World History topic
This week marks the beginning of our latest topic: World History. In this topic, children will be learning about one of three civilisations: Benin, Ancient Islamic and Maya.
Today, we had a ‘taster’ session of each civilisation and found out lots of things we never knew:
- Did you know that the Mayans may have invented basketball?
- Or, did you know that the Ancient Islamic Civilisation were inventing machines that may have helped humans to fly thousands of years before the Wright brothers?
Children will now complete an independent research task to create a fact-filled project board about a civilisation of their choice whilst focusing on skills related to the foundation subject age-related expectations for Year 5 and Year 6.
It might look something like this:
You could help at home by:
- asking your child to think about the pros and cons for researching each civilisation
- spending time researching their chosen civilisation with them (using a range of reliable sources – not just Google!)
- encouraging them to carry out independent research
- discussing the importance of using reliable (and appropriate) sources when researching
School Saving Accounts
Our next paying in session for children with School Saving Accounts is this week.
- Wednesday 22 June 3.15pm
You’re welcome to accompany your child to pay in their money. If you can’t come, or maybe your child is at an after-school club, you can bring money to the office in a sealed envelope marked ‘School Saving Account’ with your child’s paying in card and this will be deposited into their account.
Also, it’s not too late to open an account. Please ask at the office for an application form.
The next paying in session this term is Wednesday 20 July 3.15pm.
What is peer pressure?
As part of our RSE learning, we talked about peer pressure and used our ever-improving dramatic skills. We discussed what peer pressure is, when it might happen, different ways it can happen and how we might deal with it.
In groups, we then acted out scenarios in which somebody is being put under pressure by their peers but in all sorts of different ways.
EU. Are you in or are you out?
We’ve had a heated couple of lessons over the last two days exploring the key issues that are central to the most topical question in Britain right now:
Should Britain remain in the European Union?
We started off by making sure we all knew what the EU was and what the referendum was all about before discussing five key issues: immigration, terrorism and security, jobs and employment, economy and the cost of being in the EU. In groups, we found out more about the remain and leave opinions on these matters and started developing our own opinions.
The following day, we decided which side we’d like to debate on (and interestingly had a 50:50 split) and prepared our group for a debate.
We’re all seasoned debaters now so we took to the stage like naturals to argue it out with our opposition and convince the audience to vote like us.
Then, having learnt about both sides ourselves and debated our hearts out, we gave our final vote.
Rio Challenge
This week, we have launched skills drills Rio Challenge. Linked to the upcoming Rio Olympics, pupils can attempt a series of ten timed sports drills based around core skills from different Olympic events. These include hockey, gymnastics, rugby and athletics.
Children can be part of this online competition against their peers and other schools and we will be uploading times for the quickest drills.
The drills will be carried out in PE lessons and at lunchtime. You could even have a go at home.
Rio challenge drills are led by Sports Leaders at lunchtime.
Rocket seeds
Our rocket seed experiment came to an end on the last Friday before half-term when we completed our final measurement. We’ve now submitted the results to the Principia mission and they’ll add what we found to the results of all the other schools taking place.
Having looked at the information we’ve gathered, which do you think are the seeds from space?
When all of the data has been collated, the agency will be in touch with us to let us know what they found out and finally tell us which seeds are which!
Great start!
Year 5 have had a fantastic start to their final term before moving into Year 6. They’ve been focused, followed instructions straight away and have shown a wonderful level of maturity.
Our RSE (relationships and sex education) has been met with a sensible attitude and a curious nature making the lessons informative, comfortable and a safe place to ask questions. Keep this up, not only through RSE, but for the rest of the year.
Flash back to money week…
We all really enjoyed money week and got up to all sorts throughout the week which Mrs Taylor has already updated you on. Here are some pictures for you to see us in action…
We played games which required our money skills and then designed our own money games.
We smashed records with HOTSHOTS, raising lots of money along with having great fun.
We put our creative heads together to use recycling and modroc to make our own money boxes and start saving.
We had a second go at making animations, but this time we had a budget to spend and we took up some bartering to get our costs down.
What a great week!
Rights and responsibilities
I’d like to flash back to before half term to show you some of our fantastic homework completed to demonstrate what the children learnt through our rights and responsibilities SEAL theme.
As always, there were some brilliantly creative examples of work and we thoroughly enjoyed looking at, reading, playing and admiring each others’ efforts.
Euro 2016 themed menu
To celebrate UEFA’s European Football Championship 2016, Catering Agency will be running a special themed menu on Tuesday 21 June. Please contact the office if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
