We wonder...?

Year 4/5 - Spring Term 2026

Four Purposes

Comic Relief 2026

We loved wearing something silly to school to celebrate Comic Relief this year!

We were very fortunate to have a visit from Alex Wharton this term! He told us all about his work as the Children's Laureate of Wales. We loved our workshop about rapping and drawing with poetry. Diolch yn fawr!

Alex Wharton - The Poet Laureate

Tonyrefail through my lens - Eisteddfod Competition

This year, there was a new competition in our school Eisteddfod. We were challenged to capture an image of Tonyrefail through my lens. We could pick any location in Tonyrefail that was special to us.

Congratulations to Xavier, Emilia and Ethan who placed in the top 3!

Eisteddfod yr Urdd!

Llongyfarchiadau to Jesse who was chosen to represent Cwmlai in the Year 3&4 learners recital this year! He placed 2nd in the Cylch - Da iawn ti!

IMG_6772.mov

Urdd Netball Tournaments!

Llongyfarchiadau to Edie for representing Cwmlai in the Urdd Girls Tournament and becoming a semi finalist!

Llongyfarchiadau to Olivia and Megan for representing Cwmlai in the Urdd Mixed Tournament and becoming a quarter finalist!

World Book Day! Diwrnod y Llyfr!

Taith Bwyd Henry a Dewi

This year for World Book Day, we were challenged with creating a Welsh E-book to share with Year 2. We used AI to create a book about Henry and Dewi going on a food adventure across South Wales!

We really enjoyed reading and sharing some of our favourite books with Year 2 this year!

Techniquest!

We loved visiting Techniquest at the end of our topic! After investigating lots of questions, it was so much fun using the exhibits to experiment and problem solve! Our climate change workshop was fascinating!

Language, Literacy & Communication

Ieithoedd, Llythrennedd a Chyfathrebu

Our class text for this term is Wonder by R.J.Palacio. Our first task was to use inference and deduction whilst looking at the front cover of the book.

Following this, we used the Cwmlai question grid to improve the questions that we asked. Our favourite question was "Why has he been home schooled?"

Alan Peat - Emotion Sentences

We used some still images from Pixar films to help us improve our sentences. We enjoyed using Alan Peat's emotion sentences structure to uplevel our work!

Once we were confident, we were able to use the same sentence structure to create sentences about how August may have felt about starting school.

Informal Letters

We planned and wrote some informal letters as August (the character from Wonder). We wrote to our friend Christopher to describe our first ever day of school; we loved getting into character and thinking of things from his perspective.

We built a word bank for Yn y Dref to help us with our Welsh vocabulary.

We wrote our Eisteddfod poem "Hoffi'r Ysgol? Ydw... ond..."

Jesse Burge - A Pocketful of Wales

Eisteddfod Poetry

For the Eisteddfod this year, we had to write a poem for the poetry competition.
Year 4 - "A Pocketful of Wales".

Year 5 - "What Wales Means to Me".

We collected lots of ideas about Wales in order to write them and considered using similes, rhyming and Alan Peat sentences to uplevel our work!

It was the perfect opportunity to showcase our skills and knowledge.

Megan Davies - What Wales means to me!

Maizy Banner - What Wales means to me!

Should social media and smartphones be banned for children under the age of 16?

For our formal emails, we wrote to Mr Fletcher (an MP) to discuss if smartphones and social media should be banned for children under the age of 16. We discussed the importance of a balanced argument to ensure that we looked at both sides of the debate. After collecting ideas, we staged a debate in class, learning how to be respectful and supportive of different opinions and gathering ideas for our emails.

Following the debate, we wanted to ensure we had strong arguments. We used PEE (Point, Evidence, Explanation) to use data and statistics to support our opinions. We also collected data from Mrs Putterill, Mrs Stancombe and Mr Curnell's classes.

We then went ahead and wrote our emails..

We were very passionate about this issue and hope that we get a reply soon.

Jesse Burge - Untitled document

Maizy Banner - Phones should not be banned!

Maths & Numeracy

Mathemateg a Rhifedd

2D Shapes

In order to find the proporties of 2D shapes, we traced them into our books and worked together to name any unfamiliar shapes.

We've been working on our multiplication and division by 10, 100 and 1000 using a place value grid.

We loved writing on the tables to visualise this process.

Collecting and Representing Data

For our formal emails, we wrote to Mr Fletcher (an MP) to discuss if smartphones and social media should be banned for children under the age of 16. We also collected data from Mrs Putterill, Mrs Stancombe and Mr Curnell's classes to strengthen our arguments. We then used sheets to create pie charts.

Elijus Gliaubertas and Emilia Barnfield pie chart

Rogan Charlton - Untitled spreadsheet

Humanities

Y Dyniaethau

Our natural world is diverse and dynamic, influenced by processes and human actions.

New Years Traditions

At the beginning of the year, we discussed how we celebrate New Years. We then considered how this tradition began and researched if it has ever been celebrated differently. We discovered that Wales used to celebrate on Yr Hen Galan on January 13th instead of the 1st. We compared the traditions in a table.

Dewi Sant

After celebrating Dydd Gwyl Dewi on March 1st, we decided to research into who Dewi Sant was. We created a comic about his story.

Roald Dahl - Famous Welsh Author

On World Book Day, lots of pupils stated that Roald Dahl was their favourite author and that they would like to learn more about him. They had to independently research his life, achievements and books. They have created some presentations below.

Maizy Banner - Roald Dahl

Jesse Burge - Roald Dahl

What's in outer space?

One question that we had for our topic this term was "What's in outer space?". The pupils worked in pairs or groups to create a presentation and double page spreads about the information that they discovered. They loved exploring the different planets and solar systems.

Jesse Burge and Dylan WIlliams - Space

Isabelle, Maizy, Edie - Space

Science & Technology

Gwyddoniaeth a Thechnoleg

We wonder...?

This term, our topic is called 'We wonder...?'

Within this topic, we will be exploring a variety of scientific questions and conducting lots of investigations. Here are some of the questions that we have thought of so far...

We wonder how elecricity works?

We began exploring elecricity by creating a key of the symbols we would need to use to represent each item in the circuit.

We then used this key to rest lots of circuits to see if they would light a bulb or not.

In groups, we used the elecrical equipment to test the circuits.

We enjoyed using the bulbs, batteries, wires and motors.

After this, we tested lots of items around the classroom to see if they would conduct elecricity or not.

Can a lemon light a lightbulb?

We were so excited to explore this question!

We tried to light the lighbulb with the lemon and were unsuccessful at first. However... after moving the paperclips to ensure they were conducting the electricity.... IT WORKED (on a technicality)!*

*(We knew that by making the paperclips touch within the lemon, the elecricity circuit would be complete!)

After this, we wanted to know what else could light a bulb or conduct electricity. We went on a hunt around the class to find some answers.

Buoyancy

We researched our question "How do boats float?" by exploring buoyancy. After watching this video, we created boats made out of tinfoil. We then had to see how buoyant our boats were... with one boat holding 1kg of dry pasta! We loved discussing why we thought different objects were buoyant or why they sank.

How does our body work?

We started exploring how our body works by looking at the organs in the body and their functions in pairs. We enjoyed learning which organs do what and how they help our bodies.

After learning about the organs, we went on to explore the bones in the body (this was a bit harder). We discovered that babies are born with more bones before they fuse together to make 206 by the time were adults!

We then created group posters about the body and researched more interesting (and disgusting) facts!

Light

Next, we researched light. We started by looking at natural and artificial light sources.

After discovering light sources, we looked at transparent, translucent and opaque objects. We used torches and objects around the class to explore this.

Then we looked at how the eye works and how light is reflected off objects to help us see!

Light and Shadow Investigation

We conducted an investigation to answer the following question:

How does changing the distance between the torch and an object change the size of the shadow?

We were shocked with our findings! We loved conducting a fair test and collecting reliable data for this investigation.

Magnetism

We wanted to investigate how magnets work so we decided to start investigating by going on a hunt around the class to find magnetic objects. We worked in pairs to have discussions about our findings. We learnt that the push and pull force of a magnet can be used to hold a metal object or push a magnet around some homemade mazes!

Air Resistance

We enjoyed learning about the forces of air resistance and found similarities to our buoyancy work.

We created paper airplanes and discussed why some planes were more successful than others.

Although it was difficult to begin with, we persevered and created planes that could fly successfully!

Health & Wellbeing

Iechyd a Lles

Inner and Outer Me

During circle time, we discussed how we have similarities and differences with our peers. We chatted about our strenths, weaknesses and shared some compliments to eachother. Then, we created an inner and outer me portrait by reflecting and exploring our interests and thoughts.

Children's Mental Health Week

During children's mental health week, we explored ways that we could support our own mental health by completing activities that help us stay calm and discussing strategies with our peers. We created some infomative presentations.

Emilia Barnfield - Children's Mental Health Week

Isabelle Jones - Children's Mental Health Week

Enrichment - Problem Solving and Team Building

This term, we have been exploring problem solving and team building during enrichment. We have been working on these skills in order to build confidence in class and to challenge ourselves to work with different people. Our first challenge was the spaghetti and marshmallow towers - these were incredibly frustrating because the spaghetti kept on breaking!
We learnt that we could use our 3D shape knowledge to build a more sturdy base.

Our next challenge was to use an elastic band, wool and cups in teams to build a tower (without using our hands!) This task was very tricky as we had to trust eachother and rely on our co-ordination and listening skills. We loved it when we managed to build the towers successfully!

We also had the opportunity to create some healthy fruit smoothies. We could choose which fruit to use and blend them ourselves!

We loved having the chance to taste some new fruits and enjoy some familiar flavours!

Expressive Arts

Y Celfyddydau Mynegiannol

Art

This term, we explored Gayle Rogers art style to create a Welsh landmark for the Eisteddfod!

We also explored some art pieces about "What is at the bottom of the ocean?" inspired by some images that we found online.

Olivia Edmunds - Untitled presentation

Topic Learning Review

Here are some examples of our topic learning review for the Spring term.

Emilia Barnfield - We wonder…? Spring Topic Learning Review

Jesse Burge - We wonder…? Spring Topic Learning Review

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