Year 1
We’ve certainly had a few lurgies around this week, but hopefully everyone is now recovering well. The children have enjoyed starting our Castles Booklets and they are looking superb!
What we’ve been learning this week:
Phonics- augh /or/ in daughter our /or/ in pour oar /or/ in oar ore /or/ in more
Grow the code /or/ Endings of words /l/ al le /s/ ce se
English- ‘Would you like to buy my castle?’ with Mrs Gilmore
Making non-fiction castle booklets: What is a castle?
What is a Castle made from?
Parts of a Castle
Maths- Time: Before and After
Months of the Year with Mrs Shipp
Days of the Week
Hours, Minutes and Seconds
Art- 3D pictures using coloured paper, pens and glue
RE- Celebrating shabbat: The Kiddush
Friday night dinner traditions
Homework: *optional* Maths homework: Time: Months of the year and days of the week
Looking ahead : Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th: Transition afternoons in year 2
Wednesday 15th July: Castle junk modelling day – does anyone fancy joining us for the afternoon – to assist with this? We could do with a few extra adults for cutting, glueing, taping, punching holes and constructing drawbridges.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Brandon and the Year 1 team
Year 2
Our week at a glance:
English- We have finished our invented instruction texts and finished looking at Cinderella’s Hot Air Balloon.
Maths- We have become more confident with the use of jottings to record our working out in addition and subtraction.
Science- This week, we talked about the suitability of materials for a hanger and why something would or wouldn’t work. We also looked at recycling.
School Trip- We visited the Museum of Technology and revisited our learning about how things changed with technology. We also learnt lots of engineering related facts about sewage works, steam and gas engines. We did also fire rockets that we’d made!
PSHE- We explored what to do in certain situations thinking about when someone would or wouldn’t need medicine.
Online Safety- We talked about connected devices and where we may have them in our homes. We mapped this on a house.
Topic- It was great to explore the links between the RNLI and Grace Darling.
Have a great weekend,
Mr Turner
Year 3
It has been another busy and successful week in Year 3, with the children showing great enthusiasm and effort across their learning.
In English, the children wrote innovative texts inspired by the Greek myth Daedalus and Icarus and enjoyed tackling a spelling, grammar and punctuation mystery that tested their knowledge from across the year.
In Maths, we completed our Statistics unit. The children researched and presented data using pictograms and bar charts, interpreted information from two-way tables and completed a short assessment.
In History, the children created detailed posters about Hippocrates and his contributions to medicine. In Computing, they put the finishing touches to their Scratch projects, using loops, text, sounds and motion to create animated stories.
In Science, the children wrote up their investigation into how different ramp surfaces affected the distance a toy car travelled. They explained the effects of gravity and friction and reflected on whether their hypotheses were accurate.
In PSHE, Miss Spinks helped the children explore the communities they belong to by creating Venn diagrams. In RE, Mrs Chittock led a session on equality and inclusion, linking this to Sikh beliefs about treating everyone with equal respect, regardless of background or caste.
The children also continued to develop their cricketing skills in PE, demonstrating excellent teamwork and determination.
Well done, Year 3, for another fantastic week of learning!
Miss Murphy & the team
Year 4
Hello all, we are creeping ever closer to the end of the school year. The children are showing signs of tiredness and the heat we have been experiencing hasn't helped, though we are lucky in the classroom and hall in school. The children have worked hard this week and we will be continuing with our learning right up to the end (ish), we won't be taking our foot off the gas! So, please continue with reading regularly, spellings, times tables and maths targets. We will still be checking these regularly.
In our learning this week;
Maths - we have continued with looking at statistics with a particularly tricky problem to solve at the end of the unit. We have had a quick visit to calculations and we have started a new unit on position and direction. With Mrs Murray the children have been recapping previous learning, revisiting aspects they found tricky.
English - we have started the research around our invention of our text, our invention will be How King Raedwald's Longship was built. We have also written a diary entry as a passenger boarding the Titanic. With Mrs Murray the children had a reading comprehension about
Topic - the children looked at where the different classes of passengers were on the Titanic and how the Titanic sank. They then considered if class had any effect on their chance of survival.
RE - the children experienced people being treated differently because of the colour of their eyes. This was to enable them to experience what it was like to be treated differently according to your caste or religion. They then considered if that was fair and looked deeper at the Sikh idea of everyone being equal.
French - the children were looking at the language around family.
Science - The children had a quiz about states of matter.
Computing - Using ScratchJr, make a square.
Music - this week the children looked at Rock n Roll.
DT - the children tested out their prototype from last week, analysing how the car performed and started to construct prototype 2, ready for testing next week.
We enjoyed having Bookster in the class for half the week this week, and we share him again this week. Maybe next week we will get him for the whole week to ourselves! It might be the last chance this year. It would be fab to have him in Year 4 at the end of year.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Chittock & the team
Year 5
Thank you for bearing with us this week – it's been a lot! A huge thank you must go to Mrs Manning who had to deal with all the paperwork when I'd given her the piece of paper with all the wrong groups on. Sorry Mrs M! The children have all really enjoyed their sessions with the Bikeability instructors, and Ross, Stuart and Andy have all been impressed with the cycling skill and behaviour of Y5. Well done, team! Group 3 will have their final session on Monday, and then we can all return to the normality that the end of term brings!
Because of Bikeability, it's been a very itty-bitty week in class. We've completed our final end of year maths assessments, painted some vases, learnt about the invention of the smallpox vaccine, researched some Bible quotes about the Last Supper, introduced Buddhism and had a go at coding our very own game on Scratch (helped by people who have made games and published their code on the internet).
The children have been so good and have gone with the flow, which has really helped us adults out. It will be nice to be back to normal next week (with rehearsals, and performances and transition sessions and the final swimming session, argh!)
Rehearsals for the play have ramped up this week – largely because we realised we're performing it next week! It is coming together, and we look forward to sharing it with you.
Have a great weekend,
Miss Rutter, Mrs Grosvenor and Mrs Marsh
Year 6
Dear Parents and Carers,
As we move ever closer to the end of the year, our days continue to be wonderfully busy, and the children are doing a fantastic job of embracing every opportunity.
Our rehearsals for The Wind in the Willows are now in full swing, and it has been a pleasure to see the confidence, teamwork and enthusiasm growing with every rehearsal. The production is really beginning to come together, and we are incredibly proud of the effort the children are putting in. Next week is our dress rehearsal, so all costumes will need to be in school by the beginning of the week, clearly named wherever possible.
In English, we have continued reading There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom. The children have enjoyed exploring the characters and the themes of friendship, change and self-belief, leading to some thoughtful discussions and insightful responses.
Our mathematics lessons have provided plenty of challenges this week. We have investigated the fascinating Fibonacci sequence, discovering the patterns that appear throughout mathematics and the natural world. Alongside this, the children have been tackling increasingly demanding algebra problems, showing resilience and impressive mathematical reasoning.
We would love to see some photos of last night: Mrs Shipp said it was wonderful, and the children have told me how incredible it was. Thank you to everyone involved. I was sorry to miss seeing them: I was busy at my daughter's school, collecting her things for the end of term and meeting their staff.
A few important reminders for the coming weeks:
- On Monday and Tuesday, while some children are attending transition activities at Newmarket Academy, those remaining in school should come dressed in their PE kits.
- Although many exciting transition events are taking place, learning continues right up to the end of term, so attendance remains extremely important.
- Please remember to book your seats for our performance. Due to space constraints, we are only able to admit audience members who have signed up in advance, so we would be very grateful if you could do this as soon as possible.
- Next Friday is our Year 6 Leavers' Lunch. This is always a wonderfully special occasion and a lovely opportunity for the children to celebrate their time at primary school together. If you have not already done so, please remember to return the permission slip.
- SATs results: We have been informed by the DFE that all results will be delayed this year. No details will be available until at least the 16th July. We will share the results individually with the children on 16th July, or for those who are out on transition on the 16th, they will have theirs on Friday 17th July, after the leavers' assembly. We will not be giving results over the telephone or via email.
Finally, a note about our PSHE curriculum. Next week we will be covering our puberty unit. This focuses on the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty and helps children understand these changes in an age-appropriate and sensitive way. We do not cover human reproduction as part of these lessons. As always, if you have any questions about the content we will be teaching, please do not hesitate to get in touch—we are always happy to discuss it with you.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. Have a wonderful weekend, and we look forward to another exciting week ahead.
Nuala Gilmore
