Learning Updates
Year 1
Here’s what we’ve been learning this week:
Phonics
Review sounds: ai ee igh oa oo ar or ur oo ow oi ear air er
Tricky words: all are I of one here today
Reading longer words by chunking up: farm/ yard. bed/ room.
Sentences: I can see the farmyard from my bedroom. The kitten is playing with the rabbit. I enjoy eating a heap of peas! The forest has a track that leads to a train.
Writing a sentence: Pop the puppet in my pocket
English The Tiger Who Came to Tea. We have begun writing our own version of the story ‘The __ who came to tea’ using our original animal ideas.
Our sentence writing focus lesson was based on using the conjunction ‘and’: My sandwich has ___ and _____.
Maths We have been comparing groups by matching objects (‘are there enough worms for the birds? Are there enough cakes for the children?’) before comparing quantities and numbers using the words fewer, more and the same.
Art More work on self-portraits, this time using magazines to produce a collage.
Science Looking at our five senses, we focussed on hearing by exploring where a sound is coming from, what our favourite sounds are and the sounds we don’t like and guessing some sounds.
Handwriting We have begun practising lower case letters with the letters u, w, e.
PE with Mrs Crook.
RE Belonging: What happens at a Baptism?
PSHE We thought about our trusted adults and who we would go to if we felt unsafe or unsure.
Homework (Optional): Draw your route to school from home (or back). Return next week for a star stamp.
Phonics No new sounds this week. Next week we will be assessed on all our sounds and word blending.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Brandon
Year 2
English: We completed a full non-fiction text with superb about St Edmund using conjunctions, adverbs and clear information. The handwriting was excellent too. We then looked at high frequency words and some autumn word collecting for a poem.
Maths: Our focus was ordering and comparing numbers this week. We also completed a little place value maths quiz very successfully!
Science: Drawing all of our learning together, we explored what keeps humans healthy in words pictures and sentences.
History: Our focus was looking at St Edmund’s shrine and other ways that he is remembered through art and artefacts.
Music: Many children in Year 2 warmed up their voices brilliantly and sang a song of the countryside ‘Lavenders Blue’ Some children even took the octave and sung in a higher register.
Computing: After predicting last lesson, children were challenged to create obstacles and to problem solve how their floor robots could avoid them on their grids.
PSHE: We looked at how we can have a democratic choice. We reflected on the school council vote and also voted for a class book (and a game!).
PE: With Mrs Crook.
Art: With Mrs Ferrier.
RE: We tied all our learning about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur together into sentences and watched a Jewish story to help us reflect.
Karate: It was great fun to have a Karate workshop on Friday before lunch!
Have a great weekend.
Mr Turner
Year 3
It’s been another busy and productive week in Year 3! We are a lively, friendly and enthusiastic bunch, and we have needed a few reminders about the importance of respectful classroom behaviour. Sitting sensibly, listening carefully and following instructions are schoolwide behaviour expectations and create a positive learning environment. We have talked about making good choices and recognising when it is time to settle down and learn. On which subject, our learning this week has included…
Maths – We have revisited familiar pictorial methods for addition and subtraction, focusing on calculations that involve crossing 10 or 100. Using visual representations helps strengthen understanding of place value and develop confidence with exchanging.
English – There has been excitement as the children have been planning their very own marvellous medicines, inspired by Roald Dahl's story! They are preparing to invent an instructional text explaining how to make their imaginative concoctions. We have emphasised that these are strictly fictional creations and definitely not to be tried at home! We have also introduced our new spelling pattern and completed our weekly grammar activities.
Geography – We have begun investigating where some of our fruit and vegetables come from, focusing on Italy and Costa Rica. The children have located both countries on a world map and started researching their physical geographical features, developing their map-reading and geographical enquiry skills.
Science – We have been sharpening our classification skills, learning to distinguish between vertebrates and invertebrates. The children have been exploring the characteristics of different animal groups and using these to help classify living things.
French – We have been learning the French names for some familiar animals, practising pronunciation and exploring the distinctive French 'ch' sound.
PE – The children have been developing their jumping skills, learning how to use their bodies effectively to improve technique, control and coordination. We also enjoyed an exciting karate workshop on Friday afternoon!
RE – The children explored the story of Zacchaeus with Mrs Chittock, considering his behaviour, why Jesus chose to visit his home and how this encounter inspired Zacchaeus to change his ways.
Music – Miss Spinks and the children have continued developing their collaborative mountain soundscape, using sounds to represent the atmosphere and features of a mountain environment.
Computing – We learnt how a website works.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support with reading, spellings and times tables. It really does make a difference to the children's confidence and progress. Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Murphy and Mrs Dobson
Year 4
It has been a full on week with School Photos and Karate to add into the normal week of learning! The children loved the Karate and did really well, there was lots of laughing to be heard. I am still in the process of working with Mrs Gilmore to sort out EdShed for Spellings so please be patient, we will resume normal service soon, hopefully.
Our learning this week;
Maths - We finished our unit on place value with an assessment and the children did really well across the board. We have now started a unit on Addition and Subtraction. With Mrs Harper the children were comparing area.
English - The children wrote up their innovation text and practiced some more of the focus sentence types. With Mrs Harper the children were looking at a reading comprehension about Anglo-Saxon Warriors.
Topic - We looked at the difficulties that the Anglo-Saxons might have had when they first arrived in Britain.
French - This week the children focussed on the days of the week. They drew the activities they do on each day and learned a song to help remember them.
RE - We continued to look at the story of Zacchaeus and how he had sinned and how Jesus had changed him.
Science - the children were identifying the plants we found on our plant hunt last week and beginning an invertebrate hunt.
Music - More body percussion and fun with the 'boom wackers'.
Art - The children were designing their own Anglo-Saxon Warrior brooch.
Next week on Thursday morning we have our first Reading Cafe, it will be lovely to see you, come and enjoy a story and craft activity with your child.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Chittock and the Year 4 team
Year 5
It's turned chilly this week. It is definitely starting to feel more autumnal!
In English this week we have started out new writing unit - recounts. We have looked at some photos of UFOs, did a critical reading activity about the Rendlesham UFO and have started investigating the Roswell UFO. There has been some great (and suspicious) thinking occurring.
In Maths, we have finished our work on negative numbers. We've focused on finding the difference between two positive numbers, two negative numbers and a positive and a negative number. We even had a go at answering some questions from the SATs paper that focused on negative numbers to test our mettle.
In Science, we learnt about equinoxes. Equinoxes happen twice a year on every planet in the Solar System and signal the turn of the seasons. The children got to choose how they presented their learning and they made some beautiful information pages (one even featured a pop-up mechanism!)
In DT, we started making our pop-up books. We are a very creative class and some great things are already happening. It's amazing what you can make with some card, star stickers, some split pins and a few lolly sticks!
In PSHE, we thought about how we can cope when we are the new person in a situation. We thought about times we have been new, and how we could welcome someone who was new to our school or club.
This morning, we had a karate session with a black belt who used to fight for England! Y5 were great at following his instructions and moves. We definitely have some potential karatekas in our class! Photos to follow on the website.
We remain the school's Star Reader champions (we managed the three-peat!) but it was close! Y3 were only 1% behind us! Remember, your child needs 5 recorded 'at home' reads to be a Star Reader.
Next Thursday is the first reading cafe of the year. It would be lovely to see you if you are able to join us for a story and a craft.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Rutter, Mrs Marsh and Mrs Nichols
Year 6
It has been another busy week in Year 6!
In history, we have been exploring the development of aviation during the First World War. We have also researched the challenging conditions experienced by soldiers in the trenches and have planned and begun drafting diary entries from the perspective of those who served.
In maths, we have been developing our division skills using factors, and today we had our first formal introduction to long division.
In PSHE, we have been exploring customs, cultures, etiquette and courtesy. This prompted an interesting discussion about what we consider to be 'helping' and how this can sometimes be seen by others as simply doing our fair share.
In RE, we have been evaluating the usefulness of different pieces of information found in the four Synoptic Gospels, considering how these accounts help us to understand key events and teachings.
Looking ahead to next week, we will be taking part in a Mini Medics course and Mini Mental Health Medics on Monday. These sessions will run throughout the day, so please ensure the children bring their PE kits.
It is also our Reading Café on Thursday, and we hope as many of you as possible will be able to join us!
Homework this week is a reasoning paper, which should take approximately 45 minutes to complete. I have added some prompts to support the children where needed. Any spare time could be spent practising the KS2 spelling lists. Once your child has completed the Year 3/4 spelling list, they can move on to the Year 5/6 list.
Finally, just a reminder that applications for secondary school places must be submitted by 31 October. Please do check the admissions criteria carefully, as some of the requirements can take families by surprise.
Have a super weekend!
The Year 6 Team
