Year 5

Over the last two weeks, Year 5 has been busy exploring a range of exciting, new topics. In English, we have been working on building our writing skills, focusing on diary entries. The children have been writing from the perspective of soldiers in the British trenches during Christmas Day 1914, inspired by our class book The Christmas Truce. This has provided a wonderful opportunity for the children to develop empathy and understand the emotions and experiences of people during World War I. 

In science, our focus has been on the planets of our solar system. We’ve been investigating the length of each planet's orbit and looking for patterns. The children discovered that planets closer to the Sun tend to have shorter orbits. This has led to some fantastic discussions about gravity, speed and the scale of our solar system.

In history, we have begun exploring World War I. We’ve been learning about the complex alliances and empires that contributed to the war, and how tensions escalated into a global conflict. Using maps of Europe from 1914, the children have been able to visually explore how geography played a role in the war.

Last week, during STEM Week, our focus was the intriguing question, “What if there was no light?” The children designed and played their own games, adapting them for a world without light by using blindfolds. It was a lot of fun and the children demonstrated great teamwork and creativity.

Finally, in maths, we have been working with multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100, and 1000, improving our number sense and understanding of place value.

We look forward to another busy couple of weeks ahead!

Science: Forces word mat

Geography: word mat

  

                           

w/b 11.11.24

Spelling rule: Words with ‘silent letters’

Key words: empire, alliance, assassination, orbit, satellite, pattern, commutative, prime, composite, multiple 

Maths facts: Doubles and halves of all 2-digit numbers up to 50

 

w/b 18.11.24

Spelling rule: Words with ‘silent letters’

Key words: numerator, denominator, vinculum, equivalent, sources, artilery, trench, colony, planet, galaxy 

Maths facts: Doubles and halves of all 2-digit numbers up to 50

 

Key Messages: 

26th November - Starlite class assembly at 9am

27th November - Moonstone class assembly at 9am

28th November - Peridot class assembly at 9am

4th December - Poppy Factory Trip

 

Year 6

It has been wonderful to have the children back to school after their extended break and we are proud to see them hit the classroom with the same momentum in which they left. Y6 have been introduced to some new exciting topics while continuing to dive deeper into more familiar areas of their curriculum. 

We kicked the half term off with a fantastic Science Week where we explored the wonders of science through a variety of fun and educational activities. The theme for this year was "Change and adapt", focusing on environmental changes, adaptations in animals and exploring our project question: What if we could not see light? After thorough research in paralympic sports, the children designed their own sports balancing practical elements while also removing their sense of sight. Creativity and enthusiasm filled the school Friday afternoon during our science fair so thank you to all that contributed and were able to make it! 

In core science, we’ve continued our journey through living things and their habitats by introducing evolution and inheritance. Mary Anning as our inspiration, the classes become student palaeontologists aiming to piece together prehistoric creatures using minimal fossil fragments. Y6 discovered at first hand the difficulty in visualising these creatures and problems that occurred during the time of their excavation.  

Linking with our science topic, Y6 have created their own animal to be the subject of their own non-chronological report. The children really enjoyed designing their new species and with so much new factual information to present, Y6 developed their uses of relative clauses and complex sentence structures to include it all with cohesion. 

Year 6 has been working hard on mastering the concept of multiplying fractions by integers. It’s been a challenging but rewarding topic and the students have shown great progress in their understanding. 

In the coming weeks, Y6 will be diving into a pivotal event in World War II, the Battle of Britain, while in DT designing blueprints for their own birdhouse!

  

                        

w/b 11.11.24

Spelling rule: Words ending in -able

Key words: adorable, valuable, advisable, believable, desirable, excitable, knowledgeable, likeable, changeable, noticeable.

 

w/b 18.11.24

Spelling rule: Words ending in -ably

Key words: adorably, valuably, believably, considerably, tolerably, changeably, noticeably, dependably, comfortably, reasonably.

 

 

Key Messages: 

Bikability:

25th November - Garnet & Kyanite

2nd December - Garnet & Jet

 

Battle of Britain Bunker trip:

2nd December - Kyanite

11th December - Jet

12th December - Garnet