Year 3
With the summer holidays on the horizon, the countdown is on - but Year 3 continues to show fantastic focus and effort. This week, we explored the theme of change, discussing what it feels like and how it connects to moving from Year 3 to Year 4. The children shared their thoughts on a post-it board, full of insightful questions and feelings which we’ll be addressing together.
Our young authors wrapped up their imaginative retellings of Daedalus and Icarus, showing great flair and creativity. They also tackled prepositional phrases, completed their grammar check, and sharpened their listening skills by describing mythical creatures for their friends to draw – with some wonderfully weird results!
We’re thrilled with the children’s performance in arithmetic and reasoning assessments – such focus and progress! We also continued our shape investigations, identifying parallel and perpendicular lines, right angles, vertices, and symmetry. Their labelled polygons look very professional.
In history, we looked at how Ancient Greek doctors learned their trade- sometimes on the battlefield – and the discovery of dissection! A slightly gory topic, but it sparked lots of curiosity.
In Scratch, the children "remixed" animated stories, coding their own creative middles and endings. Some tales featured castles, others discos or space travel. Quite an adventure!
Inspired by ancient Greek vases, the children turned pencil sketches into finished pieces using charcoal. They quickly discovered the challenges of such a delicate (and smudge-prone!) material, but the end results were fantastic.
They rehearsed our final “dragon piece” in music, ready for next week’s performance for Miss Spinks. In RE, the children were exploring the Sikh langar with Mrs Chittock when I came into class – it looked welcoming and delicious!
Thank you, as always, for your support. We're soaking up every last bit of learning and fun before the holidays!
The Year 3 Team (Miss Murphy, Mrs Troughton and Mrs Dobson)
Year 4
Well, my goodness, that went by in a blink! Another week ticked off. I think the children are now starting to feel really tired, the heat certainly hasn't helped. There have been a few more frayed temperaments and a little less understanding but we are supporting and guiding the children with this as they make it to the end of term. There is still more fun to be had!
Our learning this week;-
Maths - With Mrs Harper the children were converting from the 24 hour clock to the 12 hour clock, not necessarily that easy to do. With Mrs Chittock we have been looking at Statistics; tally charts, frequency, bar charts, pictograms and line graphs, We ended the week with some calculation work.
English - The children have been getting to know their new text by adding pictures and actions whilst with Mrs Harper they have completed a reading comprehension 'all about bees'.
DT - The slingshot cars are coming on, with some testing done this week and creating the body has begun.
Titanic - We looked at whether gender and age had any affect on survival.
Science - The children carried out an experiment based on states of matter investigation. How does water temperature affect the time taken for ice to melt?
RE - Continuing with Sikhism and our question of How do Sikhs put their beliefs about Equality into practice? This week we looked at the life of the first Guru, Guru Nanak. How he set up Sikhism and its beliefs.
Next week on Monday and Tuesday afternoon the children will be having some time in Year 5 feeling their feet as upper Key stage 2 children - Yes, sorry, your child is old enough! For those of you with children in Year 5 or 6, next week will be their performances.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend
Mrs Chittock and the Year 4 team.
Year 5
In Maths this week, we have been calculating the area of complex rectilinear shapes. This involved lots of reasoning and problem-solving to work out our new measurements once we'd chopped our rectangles. The children also completed the Reasoning A maths paper. Our test technique has definitely improved - as has our answer checking! In English, we have started looking at Alfred Noyes' poem 'The Highwayman'. We've learnt a bit about who highwaymen were and have looked at the first part of the poem. We've currently got 3 different working theories as to how it will end (because I've told them that despite the start, it isn't a romantic poem!)
In History this week we learnt about Edward Jenner's discovery of the Smallpox vaccine. Although Jenner created and proved his vaccine in 1796, it wasn't widely taken up because people were sceptical. We also learnt about how the Government stepped in later to make the vaccine free and compulsory (thanks, Dr John Snow), which led to the eradication of the disease. In Science, we completed an experiment to test the effect of water resistance. It got rather wet - but it was quite refreshing on a very hot afternoon!
Congratulations to the children who passed the Gold Award in swimming this week. Six children knew they were attempting it, and another 5 children had it presented as a surprise! It took nearly all of break time to write out all the certificates the children earned during their swimming sessions! We have another group of children having a go at the Gold Award next week - good luck swimmers!
Can costumes for the play come to school on Monday next week, please. We will be having a costume walk-through at some point before our dress rehearsal to the school on Wednesday. The children have been working so hard on the play - I know they are excited to have an audience larger than just the UKS2 staff! You might have heard that I took to the stage when a cast member was elsewhere. I hadn't realised how long they'd be away, or that I'd actually have to sing their song! I think it took us all by surprise!
Have a lovely weekend - see you next week!
Miss Rutter, Mrs Marsh and Mrs Nichols.
Year 6
It’s been another busy and exciting time in Year 6 as we head towards the end of the year!
Much of our focus has been on rehearsals for our end-of-year production, Rock Bottom. The children have been working incredibly hard to learn their lines, practise the songs, and bring their characters to life. There's a real buzz of excitement as the performance starts to take shape—we can’t wait to share it with you!
We also had a fantastic trip to Crucial Crew, where the children took part in a range of interactive scenarios to learn about safety, responsibility, and making positive choices. It was a really valuable experience and gave everyone lots to think about.
In RE, we’ve been exploring humanism, particularly how humanists view the concept of happiness. The children have engaged thoughtfully with big questions and shared some insightful reflections about what truly brings joy and meaning to our lives.
Over in computing, the class has been enjoying animation projects, learning how to create short sequences using digital tools. It’s been great to see their creativity and technical skills developing side by side!
Finally, some of our children have been attending transition visits to their new secondary schools. These visits are helping to build confidence and excitement for the next step in their education. Next week, more children are out - we wish them well.
As always, we’re proud of how Year 6 continue to approach everything with maturity, enthusiasm, and a great sense of teamwork.
Next Tuesday is SATs results day: we will share your child's results with them, and you will get a letter detailing the results sent home on Tuesday. For children who are out on transition visits, they will get their results on Wednesday. We will not be emailing any results, so if your child is absent, they will receive the results when they are back in school.
Reminders for next week, please:
Costumes must be in for Wednesday morning as it is our dress rehearsal to the school and afternoon performance, please.
Next Thursday is our evening performance.
Children to come into school on Monday in PE kits, please.
Have a super weekend,
Nuala Gilmore
