🎄 Merry Christmas to all our children and their families and best wishes for a wonderful 2023. 🎅🏽

Week 8

And the final week of term has arrived. We started with a great pantomime of 'Mother Goose' which we really enjoyed.

We also continued with our space art project. This week, we created our own space art by using the skills that we have been learning so far and my using Peter Thorpe's artwork as inspiration. We created our art in stages: we dribbled paint onto a black background (as Peter does) to create a cosmic feel; we used light and tone to create chalk planets (and tried to make them look spherical); and we created a rocket. We then put all of these components together to create our very own calendars- we are rather proud of them.

We learnt about the movement of the Earth around the Sun. We created these models to help us to explain the reasons why we get day and night.

Officers Bob and Mark came in to wish us a Merry Christmas. They showed us their handcuffs and some of us got the opportunity to try them on! 👮🏽‍♂️👮🏽‍♂️

Week 7

Well.. what a busy and festive week we have had! Thank you to all those who came to our KS2 Christmas Carol Concert on Monday. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did performing. We worked very hard to learn so many new songs, and Miss Pritchard was very proud of us. We have also enjoyed watching the dress rehearsals for both the EYFS and KS1 performances. On Friday, we enjoyed dressing up in our Christmas jumpers and having our Christmas dinner. We were lucky enough to be joined by Officers Bob and Phil from the Mercia SNT and had an impromptu dance performance from Miss Pritchard and Mrs Ritson.

In English this week, we have been continuing to sentence stack our Mars transmission and have been exploring the surface of Mars as part of our experience day. In Maths, we have been continuing to convert mixed numbers into improper fractions and have also been learning how to compare and order fractions.

In Science, we have been learning about how Earth and the other planets travel around the solar system. We learnt about the geocentric and heliocentric models of the solar system and carried out some research about the scientist Nicolaus Copernicus (who created the heliocentric model of the Earth orbiting the Sun). We also made predictions about the length of the orbits of each planet. We were amazed to hear that Neptune takes 165 Earth years! 

In art, we have been busy making our Christmas cards- there are no photos of these yet as that will give away the surprise. We have also been looking at the work of Peter Thorpe and will be using his abstract rocket art as inspiration for our own space art, which we will turn into calendars. We have been collecting ideas in our sketchbooks and have also been learning how to use shade and tone to make circles appear 3D. We will continue with this next week.

Week 6

Our rehearsals for the Key Stage 2 Christmas Carol Concert have been in full swing this week. We are really looking forward to performing to you on Monday. There are two shows: one at 2:15pm and another at 5pm. Please use the Microsoft Forms link on Parent Hub to reserve your tickets.

In the classroom this week, we have been continuing with our work on fractions. We had a supply teacher on Tuesday and impressed him with our knowledge of equivalent fractions (which we have been working very hard on). We have been discussing how we can make our maths learning easier by becoming more secure in our multiplication and division facts. We have also been learning how to convert between improper fractions and mixed numbers.

We have been busy turning our research on the solar system into some amazing double page spreads and we also learnt about the shape of the Earth, sun and moon. We learnt about how the Earth is an almost sphere (or an oblate spheroid) which is larger around the equator than it is from North to South pole. We also learnt about how it changes in size by about 20cm throughout the day. We worked in partners to study some scientific evidence from the past and present day and discussed whether they support the theory of whether the Earth is flat or spherical. We learnt about Aristotle and his theory about what happens to ships as they sail into the horizon. We then tested this out ourselves with an investigation of moving a toy further away on a flat surface and on a curved surface (see the pictures below).

We also had our final dance session with Isobel and Matilda from Deda. We thought about all the vocabulary that we have learnt this term: transition, dynamics, contact, cannon and unison. We then took the key parts of the choreography for our space dance and rearranged them into our own version, whilst also using contact, transition and cannon to add extra effect. The adults in the room were super impressed with our ideas, focus and performance.

Week 5

This week was our assessment week. We worked really hard on the computers to answer lots of questions about reading, spelling and maths. Miss Pritchard was really impressed by our positive attitude and how hard we tried to complete all the questions. During the sessions, we also carried out some research about the different planets of the solar system. We have started to create our very own double page spreads to show what we have learnt.

We have spent a lot of time this week working with Year 6 to create our own games for our Christmas Fayre. It was great fun to work with new people and we demonstrated lots of entrepreneurial skills. Thank you to everyone who came along and supported us. The Year 5/6 stalls generated £311 profit alone!

This week, we were visited by Officers Bob and Phil from the Mercia Safer Neighbourhood Team. Officer Bob has created a great link with our school over the past year and the new Year 5s were very excited to get the chance to have a Q&A with him. Bob and Phil talked about how they use speed guns to monitor how fast people are driving through our village. He talked about how people get points on their licence and asked us to encourage everyone we know to keep their speed within the limits. Officer Bob also joined us for the Fayre and enjoyed testing out our games. Miss Pritchard also got the chance to redeem herself for failing to provide Bob with his favourite treat (Jaffa Cakes) when he visited last week.

Week 4

In English this week, we have been continuing to write our Mars transmission. We moved on to a new shape and wrote about the disaster that had happened to us. We have been using literary devices such as subordinate conjunctions and conditional 'if' sentences. Please see below for our transmission writing so far.

In Maths, we have been reflecting on what we have learnt about multiplication and division in this block, such as prime and composite numbers and square and cube numbers. We did an assessment and a challenge where we had to find a square and cube number that would add together to make a particular number. We have also started our new unit on fractions. We discussed what we have previously learnt about fractions and completed some practical activities to build on and demonstrate our knowledge of equivalent unit fractions.

We have also started our first Y5 science topic on 'Earth and Space'. We thought about a fact that we already know about space and shared these with each other. We then played 'True, False or Maybe' and discussed any misconceptions that we have, such as there is less gravity in space rather than no gravity. We have also been really enjoying listening to the book 'Curiosity' about the story of the Mars rover with the same name during our DEAR (drop everything and read) sessions.

On Monday, we enjoyed cheering England on in their first World Cup game. We got together with Y6 and the atmosphere (and the game) was amazing. We have also been spending lots of time with Y6 rehearsing our songs for the Christmas carol service and preparing posters for our games for next week's Christmas Fayre- we hope that many of you can join us for these events.

We have been continuing with our swimming lessons at Etwall Leisure Centre. In our dance lesson, we learnt a kindness dance to help us to warm up. Our key word this week was ‘contact’. We worked with a partner to have a go at mirroring. We have been thinking about eye contact and physical contact. We even had a go at doing some lifts!

Week 3

This week, we have started our new book 'The Jamie Drake Equation' by Christopher Edge. We have enjoyed using the cover of the book to make inferences and predictions about the text, and to deepen our background understanding before we dive into the first chapter next week. In our English sessions, we have also started our sentence stacking lessons for our transmission from Mars. We have been using literary devices such as: acronyms, technical language, precise verbs, euphemisms and informal speech.

In maths, we have been continuing our work on multiplication and division by building on our knowledge of multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.

This week was Anti-Bullying Week. We watch a BBC Live Lesson with Miss House and discussed what bullying means to us and our school. Below is a document that you might like to share at home. It is a flowchart that helps children to decide what to do if they witness bullying online (and can also be applied to bullying they see in 'real life' situations).

We have finally finished our shield sewing! We hope you agree that they look fabulous! We have worked so hard on them and are very proud.

Week 2

This week, we continued to look at our model transmission text. We learnt about the different shapes that we will use to construct our own version (e.g. 'adventure called' and 'determination') and picked out key vocabulary which showed us which paragraphs belonged to each shape. We then chopped up the text into jigsaw pieces and used the shapes to put it back together again.

We have been learning about multiples and factors in maths this week. Miss Pritchard showed us a great game on the nRich website (see the link below if you would like to play). We had a go working in pairs to see who could make the longest chain, and also had a go at playing each other- the first person who is unable to play a number in the chain loses. We have also been learning about what a square number is and investigating this practically.

In the afternoons, we have been learning how to sew. We used our templates from last week to cut out felt pieces for our shields and then, after practicing running stitch or back stitch on binka, we sewed the pieces together. We think they are looking amazing and are so proud of them! Miss Pritchard is also proud of our patience, determination and perseverance.

Isobel and Matilda have been continuing to teach us our space dance. We created our own positions and actions to add into our group dance and had a go at changing the level and direction of some parts of the choreography.

Week 1

We have had a superb first week back with lots of busy activities.

This half term, our PE days have moved to a Thursday (swimming) and Friday (dance). On Thursday, we had our first swimming lesson at Etwall Leisure Centre. The swimming teachers asked us to swim a width of the pool as an initial assessment and then placed us into three different groups. We are looking forward to returning each week to either learn how to swim or improve our current swimming ability. On Friday, we had our first dance session with Isobel from Deda. Isobel talked to us about positions and transitions and taught us the start of our very own space choreography. We then worked in small groups to add a start and end position and transition to make the dance our own. We are looking forward to adding to this next week.

In maths this week, we finished our unit on addition and subtraction (but are still practising this each week during our Fluent in Five activities) and have started our first of two 'Multiplication and Division' units. We have been learning about multiples and factors and will continue with this next week.

In English, we have been finishing our Anglo-Saxon and Viking double page spreads and have started our new The Write Stuff unit. We will be looking at a model text of a space transmission from Mars (based on the film 'The Martian') and building up our own class text before writing our own. We have been pulling out ambitious words and phrases and finding out what it means to give us a better knowledge and vocabulary before we begin. We have also started learning our new spellings ahead of our first spelling test next week. Please see the folders at the bottom of our class page if you need another copy of our spelling list.

In history/design and technology, we have been learning about Anglo-Saxon and Viking shields so that we can make our own material versions and improve our sewing skills. We were given a design brief and set about creating a number of designs based on our design criteria. We then created a final design, before making a paper mock up/template that we can use to cut out our felt pieces next week. Please come back next week to see how we have got on.