The Chronicle

This week, Junior 6 have been working hard in English to engage their imagination in order to develop their writing skills. Ask any Junior 6 child and they will be able to give you a setting for a spooky story, using some extremely imaginative descriptive language! They have set Mrs Vaughan and Mrs Horan up for a few sleepless nights with horror filled nightmares! To settle the nerves, Junior 6 then worked on creating a calm and peaceful setting for their story, showing equally well-developed imaginations. The deserted asylums and eerie, misty grave yards in the dead of night were replaced with sun-filled sandy beaches, wave-lapped shores and swaying palm trees.

In Science, they have worked hard to understand the ‘ins-and-outs’ of the digestive system! Don’t ask them for too many details! They have developed an understanding of different food groups, devised well-balanced plates of food and established how diet needs to vary depending on the demands of different people or jobs. Altogether a productive week!

Junior 5 have been whipping up a storm in their Music lesson today, to the backdrop of Benjamin Britten’s ‘Storm’ Interlude. The dramatic piece of music provided ample material for pupils to create their own storm masterpieces.

Adapting her lesson to adhere with current social distancing measures, Head of Music, Mrs Susan Olden, explained how pupils were encouraged to think outside the box and use the limitations to their advantage. They utilised their chairs as a drumming base to tap out a rhythm, adding pens and pencils to serve as drumsticks. Pupils followed the lead from Mrs Olden at first, before splitting off to work in smaller groups.

We have also been extremely busy in Maths, we have continued to look at numbers up to a million; rounding them and making sure we can read their place value. In English, we have learnt what an explanation text is and what its features are. More excitingly, we have each designed our own spaceships. We drew and labelled them and then wrote a piece explaining how they fly, and how we are able to breath in space! This links perfectly with our science topic of ‘SPACE’ where we are learning about the solar system. In Art, we have just completed our Christmas cards and really hope our parents love them as much as we do and order lots of packs to send to families and friends.

Year 4 have been playing some familiar songs on their recorders during their music lessons with Mrs Olden. 

They have also been learning Young Voices songs for their shared performance at Young Voices at the Resorts World, Birmingham in June 2021. 

Joining the world’s largest children’s choir in the world, they will be celebrating 25 years of Young Voices with songs by the Beatles and the Muppets, to name but a few. 

Vikings are also on the agenda in Year 4 with Nordic music that will take you back to the old days when Vikings sailed across the cold seas and when Nordic people lived in longhouses with fireplaces to protect them from the bitter cold.  The music associated from this culture is now being shared with Year 4.

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Year 4 have also had a busy week learning about the different types and functions of teeth, how to write an amazing character description, continuing their knowledge of when and why the Romans came to Britain and that is just a few subjects! 

Mr Vaughan and Mrs Burley loved putting them through their paces with some land training in what would have been their swimming lesson - they will be fit and strong to resume swimming when the time comes.  

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During their RE lesson J4B enjoyed learning about The Holy Trinity this week.  By making a spinner they demonstrated that the Holy Trinity represents – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Just as the colours and the words all merged into one when they spun their spinners, God is three persons in one God. Through the Holy Trinity God has an understanding of our lives and has a greater capacity to love us.

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Isabella played her cornet to us this week.  In English, we have been working on describing familiar settings and the Great Hall in Harry Potter has been one of them. When we learned that one of our pupils could play 'Hedwig's Theme' and 'Double Trouble' to name a few, we just had to have her play to us. To say we were blown away is an understatement. We wish her lots of luck in her audition for the National Brass Band in a few weeks.

Junior 3 have been busy exploring the wonders of the Stone Age as we begin to delve into our first history topic of the year. We have all enjoyed finding out about the famous caves at Lascaux, before creating our own cave paintings using recycled paper, pastels, chalks and lots of crumpling and ripping to create a realistic rocky surface. It was very messy but we had lots of fun!

We have also got off to a flying start with our mathematical topic on ‘Place Value’, using a variety of equipment to explore three and four digit numbers and using this to help us compare, order and solve problems.

Well done to everyone for such a positive start to the year – we are so proud of their fantastic effort and their cheerful camaraderie.

Junior 2 have been reading The Twits during class and Mrs Paphitis has extended the story into their Drama lessons.

After reading a few chapters, the children then discussed the characteristics of Mr and Mrs Twit. Working in groups, they 'interviewed' Mr and Mrs Twit about The Frog and The Wormy Spagetti focussing on body language, facial and vocal expression. Next week they will all be acting out the scenes.

Junior 2 have also worked on their Independent Writing. The children focused on the story of John Patrick Norman McHennessy by John Burningham, the boy who told lies.

The pupils had to think up and write their excuses for not doing their homework and we had ideas such as 'a Megalodon ate my English and a tsunami came along and washed my homework away!'

Junior 1 have been reading The Three Little Pigs in class and this has been extended to Drama lessons with Mr Vaughan.  The class made the most of the good weather at the start of the week and took their lesson outside.  

Even reading sessions with Mr Kefalas have been in the sunshine this week.

This week in Science we also carried out an investigation looking at how some materials can change shape. We had some dough and an elastic band and experimented on stretching, pulling, pushing, twisting and changing their shape.

This week Junior 1 have also finished off their caves in DT. First, they used Mod-roc to create the cave shape. When it was dry they painted it to look like stone. On the inside they drew pictures, just like the cave people did thousands of years ago. We put a candle inside to represent a fire so it lights up the cave and we can see inside!

Our Reception class have been enjoying exploring Forest School with Mrs Clark this week.  All dressed up ready to explore, they played rolling down the bank, balancing in the hammock and on the swing and climbing the branches.

We are lucky to have Crackley Wood as a back drop for our school and this is an excellent venue for our Forest School.

We have also been enjoying the book Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson and discovered more about life in the jungle. The beautiful weather has given us the opportunity to do some of our lessons outside and we all loved exploring the different textures which can be achieved from bark rubbing.

Sequencing and sorting have been areas which we have investigated in our Mathematics lessons, and we thoroughly enjoyed making repeating patterns with shapes. We can’t wait to see what new experiences are in store for us next week!