May Learning Highlights

Nursery

This half term the Nursery children have been learning all about animals and insects. They have learnt the story "A Squash and A Squeeze" and have been amazing story tellers when retelling the story. They also had an amazing opportunity to meet some farm animals and learn about how to care for them including what they eat and where they live. We celebrated the King's Coronation with a lovely picnic. They also enjoyed watching caterpillars grow and change into butterflies. We released the butterflies into our outdoor area and the children really enjoyed spotting where they flew to and what they were eating. They created wonderful butterfly paintings and some of our children also took part in sewing butterflies. They have enjoyed all the spring flowers and creatures by making daisy chains, collecting flowers and making bouquets, observing frogs and collecting snails, spiders and worms. The children have been very busy and enthusiastic in their learning and we look forward to the new discoveries they uncover in the last half term of the school year.

Reception

Reception have been learning about what it is like to live in places far away. We have read stories set in different parts of Africa including Handa's Surprise. We have learned the names of some new fruit and tasted and described fruit grown in other countries. The children have mixed their own exotic fruit mocktails and created some fantastic artwork. We have looked at the wild animals of Africa and compared them to wild animals we might find in the UK.

This term Year 1’s big question was, ‘How alike are humans and other animals?’ The children have learnt how to care for animals, what they need to survive and thrive in their own habitat. The children went on a trip to Beale Park and learnt about all the different animals they have there. The children even got to hold a cockroach and a snake!

At the end of the topic, the children completed a high stakes project. They used the knowledge they had learnt this term to plan and create an animal habitat of their choosing. The children had to display the animals natural environment, what they eat and where they sleep. These shoe box habitats have been displayed outside the Year 1 classrooms for the whole school to enjoy.

Enjoy our wonderful Sway

https://sway.office.com/PnZlHtUB7hLpgHGB

This term year 2's high stakes project has been based around the key idea of 'Why we should care about animals?' As a result of this, year 2 pupils have been busy campaigning for the rights of animals through the use of posters and poetry. Year 2 pupils have had great fun investigating their learning question for summer 1 and have thoroughly enjoyed watching both children and staff members gasp at the shocking animal cruelty statics in the UK.

Year 3 have been reading the book 'The boy who grew dragons' by Andy Shepherd. This book has caught the children's imagination and brought their creativity to life. They were inspired by the author and wrote their own character descriptions of a dragon using figurative language and powerful verbs. The children then put on a fantastic performance for the whole school as well as parents to showcase their talent and inform the audience of the dragons' stories that have been told and retold in different cultures around the world. In science we have been learning about plants and what helps plants grow. We experimented using different investigations to check what actually happens when one of the main components that help plants grow is not included in the experiment. Children then formed their own conclusion that taught them the importance of the process of photosynthesis.

Year 4 have been answering the big question "How is technology shaping our future?". We started our topic with a debate about how we thought technology impacts our lives and if we believe that it has a positive or negative impact on how we behave/interact with one another. We read a book called Raider's Peril which is about a girl who plays a game but her life outside the game begins to be influenced by her interactions within the game. We created our own comic strips about this story and learnt about a range of features needed within them. In computing we learnt how to use computer coding to create our own arcade game which we shared with the rest of the school in a gaming exhibition. The children loved being able to share their game and explain the process, with lots stating they would like to be game designers in the future!

Our Year 4 children had an amazing time at Viney Hill in Forest of Dean. They had lots of fun doing team building activities, looking at the flora and fauna and building dens. Campfire and marshmallows were consumed before a night under the stars.

What a term it has been! We looked at how much WW1 shaped eastern Europe and what life was like in the trenches.

In English we have looked at famous world one poems and wrote a formal letter from the perspective of a WW1 private in the trenches. This required a lot of research – to ensure historical accuracy – and a firm understanding of our class reading text - ‘Private Peaceful’.

Our options during PE were endless this term! In addition to our regular PE lessons with Mr Shannahan (where we had a go at tag rugby), we were lucky enough to attend swimming lessons at Langley Leisure Centre. As swimming is a vital life skill, we soaked in the knowledge of our instructors and learnt the best techniques for swim survival. To cap off our incredible term of PE, some of our year group were part of the 5/6 boys football team that made the league final!

During Science this half term, we carried out lots of exciting experiments and had the chance to be scientists whilst observing the properties of materials. We took a deep dive into soluble materials, separating solutions and irreversible changes.

Our High Stakes Project required us to learn a variety of new art skills including stencilling and block printing. With a combination of these skills, we created some impressive WW1 battlefield landscapes and stencilled images. We then turned the library into an art gallery where all our hard work was presented to the rest of the school!

We look forward to another brilliant term of learning next term where the topic will be Sporting Lifestyles! To all the children, parents and carers of Year 5 – have a safe and relaxing half term break.

The Year 6 children have worked incredibly hard this term in the lead-up to their SATS. They all enjoyed their breakfast and put all their efforts into their tests making all their teachers so proud of their efforts. Since then, they have started work on their next project which is enterprise week. They have started to come up with ideas and names for their groups before the production stage begins in Summer 2 where everyone will get to see what they have produced in our end of year Summer Fete.

This term, in Design and Technology & Science, Year 6 have been learning about the Human Body, and various ways we can keep our bodies healthy. This included making healthy eating choices to sustain our health. On Thursday, children completed the "Healthy Me" cooking contest, in which they had to make their own healthy wrap, salad or pasta salad. It was amazing to see the children thrive, and they were excellent overall. Congratulations to all the children, especially Shruthi, Diva and Horann - who won the contest!