Learning Updates
Year 1
Here’s some of what we’ve been learning this week:
Phonics ay /ai/ play ou /ow/ cloud oy /oi/ toy ea /ee/ each
Tricky words: said says you do like little push put pull full
Reading sentences: May I play with the crayon? The thunder booms in the clouds. The boy smears crayons on the carpet. I like to treat myself and read cartoons.
Writing sentence: I like to play in the sea.
English The Tiger Who Came to Tea. We have begun creating our own version of the story ‘The __ who came to tea’ by making our own story maps and describing the animal we find at our door using adjectives.
Our sentence writing focus lesson was based on Charlie and Lola. ‘I have this little sister Lola.’ We wrote a sentence about our own family.
Maths We have been practicing counting back from 10 and finding 1 less that a number (with cubes and by counting back on the numberline).
Art More work on self-portraits, this time using magazines to produce a collage.
Science Looking at our five senses, we focussed on sight and what we see before designing some fun glasses with Charlie and Lola.
Handwriting We have begun practicing lower case letters with the letters i, l, t
PSHE We considered ‘What helps me manage in new situations?’
Homework: Optional: My Family Tree Return next week for a star stamp.
Please note, homework in Year One is optional.
Reading at home (including tricky words and phonics) is the first priority.
Why not practice our New GPC’s: ay ou oy ea.
You can also use the reading and writing sentences above (under ‘phonics’) to support your child’s phonics work.
Have a lovely weekend. Mrs Brandon & the year 1 team
Year 2
English: This week we have been writing about St Edmund’s life using adverbs and conjunctions.
Maths: Our focus has been number lines, estimating and then, comparing numbers.
Science: We spoke about the importance of hygiene for humans and animals.
Topic: After lots of rehearsal, we practised completing timelines for St Edmund thinking about what chronological meant.
PSHE: As a class, we imagined how we would make a new child feel comfortable and reflected on the ground rules that we knew.
Computing: Predicting was the key skill this lesson and following the sequence (or order of instructions) clearly with our paper bots before trying them with the Beebots.
Art: Charcoal with Mrs Ferrier.
PE: Running skills with Mrs Crook.
RE: We explored the story of Jonah and why he was given a second chance. We spoke a great deal about the words sorry and forgiveness linking this to Rosh Hashanah.
Have a great weekend and continue to practise all of your reading skills at home. Note to parents: Try to encourage your child to blend words in their head and to say the whole word so that they can build their fluency.
We are also aware that parents are ticking off maths targets. Thank you! We will make time to work with your child as soon as we possibly can.
See you on Monday!
Mr T
Year 3
Somehow, we are already more than halfway through the half-term! I’m pleased to report another week of strong reading and spelling scores, which makes the job of marking and recording data a particularly happy one for Mrs Dobson and me! The children have also been busy learning their 3 times table and are beginning to build speed and fluency. A little practice at home would be fantastic.
Thank you, as always, for your support and encouragement at home – it really does make a difference.
English: The children have finished planning their innovation text, ‘How to Get Ready for School’. Once these have been beautifully written in their final versions, stress-free mornings should surely be guaranteed at home – the children certainly seem to know exactly what should happen each morning!
We have also explored prefixes in grammar and completed our weekly grammar check and introduction to their new spellings.
Maths: Following a short place value assessment, we have moved on to addition and subtraction. We began by adding and subtracting ones and tens without exchange, thinking carefully about which place-value column changes and which stays the same. The children are working towards solving calculations such as 53 + 20, 75 – 30, 150 + 20 and 375 – 40 mentally, accurately and efficiently.
Geography: Atlases in hand, the children completed their world maps, locating the countries from which some of our fruit and vegetables originate. I added a few geographical curveballs, including Costa Rica and Thailand!
Science: We put our knowledge of the five food groups to work, matching each group to explanations of how it benefits our bodies. The children approached this confidently – with some careful cutting and arranging in their books, too!
In Art, we completed our landscape views from the classroom window, using pencil marks inspired by Vincent van Gogh. In Music, the children planned soundscapes to represent a journey through the mountains, thinking creatively about how sounds can build atmosphere.
In RE with Mrs Chittock, the children continued exploring the Christian concept of a saviour, while PE with Mrs Crook focused on developing speed in running. Finally, in French, the children illustrated classroom instructions en français – combining listening, language and a little artistic flair.
Another wonderful week – bravo, Year 3!
Miss Murphy and Mrs Dobson
Year 4
It's been a lovely week, the children have really been focused and enjoying their learning. They were stars on Friday with their Flu spray, getting old hands at it now knowing what's coming.
The children joined an online assembly on Monday afternoon involving hundreds of schools country wide. It was about Benedicts Law and made the children aware of what allergens are, how not everyone has an allergy, what symptoms to look out for if someone is having a reaction, how to get help, and they learn the word Anaphylaxis. It was really well presented at an appropriate level for them to understand without scaring them.
In our learning this week;
Maths - we have looked at Roman Numerals and rounding numbers to the nearest 10 whilst with Mrs Harper the children had to make shapes with a set area.
English - we have innovated our focused text and practiced our focus sentence types whilst with Mrs Harper the children had a reading comprehension about rivers around the world.
Topic - we looked at how Britain changed (politically) after the Romans left with the Anglo-Saxons creating a Heptarchy.
RE - we looked at the Bible story about Zacchaeus in connection with the word Sin and how Jesus had been a Saviour.
Science - the children went into the school grounds and identified different plants drawing pictures and writing about them.
Music - continuing with body percussion and representing a Rainforest the children
Art - we learnt how to draw some more Anglo-Saxon detailed designs ready to put into use in designing our own Anglo-Saxon b
May I please remind you to make sure your child has a named bag for their spare shoes to go into. Unfortunately, our area of the corridor is becoming a mass of unnamed shoes lying around. Which takes time out of their playtimes as they try to find their shoes. Drawstring bags are best as the handles are less likely to get torn hanging on the pegs.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Chittock and the Year 4 team
Year 5
Last week we were victorious in the Star Reader stakes, which delighted me - I do like to read and I do like to win!
We have finished off our biography unit in English this week. We completed a reading activity about Katherine Johnson before planning our biography of Skelly (take 2!) Children had lots of ideas and were able to draw on lots of the things we have covered. I haven't had a chance to read them all yet but the ones I have read are fab!
In Maths, we have been looking at negative numbers. We've developed our understanding of these numbers, calculated differences between positive and negative numbers and even played some mathematical tug of war. Towards the end of the week, we've been plotting coordinates across 4 quadrants (lots of negative numbers there!)
In Science, we learnt about how the Earth's axis helps give us seasons. We had to be very precise with our language to make sure we were describing the correct celestial movement. In RE, we looked at some famous paintings of Jesus and analysed them for human and divine elements.
In DT, we started designing our pop-up books. We shared some of the pop-up books I have in my cupboard for inspiration. The books have to be space themed, but other than that the children have full creative license. There have been some extraordinarily wonderful ideas - I'm excited to see how they get on creating their books during the rest of this term!
Homework this week is a different type of task - it's a vocab dozen (called such because there are 12 words a half term!) This is an opportunity for children to learn an practice key topic vocabulary. Their task is to learn the word and definitions.
On Monday, they will have a vocab check where I read the definition and they have to write the appropriate word. Raffle tickets will be awarded for correct answers! Lots of short practices are better than one long one!
Have a wonderful weekend - I'm hoping to retain my winning crown at the Gazeley Church quiz!
Miss Rutter, Mrs Marsh and Mrs Nichols
Year 6
It has been another busy and productive week of learning!
History
In History, we have been learning about aviation during the First World War, exploring how aircraft developed and the important role they played during the conflict.
English
We have been developing our writing skills by writing diary entries in role as Charlie from Private Peaceful. As part of this work, we have been practising using different sentence types to make our writing more interesting and effective.
Maths
In Maths, we have been practising long multiplication. This is a tricky skill to master, particularly as the layout and positioning of the numbers can be challenging. However, we are really pleased with the effort and determination the children have shown as they have worked hard to develop their understanding and accuracy. Their perseverance has been fantastic to see!
Science
Science has been particularly exciting this week! The children conducted a whopping 12 experiments to develop their understanding of how light travels and how the eye works. They have enjoyed investigating, making observations and using practical activities to deepen their scientific understanding.
Homework
This week’s homework is a reading task, which contains three texts, each with questions to answer. We recommend that children complete their homework independently in 20-minute blocks, spending approximately one hour in total on the task. This should help them to stay focused while giving them enough time to read carefully and provide thoughtful answers.
Many of the children have volunteered to take on roles in the class and for the benefit of the wider community. The librarians have been extremely busy in preparing to implement some of the changes we have discussed and will announce in the coming weeks. It's also been really wonderful to see how some children are always ready, anticipating where help is needed, showing great teamwork, for which we are really grateful. A huge thanks to the librarians who hosted the first story time for the Y1 children. Have a super weekend.
Well done to everyone for another week of hard work, enthusiasm and perseverance!
Nuala Gilmore
