Welcome to Maple Class!

Hello, my name is Mrs Dowler, and I am the teacher of Maple Class. In our classroom, we are lucky to have the fantastic Mrs Clark as our teaching assistant. I am really looking forward to working with such a wonderful group of children and getting to know you all.

In Maple class, we enjoy learning and know how to work hard whilst still having lots of fun! We are kind and caring to make sure that everyone can enjoy school and go home smiling! We will work as a team to help others to make sure every child is able to try their best and reach their potential. We will also be supportive of each other by understanding that everyone makes mistakes, that this is a part of learning and that mistakes are okay. I always tell the children, they will never be in any trouble for making a mistake, we will be proud of them for having a go and can then help them to improve.

We have some fantastic topics that we will be covering throughout the year, including Space Explorers, Australia and Antarctica and the Great Fire of London. I am hoping to learn some new facts from you!

I love reading and telling stories and know how important being a great reader is to being an independent learner. I look forward to not only hearing you read, but also to find out about the stories you have enjoyed and your favourite authors. To promote a love of reading at Newtown, we have the 100 club, where prizes are awarded to those children who read regularly at home. Who will be the first in Maple class to reach 100 reads this year?

Key things to remember:

• PE lessons are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but your kit needs to be in school every day.
• Children are expected to read daily and record this in their reading records.
• Spelling and Maths homework will be sent home every Friday in your orange learning destination book. All homework must be completed and handed in by the following Friday.
• Your learning destination book can also be used for any additional home learning that you wish to be included. We love seeing all the learning that you do at home.

Please check back on this page throughout the year as there will be updates of our brilliant school year.

Mrs Dowler

Newtown Norman Trail

This week the children in Willow, Sycamore and Maple class have been out and about showing off their geography fieldwork skills. On Tuesday 30^th April the children went on a trail around Trowbridge town on the hunt for our school teddy, Newtown Norman. Each group of children had a series of photographs from his after-school adventures and a map of our town centre with areas Norman had visited marked on the map. The children had to use their maps to navigate around town and identify the key landmarks that Norman had visited. We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather for our trip which meant we were able to have a lovely picnic all together before having a play in the park. As always, the behaviour of the children was outstanding and was noticed by many members of the public around town. We are very lucky to have such amazing children that are a real credit to our school and our community.

Chew Valley Animal Park

On Thursday 18^th April, Maple Class had a wonderful trip to Chew Valley Animal Park near Bristol. We were lucky enough to meet lots of the animals including feeding the capybaras! We also got to handle and stroke fancy mice, guinea pigs and rabbits. All of the children were fantastically behaved as was Newtown Norman!  

Labels of Love

At Newtown, we know that our wellbeing and mental health is really important. On Monday, Maple class spent the afternoon thinking about ‘Labels of Love’. We spoke about how kindness matters and peoples words make a difference to how we feel about ourselves. We spoke about how we would feel if someone said something unkind compared to kind comments.

After this, we decided we would make a little label of love for every staff member at Newtown and every member of Maple class. The children delivered the labels of love to different adults throughout the last couple of days and they were thrilled that it made people smile. They recognised that saying kind things to people makes them feel good and spreads happiness and smiles! We also produced really wonderful posters! Here are a few examples.

Forest School

Maple Class are taking part in Forest School sessions with Mr Marshall this term.

We have had two afternoons so far where we have enjoyed hot chocolates around the fire, looked for signs of different seasons around our school grounds and made small animal shelters. The children have showed fantastic behaviour and brilliant teamwork.

We look forward to the next sessions!

Term 3

This term, we have been learning about Kenya in our topic ‘Sensational Safari’. We started by learning at the continents and oceans of our world. Whilst looking in the atlases, the children explored the different countries within each continent. Many of us were able to identify countries where members of our family have lived or currently live. We enjoyed creating paper plate globes using our new knowledge. Throughout the topic, we compared Kenya to the UK, looking at the weather, land use and differences with schooling and housing. We also learnt about the Maasai tribe and key facts about them. One fact was that the women wear lots of jewellery, such as beads, and the more beads they wear the richer they look. To end our topic, the children created their own beautiful bead bracelets using pipe cleaners and beads. They were all very proud of their wonderful bracelets. It has been a wonderful term with lots of fantastic work, attitudes and efforts. Term 4 will also bring lots of exciting learning!

St James Christmas Tree Festival

As well as this afternoon's successful care home visit, this morning Maple class visited the Christmas tree festival at St James' church. 

The children behaved beautifully, the tree looks lovely with our handmade decorations and we will also feature in the Wiltshire Times! 😊

A successful day for Newtown!

Astronaut Day

Maple class spent Thursday 16^th November in Astronaut training. We all made helmet masks for our adventures.

Then, we travelled on a rocket, with Astronaut Marshall as our commander, all the way to the moon! When we reached the moon, we discovered moon rock, a framed photograph, footprints, and a silver coin. We explored the items and hypothesised how they could have got to be on the moon and who they belonged to. We then had a safe journey back to Newtown school, with Ruby and William directing us with their map reading skills.

In the afternoon, the children completed a range of activities:

• An outdoor obstacle course to test balance and fitness.
• Time reading space stories and role play in the tent.
• Threading pipe cleaners whilst wearing space gloves to test fine motor skills.
• Creating space related objects with Lego showing their design skills.
• Tried different space foods!

It was a fantastic day had by all and one that I am sure we will all remember!

A Message from Maple Class

This has been our first term in Maple Class, which has been a happy term with lots of learning and fun.

This is our first year on the big playground. We can play in lots of areas including the basketball court, the trim trail, the wild wood, the stage and the MUGA. On the playground, there is also tennis, Lego, K-NEX and skipping ropes. If we want a quieter time, we can go in the quiet area with the huts.

In class we have had science lessons and we have been learning about materials. We have painted bridges because we are exploring and making them in DT. We’ve used a book called Rosie Revere, Engineer in writing. We wrote descriptions of Rosie and her invention, the Cheese-copter! We were so excited to learn about her inventions since they were amazing. Because we were inspired by Rosie’s inventions, we designed an invention of our own!

We had a visitor from the fire service. She taught us about fire safety. She told us that if there was a fire, we need to get out of the building. Also, we watched a video which showed the jobs that the fire brigade does. We thought it was an interesting video as the fire fighters came to save a lady trapped in her car. If we are ever stuck in water, we now know to make a star shape.

We are looking forward to doing our Christmas play next term. We are excited to learn the songs for the nativity! Our topic for term 2 is going to be Space.

From Maple Class

Fire Service visitor

Maple class had a visitor from Wiltshire and Dorset Fire Service to talk about fire safety. All children enjoyed the session.

We discussed how firefighters help to…

• Rescue people from fires
• Rescue people from car crashes
• Rescue people from floods

We got to see their protective clothing and a few children also got to put on some of the items of clothing.

Alongside this, we also learnt how to stay safe from fires if we were ever in a tricky position.

Some of the advice was:

• Make sure you have smoke alarms in your house and test them weekly.
• Never go back into a fire – even for your favourite toys!
• Call for help (999 – Fire department)
• Get down low below any smoke and crawl to the exit.
• Stop! Drop! Roll! if you have any sparks or flames on you or your clothes.

Our visitor asked that we discuss with our households where our safe places are if an alarm sounds and you need to exit. This will help to make sure we are as safe as possible in our homes.