Zoolab had to be postponed in January due to school closures so it was a real treat to finally have them visit us. Linked to our topic on the rainforest, year 3 children got to see and touch a variety of fascinating creatures including: giant snails, stick insects, a millipede, a corn snake and more.

"I loved Zoolab because the animals were really cool and interesting. It was the first time I’ve ever seen a scorpion." Aari, class JF

"Natural Disasters Day was AMAZING! We built shelters and made the Earth's layers out of playdough." Adam

"During the Volcanoes and Earthquakes workshop, we learnt where the tectonic plates are on a map. We had to act out how it would be like to be in all the levels of an earthquake from 1-12. Level 12 was insane, it was like all the buildings were collapsing! The day was absolutley brilliant, it was so much fun!" Tillie

Take a look at our Top Ten boards this week for each year group and our top progress children in each year group!

Well done to everyone who is moving up the TT rockstars charts!

Keep up the great work FPJS!

Time sure flies when you're having fun! I can't believe we are already half way through term 5. We have been extremely busy in year 3.

This week, we completed a 3 week unit on recounts in English. In week one, we had a class picnic. The teacher started by reading the children a story sat on the field in the sunshine, after that they were all given a snack and finally they got to play on the new log park for the first time. The following week, children wrote recounts about this fabulous fun afternoon and then this week they independently planned and wrote their recounts about Zoolab.

In maths, we are learning about fractions. Important learning includes knowing that all the parts must be equal size and the bigger the denominator is, the smaller the piece is.

We've started new topics in both Science and Topic. In science, we are learning about plants. We started with a plant walk where children looked closely at just how many different types of plants grow at our school and also how plants manage to grow everywhere. In Topic, we are learning about Ancient Egypt. We have looked at this on the time line and we are linking our art by designing and making sarcophaguses. We started by closely observing and drawing Egyptian style patterns and then moved on to designing.

In RE this term we are learning about Sikhism.

By Mrs Fitzgibbon

Another newsletter and so much to talk about!

This week in English, we completed our learning on resolutions. We first read the story of Sami, a child living in a war-torn country, and picked up where the author left off, creating imaginative endings to his story.

Our maths learning has seen us tackle time. All children made good progress and we've been grateful for continued support from home. If you get the chance to chat about what time you follow your daily routines, focussing on analogue clocks, this would be extremely valuable for consolidating learning!

In topic and science, we have started our new learning on the Tudors and changing states; with lots of experiments and group work going on. We've also been learning about self-portraiture in art; focussing on the proportions of the human face and how we can improve the shape and symmetry of eyes, noses and mouths. The difference between our cold task and our 'uplevelling' was phenomenal! Eventually, we will use our skills to create portraits of ourselves as Tudors and will make our own fantastic frames to put our portraits in.

So many exciting opportunities on the horizon, we can't wait to experience them all.

By Miss Lawrence

This term in Year 5 is all about Natural Disasters, our brand new, exciting topic! You can read all about our fantastic Natural Disasters Day earlier in this newsletter. So far we have had great fun learning the different types of volcanoes and using our understanding of latitude and longitude to plot their locations worldwide. Next we will be moving on to earthquakes.

Meanwhile, in maths, we have started by recapping our understanding of fractions. The children have done a great job of demonstrating their knowledge by finding fractions around the school and linking these to their understanding of decimals and percentages.

In English, we are writing a biography of the life of Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the danish carpenter who founded Lego. The children have done a great job of including adverbials and conjunctions for cohesion in their writing and will be presenting their work as beautiful, double-page spreads in their books.

We are continuing to work on our cushions in technology and have now drawn out our designs on fabric. Science has involved dissecting plants to understand the different parts that are involved in their life cycle along with learning about the different types of plant reproduction.

Over the coming weeks we have some awesome experiements lined up along with some exciting news about a new Year 5 school trip! Watch this space!

By Miss Moakes

We have our cast! After weeks of auditions (thank-you to the teachers who gave up every lunch-time for the last month to hear the call backs) , the roles have now been handed out and year 6 are busy learning their lines and the songs ready to perform to audience (fingers crossed) in July. The standard this year was exceptional and we were so impressed with the confidence of the children and have high hopes it will be the best ever!

Year 6 have been exploring the problems associated with palm oil production and how it can impact on wildlife and delicate rainforest ecosystems. They have prepared letters for politicians and we will be looking at which ones to send to them that give the best persuasive arguments that we should all take a look at our shopping habits.

In science, Y6 have been studying micro-organisms at a time when you may have heard about them in the news over the last year or so! However, if they were in any doubt about why hand-washing is so important , they are very clear now why it is so important and how germs can be spread through touch. On the positive side , we also looked at how micro-organisms are really useful and that not all bacteria is bad.

Every year 6 can now measure and saw wood accurately as they prepared their frames for their CAM projects and next it is the drilling and assembly before the final design touches that will hopefully lead to a display of colourful automata toys in each classroom.

We are now looking forward to so many exciting things - Rhos, film-making and Oscars and even some sculpture work before the year is out. With the weeks ticking by, we are filling every minute and having lots of fun in the process!

By Miss Johnson