The Chronicle

This week in Art, Junior 6 are continuing their exploration into Pop Art. Looking at the work of acclaimed artist Andy Warhol, the children investigated how they could make a simple drawing of a piece of fruit bold and eye-catching. Once they chose their fruit, they started to create their pop art interpretations from it using pen and paint. We had purple bananas, pink kiwis and even orange apples! It’s so fantastic to see the children use their imagination and creativity to fully express themselves. Well done Junior 6, we can’t wait to see your finished works of art!

This week, Junior 5 have had a fantastic time on their residential trip to PGL, Boreatton Park. The children have been learning new skills through a range of different activities: archery, giant swing, abseiling and more. They have also been demonstrating their teamworking skills in orienteering, raft building and Jacob’s ladder. They had to work together to achieve their objective, whether that be creating a raft that floats on the lake, reaching the top or finding different things around the park. As well as their activity packed days, the children have had enjoyable evenings playing Cluedo, disco dancing and of course experiencing a traditional campfire. Overall, the children have had an amazing experience. 

Junior 4R have been exploring storms in music this week.  They listened to a piece of music called Storm by Benjamin Britten, written in 1945 and which forms part of a musical interlude from an opera called Peter Grimes about a struggling and lonely fisherman.  They created the drama of the music through the pictures they were drawing. They listened to all the brass instruments, paying particular attention to the dynamics of the music, beginning with the powerful and loud fortissimo, whilst ending with the very soft dynamic of the piantissimo, and they talked about their feelings through sound of being terrified on the sea. We also did a rehearsal with the whole year group for our upcoming Summer show.

Junior 3 are really getting to grips with their new Science topic on plants. Following on from our understanding of the different parts of the plant, we have now looked closely at the parts of a flower. In our Science lesson we completed a ‘daffodil dissection’ and identified each part as we carefully dissected. In pairs, we were able to name and label all these parts and also to explain their functions. We were amazed to discover that one part of the plant has the same name as part of the female anatomy. We are now really looking forward to finding out more about pollination and how these parts of the flower each help to make more plants. Let’s hope there is some sunshine soon and we will see more flowers blossoming all around us too.

Junior 2 have been exploring the Tin Forest, a tale that follows a solitary man who, amidst a desolate landscape of urban decay in discarded scraps of metal, transforms his surroundings into a place where he finds solace and creativity. Through his boundless imagination he turns his environment into a beautiful, lush, and vibrant forest made of tin.

As the man’s forest thrives so does his spirits; this is exactly how we have felt as we have compared, sequenced, and created our very own tin objects to create a little forest of our very own. The message has been clear, through resilience and hope, we can all create magic and bring joy to others.

During PE we were learning how to improve our hand eye coordination. Mr Vaughan has shown us how we can catch a ball and roll it with a boxed barrier.

Junior 1 have shown such enthusiasm in our Maths lessons this week and there has been a wonderful buzz in the classrooms. Everyone had lots of opportunity to investigate with different manipulatives to make arrays and doubles, and to finally share them equally into groups. We saw some fabulous, practical work individually and in pairs which really brought our Maths alive. Our English lessons gave us the opportunity to practise our knowledge of adjectives when we wrote sentences from the story of Handa’s Surprise which described the fruit in Handa’s basket. We then went on to write our own adjectives for a different set of fruit. Everyone also had to remember their capital letters, full stops and word spaces whilst forming letters correctly and sitting them on the line - phew! There is always so much to remember when writing correct sentences!

This week in Reception we have had a fast and fabulous look at train journeys. From watching what the journey through the tunnel to Paris was like, to exploring friction by sending trains down ramps – we have enjoyed finding out more. In our Understanding The World lesson the children were able to explore a range of materials, work in pairs and ultimately decide which surface produced less friction and allowed the trains to travel further. Everyone enjoyed getting competitive – and it was almost as exciting as our Quidditch day!  However, we all agreed that Quidditch was brilliant fun, scoring points for our houses by throwing the ‘quaffle’ through the hoop – whilst dodging the pesky ‘bludgers’… and then, Mrs Brannon made us all smile by becoming a wonderful ‘snitch’ at the end. The children kept her on her toes, running in all different directions trying to catch her. Thank you to the PTA for organising all the fun, we hope we can play Quidditch again soon!