 6 Fri 27th March - Easter Assembly & Last Day of Term Mon 30th March - Fri 10th April - Easter Holiday Mon 13th April - Non Pupil Day Tue 14th April - Children back to school Mon 25th - Fri 29th May - Half Term Holiday

From the Head

Hello all. I would like to wish you all a very happy new year and hope that you all had a lovely Christmas break. Welcome to the spring term and 2015. It never feels very much like spring this early in the year and we always keep a close eye on the forecasts at this time of year. We are never put off by the weather though, and we are already racing into the exciting new term. Spring Term This is as always, a short but very full term. Swimming is already underway at our usual South Molton pool venue. There are nine more swimming sessions this term and as ever, the children are very excit-ed about what they can achieve by the end of the term. As usual, children will be placed into groups initially (following our assessment session) but these groups can change and probably will depending, of course, on how the children get on as the sessions continue. Football is underway again (run in lunchtimes by Mr Scandrett). We are planning a number of sporting fixtures this term but they are likely to take place when the weather is a little improved. These will hopefully include some home and away football fixtures and perhaps even an exciting tournament later in the term. There might be opportunities for netball / tag fixtures as well. Classes are already launching into their new topics (read on for details in each class). Look out for the school blog which will let you know about what we have all been doing. We will be planning a number of exciting activities linked to these topics, so watch out for more info in the weekly updates as well. Heatree As you are all probably aware the spring residential trip is to Heatree Activity Centre on Dartmoor. This is an excellent venue with varied adventurous activities and should be very exciting. As in previous years children from our sister school East Anstey will be on site as well. The two schools will be sepa-rate in terms of accommodation and most activities but will join up at certain times. Exmoor Challenge We are hoping to enter three federation teams in the Exmoor Youth Challenge this year. You may be aware that this event is a highly challenging event for teams of year sixes and includes full open moor-land walking over a sixteen mile course. It also involves map reading, orienteering and extremely close timings! We will begin some trials and are planning more practices this year - just as soon as the weather improves! More updates as we get further into the term. Winter weather This is the worst half term for the weather and so could I request that children are well prepared for wintry conditions with coats, gloves and appropriate footwear. If severe wintry weather occurs then please follow the SNOW CLOSURE GUIDANCE (previously sent). Please be aware that the systems to find out if the school is open include: Facebook, School text system, School Answerphone, Radio Devon and the Devon County Website. These are the main systems as staff may not always be able to get to the school to put notes on the gates. If bad weather strikes during a school day then you will be contacted accordingly. Enjoy the term Best Wishes

committed The East Anstey Team caring

Mr Gurney Mrs Carr Mrs Betts Mrs Loftus Mrs Ryan Mrs Bavin Mrs Julian Mrs Mair

committed The Bishops Nympton Team caring

Mr Gurney Mrs Forder Mrs Scandrett Mrs Headon Mrs King Mrs Guy Mrs Mulligan Mrs Hancock Mr Scandrett Mrs Allum Mrs Loftus Miss P Alderman Mrs Cockram Mrs Keighley Miss Davie Mrs Govier

Mrs Dart Mr Holloway Mr Sidgwick Mrs Hamilton Mrs Tilbury Mrs Kiff Mrs Humphreys Mrs Kingdon Miss C Alderman Mrs Rycroft

‘Part of the Exmoor Link Federation’

Tim Gurney

Page 2 Spring 2015

INFANT CLASS

Dear parents and children,

Happy New Year! 2015 is here.

Hello everybody! Welcome back and a special welcome to Callum and Vinny who are both in Year 1.

I hope you all had a SUPER Christmas holiday!

We look forward to an exciting new term, with new topics and school events which will be noted in our weekly updates

each Friday, so keep an eye out for those.

Our new topic is…. We will be learning about…

Famous Toys - books, pictures, films, collections

Favourite Toys – Christmas presents, collections, sorting and classifying, data handling

Toy shop role play – labelling, pricing, serving, buying, money

Toys from the past – museum trip, making our own museum, timescales, values

Toys from other countries – traditions, poverty, customs, resources, handmade How toys work – forces and energy (science), investigations, mechanics,

Making toys - Design and make a moving toy, design and make a soft toy.

Toys in Art – famous paintings, a story behind the picture.

*We have a trip coming up to Tiverton Museum to see toys from the past, more details to follow.

*We would love to see and talk about old toys belonging to parents and grandparents. Any photographs or items to show

with a story to tell would be fantastic!

*Any donations of small old toys for our role play toy shop would be gratefully received.

Reading books & book bags

Well done, the children are making fantastic progress and reading lots at home. Keep filling up

those sticker charts! The children love to receive their awards.

Labels

Please ensure all items of clothing are named and labelled please.

Snacks, water, milk and free fruit

Your child is welcome to bring their own snack for morning play; a reminder that we encourage healthy choices. Free

fruit is available twice a day for all children in our class. Water is always available in class. Milk cartons have to be

ordered from Coolmilk. You should have all received a letter regarding this last week. It is free for under 5s and is

subsidised for pupil aged five or older, at 22p per day. If your child would like milk each day, sign up online at

www.coolmilk.com or contact the office for further information.

Staff

Mrs Headon is full time.

Miss Paula Alderman is full time. Mrs Dart now works mornings and lunchtimes.

Mrs Alison Hancock now teaches on Tuesday afternoon and a Thursday morning.

Any questions you have, please see myself or a member of the Infant Class team, who will be happy to help.

After school is easier to discuss individual questions; mornings can be busy, but please inform us of any information such

as changes to collection arrangements etc, which will be noted on the class

board. Alternately phone the office 01769 550 387.

Looking forward to chatting with you,

Yours Sincerely

Mrs Sarah Headon

‘Toys Past and Present’

Page 3 Spring 2015

Infant Class RE This term we will be thinking about Celebrations and Easter.

Personal, Social and Health Education This term our focus across both the Infant Class and Middle Class is on how to get on well with others. We will think about what makes a good listener and a good friend, how to recognise our feelings and how to deal with them, how we give and receive compliments and how to see a situation from someone else’s point of view.

Infant Class Science This term, we will be looking at the way things move and, linking to our

toys topic, we will be learning about how some toys move using different forces. We will be experimenting to see what will make our toys move faster or slower. A continuing theme throughout our science year will be the Seasons and the Weather. As part of the new curriculum for Science in Key Stage one, children will need to learn the names of common trees, plants and animals, so if you are out and about with your child you can help to support their learning by talking about how to recognise and name them. As always, if your children have any items that they’d like to bring

in to show us, that relate to our Science lessons, we’d love to see them. Infant Class French In class we will continue to practice

our basic greetings, including

introducing ourselves, telling our

age and where we live. We will also

start to learn the French words for

members of our family and then

later on parts of the body.

SCHOOL COUNCIL

School Council's 2015 diary is

already filling up with various

opportunities and events. The

month of March sees 3 separate

fund raising events including;

Red Nose Day, World

Book Day and Brain Tumour

Awareness Day. These events

will be celebrated and supported

within school. School Council is

currently finalising details for

each event; look out for details in

the school update.

Our focus in terms of school

improvements this half term will

be on the school out door space.

We are very lucky to have such

a beautiful outdoor space, but

we feel that it can be utilised so

much more effectively. We have

initially had an assembly to

generate ideas from the whole

school, as to what facilities they

would like to have within our

school grounds. The school

council will now assess and

decide which of these ideas

are feasible and how we can

incorporate them into our

school grounds. If anyone has

ideas or skills they feel they

could offer this venture then

please speak to a school

council member.

Keep a lookout for the school

councils new weekly blog. Our

IT specialists will be blogging

every week, keeping you up to

date with all the weekly goings

on within the school council.

You can access the school

blog online at www.bishopsnympton.edublogs.org

Our School Council Team

Aidan S

Cameron A

Amy T

Rhys J

Lexi T

Faith D

Sophie L

Matthew B

Alexander A

Emily G

Rosie C

Holly P

INFANT CLASS

Mrs Alison Hancock

Page 4 Spring 2015

SPORTS NEWS Happy 2015 sports fans, the year

the rugby world cup will be

contested in England. To celebrate

this event, we have been practicing

our tag rugby skills in P.E and will

soon be focusing on training up

a team to enter various rugby

tournaments. This will be our first

competitive tag rugby team at

Bishops Nympton for some years.

We kick off 2015 focussing

on the football season. We start

training on Wednesday lunchtimes,

along with additional sessions, as

we approach major tournaments.

Our first footballing fixture is on

22nd January in the prestigious

Football League Community Cup.

This is a nationwide competition

culminating in a grand final

appearance at Wembley!

We continue preparations for our

regional netball finals, after our

nail biting victory at the SMCC

tournament. Netball practice will

continue during a Monday

Lunchtime, as we draw nearer to

the competition. We introduce

our younger children to netball on

a Tuesday lunchtime, hoping to

build a strong group of players for

the years to come.

As ever, we will continue to

endeavour to provide as many

sporting opportunities as possible

for the children through tournaments

and fixtures, within our learning

community. It's already shaping up

to be a very exciting sporting year

for Bishops Nympton Primary

School. We look forward to seeing

you on the side lines cheering our

sporting representatives to victory.

Mr. Scandrett

Dear Pre School Parents Welcome back to the new term and to all our new, arrivals who are starting with us at

various stages over the next few weeks. We also welcome Chrissy Rycroft, who is

working with us while Cassie Alderman is on her maternity leave. Chrissy is already

impressing us with her musical skills and the children are enjoying their singing

sessions.

We continue to meet on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9.00 to 3.30 and are pleased to be virtually

full for our sessions. The mother & toddler group (Owlets) meets on Wednesday mornings from 9.15 to 11.30

– all are welcome. If you have any queries about availability of sessions, please contact Shelley on 01769

550162.

Our topic at the moment is Winter.

We are using Frozen as our theme, making various characters and using different materials incorporating

counting and number recognition. We will be continuing this work into next week.

Over the coming weeks we will be touching on how we look after the birds during winter time and making fat

balls. Other winter topics will be explored!

We continue to work with the younger children in the school and are busy planning some shared activities.

‘Leap into Life’ takes place every Tuesday (weather permitting) when the children get together for a period

of outdoor exercise.

Just a reminder that some families still owe for their Christmas nativity photographs. Please bring in your

payments to the pre-school office as soon as possible.

We will be holding parent consultations later in the term – if you wish to speak to a member of staff about

your child at any other time, please feel free to drop in.

Mrs Shelley Kiff

House Points Totals so far this term

Ruby 195 Amber 129

Sapphire 171 Emerald 119

Page 5 Spring 2015

MIDDLE CLASS

Dear Parents The Middle Class team have lots of exciting things planned for this term, as we start our new topic of Planet Earth.

We will be linking with this topic for most areas of the curriculum.

Geography. Our afternoon topic lessons will have a Geography focus this term. We will be using maps and atlases to locate where we live. We will start with Bishops Nympton and surrounding towns, move on to Devon and other local counties and then look at the countries that make up the United Kingdom. We will also look at the globe to identify the continents and oceans, and learn about why it is warmer nearer the equator but colder at the Poles, which also links to our Science. Later on we will choose a continent and country that we will look at in detail as a case study. We will learn about the landscape, major cities, the weather, wildlife and the people who live there. If you have an interest in any particular countries that you would like to share with us then do please get in touch as we’d love to hear from you.

Science. This half term in Science we are

learning about light and dark. We will be looking at sources of light and also things that only reflect light. If your child would like to bring an item that makes light into school for one of our Science les-sons on a Wednesday that would be lovely. They will have the op-portunity to take them into our dark tent and investigate which lights are the brightest. Please don’t send anything in that is ex-pensive or breakable! Later on in the term we will be learning about the sun and it’s importance for all life and then learning about shad-ows.

Literacy. In Literacy we will continuing to build up our key skills in many areas across reading, writing and speaking and listening. Specifically we are looking to apply our skills across of a range of text types and are starting by focussing on information texts in our Penguins, Superheroes and Astronauts Unit. Later in the term we will be writing explanation texts and also doing some poetry and fiction units linked to our topic areas.

Numeracy. Numeracy for the children in Middle Class will include all strands of the numeracy curriculum. Year two are continuing to follow the previous National Curriculum in preparation for their SATs in May, whilst the other year groups in Class Two are following the new curriculum. Broadly this work includes calculation, understanding of number and other elements such as shape, measures, data handling etc. We are looking to apply skills to real life purposeful activities and also build on our explanations and talking about maths this term.

R.E. This term we will be looking at reli-gious symbols and then Easter in our dedicated Religious Educa-tion lessons, and also learning about places of worship in our multi-faith assemblies.

French. In French lessons we will continue to practice our basic greetings, in-cluding introducing ourselves, telling our age and where we live. We will also start to learn the French words for members of our family and then later on parts of the body.

P.S.H.E. This term our focus in PSHE lessons is how to get on well with others. We will think about what makes a good listener and a good friend, how to recognise our feelings and how to deal with them, how we give and receive compliments and how to see a situation from someone else’s point of view.

P.E. Throughout PE we will be learning and developing skills in swimming, hockey and basketball, covering a range of skills.

Music Music throughout this term is based on whole class instrumental learning. We are continuing to work with the ukulele for an extra half term and then branching into music technology. Our unit focus is distinguishing between musical types and focussing on popular music. We will be developing appraisal skills, performance and composing.

Mrs Emily King

Mrs Alison Hancock The Middle Class Team

Page 6 Spring 2015

TOP CLASS Hello everyone.

We’ve only been back a couple of

weeks and the term is already in

full swing. The children have

returned with excellent attitudes

and are all keen to learn. I

couldn’t ask for any more. There

is a lot to look forward to in the

coming weeks, much of which is

linked to out topic: Mountains and

Deserts.

Science There are two main science

themes this term: the first will be

a study of the Earth, moon and

the sun. This will be followed by a

study of forces in the world

around us. As last term, the

children will also consider these

aspects of science in real life

contexts.

Humanities We’re going all things ‘physical

geography’ this term. We begin by

looking at mountains, what they

are, how they are formed,

followed by a closer study of

famous world mountains and

expeditions. We finish by studying

volcanoes, including formation,

their activity and disasters-

Tsunamis too!

Later in the term, our attention

turns to deserts: where they are

located and their climates. I hope

to make links with the Blood

Hound Super Sonic car, as the

team will be attempting to break

the land speed record across the

Haskeen pan, in South Africa,

next year. Through this, the

intention is for the children to

develop an appreciation of just

how significant this venture is and

grasp a real life sense of how

extreme the weather conditions

are in the desert.

PE Swimming, as you know, will take

place on a Monday. A further PE

session will run on a Tuesday.

This is likely to be outside, so

warm clothing, (including a rain

jacket) in addition to your child’s

PE kit, is essential.

Art/DT and RE Mrs Mulligan will continue to

teach Top class each Friday,

delivering Art, Design and RE.

In the first half of the Spring

term, the focus will be

silhouettes in the landscape,

which will combine images of

mountains. The children will also

construct 3-D models of

mountains. Towards the end of

the half term, we will be

exploring and producing our own

compositions of The Great

Wave.

In the second half of the Spring

term, with our learning turning

instead to deserts, the children

will investigate and produce

examples of Aboriginal art.

In RE, beliefs and questions will

be our main theme, with a

particular focus on Judaism.

Music

Mrs King will be delivering music

throughout this term. It will

take the form of whole class

instrumental learning. The

children will work with the

ukulele for the first half of the

term and then branch into music

technology. Throughout, they

will learn to distinguish between

musical types and

develop appraisal skills,

performance and composition.

P.S.H.E. This term our

focus in PSHE lessons is how to

get on well with others.

Homework Homework will continue to be set

on a Thursday and be due in the

following Tuesday. This will

primarily be maths and english

based, but will, at other times, be

linked to science or topic learning.

The children will continue to be

expected to read each week in

preparation for the next guided

reading session, as well as read

regularly by themselves or to an

adult. In each case, can I please

ask that this be recorded in their

reading diary.

Can I also ask that you gently

remind your child to bring their

book bag into school everyday, as

they are often expected to read,

independently.

I’d like to finish by saying that I

am so very pleased to be teaching

at Bishops Nympton, whilst Mrs

Scandrett is on maternity leave. .

It has been a privilege working

with your children and I look

forward to another busy and

happy term.

With very best wishes

Nic Forder

and the Top Class Team