Class News

Living & Learning: Being safe

Being safe is a key part of our Living and Learning curriculum and we took part in the NSPCC Speak out Stay Safe online assembly.

During the assembly, we heard about Sam and some things that were upsetting Sam.

Thankfully, Sam told a teacher about her worries. We thought about which grown-ups would be good to talk to in school and out of school (start telling other people). Brothers, sisters and friends would also be good to talk to and discuss feelings but telling a grown-up (over 18) would be the best thing to do to get help.

You could speak to safe adults at school like the safeguarding team.

Be brave and speak out – it will get better.

Our Living and Learning box, in the classroom, is another way the children can speak out and write down any worries.

We also heard about Childline – ask your child to show you the way to remember the number.

Help at home: Buddy Zone, on the Childline website, has some games and activities for the children to do.

Poetry Basket: Under a stone

This week’s poem is called Under a stone.
We’ve been focussing on the words earth (land eg soil, dirt) and firm (a solid surface).

PE: basketball

This half-term in PE, we’re doing basketball!

Basketball is a fantastic sport for your children to practise a variety of different skills (e.g., passing, catching, shooting, defending etc.).

Last week, we began exploring some different ways we can pass the ball in basketball – chest pass and bounce pass. We recapped our ‘pass and point‘ technique which we used last year in netball and rugby. When you release a ball during a pass, your fingers should end pointing towards where you are aiming. This is a great technique to ensure an accurate pass.

This week, we’ve looked more closely at catching. When preparing to catch a ball, we need to get into the ready position:

• feet shoulder width apart
• knees slightly bent
• diamond hands

The ready position allows us to safely and effectively catch the ball.

Help at home: if you have a ball at home (any ball will do) practise some chest and bounce passes with your child.  They must show you the ready position before catching the ball.

Guided Reading Week 2

Here are the target pages for this week’s guided reading. These need to be read by Friday 8th May.

Ghost Hunter– up to page 95

Kensuke’s Kingdom – up to page 69

Two weeks with the Queen – up to page 61

How to train your dragon – up to page 103

Spy fox– up to page 85

Considine Curse – up to page 85

Maths: factors, multiples and primes

Over the past two weeks, we have been learning about factors, multiples and primes in Year 5. We have learnt how to find all the factors of a number, as well as find common factors between two numbers. We have learnt what prime, square and composite numbers are and how to identify them.

Prime number: has exactly 2 factors.

Square number: has an odd number of factors.

Composite number: has more than 2 factors.

This unit of work ended with us creating factor multiple chains within 100. You begin with a number less than 100 and then find a factor of this number. Next find a multiple of the new number and then a factor of this number etc..

For example:  64, 4, 32, 8, 88, 11….

We first played cooperatively where we had to work together to create the longest chain. Afterwards, we played competitively where we had to stop the other person be able to continue the chain. Some of us worked out a way we could always win using our knowledge of numbers! It was great fun.

Help at home by playing a game of factor multiple chains.

Science: Plants and their parts.

Since returning from their break our wonderful Year 1s have been learning all about plants, their parts and how to grow them. The children started off by looking at different parts of plants and trees. They were split into groups then classified and grouped the different parts together.  They did really well in this and impressed us with their knowledge on the parts that make plants. After this, they then learnt how to plant a sunflower, planting one inside and one outside. They are now going to observe the changes over time (so feel free to ask how ‘Sun Sun’ and ‘Sunset’ are.)

Summer 1: Week 2

On Monday, a very special parcel arrived at school… inside were five tiny and very hungry caterpillars!

The children were full of excitement as I carefully opened the box. We spent time observing the caterpillars closely, noticing their size, movement, and how eager they were to begin feeding.
Over the next few weeks, we’re looking forward to watching them grow and change. The children will have the opportunity to observe each stage of their journey. This links perfectly to our word of the week: metamorphosis—the process some living things go through to become adults.

We can’t wait to share updates as our caterpillars continue their incredible transformation!

DT
In the creative area, we’ve been exploring how to safely use hand drills to make holes in pieces of wood. The children have been learning to handle the tools with care, applying the right amount of pressure and control to create their holes. They showed great concentration and enthusiasm as they developed these new practical skills.
Next week, we’re excited to put these skills into practice by working together to build a class bug hotel for our outdoor area. Thank you to everyone who has collected natural resources to help fill our bug hotel—we really appreciate your support!

Stay & Learn
Thank you to everyone who attended our final Stay & Learn session today.  We hope you found the session helpful and came away with some useful tips and ideas for supporting your child’s fine motor skills. If you were unable to attend, click here to view the slides.

Home learning activity

Writing: using inverted commas

Year 3 are going to be writing a recount. What is a recount?

A recount re-tells events and describes what has happened.

Our recount will be inspired by a picture book called  ‘The Flood’ by Alvaro F. Villa.

In our recount we’re going to include; description, action and dialogue (direct speech).

We’ve began practising our use of inverted commas for direct speech…

Help at home by practising writing direct speech. Have a conversation with someone at home and write it down using inverted commas. Use the list of R2s above to help you!

Here’s some great examples from our learning.

Reading: Retrieval Race

In today’s lesson, Year 6 competed in a retrieval race. They were split up into teams and had to run to read through a text and then return to their group to recall all they had read. A key tip for retrieving is to scan the text for key words.

Help at home: What can your child remember about the Amazon Rainforest?

PE