Year 3 Newsletter

 Year 3 Newsletter

Last week, we visited a Hindu temple that was established by the Beatle' s very own George Harrison! We were inspired by the religion and the culture of the trip and learnt many new, exciting things such as: 

• The importance of Brahman to Hindus
• Treating different religions with respect
• What it is like to live as a Hindu at the temple
• The importance of worship to Hindus

As our school year draws to a close and we write our final blog; we cannot help but reflect on all the hard work that our amazing year 3's have done this year. From understanding the process of mummification, exploring a range of ocean vertebrae, performing our changemaker speeches to writing expert stories; we couldn't be prouder. Well done year 3!

Reception Newsletter

Reception had such a wonderful time last week at their Ugly Bug Ball. The children were joined by their Nursery friends and we held a garden party for all their families. Lots of cake was eaten, many cups of tea were consumed and prizes were won at the raffle. The children sang their hearts out in their Minibeast performances and they loved every minute. It was wonderful to see so many people there and we were lucky to raise lots of money for our Early Years.  A big thank you to everyone who came.   

In Maths, the children have been looking at shape, space and measure. We started by looking at the properties of 2d shapes and last week we moved on to weight. The children loved using the scales to see which items were heavier and lighter and had the challenge of trying to make the scales balance. We also introduced the language of shorter, longer, taller and thicker to describe playdough worms and towers made of cubes. 

    

In our RAW lessons, we have been looking at the Christian faith and focusing on churches. We looked at what churches traditionally have inside them and spent a lot of time looking at stained glass windows. The children then attempted to make their own stained glass windows out of tissue paper and laminate plastic. 

Reception Newsletter

The Reception children loved taking part in Equality Week. They immersed themselves in a book called And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who fell in love and had wrote their own versions of the story during their literacy lessons. The children then continued on with the penguin theme and learnt all about the life cycle of penguins. We looked at the features of penguins, labelled pictures and made their own collages and illustrations of the birds with oil pastels.

 

In maths we have been looking at doubling and relating it to odds and evens. The children did really well with this and were able to show us their own doubles and not-doubles with unifix cubes and Numicon. We were talking about the odd Numicon pieces looking 'odd' because they have a bit 'poking out'!

In our RAW lesson this week, we've been looking at homes. How homes are different all over the world and why. We then tried to make a home for Bertie the Owl and discussed what a good home would need. Some children then made their own homes out of junk modelling, drew their own homes and labelled them and went outside and made Bertie a different home choosing any resources they could find. And last but not least, we've been looking after all the beans that we planted and making sure they've got enough water in all this heat! Another busy, but fun, couple of weeks in Reception!

Year 6 newsletter

 What a fantastic return to school Year 6 have had! We were blown away by the passion and care each and every child had put into rehearsing their speech over the half term period. Our Global Goal focus is "Sustainable Cities and Communities: safeguarding and protecting the world's cultural heritage", and wow - the children have made the most considered, eloquent, and compelling arguments to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, and to act as protectors of a nation's culture and sense of self. Huge congratulations to both James Allen and Louis Blind, who will be representing Kahlo and Da Vinci at the South Mill Arts Centre on our Speech Night. 

We have kicked off a new writing unit on Greek Myths - focusing on the legendary tale of the brave Jason and his band of trusty Argonauts, who faced peril and challenge in their quest to retrieve the infamous golden fleece. The children are thoroughly enjoying both the story and the imaginative narrative we are creating as we go. We can't wait to share their final interpretations. 

Our half termly World View lesson had an interesting focus - does having more make you happier? What an interesting afternoon we had, discussing the implications of everything from defining 'more' to the implications of finance, love, support, working for joy or for money. As always, the children were thoughtful, mature and extremely confident working in their trios and sharing their thoughts. We constructed a recipe for happiness at the end of the lesson, and we think this is a good way to live our lives.

As ever, a week of hard work, lots of enthusiasm and high energy - well done to Year 6!

Reception Newsletter 28.02

Reception have had a good first week back, where we started the week introducing the children to our new topic of 'transport'. The Reception role play areas have been changed to train stations and we have had lots of Brio play, alongside making their own vehicles in CIP and outside, we have two car washes and a roadside cafe to keep the children busy!

We had our second Worldviews lesson this week as well, which totally engrossed the children - mainly because of us beginning the lesson with a song from Encanto! This term we are looking at the importance of family as well as friends and the children imagined that their families had magical powers, like the ones in Encanto. Some of the examples of magic powers we had were a sister who ' has magic powers that pull herself up to standing' and 'when I feel sad, mummy has magic powers to stop me feeling bad'. We painted our families, read books all about different families and discussed different ways in which we help our families at home. 

Year 3 Newsletter

Year 3 Newsletter

Writing
Have you heard of the the three little pigs and the tall tale they spun about the "big, bad" wolf? Well, year 3 have got their thinking hats on and ready to investigate this story further.

With his charming smile and passion for reducing waste (including leftover pig!), we were lucky to hear the wolf's side of the story.  

We couldn't wait to interrogate the wolf with many questions like: 

• Do you think you have been treated fairly?
• Are you the true villain of the story?
• Why did you eat the first two pigs?
• Did you mean to hurt anyone?

We were able to understand the wolf from a brand new perspective and who knows, maybe year 3 can prove Mr Wolf's innocence and change the story once and for all!

The TRUE story of the three little pigs

PE
This term, we are focusing on ball skills to prepare ourselves for tennis techniques and skills. We have used our knowledge of stopping, throwing and catching to help refresh our memories of ball handling and how we can apply this knowledge to different areas of sport.

RAW
We had a fantastic RAW (Religion and Worldviews) lesson this week. With the question being, "will we ever live in a world without fighting?", we were influenced by popular music that addressed this issue. This matched nicely with World Kindness Day and we each created pledges to show how we can work towards making the world a better and kinder place for everyone to live.