AUTUMN 2 2019 Head of Academy Update Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to this half term’s newsletter. October and November has been packed full of events and opportunities for your children that will be celebrated in this edition and as December approaches lots of dates for your diary as we celebrate the most wonderful time of the year! Over the half term we had the building work that started in the summer completed to have new fire doors fitted across the building and we are so pleased how they have transformed the school. We are delighted that we have been able to keep and adapt the building’s original doors so that we still retain our unique Church school appearance. Our school was a church until the 1870s and the history that this building has is something we are very proud of. We are also very proud of how all our children have settled back into school after half term. We have had many visitors from across the Trust and other schools and I wanted to share the feedback we have received: “You must be very proud, The way the children look after each other is just gorgeous.” “The school has a lovely feel to it and the children are so engaged in their learning.” “The building is very well looked after, it feels like a new school’. “The displays are really engaging, they showcase the children’s learning beautifully.” We know that ASM is a very special place but it always good to get that feedback from people that visit the school and have it validated. I was so pleased that I was able to attend the unveiling of the Remembrance bench in Newton Abbot. It is amazing that we are able to be part of the Newton Abbot community and once again we are proud that we were approached by South Devon College to be involved. We were successful with funding of £121,500. This funding enabled us to carry out some major fire safety improvement works, which included the replacement of fire doors throughout the school, not only stopping the spread of fire in an emergency, but also improving the look and feel of the school. The works also included the full replacement of the fire alarm and detection system to be fully compliant with the current building regulations. This also enabled us to install a new emergency lighting system throughout the school, further improving the safety of staff, pupils and visitors in the event of a real life evacuation As we approach the Christmas period there will be opportunities to join us at St Paul’s church in the last week of term to watch the traditional Nativity performance by our younger Forde and Courtenay classes (supported in singing by Courtenay and Templar) and on the last day of term when we hope you can join us for our Carol Service. All the dates are included in this letter and we know it can be a busy time of the year so don’t hesitate to check with your child’s class teacher if you need to clarify your child’s involvement. Julie Edwards Head of Academy Page 2 AUTUMN 2 2019 PE and Sport November sees us welcoming back Mrs Stanley from Maternity leave. She brings with her her fabulous teaching, experience and skills. We are very happy to have her back! Mrs Stanley will be here every Thursday, all day, teaching all of the children and continuing the Rugby after school club. If you would like to join the Rugby club please ask Mrs Webber for a permission slip. All of Key Stage 2 have attended Netball Festivals run by the young people at Newton Abbot College in October. Both days were fantastically run and all of the children enjoyed learning new skills. Two of our year 5 children attended the aspiring leaders' day at Newton Abbot College, last week and learnt lots of strategies and ideas for keeping our children constructively occupied at break and lunch time. They both had a great day. Coombeshead Academy and Newton Abbot College both offer gifted and talented activities, after school for local primary children. We are constantly looking for new children to access these opportunities. Throughout the year, there will be many events that we can attend. Please look out for emails and letters so that your child doesn't miss out and has the correct kit etc for attending. It was wonderful to meet our friends from All Saints Marsh at the Tag Rugby MegaFest! Well done also to one of our Y3/4 teams, who came first in the afternoon's competition. Page 3 AUTUMN 2 2019 Templar Class R.E has been full of discussion around the world today and the things that we can do to make it a better place for everybody. By exploring Christian beliefs about Jesus and the kind of world that he wanted, we thought about how we felt about the current state of our word. Although we understood that there are bad things happening, we all concluded that there is still good in the world and we need to all work together to preserve it. Adding on to this, we created posters to show us what the world would be like if it were to be like heaven- this meant that we only had to include positive things in our posters. Courtenay Class What a busy October Courtenay class have had! Our electricity topic ended by exploring which objects were conductors and insulators. We were able to use different objects around the classroom to help our learning. We discovered that spoons, sharpeners and the pegs were conductors whereas lego, rubbers and pens were insulators. We concluded that metal objects were conductors but plastic objects were insulators. Courtenay class have also been busy carrying out different maths investigations using the resources to help! We used the multilink cubes to help us work out how to move the frogs to the other side of the pond! Everyone in Courtenay class solved the problem and could then work it out with more frogs! Fantastic work Courtenay class! Page 4 AUTUMN 2 2019 Forde Class We loved learning all about Harvest and learning our song for the Harvest festival! I was amazed by all of the entries to the vegetable competition! We have been scientists in Forde! We went on a material hunt around our classroom and we were amazed at how many materials there were! We used our scientific vocabulary to describe the objects and materials. We have been exploring materials and testing the materials! We even created an experiment to test how waterproof the materials were. This was to make a suitable coat for our teddy. All of the Reception children received their Bible and Ball from the PTFA which was exciting! Bradley Class In Bradley we have been exploring the use of colour within our art lessons. We have been studying the artist, Laura Wall, who is based in Teignmouth, and have an incredible lesson combining science and art. We used the primary colours in a cup and placed tissue in between them and another cup with water in. We were amazed at how the colours travelled along and mixed to show us the secondary colours. We challenged ourselves the next day because we were curious about the next level of colour mixing. We added another step and found that the colours mixed again to give a different hue. Now we know about colours, we cannot wait to get painting ourselves. Page 5 AUTUMN 2 2019 Breakfast and After School Club We are really excited to be able to offer our fun breakfast and after school clubs! Breakfast club starts at 8.00am and is a perfect way to start the day. The children can choose their own breakfast with toast, cereal, brioche and fresh fruit on offer. Children can relax or select from the many activities before they start their day. After school club runs from 3—6pm. We offer a variety of snacks ranging from wraps, sandwiches with a choice of fillings, salad, fresh fruit and yoghurts. Children can partake in lots of fun activities including arts and crafts, good old fashioned board games, computer games and seasonal activities. They also have access to the outside area to play. If you would like to book either breakfast or after school club, please log onto Edu Spot and register. Please note you need to register 24 hours in advance of any session you wish to book. Some of our sessions are fully booked already! If you have problems logging on, please speak to the office. Worship This month, we looked at The Lord's Prayer in our Family groups. We recite this prayer every morning in Collective Worship and we wanted to make sure that we all know and understand the meaning of this lovely prayer. We discussed the lines that tie in with values that we have explored in the past, such as the value of forgiveness. We are thankful for having forgiving friends and we are working on creating a great community that is full of love, thankfulness and forgiveness. New School Prayer We have introduced a new school prayer that captures who we are as a school and celebrates our school family. Lord Jesus Christ This is our school, let your light shine here. Let the rooms be full of joy. Let love be all around. Love for one another; love for all people; and love for you. Let us remember that, as many hands build a house, so many hearts build a school.