The Courier

Wet playtimes and safe distancing aren’t getting in the way of having fun in Reception. The children have impressed me with their creative play ideas - and independent learning. We’ve had child initiated measuring with cubes, size sorting, pattern creation, puppet role play and model making to mention a few.

In English this week, we have been brushing up on parts of speech and looking in particular at nouns, verbs and adjectives. Lots of fun was had on our verbs day.

We were lucky enough to have a dry morning so the children could work in pairs, outside, with lots of distance giving each other verb instructions to carry out as quickly as they could – RUN to the fence, POINT at the football nets, JUMP, SIT, HOP, LIE, CRAWL.

We finished with a verb race where all the children competed against each other to get to the finish line in all manner of different ways.

Great active learning.

Class 2W have been looking at the flowers in their gardens. This week they were asked to use the shapes of the petals and or the leaves to design a pattern that would look good as a wallpaper design.

Class 3S have all been looking at the flowers in their gardens. This week they were asked to use the shapes of the petals and or the leaves to design a pattern that would look good as a wallpaper design.

Class 3S have been exploring Animal Shape Poems and have been designing their own. We hope you like them! Annalise went above and beyond when she used our RE story of Jonah and the Whale and incorporated it into our English too. Great work, Annalise!

Pupils have been looking at the role bees play in the process of pollination and gaining an understanding of just how important bees are to our world’s economy. I have been so impressed with the wonderful work the students have shared with me, fabulous animations, role plays, news reports and posters showing their understanding of why we must help to protect the bees.

With the Summer term nearing its end, I have started to prepare our current Year 3 for the next step…the introduction of Reading and Writing in French!

Home Learning has provided me with a flexible platform that allows the children to do the work at their own pace and make choices. This week, in order to practise the vocabulary for body parts that we have studied since the start of home learning, they had the choice of learning a song in French (that would be Listening and Speaking), playing some games (that would be Listening…Reading and Writing) and/or completing a wordsearch (Reading and Writing skills).

They have made a terrific start on these new skills.

3S have been learning about the Sutton Hoo burial site as part of their topic on Anglo-Saxons. One of the most important artefacts that was discovered was an iron helmet. A replica has been made of it and the children used templates to create a drawing of how the helmet might have looked. They studied the engravings and patterns and produced some fabulous designs.

Some of them are shared here. 

The children have been researching homes of the Indus Valley Civilisation. They have used a range of media and their super creative talents to produce some excellent models of Indus homes.

The selection today are from Abigail, Faris, Harriet, Freya and Charlotte.

This week Class 4M continue their environmental topic, 'Improving the Environment'. They have focussed on the issue of the overuse and disposal of single use plastics and the effects it is having on the world.

Charlotte and Harriet explain it beautifully. Next week we are looking for solutions, I am sure we will share some ideas in the Courier.

Watch this space.

As our study of Nonsense Poetry comes to an end this week, 4M have been looking at 'onomatopoeia'. They have enjoyed thinking about these words which imitate the sound they describe, and they created some eye-catching posters.

I have shared some of them here.

We are studying a book by Shaun Tan called Cicadas, so we researched them and have written about them in the style of a Haiku.

Please enjoy some of the excellent examples by Amy, Jay, Isla and Ollie.

Attached are two pictures from Reception illustrating the listening music - Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.

Descriptions from Class 3S of a performance of Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory played at the Last Night of the Proms

Answers from Class 4M in response to listening to the last movement of Sibelius' Symphony No. 5 which is meant to describe swans in flight.

What a great week we have had in Year 6 with a wide range of activities, all linked with Shakespeare. Pupils have given directions in French around Stratford upon Avon, played a form of croquet in sport, enjoyed Elizabethan dancing in PE, explored a play in Latin, studied Macbeth in English, built the Globe Theatre in DT, completed map work in Geography, used Elizabethan money and Elizabethan numerals in Maths to name just some of the fun activities.

Our maths lessons this week have looked at the finances of Shakespeare's times. We learnt about the monetary system and converted pence, shillings and pounds. We've learnt about the 20 different gold and silver coins used by Shakespeare and the combinations of these that could used to buy popular items of the time. 

Year 6 also revised our knowledge of Roman numerals and learnt a little about Elizabethan numerals. We wrote key events of Shakespeare's time in Roman numerals to create a timeline.