Let’s take a look at the learning this week…

This week, Reception have welcomed a new student! The children have showcased the values at Rockliffe Manor by being kind and making him feel very welcome. In their learning, they have also continued to learn key facts about bees. They have immersed themselves into the learning by sharing facts that they know and facts that they would like to know. During their Literacy learning they learned about their habitats and the different roles in a honey bee hive, using actions to represent these. It has been great to see the children apply their knowledge to their independent play within the provision. Lily said, ‘Look at the honey comb I made with all the worker bees and this is the queen in the middle, she’s laying eggs.’ Christian remembered that ‘all of the boy bees (drones) don’t have stingers and they hide if someone attacks.’ The children can’t wait to continue learning more about bees and look forward to writing their very own fact files about them!

This week Year 1 has continued to enjoy their core text, ‘Grandad’s Secret Giant’ which explores themes of friendship, kindness and loneliness. The children participated in a debate where they had to justify their opinion on whether Billy (one of the characters) should have run away from the giant or not. Henry passionately said, “I strongly believe that Billy did the wrong thing by running away from the giant because the giant is friendly and he just wants a friend.” Nikoleta added, “I would say to the giant, let's be friends.” It’s lovely seeing children so engaged and enthused to talk about their learning. In maths, the children have been learning about place value. They have learnt strategies to count efficiently by making groups of ten as well as partitioning 2 digit numbers into tens and ones. The children have been using their oracy skills to explain their reasoning. Mateus said, “I know that this is 39 because it has 3 tens and 9 ones.“ Lastly, in history the children have been learning how schools were different before their grandparents were born. Whilst looking at some artefacts, some children commented on the classroom layout and the environment. Mishael said, “Our classroom is much more colourful and beautiful. They didn’t have displays a long time ago.” It has overall been a lovely week filled with great learning opportunities.

Year 6 have had a flying start to the second spring term, they have ramped up their SATs revision and they now have maths, grammar and reading group sessions in the afternoons. "I really got line graphs in maths this week, I'm so pleased." Jay exclaimed. The children thoroughly enjoy showing off what they know and experience the learning put when they are learning new skills.  As well as this, they have started their first session with CAMHS on Managing Emotions. This is a real benefit to the children as it offers specialist strategies that can help the children with their emotions in a fun and practical way. They also enjoyed the launch of Book Week and Olivia was proud to read an extract from her new Malorie Blackmann book to the whole school in assembly. "I was very nervous about reading my book to everyone, but I was glad I did it."