The Chronicle

This week Junior 6 have been doing some wonderful work in their Art lessons.  They have been looking at the work and art of Gustav Klimt, an Austrian artist, who helped develop the Art Nouveau movement. 

Junior 6 have studied his famous mural 'The Tree Life' which is a symbolic painting representing life and growth and have interpreted it to be representative of their own unfurling and unfolding lives. 

Each class has been given a different scenario and has used mixed media to create their own representations of the original painting.

Our topic this half term is ‘What’s Going on Around the World?’. We have decided to ignore all Covid-19 stories and, instead, research happier, and sometimes more bizarre, news stories. The most interesting news we found out is that a sea slug has been discovered (in Japan), which can regenerate its own heart and other organs even after being decapitated! WOW!

In other news, Junior 5 have been learning how to create tension and suspense in their writing. The J5 teachers have been ‘chilled to the bone’ with some of the descriptions the children have created this week.

Since being back in school Junior 4 have been really enjoying lots of practical science. It all kicked off with British Science Week when we investigated the role oxygen plays in burning flames. We imagined we were young Antione Lavoisiers and Joseph Priestlys, discovering oxygen for the first time! We investigated different melting points, our favourite being the chocolate experiment – I wonder why?

Finally, observing the changing state of water in the ice cube investigation, kettle boiling and, then the salt and ice investigation, left us asking lots of questions which we will be answering in our lessons about the water cycle next week.

This week Junior 3 have continued to find out about Mary Anning and her astonishing discoveries. We have redrafted our paragraphs from last week and thought carefully about all the elements of successful non-fiction writing, from subheadings to diagrams, captions to concise facts! We have absolutely loved making decisions about what information to include and how to present our final posters. I am sure you will agree they look fossiltastic and contain an impressive amount of information! 

Junior 2 have had their investigative heads on yet again this week as we looked at Plants in our Science topic. We were trying to find out if and how, plants drink. The children have enjoyed experimenting with food dye and celery; seeing if the colour rises up the stem overnight. Results to follow! We have also been tiptoeing quietly into the events of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and finding out why people turned against Jesus during that fateful time. The challenge has been set to recall all the diners at the Last Supper!

This week Junior 1 have been busy learning about nocturnal animals, in particular ‘Owls’. After discovering lots of information about owls, they have written some brilliant facts, which will be on display in the classrooms in the disguise of an owl itself – just lift the wings to read the facts! This led to owls being created from card tubes in our Art/DT lessons, which were such fun to make. In geography we have been busy learning which countries make up the UK and where they are on a map.

Science took us away from birds this week and onto fish. Once the parts of a fish were labelled and different fish recognised, there was the opportunity to learn new facts, such as a sailfish can swim faster than a submarine - fascinating!

It has been another busy and fun-filled week in Reception as we continued to explore ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy, by imagining what Baby Bear would do next. Brilliant ideas abounded as we wrote about visits to far flung places such as Easterland and Mars by means of rocket boosters, cardboard boxes and a dustbin, to name but a few. With our feet back on terra firma we enjoyed painting lunar landscapes in Art & DT and in Understanding the World we discussed and then drew what the moon is like compared to what we can see outside our classroom window.

We also had a super time in Forest School and enjoyed more outdoor learning in our Ball Skills lesson with Mrs Thomas. What another great week at school!