Year 3
What a week! Sunshine and smiles all round – helped, of course, by the children’s brilliant efforts.
Reading – We’re thrilled to be in second place for reading this week! A few more reads could see us snatch the top spot. Even confident readers benefit from reading aloud – it builds fluency, confidence, and prosody (that’s the rhythm and expression of reading).
Spelling success – Our first spelling test brought some super results. The magic number is 7 out of 10 or more. The secret? Short, frequent bursts of practice – spaced repetition helps words stick like glue!
English – We dived into our first whole-class read with George’s Marvellous Medicine. The children loved stepping into Roald Dahl’s world and tackling comprehension together.
Maths – Place value to 1,000 has been the focus, with partitioning, missing numbers, and greater-than/less-than challenges. The children are really enjoying the big numbers!
Times Tables Mountain – Climbers are already making progress! We’re now learning the 3s, and by the end of Year 3 the goal is fluency in the 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 times tables. TTRockstars, Hit the Button and a pencil-and-paper quiz all help.
Science – We munched our way through the Eatwell plate, learning how the five food groups keep us healthy.
Geography – Fruit and vegetables labels led us on a journey from South Africa to Spain as we tracked our food’s travels.
RE – Mrs Chittock posed reconciliation dilemmas for our three ‘friends,’ sparking thoughtful discussions.
French - We practised greetings and even gave our names a très chic French twist.
PE – Mrs Crook taught us basketball skills. Special applause to our first PE trophy winner for teamwork!
Music – A soundscape project brought a short film to life with Miss Spinks.
Computing – We dismantled a laptop (on paper!) to explore its components.
Art – Van Gogh’s landscapes inspired our pencil sketches of land, sea and sky.
What a full and fabulous week. Have a restful weekend – I’m sure you’ve all earned it!
The Year 3 Team
Year 4
What a week it has been, nearly had all four seasons in one week! WELL DONE!! We won Bookster Bear this week, well, we are sharing him with year 6. But now we want Bookster Bear all to ourselves next week, we achieved 83% this week, we are going to need more to win him next week (I'm sure year 5 will be determined to win him and are talking about 100%) The ball is in your court folks! Can I say how very brave the children were this week for their 'flu nasal vaccines', well, they're old pros at it now.
Our Learning this week;-
Maths - With Mrs Murray the children were looking at the difference between regular and irregular polygons, calculating the perimeter of regular polygons. With Mrs Chittock we have been continuing with Place Value where we have been looking at numbers to 10,000 adding and subtracting, 1, 10, 100 and 1000.
English - The children carried out a reading comprehension with Mrs Murray. With Mrs Chittock we have started using the text map and actions for our Wanted Poster for Grendel.
Topic - We looked at where the Anglo-Saxons came from and the 'push' and 'pull' factors for them sailing to Briton.
RE - The children thought some more about Salvation and were thinking about films or TV programmes they have seen that had a rescue or someone/something being saved.
Science - Living Things and Their Habitats, this week we looked at classifying vertebrates into groups - mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians and birds. They used classification keys to investigate which animals belonged to each group.
Computing - We discussed and wrote about physical systems in our houses that might have an input or an output. We gave examples of how these work.
PHSE - the children were thinking about Laws and were writing to their local council about improvements for their local area.
Art - continuing with Anglo-Saxon art the children were looking at designs on artefacts found at Sutton Hoo and the Staffordshire Hoard trying to find the animals and replicating the designs and patterns.
Thank you for all your hard work with homework, keep it up!
Have a lovely weekend ,
Mrs Chittock and the Year 4 team
Year 5
I really enjoyed looking at the children's homework on Monday - it was all in on time! Long may it continue! Bookster Bear has escaped our clutches this week but we're hopeful that a few more children can read over the weekend to give us a better chance next week.
This week we held school council elections, selected JRSOs, appointed the CWC and anointed a PE Pixie. There are still lots of opportunities for children to 'have a job' if they would like one!
In English this week, children have researched, planned and written a biography for either Buzz Aldrin or Michael Collins. We also read about Apollo 13 and discussed how it was a successful failure. Watch out for the film on TV - it is brilliant and often on TV round Christmas. In Maths, we have been looking at decimal place value and have been deepening our understanding of tenths and the base-10 system.
We had an interesting computing lesson on Thursday. We learnt about how the Mars rovers transmit data to from Mars to the Earth. We then spent some time trying to understand just how far away Mars is using non-standard measurements (it's about 25,000 Jupiters or over 200,000 Earths!) In Science, we learnt about why we have night and day. It has nothing to do with the Moon! In RE, we looked at the gospels and thought about the differences between them.
We have lots of children choosing not to bring spare shoes in each day. I have spoken to Y5 about why they need to have spare shoes and why it is important that they are on the field. Their spare shoes can be any colour or style (providing they are suitable for school). These spare shoes can be astros - providing the bumps on the bottom aren't too big or blade-shaped!
Have a great weekend – I'm off to run the Church quiz with Mrs Shipp!
Miss Rutter, Mrs Grosvenor and Mrs Marsh
Year 6
This week in maths, we have continued our focus on place value, in particular practising adding negative numbers and moving up and down a number line.
In English, we have been reading Private Peaceful and preparing to write a diary entry from the perspective of one of the characters.
In history, we explored how propaganda posters were used to recruit new soldiers during the war.
In our reading skills session, we looked at what life was like for a soldier, including how some enlisted underage , and we read about the last surviving Tommy.
In science, the children learnt about the function of different parts of the eye.
In music, we enjoyed learning about the songs of Vera Lynn and their importance during wartime.
Homework this week is another opportunity to practise the negative number work we have been covering in class. The children have been reminded to draw a number line to help them. The children should also be practising at least 10 spellings from the Y3/4 list of the Y5/6 list on the back of their reading record, ready to be tested on Friday. If your child has a specific learning need related to spelling, they should practise a manageable amount between 2 and 5 at a time.
The children have shown impressive attitudes to their learning this week.
Have a super weekend!
Nuala Gilmore
