The Chronicle

Last Thursday and Friday, Junior 6 were treated to a visit from Police Constable Lund, who came to talk to the pupils about being safe and kind on the internet. He started off his talk explaining what the role of the police was – to keep people safe from harm. PC Lund expressed the enormity of the negative impact being unkind to someone has on them as a person and that once you’ve said it (or typed it) it cannot be taken back! He explained that EVERYTHING the children searched for or looked at, using a device, and for how long they looked at it, could be traced back to them. This was a great opportunity for the pupils and prepared them well for their next phases in life.

To finish off our latest Geography topic of mapping skills, Junior 5L went outside to take part in their first orienteering experience. The children were told to get into groups of six, each having a grid of coloured cones in front of them. They then had to take each of the 12 maps, in turn, and follow the instructions. Each cone had a number written underneath and they had to record each number, then each total for the 12 maps. When all 12 maps had been completed by all groups, they had to do a grand total for their group. Only one group managed to successfully add up their scores and win overall, but all the children enjoyed the experience – especially because we got to be outside in the sunshine for the lesson! The children are now more familiar with the eight compass points, which is great!

This week, Junior 4 have been exploring the wonder of trees and completing their very own tree poetry. Having visited the Forest School last week, to immerse themselves in the company of trees, the children have worked hard to combine their excellent personification phrases, super similes and exciting adjectives, to create a free-verse poem. The children then wrote one of their verses on a leaf template, which was then used to create a lovely class display. As we progress towards the end of Junior 4, each child continues to work incredibly hard and we are all looking forward to the many school events that are left to come. 

This week Junior 3 have been having a wonderful time exploring all sorts of mathematical lines: horizontal, vertical, diagonal and even parallel and perpendicular. We have spotted these lines in the environment and practised carefully drawing them using rulers. We have also reviewed our understanding of 2D and 3D shapes with some exciting exploratory activities such as making 3D shapes with toothpicks and marshmallows so we could clearly see and count the edges and vertices. It was great fun!  In English lessons, we are busy perfecting our powers of persuasion, in readiness for writing a persuasive letter to convince logging companies to stop cutting down our rainforests. Through our core-text The Great Kaopk Tree, combined with our learning about Plants in Science and Geography, we are acutely aware of the importance of doing all we can to protect and preserve the trees of our world. How fortunate that we have just planted several in celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee! We are absolutely loving this story. What a treat to find out about the range of animals living in just one tree! Two of our children just can’t put it down!

The Junior 2 children have been reading a story called Silly Billy. Billy's a bit of a worrier. He worries about so many things, like hats and rain and clouds and giant birds, that it keeps him awake at night. One night Billy stays at his grandma’s and tells her about being worried. She has the ideal solution – a set of worry dolls who will do Billy's worrying for him while he sleeps. Junior 2 made their very own worry dolls, and we hope that they have been helpful if any of our children have had any worries this week. We are flying through our Maths topic on measuring and the children welcomed some time using water to measure in millilitres and litres or grams and kilos, to measure in weight. Science saw us set up an experiment into the conditions that plants need to thrive; we will keep a close eye on them in this heat! We are getting very excited for our performance next week. Well done Year 2 on another very busy and productive week. 

Junior 1 were especially excited this week when Mrs Jackson-Maine’s English class came to visit so they could read their minibeast fact files to them. They went out into the sun for this task and both classes enjoyed the opportunity to either read their fact files or listen to them being read. Geography this week saw all of Junior 1 become weather forecasters. They had the chance to add weather symbols to a map of the United Kingdom and tell everyone what wild and crazy weather we should expect over the coming weeks. Science took us to the seaside and we learnt about crustaceans that live in rock pools, and what the life cycle of a crab is like. We then talked about how their life cycle is similar and different to the ones we learnt about when studying minibeasts and found they were more similar than we first thought.

This week in Reception we have been very active and creative! We have been writing our own ‘Under the Sea’ stories, using fabulous describing sentences and our phonics knowledge to help us. We have made the most of the wonderful weather too, with lots of learning outside and even some yoga in the shade of our beautiful oak tree