Author: Mr Catherall

Yesterday, we were finally able to get our hands on the marble runs we made a few weeks back as part of our big Time Travel topic – we’ve been waiting for the glue to set properly!

After a little ‘free play’, and after making a few alterations, we evaluated our finished products against the criteria we decided on during the design process. It was really impressive that each group managed to make marble runs that fulfilled the initial criteria: fun to play, works, correct level of challenge, clear start and end point and structurally sound. 

Finally, we thought about what we’d do differently next time. Most groups agreed that they could have planned their marble runs with a little more precision (it’s hard not to get carried away during the design phase).

We’ve been thinking recently about what we can do to explain our maths. Yesterday, we got out some physical resources and had to prove our answers using the resources, images, pictorial representations, words and mathematical strategies.

It can be tricky to understand what a multi-step question is actually asking you do calculate and thinking of the problem like this is one way we can help ourselves. It also helps us to improve our reasoning skills: one of the three key areas in the National Curriculum alongside fluency and problem solving. 

Yesterday morning, we were joined by some students from Leeds University who helped us become roller coaster engineers.

We were given some basic equipment and had to make a marble rollercoaster that involved twists, loop-the-loops and it had to end with the marble landing in a plastic cup.

We had a great time designing and making our roller coasters and would like to thank Leeds University for sharing their expertise with us.

This morning, we were lucky enough to go to Allerton Grange for a PE lesson. We enjoyed practising our hockey, football and netball skills under the guidance of the Year 11 junior sports leaders.

Here’s a few pictures of us in action…

Recently, as part of our ‘Time Travel: Entertainment‘ topic we’ve been creating our own games using Scratch. Each game is loosely based on Pac-Man and we’ve spent the last few weeks planning, designing, creating and improving our projects.

The children have worked extremely independently and have taught me a lot about using the Scratch software – I still have a long way to go to catch up with them, though. I’ve been most impressed with how the children have helped each other over the course of making these games. Like most things, some of us are more confident than others and we’ve worked really well as a team to make sure that everyone is involved and learning all the time.

Similarly, I’ve been super impressed that lots of us have gone home and created our Pac-Man style games using our personal Scratch accounts. These games have been really useful as a teaching tool because we could see a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like).

Good work, Year 5!

Today, as part of our learning about our current SEAL theme (Getting On), we thought about what the ‘perfect’ team player would look like. We thought about our strengths as individuals – of which we have many – and then combined them to make the ultimate team player.

Ask your child…

• What did we decide was really important?
• Is there anything you would add to the list?
• Which of these attributes is most important/least important?
• Which of these things do you consider to be a strength of yours?
• Which of these do you think you’re not so good at yet? (The ‘yet‘ bit of this question is really important because, with practice, they will become good at this.)

We think the ‘perfect’ team player would have these attributes…

A good team player would ask him/her self…

This afternoon, we’ve been joined by two firefighters from Moortown Fire Station. They came in to educate us about fire safety. The afternoon was incredibly useful and we learnt lots about how to stay safe.

We learnt what fires need to get started: the Triangle of Fire. Ask your child if they can remember what this means. Importantly, we learnt how crucial it is that every house has an agreed fire safety action plan. This is a series of things that each person in the house will do in the event of a fire. Do you have one at home? The firefighters were very keen for everyone to have a fire action plan agreed with the people they live with; it’s a huge predictor for how likely you are to escape unharmed in the event of a fire.

Really importantly, we learnt about the dangers of making hoax calls to the emergency services. Ask you child why making false calls to the fire brigade can have deadly ramifications.

On a very serious note, I was alarmed that some children in the class thought the emergency services number was 911 not 999. Please make sure that your children are aware of critical information like this for their safety and yours.