Year 3
We’ve had a wonderfully busy and exciting week in Year Three. It was wonderful to meet you and to discuss your child’s start to the year and their progress so far. And, what a way to finish — with a classroom full of teddy bears! The children were thrilled to welcome Booster the Bear to their teddy party after winning him for the week thanks to their brilliant reading figures. Keep up the fantastic work, Year Three!
English - This week, the children have been reciting and performing our full text map of a non-chronological report on Tigers. They then wrote the report from memory, carefully checking their spellings and punctuation independently.
Maths - We completed our unit on expanded column addition and subtraction, which we will revisit across the year. We have now moved on to multiplication, beginning by revisiting arrays - a method the children used with confidence. This will support them as they move on to trickier calculations. The class has also begun learning the 8 times table, adding to their recall of the 3s and 4s.
PSHE & Collective Worship - In PSHE, Miss Spinks led a thoughtful lesson on preventing bullying, linking closely with Mrs Gilmore’s collective worship story Mud Boy by Sarah Siggs. The children reflected on kindness and how their actions impact others.
RE - With Mrs Chittock, the class explored the question of whether we should listen to and obey certain sounds. They listened closely to the Adhan - the Islamic call to prayer - and discussed its meaning and purpose.
PE - Mrs Crook focused on tagging skills, encouraging teamwork, agility and quick reactions.
Computing - We have graduated from Bee-Bots to Pro-Bots! The children enjoyed predicting, tinkering and adjusting instructions to create accurate and purposeful code.
Art - Continuing our exploration of prehistoric cave art techniques, the class draw native British animals, adding detail and selecting colours that reflected the style.
History - the children offered some fantastic ideas about why people hunted in groups during the Stone Age. They considered the strategies early humans might have used, how they could have communicated, the kinds of weapons available, and the perils they would have faced.
Wishing you all a wonderful, weatherproof weekend!
Miss Murphy and the Year 3 team.
Year 4
A busy week as usual with a really soggy end! The children enjoyed having their bears with them today and were really sensible with them, I think I now have 'Bear envy'. It was great to see you all at Parents' Evening and I hope you all left feeling really proud of your child. They are a lovely class to be teaching once again.
Our learning this week:
Maths – We have continued with multiplication and division this week, ending the week by multiplying a 2-digit number with a 2 digit number, to be continued next week . . .
English – We have looked at a variety of sentence types and have started to look at the picture map and actions for our non-chronological report text.
Spellings – I have made an error on the new list with the date, it currently says Friday 21st, but we won't be here on the 21st as it is our trip. So please could they be in for Thursday 20th for testing on Thursday 20th.
Topic – This week we worked as a class to create an Anglo-Saxon Settlement on a sheet! The children worked in groups to think about what was necessary for a settlement to be successful and, using sugar paper etc, they created the settlement.
French – The children were identifying parts of the face.
RE - We started a new unit on Islam, we recapped our knowledge from previous learning.
DT – The children discussed the advantages and disadvantages of various types of fastening.
PE - Tag Rugby. Lydia won the PE trophy this week.
Music – The children worked in groups to learn the song 'Rock around the Clock' as well as using the hand jive learnt last week!
Have a lovely weekend, I hope it's not too wet!
See you all on Monday
Mrs Chittock
Year 5
It was lovely to get to see so many of you at the parents' evening appointments this week. Mrs Grosvenor and I really enjoyed sharing your child's successes and a bit more about what it is we get up to all day. A big thank you to my team of Y5 helpers who helped me set up the hall every day – they even helped set up yesterday's cake sale and I didn't even have to bribe them with cake!
In English this week, we have focused on persuasive speeches. We have analysed 2 famous historical speeches for persuasive features (Elizabeth I's Tilbury speech and George VI's declaration of war speech if you were wondering). We also then looked at a persuasive speech I wrote pretending to be one of the contenders in 1066.
Next week, the children will pick which contender to embody and will write their own persuasive speech as that contender. Harald Hardrada is always a popular choice – there's just something about the Vikings, isn't there?
In Maths this week, we have continued subtracting. We've subtracted 6-digit numbers, decimals and even had a go at solving some word problems to see if we could find the information we needed (even if we were given lots of unnecessary information and random numbers!)
In History this week we went back to 1052 to witness the fallout between the Brothers Godwinson. It wasn't your average sibling squabble; one was exiled and ran off to join the Vikings. Despite what the BBC series said, Harold did know his brother had gone and wasn't sad about it. I promise I will stop moaning about the awful BBC series one day. But not today!
On Tuesday, we spent some more time working on our space pop-up books. They are really coming together nicely. We will continue to work on these for the rest of this half-term. Mrs Marsh had a lovely time teaching French on Wednesday morning. They even had time to play a game of lotto!
Our star reader numbers are picking up, but not quite enough to secure Bookster Bear. Every read counts, Year 5!
Have a wonderful weekend – try not to get washed away!
Miss Rutter, Mrs Grosvenor and Mrs Marsh
Year 6
This week has been filled with thoughtful learning and special opportunities for our Year 6 pupils.
On Tuesday, Year 6 led a reflective and meaningful assembly, showing great maturity as they helped the school community think deeply about remembrance. Our school councillors also represented the school wonderfully at the village service. We were delighted to welcome Mr Parsley from the Royal British Legion, who spoke to us about the important work the RBL does and how fundraising supports veterans and their families. We were also proud to present him with the money the school has raised—thank you to everyone who contributed.
In maths, we have been working on simplifying fractions, finding equivalent fractions, and ordering fractions. The children have shown excellent focus during some challenging tasks.
In English, we have begun exploring flashback writing. We created a writing toolkit and learnt new sentence types to help us prepare for our own flashback pieces next week.
In RE, we learnt about the Five Pillars of Islam and why each pillar is important to Muslims in their daily lives.
In science, we have been exploring electrical circuits. The children built their own circuits to investigate how increasing the power of a motor or buzzer changes how it works. We also discussed what happens when the flow of current is reversed and how this affects the components.
In computing, we began our new topic on Bletchley Park. The children were introduced to different types of codes and had great fun trying to crack five coded messages using what they had learnt.
This week’s PSHE session was a highlight: we enjoyed a fascinating and engaging careers talk from Mr Gladstone, who shared what life is like as a paramedic. He explained the skills and subjects needed for the job and the different routes people can take to join the profession. A huge thank you to him for so generously giving up his time. Thank you also to the other parents who have volunteered to speak in the coming weeks—your support is truly invaluable.
Home learning this week is a consolidation of the maths work we have focused on in class.
Have a super weekend.
The Y6 Team
Mrs Gilmore
