Week 2 (WB 4th May)

Please complete at least two of the tasks below to a high standard and email them to your teachers using the year group emails: y5@njsch.uk or y6@njsch.uk

Anchor Text

Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg

This task introduces our anchor text, Please Mrs Butler, by Allan Ahlberg. This text is an entertaining collection of poems about a school with a variety of topics such as what a teacher might find in a pupil's news book, the problem of copycats, bickering, making up and picking teams to name just a few.

Task 1 - Write your own poem

The Year 5 & 6 team would like you to write your own poem in the style of one of the poems featured below. Read the poems and decide which is your favourite. This task is split into two parts.

Part 1 - Analyse the poem's structure

  • How many verses are there?

  • How many lines are there in each verse? Are all the verses the same?

  • How many syllables are there per line? Is each line different?

  • Is there a rhyming pattern?

Part 2 - Rewrite your own poem

Using the poem you analysed in part 1, rewrite your own version of the poem. You can do this by changing the events that happen and by changing the names of the people in the poem, such as the names of pupils and staff members. Make sure that your poem follows the same same structure and rhyming pattern as the poem you looked at in part 1. It may be worth writing some of your own school experiences that you think might fit into the poem.

We will then select some of your inspired poems and these will be included in our booklet, 'What makes NJS great?'.

Please Mrs Butler.docx

Please Mrs Butler

Blame.docx

Blame

Scissors.docx

Scissors

There's a fish tank.docx

There's a Fish Tank

Task 2 - Write a character description of a staff member

How good is your descriptive writing? Would it be easy for a group of future Year 3 pupils to recognise the teacher from your character description without mentioning the name?

We would like you to write a character description for a school staff member of your choice. Try to capture the attitude and behaviour of the teacher through your writing as their appearance.

Remember to make your character description interesting with high quality word choices and as well as the features of a character description as listed below.

  • Powerful adjectives

  • Interesting verbs

  • Third person

  • Adjectives in a list

  • Relative clause

  • Similes

  • Metaphors

Character Description WAGOLL.docx
drawing-the-human-face.pdf

In the folder above are a collection of teacher photos for you to choose from.

Task 3 - Draw a portrait of a teacher

We would like you to draw a detailed portrait of a class teacher using one of the photographs provided. You may decide to do this using sketching pencil or colour using pencil crayons. There are two step-by-step included on the left of this text box: a simple nine step guide to portrait drawing and a more in-depth guide below for those of you wanting a challenge as it walks you through how to accurately draw every feature of the face.

Here's the catch. Each class has been given two teachers (except from 6CC and 6S0 who both have three to choose from) - you may only draw one of the two teachers assigned (given) to your class. For example, 5RH have been given Mr Cicero or Miss Smith and so you if you are in 5RH, you can only choose one of these two teachers. The list is as follows:

  • 5RS can choose from: Mr Wilkinson or Miss Oliver

  • 5RH can choose from: Mr Cicero or Miss Smith

  • 6CC can choose from: Mr Hewitt or Miss Campion or Mr Hayes

  • 6SO can choose from: Mr Chadwick or Mrs Jenkins or Mrs Hall

A folder containing portrait photographs of the current teachers at NJS is available for you to access on your left. Use the guides to support your efforts as and use your observational skills to ensure you copy the picture accurately. Make sure to redraft parts of your drawing, remember to be resilient and know that there are very few artists who can draw a portrait without having to improve parts of their work!

We will select some of these teacher portraits to feature in our booklet produced at the end of the expedition.

Mr Hewitt's portrait of Miss Oliver

Miss Oliver's portrait of Mr Hewitt

Miss Smith's portrait of Mr Hayes

Task 4 - The secret life of teachers

Have you ever wondered what teachers do when all the pupils go home? Do they get back into their cupboard to sleep until the next morning? Do they plot to turn all the children into frogs? Or do they become secret agents after school hours?

Your task is to write a short story about the secret life of teachers. It is up to you which teachers you choose and what they get up to This is you chance to be imaginative. Take a look at the example story for ideas and listen to the story 'My Teacher's Secret Life' by Stephen Krensky via the YouTube video.

Remember interesting vocabulary to engage the reader and to include the features of a short story:


  • An interesting opening

  • Third person

  • Past tense

  • Exciting adjectives and adverbs to describe characters and settings

  • A range of conjunctions (while, because, when, although, but etc)

  • Speech (if you can)


Secret life of the teachers.pdf

Task 5 - Create your own school quiz

How good is your peers' and teachers' knowledge of NJS and it's staff? If you made a quiz, how well would they score? Who would come out on top?

We would like you to create your own quiz about anything NJS: the staff team, the building, the lessons. Your quiz must have 10 questions, however it is up to you how many points each question is worth. You make a paper quiz or you can using Google Docs but if you are struggling for question ideas, there are many examples of school quizzes on the internet if you search for them.

If you are feeling up to a challenge, you can make an online quiz that marks itself using Google Forms - this is a google app that is available to you now you have your own pupil G-Suite account and below is a very simple, step-by-step guide to help you create your own online self-marking quiz. To give you an idea what a Google Forms quiz looks like, there are some examples attached to the sea life pictures to the left of this box - these quizzes were designed by Miss Smith and Mr Cicero to put our classes knowledge of the oceans to the test.

How to make a google forms quiz

Once you have completed your quiz, send them in to your year group email (either y5@njsch.uk or y6@njsch.uk) for your teacher to attempt your quiz and to share it with the rest of the year group!