Moulton CEVC Primary School Parent Portal

A Message from Mrs Shipp

Let’s start with a couple of the quiz questions from our World Book Day assembly, which were created by our brilliant library team. (answers at the bottom)

1. Name the book that Dick King-Smith wrote:
a) The Tiger Rising
b) Pretty Polly
c) Candyfloss
d) The Tiger Who Came to Tea

2. What type of fairy is Emily from the Rainbow Magic series?
a) The Bunny Fairy
b) The Goldfish Fairy
c) The Emerald Fairy
d) The Diamond Fairy

You’ll be pleased to hear that the pupils beat the staff once again!

The children also had a lovely time reading with children from a different year group, which is always a special part of World Book Day. Miss Rutter and I took a group of pupils to the pre-school to read with the younger children. They did a fantastic job and were wonderful ambassadors for the school. I suspect they also quite enjoyed the opportunity to revisit some of the pre-school toys!

We began the week’s collective worship by thinking about our school value of consideration. We looked carefully at a picture together and then used role play to act out what might be happening in different parts of the scene. I was incredibly impressed by how many children volunteered to come to the front and show their acting skills. In particular, several children who might not usually put themselves forward showed real courage in having a go. It really was wonderful to see. There were lots more ideas that children wanted to share, but sadly we ran out of time! I have included the picture below so that you might like to talk about it together at home.

At the end of the school day, children go to several different locations: another classroom, the playground, the office, after-school club, the hall for sports club, or the bus drop-off. As you can imagine, 3pm onwards is a very busy time, and we find it difficult to feel completely confident about pupils’ safety when we are not entirely sure about their arrangements. Sometimes younger children tell us that plans have changed, and sometimes we only hear about this right at the end of the day. In particular, when children say they are now getting the bus, we worry that there may not be an adult waiting to meet them at the other end.

To help us keep everyone safe, please could you...

Email the class teacher before lunchtime if arrangements change, or
Write the change in your child’s reading record

This allows the information to be written clearly on the classroom board so that all adults supporting at the end of the day are aware. If a child tells us they are no longer getting the bus and we are unable to confirm this with a parent in time, we will not put them on the bus. We cannot risk a child not being collected from the bus.

All of our Wonka Bar prizes have now been claimed! We will begin arranging these rewards over the next few weeks. A few prizes that would benefit from warmer weather will be held back until conditions are a little more suitable, but we will make sure every prize is honoured. I am particularly looking forward to delegating the headteacher role to one of our Year 3 pupils soon!

Thank you to everyone who came along to Parents’ Evening this week. It was lovely to see so many of you and to have the chance to talk about the children’s progress.

Quiz answers...

b) Pretty Polly
c) The Emerald Fairy

Have a lovely weekend - see you on Monday!

Year 3

Year 3 has had a largely positive week – it is lovely to see the children continuing to grow into life in Key Stage 2, and to have had the opportunity to discuss them with you during parents’ evening. At times, we have needed a few reminders about listening carefully and following instructions, but overall, the children are making great progress in developing their maturity and independence. We will keep supporting them with this and reinforcing our classroom expectations.

The children continue to impress us with their enthusiasm and effort during rehearsals for the Easter play. They are really throwing themselves into their roles, and it is wonderful to see their confidence growing. A gentle reminder that costumes should be brought into school by Wednesday 11th March at the latest. Please send them in a clearly labelled plastic bag with your child’s name. If you have any difficulties arranging a costume, please do let us know.

In our English lessons, the children have been planning a character description of Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden. They worked hard to include adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases and similes to make their sentences more detailed and interesting. We also completed a whole-class reading comprehension based on The Ice Palace by Robert Swindells – a story that is chilling in more ways than one! The children did a great job discussing the text and answering questions together.

In maths, we rounded off our work on fractions by exploring equivalent fractions on a number line and in bar models. The children then tackled their end-of-unit assessment with determination, and we were pleased to see some strong results.

In science, the children learnt about flowering plants, labelling the different parts and explaining the important job each part does to help the plant survive and grow.

In geography, they created a map key using symbols, then used their knowledge of four-figure grid references to design a treasure map and locate buried treasure. We certainly have some future explorers in the class.

In PE, Mrs Crook and the children were all about scoring goals!

Finally, in PSHE, the class explored food advertising and packaging. The children had some brilliant discussions about how advertisers attract customers, thinking carefully about colours, images, slogans and how companies try to persuade people to buy their products.

Many thanks

The Year 3 team

Year 4

Hello all, wasn't it good to see some sunshine this week? More, please! It was great to see you all at parents' evenings this week. Thank you for coming. This week has really, really flown by, wowzers. We must have been busy and having fun!

Our learning this week;-

Maths - We started the week with Decimals, up to hundredths and then we moved on to short column addition, the children have enjoyed the addition so feel free to have fun with it over the weekend, they know how to exchange across all three columns now. And in the middle of the week the children were looking at symmetry and shapes.

English - This week the children have had their descriptive heads on, using lots of interesting descriptive words to describe characters, settings and an amulet. They also had a reading comprehension to complete on Wednesday.

Topic - The children considered why people leave near the boundaries of tectonic plates and volcanoes. We looked at the positives and negatives around living there in preparation for making a poster about volcanoes.

PHSE - The children looked at what Fairtrade farming was and its importance to third world countries also considering the ethics around it.

Science - the children looked at teeth and their purpose.

Lots of play practice, you are in for a treat!

Thank you for sending in costumes already, please make sure the outstanding ones are sent in this week please.

Homework;- reading, spellings, TTR, Maths Targets.

Dates for the Diary;-

Bags to School - Thursday 12th March.

Wonderful Women - Thursday 12th March.

The Tale of Three Trees performances, Tuesday 17^th March at 2pm or Thursday 19^th at 9:30am.

Reading Cafe - Monday 23^rd March at 9:10am.

Have a great weekend

Mrs Chittock and the Year 4 team

Year 5

It was great to see and catch up with so many of you at the parents' evening sessions this week. It is always nice to have time to reflect on the terms past and the ones rapidly approaching.

In English this week, we have read and written about the Sphinx - the Ancient Egyptian mythical creature than inspired the statue at Giza. We learnt lots of new vocabulary that the children could use when they wrote their own text. This unit really appeals to the animal-fans in Y5. They are able to use lots of the technical vocabulary they know about their favourite animals to tweak and adapt it to be about their sphinx.

In Maths, we have continued our mammoth fraction unit, focussing on labelling empty number lines and finding fractions of amounts. Confident times table knowledge has been crucial this week - you can really see the children who know their times tables forwards, backwards inside-outwards!

In History this week we looked at some key settlements in Ancient Egypt. We thought about why they were where they were and how the Ancient Egyptians were able to survive in a dessert! Thank you to those families who have already sent in cereal boxes!

In Computing, we continued coding our Scratch games, making sure our sprites can't walk through the maze walls and can travel to the next level when they touch the portal. Some of us have been able to find bugs that will need fixing moving forwards.

In Science, we started our biology unit on plant reproduction. After getting over the giggles, we were able to learn the differences between sexual and asexual reproduction in plants.

It was lovely to spend some time with Y3 sharing books on World Book Day. Y5 were so good at reading the books the Y3s had brought with them, and asking them lots of questions!

Have a super weekend – let's hope this sunny weather stays for a while!

Miss Rutter, Mrs Grosvenor and Mrs Marsh.

Year 6

This week in Year 6 we have continued crafting our exceptional tales of suspense in English. The children have been working hard to build tension and atmosphere in their writing, carefully choosing language and structuring their stories to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. Alongside this, we have also been revising some key grammatical concepts, including the perfect tense and the use of the passive voice, considering how these can improve clarity and sophistication in our writing.

In maths, we have been learning how to calculate scale factors, thinking about how shapes and images can be enlarged or reduced while maintaining their proportions.

In geography, the children have been completing their coastal assessment, drawing on the knowledge they have built throughout the unit about coastal processes and why places such as Dunwich are historically and geographically significant.

In PSHE, we discussed the risks associated with drugs, smoking and alcohol, particularly when out in the community. We thought carefully about how to respond to peer pressure and explored strategies for making safe and sensible choices.

In RE, we learnt about the importance of the Torah in the Jewish faith. The children explored how the Torah is carefully crafted as a scroll and why it must be treated with great respect and care within Jewish communities.

A huge thank you to the children who shared books with our Year 1 and Reception pupils. This was a wonderful opportunity for our older pupils to spend time with the younger children and help inspire a love of reading throughout the school. It was lovely to see the patience, enthusiasm and kindness they showed.

We would also like to give special thanks to Daisy, Joules and Amelie, who spent the last week and a half writing our World Book Day assembly, as well as to our librarians, who helped to deliver the assembly so confidently. You all did a fantastic job.

Home learning this week is a task on spag.com I have checked that the reading records which were handed in today have the log-in details. Some children have opted to take a paper copy instead.

It was lovely to share the children’s progress with so many of you during parent meetings this week. As always, if you have any questions or need to get in touch, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Best wishes,
The Year 6 Team