Reception Newsletter

We have had a busy, fun packed week in Reception! We have been learning about the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We enjoyed making porridge and tasting it. Some of us added a little sugar to make it sweet just like mummy bears porridge in the story. Ask your Reception child if they can remember how to make porridge.          

This linked well into our Maths where we are learning about the words 'part' and 'whole'. We made fruit kebabs for the three bears, learning that the fruits are the parts and the kebab is the whole. We carefully counted how many fruits we had on our kebab stick.

We also made chairs and tables for the three bears using boxes, foam cuboids, sticky tape, glue and scissors. it was hard work but we persevered. Some of us created fabulous pieces which we then went onto incorporate into our role play!

Year 5 Newsletter

 Year 5 worked extremely hard this week, especially Malala who pulled together to support all of the lovely teachers who stepped in for Miss Crawford. We have really enjoyed exploring our new RAW topic and the children reflected on what makes them the special and unique. In science, the children loved asking questions about space and researching the answers to present back to the whole class. The children are also really fond of our writing unit linked to Luna who loves space!

Year 6 newsletter

Year 6 have come back to school with their trademark hard-working attitude and enthusiasm for learning. We have been delighted with just how quickly the children have thrown themselves into our new topics for the half term.

In writing, our work is linked to our text for the half term, 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness. Exploring themes of suspense, mystery, and nightmares - the children are writing the opening to a horror story that is keeping us all on our toes. We have all really enjoyed the start of the book, too, and are wondering if the monster of Conor's dreams is real....or imaginary. Does he mean well? Or badly? Stay tuned to find out more.

Our history and geography lessons this term are focussing on Ancient Greece. Wow! Year 6 are absolutely fascinated by this topic and were full of excellent questions in our first lesson. We learned how Greece was made of up city states called 'polis' and how countries such as Bulgaria and Albania were part of Ancient Greece! We were all amazed to see how many structures from this ancient civilisation are still standing - from the Temple of Knossos to the symbol of democracy, The Parthenon. The children are already very excited to learn all about the infamous Spartans and Athenians.

In science, we are embarking on a new topic: electricity. This week the children learned how simple circuits are made and spent time creating their own - working - circuit with bulbs, tin foil, and plasticine. We also learned how to draw these, scientifically, using a key.

A great start to the new term!

Year 4 newsletter

 Last week Year 4 were lucky enough to join Shackleton on his expedition to Antarctica. First, we had to apply to become one of his crew mates aboard the Endurance ship but luckily we were all recruited!  Once aboard the ship, we learnt how to follow commands and show respect to our captain (Aye, Aye Captain!) 

We were made to groom the dogs, scrub the decks, climb the riggings, check for icebergs,

prepare the dinner and hoist the sails! It was hard work! 

In science this term, we are looking at States of Matter including solids, liquids and gases.  Last week, we investigated a hypothesis given to us by Miss Woodcock, Liquids can be poured and solids cannot.  We tested honey, coke, water, sand, sugar, Lego and blu-tac and concluded that actually, you can pour some solids! Therefore, this hypothesis was not a good way of defining solids and liquids.  

Year 1 Newsletter

 We've been busy, busy, busy in Year 1 in our first full week back to school after Christmas!  The children have been so excited by our new topic 'Why is Africa is special place?' especially in our art lesson, where we looked closely at African masks and did some amazing observational drawings of them using oil pastels. 

In our writing lessons, we started a story writing unit and began by investigating tortoises!  We went into the immersion room to watch a video and looked closely at pictures on the walls.  We worked together to think of lots of words to describe how they look and how they move, wrote them on post its and stuck them on the walls!  Following that we began to learn the traditional African story 'How the tortoise got its shell', using a story map and actions.  It was great fun!

 

Finding the difference between 2 numbers has been our focus for maths this week.  The children have worked so hard at this tricky concept and we are so proud of them!

In our first ever World Views lesson we focused on bullying.  We acted out some bullying scenarios and thought about why people might bully others.  In RE we are exploring friendship and what makes a good friend.  We have learnt some stories from the Bible where Jesus was a good friend, such as when Jesus met Zacchaeus. 

 

Year 2 Newsletter

Wow! Year 2 have had another fabulous but very busy week. 

In music, we are learning the song 'I wanna be in a rock band' and we have been exploring rock music. We have learnt the lyrics to the song and now we are learning how to play the glockenspiel. 

In science, we are learning about plants and what they need to grow. We are conducting an experiment to find out the answer by planting seeds and giving them different conditions to see which grow best. Here we are in action:

Our new topic is castles and our big question is: 'Is a castle a great place to live?'
To kick start this new learning, we transported back to medieval times and learnt all about the people who lived in castles. We met a lord, a knight and a blacksmith. They told us all about their jobs and showed us where in the castle they lived. Most of us wanted to be lords, as we would be able to tell everyone what to do but some of us wanted to be knights so that we could be brave and protect the land.

Year 3 Newsletter

Year 3 Newsletter

Writing 
This term in our English lessons we have been inspired by a picture book called "Flood". It is a book with beautiful illustrations that shows the story of a family having to leave their home to escape from a looming storm that threatens to flood their beloved house. 

The children have thoroughly enjoyed getting into the role of the family members each lesson. As part of our writing, we have used our fantastic immersion room to experience what it was like to leave all our belongings behind and be trapped within a storm. We saw thunder, lightening and torrential rain; we heard the roar and boom of the storm; we felt the wind blowing from the fans and even felt the rain spray onto us when the storm hit! 

The children have worked especially hard to improve their writing with skills such as:

• 'Show not tell' to portray a characters thoughts and feelings 
• personification to describe the storm and the house
• repetition to create drama and intensity 
• similes and metaphors to emphasise the severity of the storm

Well done year 3!

Reception's first full week back!

It's been lovely having the children back in class and they've certainly come back to school with a wonderfully positive attitude. When we went in the forest this week, we discussed New Year's Resolutions and talked about ways in which we would like to better ourselves. The children were very open minded and we had such lovely answers like, 'I'd like to help mummy with the laundry at home' and 'I'm going to start putting things in the dishwasher more!'. Other children said they wanted to be able to do forward rolls this year and try hard with their drawings. It was a lovely conversation in the log circle. 

We also introduced the children to our new Worldviews lesson. This was a lovely afternoon, where the children discussed the importance of friendship and answered the question, 'What is a friend?'. We made a 'friendship recipe', played games with our friends, where we focused on sharing and we made paper chains of our friends.