Dear Parents and Carers,
The children have been busy putting our Character focus - Caring - into action by being good stewards for our community. They have completed a range of litter picks and beach cleans and have collected approximately 8kg of rubbish from around the village, beach and surrounding areas.
Plastic Free North Devon are running a Mass Community Clean up on Saturday 25.1.25. They want to get as many people as possible outdoors enjoying what nature has to offer and then giving back at the same time by doing a little
clean! The Woolacombe Clean is running from 10.30-12.30 - meeting at Mill Rock. (Please see further details below for other cleans)
The Importance of Times Tables Knowledge
Knowing times tables facts is crucially important to your child’s progression in their mathematics education. Without a thorough understanding of multiplication and division facts, children frequently get ‘lost’ when it comes to anything to do with fractions and any multiplication or division with larger numbers. Many mental maths activities also require a quick recall of multiplication and division facts. Children who are secure in their times tables knowledge are able to get to grips with trickier tasks straight away and are far more successful. It is worth explaining what we mean by ‘knowing’ times tables. A child who knows their times tables will be able to recall any of the multiples of a times table out of order within 3 seconds, as well as knowing the corresponding division facts i.e. 4 x 6 = 24 as well as 24 ÷ 6 = 4. Learning multiplication facts and tables are most effective when there is collaboration with school, parents and children.
In school we regularly spend time learning times tables, but a child will be much more successful if they practise outside school independently and alongside parents.
This Week
As part of their Literacy learning the Reception class children have been exploring traditional tales like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They have been making porridge and testing it to check that it is not too hot, or too cold but just right!
Sea Stars have been exploring the Chinese New Year. In our role play area we have a Chinese restaurant, with noodles and chopsticks 🥢. They are starting to talk about Chinese New and the story ‘The Great Race’.
Over the next few weeks the children will be focusing on intellectual virtue - Critical Thinking. This virtue really supports our children to build learning skills. We will be supporting children to understand how they can ‘live out’ their virtue throughout their learning so it becomes embedded as an essential learning skill.
Thank you for your continued support,
Warm Regards
Mrs Gail Holmes
Please can we remind all parents and carers to call the school absence line before 8.30am to report all absences and again each morning for additional days that your child is absent.
The competition is run by the BBC every year and the prize is a trip to Buckingham Palace and a chance to have your story published and illustrated!
We had 5 children from our school who were selected out of tens of thousands of entries to go through to the first round.
They were:
Tom in Year 5 with his story Ernest and Puck's Intergalactic Adventure
Ernest in Year 5 with his story Lucha Libre Cat
Cassian in Year 1 with his story Henry and The Volcano
Victoria in Year 3 with her story Lauren and the Dragon.
A huge well done to these children for putting in the hard work to make their entries the best they could be! We now await an email from the BBC to see if any of our writers have made the shortlist.
