Year 3
What a wonderfully festive and fun-filled week we have enjoyed! Despite the excitement (and a little end-of-term tiredness), the children have shown resilience and focus right up to the very end. We are especially proud of their commitment to home reading this week — an impressive 96%! As a result, Bookster Bear is spending Christmas and the New Year celebrating with us in the classroom.
Thank you so much for the most generous and thoughtful Christmas cards and gifts. They are very much appreciated!
In English this week, the children completed spelling and grammar learning and a writing assessment. They produced some truly delightful letters to Santa, explaining why they would make excellent, helpful elves — persuasive, creative, and full of festive charm! In maths, we completed our recap of expanded column addition and subtraction, with the children demonstrating growing confidence and accuracy. We may have played a Christmas game or two on the iPads.
We wrapped up our Stone Age history topic by refining our understanding of how early humans learnt to work together in order to survive and thrive. In science, everyone engaged brilliantly in planning and carrying out an investigation into soil permeability — a real highlight of the week.
Miss Spinks and Mrs Crook organised some end-of-term fun in PSHE and PE, while Mrs Chittock was impressed by the children’s recall of this term’s RE learning during her quiz — the scores spoke for themselves. In computing, we finished our unit by attempting to use the repeat function to programme Pro-Bots to draw Christmas trees, complete with trunks and decorations. This proved to be a very tricky challenge: we successfully managed triangles, squares and rectangles, to make some rather abstract creations! We played an animal and number card game in French, saying sentences such as “Voici deux lapins” (here are two rabbits).
We rounded off the week with some lovely Christmas crafts, festive nibbles and a film — the perfect way to end a busy term – phew!
We wish you all a very happy, peaceful and restful Christmas.
Best wishes,
Miss Murphy, Mrs Dobson, Mrs Kelly and Mrs Crook
Year 4
"We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."
Firstly may I thank you, on behalf of the whole Year 4 team, for all the gifts and cards we have received, we are feeling very appreciated, Thank You.
We got there, we may have struggled a little bit towards the end, but we got there, well done every one. It has been a very quick and long week! The children have worked hard especially when we consider how tired they are, we have had a lot of fun and laughs in the week too. I hear Reading Cafe was great fun.
In our learning this week;-
Maths - we rounded off our week of multiplication and division and the children had an assessment at the end. With Mrs Murray the children had a fun Christmas activity.
English - we started the week with a writing assessment about applying for the post of 'Elf', an elf NOT 'Elf on the shelf'! The children had to consider what sort of tasks they might need to do and what skills they would need to be able to do the job. I have had a brief look through and I am looking forward to reading them more thoroughly. With Mrs Murray the children had a reading comprehension to work on about how Christmas is celebrated in different countries.
French - talked about Christmas in France and what is different from how we celebrate they then had some fun activities which helped to expand their french vocabulary particularly in language around Christmas - Noël
RE - We had a fun quiz (covering things we have learnt this school year), the children worked in groups and were really good at the teamwork and impressed me with their knowledge.
Christmas crafting and fun dotted in across the week!
Remember - the children are back to school Tuesday 6th January 2026 and we are having a visit from Widdershins puppet theatre on Thursday 8th January 2026.
Have a lovely break, make lots of memories, and we will see you in the New Year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Mrs Chittock and the Year 4 team.
Year 5
Firstly, thank you so much for our Christmas presents. It was very kind of you to think of us at this time of year. I haven't opened mine yet – I am saving them for the big day!
I can't believe we are already at the end of our first term! We have achieved so much already this year, but there is still lots to do when we come back in the new year. Today, I have changed our topic board over so we are ready to start our new topic on our first day back.
We continued to work this week, much to Y5s outrage. In English, we have written an argument text called 'Edward the Confessor is to blame for the crisis in 1066'. The children used lots of their historical knowledge, as well as working on their formal tone to write their arguments. In Maths, we used lots of our calculation skills to solve the mystery of the missing elf. We were all rather charmed when the missing elf shared a name with someone in class!
We also finished off this term's DT project on Tuesday. Our pop-ups books were finished and stapled together and should have made it home. It was lovely to see the children display their creativity and make their books. On Thursday, children evaluated their books. Our next DT project involves cooking, so any opportunity for your child to help out in the kitchen would be appreciated! In my experience, children just love chopping!
Today, we have had some time to play and enjoy being together before the long break. There has been lots of creativity with paper (and an awful lot of sellotape) and some rather competitive games of UNO. I don't want to say that some of Y5 are outrageous cheats....... but possibly keep an eye on them if you get a game out this Christmas! We had some very interesting interpretations of the rules.
Have a wonderful Christmas break. We look forward to seeing you back at school on Tuesday, 6th January.
Miss Rutter, Mrs Grosvenor and Mrs Marsh
Year 6
In maths this week, the children have been developing their understanding of fractions, focusing on finding the whole and calculating fractions of amounts. They have shown great resilience and confidence when applying these skills to increasingly challenging problems.
In English, the children have been writing ‘hot task’ flashbacks set during the Blitz. They worked hard to capture atmosphere, emotion and historical detail, producing some powerful and thoughtful pieces of writing.
Our history learning has focused on World War II, with a particular emphasis on the Battle of Britain. The children also wrote an extended essay debating whether the outbreak of WWII was inevitable, demonstrating impressive historical knowledge, reasoning and written argument.
Today, we enjoyed a very special end-of-term celebration. It has been a term in which the children have worked exceptionally hard and made excellent progress. Rather than buying gifts, we decided to celebrate by throwing a party – and some children may well be coming home feeling rather full! It was truly lovely to watch the children having such a fantastic time; the squeals of excitement and laughter were an utter joy. The chocolate game was a huge hit – definitely one to try at Christmas!
Thank you so much for the kind cards and gifts for the team. They are very much appreciated and will be thoroughly enjoyed.
We hope you have the most wonderful Christmas, and we send our very best wishes for 2026.
The Year 6 Team
