The Chronicle

This week Junior 6 have been exploring the life and work of vibrant symbolist Gustav Klimt. After researching Klimt’s work, the children went onto focus primarily on one of his most famous works: The Tree of Life. Both classes began by exploring the patterns and colours in his work and researching his other images. They then went onto craft their own trees in response, using a variety of media. Some amazing work was produced – Ms Holmes was thrilled!

Junior 5L have been learning about the creation of life in Religious Education this week. They have been exploring the Chinese, Inuit, Hindu and Christian creation stories, creating comic strips to retell the Chinese and Christian stories from beginning to end. The children watched a video clip about each story and through discussion they determined seven steps to the stories that became the model for the comic strips. They also discovered some similarities and differences between the stories.

Junior 4 celebrated Roald Dahl by discussing some of the main characters in Matilda. The children learnt French words for some members of the family and did fabulous work using tricky adjectives to describe people. They also enjoyed time in the outdoor classroom, translating sentences and cracking the code to find a new word. Vous êtes fantastiques J4!

What a merveilleux week Junior 3 have had! We began the week greeting each other in as many different languages as we could in celebration of ‘European Day of Languages’, which was on Monday. We knew how to say ‘hello’ in French, Spanish, Italian, Yoruba, Mandarin, German and Swahili. Continuing on our linguistic journey, we have enjoyed many exciting lessons in our home language as we have got to grips with homophones and prepositions in our English lessons. We have practised using the trickiest of homophones: their, there and they’re, and know some clever tricks to help us remember which spelling to use. We also had a wonderful time learning about prepositions of place, as we took turns to position little lego men in a Stone Age camp setting. We are feeling confident that all our talk for writing will enable us to use this language next week when we move on to writing our own setting descriptions! In our French lessons we have been practising our French phonics and learning colours. We now know that postboxes in France are yellow and the national football team is known as ‘Les Bleus’. Great work- Allez J3!

Junior 2 have been exploring castles and learning how they worked. We have looked at the different types of castles and seen many different types. This week, we were lucky enough to make our very own castles. We even made our own shield where we used our imagination to make a crest of our own. We have also celebrated International Day where we made flags and used our creative skills to create our own flags.

This week Junior 1 have been learning about the sense of sight in Science. They were fascinated to hear all about how our eyes are so precious to us and what it would be like if we were unable to see. Everyone was interested to learn about Louis Braille and how he invented a system where we can use our fingertips to be able to read. The discussion then led on to how we now have the help of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Elliott in Junior 1G, brought in his certificate for his sponsored Guide Dog Betty, which the children loved hearing all about! What a wonderful opportunity for the children to bring their learning to life. Mrs Olden is really enjoying her music lessons with Junior 1 and she is so impressed with the progress they are making with their recorders. Well done everyone and we hope to hear you playing in Celebration Assembly before too long!

This week Reception have been learning all about their feelings and how to recognise how others are feeling. They have been using the story of The Colour Monster to help them. They have been learning about their senses, and enjoyed exploring the school grounds, seeing what they could smell, see, hear, touch and taste. They have also been applying their observational skills to help them with their self-portraits.