The Chronicle

This week, Junior 6 have transported themselves back in time to the 18th Century and have been thinking about highwaymen and highway robbery.  We have begun our study of the classic narrative poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, set in 18th-century rural England. This poem tells the story of an unnamed highwayman who is in love with Bess, a landlord's daughter. Betrayed to the authorities by Tim, the jealous ostler, the highwayman escapes ambush when Bess sacrifices her life to warn him and then learning of her death, he is killed in a futile attempt at revenge. We have focussed on the different language used in the poem, sequenced events and also wrote our own versions of the story. We were interested to set the poem in context when we researched information about highwaymen in general, as well as 18th Century transport and weapons.

In Junior 5 this week the children have been celebrating the weird and wonderful as we look at the life cycles of a series of con-conforming critters such as the kangaroo or dung beetles! First the children set out to research their animals, paying close attention to any surprising differences such as how the platypus (a mammal) lays eggs! They then went on draw and annotate diagrams telling us in detail about how these peculiar animals develop and any other fascinating facts of note. The brilliant flair and individuality on show in J5 never fails to impress. Keep it up children!

Junior 4 have been very creative this week as part of Mental Health Week. In Computing, they have created PowerPoints on how to look after their mental health and well-being. They have also enjoyed making positive affirmation fortune tellers, and have patiently coloured in mindfulness patterns, whilst listening to the teaching staff reading their class novel aloud.  

As part of their ‘Growing Together’ theme, Junior 4 also thought about how they would like to grow emotionally, by creating their reach for the stars goals.

Junior 3H have had enormous fun this week, thinking about the Egyptian ‘mummification’ process and all that entailed. Through discussion and an amazing clip of how a third century BC character, Parocletes, was mummified, we used beef tomatoes to replicate the drying out process, using sea salt and bicarbonate of soda! Watch this space for the outcome, which should take around 40 days. Junior 3V have been creating art on a grand scale! Every Friday we eagerly scurry off to the art room to work on our sarcophagus project, where each of us (teachers included) are completely absorbed in creating our own life-sized sarcophagus. So far, we have learned all about the proportions of the face and how to shade to create a 3D effect, as well as creating some impressive headdresses. Now we are busy painting symmetrical designs fit for a pharaoh on the coffins. We can’t wait to embellish them with gold, bronze, glitter and jewels. Beware if you enter the art room – you may be met with a gloriously grizzly surprise!  In French Junior 3 have also been learning how to talk about birthdays. The children showcased some impressive acting abilities in their celebrity interview role plays! Bravo Junior 3.

Junior 2 have continued to enjoy their topic on China. This week, we have used our senses to experience different Chinese food during our Science lessons and we then recorded our findings. We loved all of the different smells and tastes of the food. In English, we enjoyed making our own cartoon strips of The Willow Pattern story and we then went on to write our own versions. After looking at the Willow Pattern design in class, we took the opportunity to recreate it in our Art lesson. Our Maths lessons have been all about the numbers 2, 5 and 10 as we continue to practise our times tables, make tally charts and pictograms, as well as recording information in a bar chart! Finally our highlight of the week has been our visit to Forest School where we were free to explore the great outdoors as part of Mental Health Week. There has been so much to smile about in class as this half term begins to draw to an end!

Junior 1 started the week by learning how to say who they live with in French. They are learning how to say mummy, daddy, brother and sister with beautiful French accents to help describe their families. We discovered that if you are a vegetarian you could also be called a herbivore! It was our final week of Mrs Armitage in English and we used everything we learnt to help write out the story in our own words and created a wonderful mini booklet of the story, with brightly coloured pictures to match. The capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, was the focus in Geography, and after pretending we went to visit, we wrote a postcard home to describe the most famous sights of this historic city. In DT we made rockets and flying saucers that both flew through the air – great fun!

This week Reception have been learning all about farm animals in preparation for their visit to the farm next week. They have been learning to name and match baby animals to their adults and finding out about where animals live.  Reception have also enjoyed playing in the farm shop roleplay area and have been learning where our food comes from. They have listened to the story called What The Ladybird Heard and had a go at creating their own farm maps linked to the story.