The Chronicle

Excitement has been building in Junior 6 this week as they diligently prepare for the highly anticipated KS1 Sports Day next Wednesday. Demonstrating remarkable leadership skills, the children have been working collaboratively in groups to plan a range of activities for the younger pupils to compete in. We then spent a fantastic morning on the field setting up and testing these events. This will be such a great opportunity for Junior 6 to strengthen their ability to inspire and motivate others. Well done, Junior 6; your passion and hard work have really impressed us.

Junior 5S have been studying the artist, Raoul Dufy and finding out about his Regatta pictures. The pupils have now taken the idea of linking the artist’s work with meaningful Bible quotes. We liked the link between the sea, ships and boats and the teaching of Jesus and His disciples. Children have thought about creating movement and wind-blown sails to signify the continuous work of Jesus, moving with the times and staying to a true course.

As we embark on our final Science topic of the year, 'The Big Build,' Junior 4 has been immersed in the fascinating world of bridges and their structures. With a keen eye for detail, they have diligently studied the various types of bridges, gaining a deep understanding of their intricate designs. They then went on to design and make their very own bridges, which will be tested for their strength around the class. We have been so impressed with both the designs and the effort that has been put in to create them. As well as super Scientists, there are definitely some budding Engineers within our Junior 4 cohort. Well done, Junior 4 - your efforts are very impressive!

Junior 3 have been time travelling in Maths and learning all about the telling the time this week. Our class clocks have been an invaluable and fun resource for the children to use to show how an analogue clock works. The children have been using them to show o’clock, half-past, quarter past, quarter to and 5-minute intervals. Being able to practically move the hands of the clock has really helped the children understand the concept of calculating time passed, and time in the future. Well done, Junior 3!

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. The children will be making worry dolls using wooden pegs and wool so keep an eye out for them, they could help with any worries you have. In English, we are thinking of our own character to write a story about. Well done, Junior 2 on another very busy and productive week.

We start the last half-term of Junior 1 with the funny rhyming book of Oi Frog! as we thoroughly enjoy hearing about where animals should sit according to the object that rhymes with the type of animal they are. This led to our own rhyming poems using the same format and some hilarious results! Time was our topic in Maths where we learnt all about o’clock and half past the hour, as well as comparing times and reading a calendar. Being a weather forecaster was our task in Geography. Everyone had the chance to select what the weather was going to be like for a day and give us a weather forecast using a map of the UK and weather symbols. The history of Crayola crayons was delved into in History, and some amazing facts were learnt, such as they are over 120 years old and the first set only had eight colours!!

Maths this week was all about patterns in Reception, in particular using our visual skills to spot patterns when constructing and copying scenes. The children worked in pairs to discuss the positioning of various animals and structures, to create identical pictures - it was fabulous listening to the detailed conversations taking place.

We have also been getting ready for our Space Centre trip next week. We read the story: Snail in Space and this prompted some lovely writing from everyone as we created story maps, wrote the story in our own words, and then 'went to space' as we made a list of various planets, satellites and stars that we thought we might see. It is amazing to see how far everyone has come with their writing since September - we clearly have our own galaxy of stars!