Issue Five 30/04/2021

Message from Mrs Tipple

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend to you all.

We have had another wonderful week where the pupils have been inquiring, thinking, caring, gaining knowledge, communicating, taking risks, reflecting, being open-minded and applying principles in a balanced way. I hope you will all recognise these attributes but if not, talk to your children about them.

All of this has been rounded off with great fun taking part in the England Daily Mile.

Please can I remind you to look at your emails regularly as this is the way we share our communications and important information with you.

Take care.

England Does The Daily Mile

Oh what fun we had joining in the daily mile challenge, walking and running to exercise whilst raising money for a charity that is important to so many families, including some of our own.

THANK YOU so much for your donations.

We have raised £183.00 for Place2Be.

Well done to Mrs Palmer for organising this and joining every group!

A young girl writing in a book with a pencil in a classroom

A group of students sitting around a table playing a game

A young girl using a paintbrush in a classroom

Year 1 Update

In Sparrow class this week, we have begun our new inquiry on how communities improve if people work together. Firstly, we looked at what we think a community is. We have linked our inquiry to our story called Leaf. The book is about a polar bear who finds himself in an unfamiliar woodland where he is not accepted by other animals. We have discussed what advantages Leaf could have brought to the woodland community and why it is important to accept others even if their appearance is different. We have loved getting stuck into our new inquiry and are looking forward to learning more throughout the upcoming weeks!

By Sparrow Class

A young girl standing near a table smiling while holding an object in her hand.

Year 2 Update

By Jordan

In Blackbirds Class, we have enjoyed our inquiry a lot. Our central idea is: Life on Earth depends on harmony between all living things. We started by looking at what living things are and then went on a hunt in the playground to find living, non-living and dead things. We then moved on to look at different habitats. We researched deserts, oceans, rainforests and microhabitats and found out what animals and plants live there.

Recently, we have looked at how humans have been destroying the different habitats and how we can save them. We came up with different ideas that we can do in school to help the environment. These were building bug hotels, turning off lights and computers when they are not needed and turn off the tap. Our inquiry is coming to an end this week but we can't wait to start our new inquiry next week.

Two girls and one boy sitting on a table with an article from a newspaper in front of them smiling at the camera

Two boys sitting around a table doing arts and crafts in a classroom

A young girl sitting around a table doing arts and crafts in a classroom

A young boy sitting around a table doing arts and crafts in a classroom

Year 4 update

By Indie-Marie, Leonor and Bobby

Two students working together on an assignment in a classroom

In Blue Jays we have been continuing our inquiry into laws, traditions, values and customs and how these help to define national identities. Our learning last week and our text, Journey to Jo-burg, encouraged us to ask questions about the continent of Africa and the people living there. We also realised that these books helped us to think more about our ongoing inquiry about how stories communicate ideas.

Students sitting around a table doing classwork

This week we have used a book called African Tales to discover more stories from different African countries such as Namibia and Swaziland. We then used our research skills to find out more about these countries. To do this we used information books and used iPads to extend our research. We have been learning that it is important to put what we have found out into our own words. We know we need to do this otherwise we are 'stealing ideas' and it also helps to show that we understand what we have read. Many of us used dictionaries to find out the definition of key words. We are working hard to develop our self-management skills. We are thinking carefully about how we organise and present our work and making sure that we focused on our learning all of the time.

In one of the stories the main character collects water in a clay pot. We used lots of different techniques to create our African inspired coil pots. We rolled, flattened, scored and created slip to join our clay coils together and conferenced with each other to improve our finished products. We discovered that the Romans made their pots in a similar way. The next part of our task will be to add colour and pattern, we can't wait!

A young boy molding clay with his hand on a table in a classroom

A young boy using a pencil to draw on his clay pot

Two young boys molding clay with their hands on a table in a classroom

A young girl molding clay with her hand on a table in a classroom

Ducklings Update

This week in Ducklings Class, we have been enjoying exploring the outdoor area and spending lots of time outside. Please remember to bring coats as although we have had some sunny spells, it is still rather cold in the shade!

Gross Motor Skills

A young girl rolling a car tyre on the school playground

A young boy walking towards the car tyres

In the outdoor area, we are lucky to have lots of opportunities to practice balance, stability and coordination, all essential skills needed when learning to write.

A young boy using a pen to draw his favourite animal in a classroom.

Our Favourite Animals

Ducklings have been making inquiries into different types of animals and their habitats. We talked about our favourite animals and used the art resources to make them. The children are very proud of their work and are excited to see these on display in the Hall.

Year 3 Update

By Molly

This week we have continued with our Inquiry looking into finite resources and how people can collaborate to find ways to share the earth's resources. Woodpeckers showed how to be great inquirers and open-minded this week when we had an open debate about the benefits and impacts that farming has on the environment. This central idea is coming to an end now. We have learnt so much about how the earth provides different resources and how we need to share them and use them responsibly before they all run out! We have realised that reusing as much material as possible will really help the planet. We should also be using more renewable energy instead of the fossil fuels because once they are gone, they are gone for good!

This week we also explored how magnets work and how only some metals are magnetic. We learnt that attract means to pull and repel means to push. We used our predicting skills to guess what materials would be attracted to the magnets.

Close up of an open book showing a pupils work

A young boy using a magnets on the cupboard handle

Students using different types of magnets

Year 5 Update

In Kingfisher class we have been exploring using a reward system for when we work our hardest, produce high quality work and are focused on learning. We have little tokens which count towards a reward every Friday. Instead of cashing them in every Friday, they can be saved up for something better at a later date from a selection that we have chosen as a class. This points system is linked to our inquiry because our learning is about the economy and our lines of inquiry are about human economic activity and how they can shape and impact communities. Throughout this week we have been thinkers and are having to consider what we spend and what we save. We have also been inquiring about stocks, shares, tax and budgeting.

Each term we have a book that we read. This term our focus book is Holes by Louis Sachar which is about Stanley Yelnats IV who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an unfortunate series of events, a stray pair of shoes fell from the sky striking poor Stanley on the head, this led to him being convicted and sent to a juvenile correctional facility. All of this bad luck is blamed on the curse bestowed upon the family and Stanley's story is about to get a great deal stranger. We have been writing several letters as Stanley, diary entries and also character descriptions and can't wait to find out what is going to happen next!

We have also been learning more Spanish including art and learning about the weather 'la clima'. We can't wait to learn more Spanish this term!

Year 6 Update

This week in Year 6, we have been discussing the possibility of how World War 3 could be triggered: our Central Idea is 'Systems of governance can influence the lives of people'. This means that different types of government around the world can have an impact on all of us, such as democracy, dictatorship, authoritarianism, communism and a monarchy. We analysed the map of Russia and all of its physical geography like the rivers, mountains, lakes and biomes. Lake Baikal in Russia is the deepest and oldest lake in the world. It also is the most voluminous which means it contains the most water. The political history of Russia is really interesting and we have really improved our knowledge of countries around the world recently.

For our new hall display linking Spanish and Geography, we have made the flags of the countries involved in World War 2 (using our knowledge of measurement and maths to support the ratio of the flags) and we have written the countries' names in Spanish. We read our first reading comprehension in Spanish and we were surprised at how many words in Spanish we could figure out for ourselves using our thinking skills. In Spanish, the Second World War is 'La Segunda Guerra Mundial'.

Students sitting around a table using a laptop for research and colouring pens to create a poster

Students sitting around a table colouring pens to create a poster

A young girl looking at a laptop doing some research

Would you like to read more about Science in the news?

Click on the link to read news articles related to science. There are lots of different pages to read and videos that look at questions such as, 'Could we live on the moon?' and 'How do spiders make their webs?' to watch.

In order to access these amazing resources, you will need to create a free account by registering using an email address and creating a password. You are not required to give any further personal details and will then be asked a couple of questions to get you started. Enjoy!

Visit the Twig Science Reporter Website here

Robins update

Robins have had lots of fun exploring the indoor and outdoor provision this week. Throughout our Inquiry we have been exploring how things go through a process of change. Robins are fascinated by the life cycle of frogs. We had a go at retelling the life cycle of a frog with our friends using the eggs, tadpole, froglet and frogs in the slime. We even had a go at making some frog masks!

Our chrysalis have turned into beautiful butterflies. We have named them and let them go. A popular name was Dave!

In maths this week we have been exploring addition in lots of practical ways. We used loose parts, hoops, blocks and numicon. We even had a go at writing the number sentence afterwards.

The children have loved learning some Spanish this week and have been greeting each other using the new words they have learnt. We also learnt some Spanish words linked to our inquiry.