Living and learning – I take part in democratic decisions.
Today, we had great pleasure in listening to some children read aloud their JLT speeches. Our living and learning statement this week is all about democracy and letting children have a voice within our school. It’s that time of year again where we create our new Junior Leadership Team and the children put themselves forward for nomination. They prepared some amazing speeches that talked about their personal qualities and what ideas they have to make our school an even more happy and healthy place to learn.
They spoke clearly and with prosody in front of the class and they’ve definitely made our decision of who to vote for, very difficult.
Good luck to all our candidates.
Writing: Relative Clauses
Over the last couple of writing lessons, we’ve been learning about relative clauses.
A relative clause adds information to the subject (noun) in a main clause.
They start with a relative pronoun such as which, who, whose or that.
Georgie, who is a girl in our class, has several dogs.
who is a girl in our class is the relative clause
Georgie has several dogs is the main clause.
The relative clause adds information about Georgie (the subject of the sentence and one of the nouns).
Help at home: See if your child can write a sentence with a relative clause in it!
Reading: The tables have turned.
This week, we’ve been sharpening our retrieval skills in reading and becoming experts on a text all about ancient Egyptian tombs.
Using our R2s (read, scan, record, check), we’ve practised finding information in the text and checking our answers. Then, it was the children’s turn to become the teachers!
They crafted their own retrieval questions and wrote them directly onto their tables, turning them into giant whiteboards. They then challenged their classmates to come over, find the information in the text and write their answers on the table.
Our teachers did a brilliant job putting everyone’s knowledge to the test. There was lots of careful reading, thoughtful questioning and fun along the way.
That was until they had to clean the tables!
Help at home: Quiz your child on the R2s for retrieval.
Living and learning
Our living and learning statement has been about respecting others. We linked this to our knowledge of the protected characteristics.
There are nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act:
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- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
We use the DR GRAMPSS acronym to remember these characteristics. Our class discussions focused on respectful relationships, helping us to understand the importance of respect and tolerance.
Science
We are being biologists this half term and we’re studying organisms – plants and animals. This week’s lesson, the children were using classification keys to identify different plants and trees. First, they used an existing key to work out some different trees. They had to use their knowledge of whether trees were deciduous or evergreen, whether they flowered or produced fruit or even if they produce cones.
The children then had a go at creating their own classification keys. They had to think of different scientific questions in order to organise and classify some different trees.
Maths – year 6
This week, the children have been looking at different scales and graphs. They have become experts at saying what they can spot when they’re given an unknown graph of information. Today, they were able to work out missing intervals and estimate the size of the columns on this graph.
They were then given to time to show me what else they knew from looking at the graph. The could calculate the sum of minutes for different children and they could also work out the difference of minutes. They knew which calculations they needed to perform. It was great to see the children using effective mental methods such as scaling, rather than relying on written methods.
Science: We are biologists
This half term, we are learning about Biology: the study of living things.
We are biologists!
To help us, we are learning this key vocabulary.
Help at home: Ask your child to tell you the definitions of our key vocabulary. Alternatively, give them the definition and get them to tell you the word. Even better if: play charades and act out the vocabulary to help your child remember it!
PE
This term in PE, we are focusing on hockey. The children have been learning how to hold a hockey stick so that they have strength and accuracy. The have learnt some different passes such as, push pass, slap pass and hit pass. The hit pass is everyone’s favourite as you get to hit the ball really hard!
The children worked in pairs to practise their passing and receiving skills and they definitely became more accurate as the lesson went on. They even managed a game of ‘Piggy in the middle’ in which they had to intercept the ball and evade other players.
Topic: Digging Into the Distant Past
This half term, Year 5/6 are stepping back thousands of years as we delve into the fascinating worlds of Stone Age Britain and Ancient Egypt.
We have kicked off our new history topic by exploring what life was like in Stone Age Britain, discovering how early people lived, hunted, built shelters and survived without all the things we take for granted today. Over the coming weeks, we will journey through the Bronze Age and Iron Age, before travelling much further afield to uncover the mysteries of Ancient Egypt.
This week, the children also became historians themselves! They carried out their own independent research into the Bronze Age, using trusted websites to discover key facts and information. It was also a great opportunity to practise an important skill: researching safely online and thinking carefully about which websites and sources we can trust.
There is plenty more to uncover this half term, from hunter-gatherers and early settlements to pharaohs, pyramids and the River Nile!
Help at home: Ask your child about their new topic vocabulary.
Living and Learning: I know the school rules.
Our School Rules
At our school, we follow three simple rules to help everyone learn, feel happy and stay safe:
We’re respectful – We treat everyone and everything with kindness, listen to others and look after our school community. This includes friends, peers, adults, equipment and more!
We’re ready – We come prepared to learn, give our best and take responsibility for our choices. This could be having our purple pen ready at the start of a session to complete our step ups!
We’re safe – We make sensible choices, follow instructions and help keep ourselves and others safe. This could be during playtime, PE, online and more!
Together, these three rules help make our school a positive place where everyone can thrive.
In Year 5 and 6, the children have made a really positive start to the school year by following these rules.
Help at home: See if your child can remember the three school rules.