As part of the national curriculum, the Year 5 children have now started their swimming lessons. Once they received their very shiny FPJS swimming hat, they got into their groups and began their lessons. We have been very impressed with how sensibly the children have been behaving, both walking to and from the pool and also whilst on poolside. Even after two weeks, we can see clear improvement in water confidence, especially from those children who have less experience. For our more confident swimmers, they have started the process of perfecting their strokes and improving their efficiency in the water.

In the coming weeks, the children will be learning more about water safety and life saving skills whilst continuing to improve their swimming ability. We are very much looking forward to seeing their continued progress!

Year 3 enjoyed an exciting trip to Ufton Court on Friday 29th April as part of our learning on the Romans.

In our classes, we explored a range of activities. One activity was learning about Roman life skills. This included using flint to make sparks, making thread out of wool and building a wall by weaving wood.

Our next activity was learning about Roman artefacts. We looked at lots of different things that the Romans would have used including an ear cleaner and a weekly calendar.

Lastly, we were Roman soldiers and took part in some military manoeuvres learning how to work as a team to protect certain members of the army using shields to create a tortoise, shield wall and orb formation.

What a fantastic opportunity to learn and have fun! More photos can be found in the Y3 section of the newsletter.

As ever, we have been busy, busy, busy in year 3!

In maths, we have been learning about telling the time and converting between analogue and digital. We enjoyed mixing up our classes and working with different children and adults to help us with this learning.

Our fantastic volcanoes learning has continued in English and topic where we have been learning about how volcanoes are formed, where we find them in the world and what effects they can have. By the end of next week, we should have written our own non-chronological report on volcanoes to teach others everything that we have learnt!

In the afternoons, we have been investigating plants and flowers, considering where they grow and why as well as learning about famous tapestries and why they are famous.

Mrs Lawrence-Davis Y3 Team Leader

Since returning from their Easter holidays, Year 4 have been working non-stop! As well as lots of learning, we have also been preparing for our upcoming class assemblies.

In English, we have been learning about the lives of Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges. We have been discussing the Civil Rights Movement in America and how much things have changed. The children have written reflective pieces in which they also think about the changes which still need to be made in society today,

Our maths learning has centred around decimals and money. Year 4 have learnt to compare and order decimals as well as use the four operations with amounts of money. There has been lots of problem solving to challenge everyone too.

The Tudors are our topic for this half term and the children have been thoroughly enjoying learning about Henry VIII and his 6 wives. This week, they created an advert for a new wife for Henry - these were very amusing!

Mrs Barbosa, Y4 Team Leader

It’s been a busy first few weeks in Year 5 after the Easter break.

Rainforests are our topic this term, with an initial Geography lesson in which the children used a variety of differently orientated maps to locate the world’s rainforests. The children have also been researching the impact of the increased production of palm oil on rainforests and the animals that live in them. This work will then inform our English where the children will write an explanation text to ensure others understand the effect of the production of palm oil on orangutans.

In Science, we are learning about the life cycles of plants including different forms of reproduction. The children have now taken a cutting from a mint plant to attempt to grow a series of new mint plants demonstrating a form of asexual reproduction.

In maths, we have started the term by recapping our understanding of decimals. This has included showing our understanding of what happens to a decimal number when we multiply or divide by multiples of ten. Following this, we are now learning all about angles, including leading one another through a maze using only mathematical terminology as instructions.

We are very excited to have finally started our swimming lessons! More about these at the start of the newsletter.

Mrs Pierron, Y5 Team Leader