History – Great Fire of London
We are really enjoying our history topic all about the Great Fire of London. We have learnt all about how it started, how it spread and how they tried to stop it. This week, we focussed on what people would have done and how they would have felt at the time. We were given different scenarios and then the children had to act out what they would have done. Would they stay? Would they leave? Take their things or leave them behind? Would they stay and help others or flee?
The children did a great job and thought very deeply about how people would be feeling and what they would do. Well done everyone!
Help at home by talking about the Great Fire of London. I’m sure the children will be very keen to show off their knowledge.
Living and Learning: protected characteristics
In Living and Learning, we looked at how we respect others. We discussed discrimination, protected characteristics and the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination is defined as “the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic.”
We remember the protected characteristics by using:
DR S GRAMPS
Disability
Race
Sex
Gender reassignment
Religion or beliefs
Age
Marriage or civil partnership
Pregnancy and/or maternity leave
Sexual orientation
We looked at different scenarios (both made up and real-life cases), where people were treated unfairly and tried to find a solution to the problem. Everyone is the class believes everyone should be treated fairly.
We now have a greater understanding that individual characteristics make everyone in the world unique and we can respect people in several different ways.
Help at home: Name the protected characteristics without looking.
Reminder: stay and learn
Stay and learn will take place next week.
It would be great to see you all there. It is a fantastic opportunity for you to learn how we deliver our lessons and the content that is covered. We are offering a coffee afterwards and a chance for you to ask questions about the lesson you saw.
Phonics Phase 2 and coffee morning –10.10.24 9-10am
Topic – The Golden Age of Ancient Greece!
Year 3 are well into their Topic for this half term – Ancient Greece.
Ancient Greece’s Golden Age (the time where it was at its best) lasted from around 800BC to 300BC. During this time, they were a very innovative civilisation. They’ve influenced our lives in so many ways and we made some posters to display this!
Sport
They founded the Olympics with many of the sports we still play today e.g. javelin, discus and horse racing.
The story of Marathon who ran the distance (42 km) which we still run now.
Language
Some of our language originates from Ancient Greek.
Art
The Ancient Greeks loved art and performance. From amphitheaters and amazing architecture to spending time making and decorating pottery, the Greeks did it all.
Philosophy and Writing
We have learnt a great deal from philosophers like Socrates and Plato. So much so, that we still think deeply about the world around us every Friday morning in Year 3.
But every good thing must come to an end! The Golden Age of Greece ended around 300BC due to a few reasons:
- City states like Athens and Sparta were warring over land, resources and power.
- The Romans were attacking and trying to invade to expand their empire.
- Greek oligarchies were being over thrown by the poorer communities as they felt they weren’t being listened to!
We created some freeze frames to match these scenarios in our lesson this week.
Help at home by exploring other ways that Ancient Greece has influenced our lives today! What else can you find?
Maths: multiples
Today, we investigated multiples and common multiples.
By working logically and systematically, we found the multiples of one number, eg 4, the multiples of another number, eg 3, and found the numbers in both lists, eg 12, 24 and 36.
Some of our learning involved adding numbers to Venn or Carroll diagrams and explaining our reasoning.
We had to work well as a team!
Help at home by recapping key terminology such as factor, multiple, prime and composite.
Connect Challenge
Today, the whole school completed our Connect Challenge, in memory of Rob Burrow, by running walking or skipping seven laps of the back playground and the green. All the children gave 100% and were even asking to do extra laps. It was a great active morning!
Thank you for your donations so far. You can still donate on Gateway until the end of the week with money raised to be split between the Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Appeal and our school charity, The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.
Living and Learning: I respect others.
In Living and Learning, we looked at how we respect others. We discussed discrimination, protected characteristics and the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination is defined as “the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic.”
We remember the protected characteristics by using:
DR S GRAMPS
Disability
Race
Sex
Gender reassignment
Religion or beliefs
Age
Marriage or civil partnership
Pregnancy and/or maternity leave
Sexual orientation
We looked at different scenarios (both made up and real-life cases), where people were treated unfairly and tried to find a solution to the problem. Everyone is the class believes everyone should be treated fairly.
We now have a greater understanding that individual characteristics make everyone in the world unique and we can respect people in several different ways.
Help at home: Name the protected characteristics without looking.
Watch us while we work
Thank you to those parents who were able to join us for our watch us while we work session this week. It was lovely to see so many.
Here’s a summary of what we covered and how we are encouraging the children to become more responsible for their learning at home.
Spellings – use the spelling guide for ideas to help with learning weekly spellings.
Sentence practice – use a picture as a stimulus for writing sentences including asking questions about what they can see.
Daily reading – we thought about some of the reading skills the children are learning in Year 2 (fluency, prosody (using expression in their voices), retrieval, interpret and learning new vocabulary). Reading needs to happen daily to build up these skills. A brief note in their reading record books is needed after reading at home. We will continue to monitor the use of e-books at home. Please alert us to any access issues.
Maths – our number tennis games included counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and number bonds to 10 and 20. Play these when you’re in the car, walking to school or making breakfast. Hit the Button is a great online game to build up the recall of these facts.
Numbots certificates are awarded every Tuesday and it’s great to see children already achieving their next levels in Year 2.
Finally, here’s the help at home section of the website.
Please get in touch if you need any further support with your child’s learning at home.
Science: An air-resistance experiment
For the past three science lessons, Year 5 have been planning, undertaking and evaluating a science experiment all about air resistance. Our enquiry type was ‘Comparative and Fair Tests’. The question we were answering was: ‘Will the surface area of a parachute affect the time it takes to fall to the ground?’ The children decided on their variables, made a prediction and then were able to create the parachutes they needed.
Once they were created, the children then went out to test their parachutes and conduct the experiment.
Once we had the results, we were able to look for any anomalous results (a result that does not fit the pattern; in Maths, this is called an outlier). We also looked at the mathematical element of this science lesson as Year 5 could then calculate the average times for the tests.
To present their findings, they created bar charts using the calculated average times. These charts helped to show how the surface area clearly impacted the fall time.
Finally, the children were able to conclude their results. They found out that the bigger parachute had a larger surface area and therefore, there was more air resistance so it was the slowest.
PE – Castles and Cannonballs
We are really enjoying our PE lessons this half term. We are learning a new game – Castles and Cannonballs. We are practising our fundamental movement skills by throwing balls, aiming and working collaboratively in a group. Over the next few weeks, we are going to change and adapt the game; adding different rules, using different equipment and using different parts of our body
