Happy December everyone!
I hope that you have been told about our trip to the Energy from Waste plant as it was very interesting as well as completely shocking to see how much waste is generated each day and has to be dealt with. By far the highlight of the trip was being on the overhanging gallery (behind smellproof glass!) above the waste hall, watching the giant grabbers move it around from delivery pit to the incineration hopper and also being able to look through special viewing windows into the furnace itself – it was absolutely like looking into a volcano. I have attached some photos of us.
In English, our ‘Snow Leopard’ stories are coming on a treat. There is some wonderful description going on. Ask your child what techniques they are using within the story and why they are useful – I hope that they are able to tell you!
In Maths, everyone completed their end of unit test magnificently with vastly improved performances so a huge ‘Well done’ is deserved. We are now moving onto adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with fractions. KFC is going to feature in class : this has cause some delight and some disgust amongst the children. They’ll soon find out if they are fans or not.
Next Wednesday, we have another extension to our thinking about waste management when we have Proper Job coming to work with us on sustainable wreath making. Maple Class is such a creative group that I’m really looking forward to seeing their creations and they’ll be bringing home lots of ideas for reducing or avoiding waste at Christmas time.
Can I just remind you to complete the parent questionnaire for the France trip and to get passport applications under way preferably before Christmas. As previously mentioned, if there are financial barriers to you doing so, please approach the school as this is a tricky year and the project has a fund to be able to help out.
Happy weekend!

Maple Class Blog Friday 25th November
It was lovely to see the vast majority of you at parents’ evening this week. If you have not managed to make an appointment, please get in touch and I shall be happy to have a phone conversation or even just send you some current progress notes.
We have had our second Woodland School session today and once again, they did not disappoint with their foraging skills and teamwork. We were challenged to make a map of our woodland area from natural materials that would guide someone around the area if it were their first visit. All of the maps were incredibly clear with very well placed landmarks – well done year 6.
Our persuasive leaflets are published and on display. I think that any one of them makes a well-reasoned argument and would stand up against any that may fall out of our magazines or appear in the mail. We have begun to craft ideas about our rainforest ‘animal protector’. Please ask your child which creature they have chosen and see how many ways you can reframe how you refer to it. E.g. Black Panther – obsidian prowler – night cat – slinking night spirit
Or – Toucan – Beady-eyed warrior – dagger-billed glider – jewelled sky shadow How expressive can you get?
In maths we have just about come to the end of our unit on all the basic calculation methods. It would be a great bonus if you could encourage your child to practise one each of an addition, subtraction, multiplication by 2 digits and division each day to stay on top of methods and increase speed of fluency.
Lastly, just a reminder about the trip next Tuesday (29th) to the Plymouth recycling centre. IT IS AN 8.30 DEPARTURE so please can children assemble outside the front door of school at 8.20.
And for a final lastly…. You should have all received paperwork for the France trip this week. The main action is to ensure that you have a passport or apply for one asap as we shall be needing them in January to copy for our own documentation. If you have any issues with applying for a passport, please get in touch sooner rather than later and we shall of course give our support.
Happy weekend!

Hello all,
Another week has flown past and I had forgotten to tell you how we did with the Halloween cake sale. Thank you all very much for the fantastic contributions. Between the sale itself and a break time sale the next day, we completely sold out and made a magnificent £100 for the PTFA. The children helped set up and run the stalls and I quickly found out how brilliant they were at pulling together as a team.
On Tuesday 29th November we have a visit to Plymouth ‘Energy from waste’ site (organised originally by Mr Finch to support past work on sustainability). I have sent a letter home with the children and would be grateful if you could return the reply slip. There is a cost of £6.71 for the trip and Mrs Lawson will let you know as soon as the School Gateway payment system has gone live.
We are in the midst of our work on writing a poetic narrative in the style of The Snow Leopard – I think that we shall see some beautiful stories emerge.
In maths, having covered all the methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, we shall next week be looking at BIDMAS(Brackets, Indices, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction) to help us understand which order to perform the operations in when faced with a mixed calculation.
Our Geography work is on informal settlements which has linked beautifully with our recent learning on the migration of people to cities during the Industrial Revolution.
Have a great weekend.

Maple Class Blog Friday 11th November
We have had a super start to the day today with our Woodland School session. I was amazed at the expertise in Bushcraft that certain members of our class had and we all learnt a lot – I certainly will be going home knowing many more ways to get a fire started. They also had the opportunity to examine a badger skull and pelt and were challenged to make a waterproof gnome shelter. The Chagford gnomes are in good hands and you will be glad to know that they will remain warm and dry throughout the torrential downpours that we keep having!
In English, we have finished writing our persuasive leaflets which will be published on Chromebook over the coming weeks as and when we are able to use the devices.
In the meantime, we are starting a piece of narrative based on The Snow Leopard by Jackie Morris. If you have or are able to borrow from the library any other Jackie Morris stories, they all use similar very poetic language and will delight with their wonderful illustrations. The more that we can read, the more we shall absorb her style.
The aim of the English unit is to write a similar story ( it is in fact a modern creation myth) but with a different central character in a different setting (the rainforest) so please start researching rainforest animals that would make good protectors of a realm and noting their features (how they look, move and sound)
In Maths, we have been learning about factors and are beginning to use them for division but we shall also be grappling with division by a 2-digit number (long division). We have had a couple of visits from other Trust staff observing Maths and I would like to congratulate the children on the confident way in which they were able to talk about their maths learning.
In Geography we are about to start a unit on informal settlements and how they come about.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I have included a few pictures of our Woodland School session.

Maple class blog wk beginning 17th Oct
As we approach the half term break, I wanted to say how proud I am of the children for their hard work. All have at least doubled their times tables facts recall speed and performed really well in the end of unit test for our maths Place Value unit.
This week in Maths we shall be consolidating our knowledge of tests of divisibility – please ask your child how to test whether a number can be divided by 3 !! This enables us to quickly identify prime numbers. We shall also be securing our understanding of multiplication and its associated written methods which we shall use to solve multi-step multiplication problems.
Our unit on persuasive writing continues and we should all now be able to talk confidently about techniques that are commonly used in persuasive texts. We shall be jointly composing a class leaflet based on the flooding in Pakistan.
Home reading is also going well and we have begun to fly into space as our astronauts have taken to the skies on our rocket reads wall. Keep it up everyone and remember that we’re aiming for 5 home reads (at least) of about 20 mins per week. I cannot impress enough that it is through reading that we acquire most of our language for writing.
You will have noticed that the children have come home with spelling lists this week. The columns for them to focus on have been highlighted. We shall be addressing the spelling pattern from the centre column during class as well as looking at ways to remember the tricky words. Some of the words will be included in our end-of-week spelling dictation. Please encourage your child to practise the words using Look-Cover-Write-Check until they are able to write them confidently.
Have a good week everyone.

What a great day we've had (in the sun!). The child labour must have worn them out because it was a sleepy journey home.
I hope that they have lots to tell you about the mining at Morwellham because the trip certainly reinforced lots of what we had covered in class last Tuesday.

We have come to the end of our topic on Place Value in Maths and are moving on to arithmetic. After reinforcing our addition and subtraction written methods we shall spend time becoming fluent in multiplying by 2 digit numbers and in division. I shall send a sheet home next week outlining our methods to you as we have all learnt in different ways.
Times tables score are going up! We have focused on the 7s, 3s and 8s so please do some quizzing at home.

Our writing is focused around persuasion. If your child has a particular cause that they are passionate about persuading support for then it would be really useful if they could research and have to hand some facts and figures to support their presentation of the problem and the solutions that your organisation provides.

Have a super weekend and enjoy the photos.

​Dear everyone,
What a super week we have had. Our poems are finished and ready for display (and very thoughtful and beautifully presented they are too).
Everyone has made a concerted effort with home reading this week and it is lovely to hear about books other than school books that you are sharing at home.
Today we have enjoyed the mummers play which I’m sure there is more about in the newsletter but we felt quite inspired to give one a go ourselves – maybe later in the term!
Junior life skills was a valuable experience. Unfortunately for us, some of the presenters weren’t able to attend which resulted in a rather truncated afternoon but I was delighted with the way that the year 6s conducted themselves and the sensible and thoughtful questions that they had to ask and the mature way in which they were able to contribute to the sessions – thank you year 6, you were a credit to our school.
Our times tables recall is getting much quicker too. Next week we need to work on our 8 times table so any preparation would be great.
Last but my no means least, we are a week away from our trip to Morwellham. The following link gives some child-friendly information about mining in Devon and Cornwall for those of you who would like to explore the topic at home.  Please can you return the reply slip and arrange for the financial contribution via the School Gateway if still outstanding –
Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape Facts for Kids (kiddle.co)
Let’s hope that next Friday’s weather will be kinder to us than today.
Have a lovely weekend.

Dear all,
This morning our year 6s turned 'teacher' on us and took their presentations on The Respiratory System and Asthma' to the year 3s. They all rose to the challenge and our younger pupils were treated to tours of the respiratory system courtesy of a team of air particles! Year 3 commented that they had learnt a lot and the presentations were fun so well done, all. There are a couple of photos attached for you to enjoy.
We are still working hard and have ventured into the realms of spooky stories this week. We have investigated several stories from the 'Short'/'Short and Spooky' collection of books and have used a text called Norton's Hut by John Marsden and Peter Gouldthorpe. The children have really been immersed in creating spooky atmospheres - I'm looking forward to reading their stories.
Next half term, we shall be looking at the different writing styles incorporated within walking guides. If any of you are out walking over the half term, it would be good if you were able to browse any guide books that you might have. We shall be looking at the mix of instruction, information and description.
Have a good week everyone.

Hello all,
Thank you for all the support that you gave the children running up to and during their SATs week. It could not have been calmer and we were so impressed with the way in which each and every one of them approached the tests with such maturity and determination. We are so proud of them all.
I think that the cinema trip last week went down well too. It was really funny and was made even more hilarious through the references to many other heist-type movies (Ocean’s 11, Point Break, Kingsman – some extra moments to raise a smile for the adults).
This week has been a much more relaxed affair with the children grappling with technology to produce slide presentations with script about the respiratory system and what happens during asthma attacks. They’re looking really great and I have been in conversation with year 3 to whom they shall make their presentations so ‘get practising those accents!’ (they’ll tell you what I’m talking about.) The next project will be to study spooky stories and write one of our own. In Maths, we shall continue to revise and practise our arithmetic and consolidate all the units covered this year.
In between times, rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream are now in full swing and there are some superb performances in the making. We have also been squeezing in time (during class novel times) for making a pom pom garland in Ukranian colours to grace the front of school as our sunflowers grow.
Thank you also for all the wonderful baking contributions for the cake sale today.
Have a super weekend

Maple Class blog 8th April 2022
HAPPY EASTER HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
Well … throughout the last half term the children have really done themselves proud and made some really super progress. I have sent home a couple of revision booklets (one for Maths and one for English) and would encourage them to chip away at the worksheets to keep things fresh in their minds.
After the holidays, there are two school weeks before the SATs which are during the week of 9th May from the Monday through to the Thursday at times set by government. However, they all coped extremely well with the mock SATs test that we did recently so just want to maintain the learning.
In English we have been having a lot of fun with our class novel ‘Smith’ and are compiling information leaflets about highwaymen – the description and imagination has astounded me:
‘The appearance of a highwayman strikes fear into the hearts of even the bravest of men.’
‘The glint in his eye would charm any lady but behind the shimmer, there are secrets untold.’
‘Without doubt, his red-speckled mask will be pulled over his scarlet face, but leaving hazel-brown eyes glimmering, as if to hide secrets not ready for the harsh world.’
‘His black, leather boots, littered with buckles are like the solar system, the black leather being the endless void and the buckles, the planets.’
In Maths, we have been learning about ratio and scale factors. Scaling up/down a recipe in the holidays could be a fun activity. Revision shall continue after the holiday and after Sats we shall be embarking on a project to include a lot of data handling. It would be great if the children could collect any examples of graphs, charts, timetables etc that they find in magazines, newspapers or leaflets.
Please see the Birch Class blog for details of afternoon work.
Best Regards and Happy Easter.