We had a fantastic and informative workshop with Road Safety and our local PCSO. The children learned vital road safety skills, including the importance of stopping, looking, listening, and thinking before crossing the road. It was an engaging session that helped reinforce how to stay safe near roads.

Thank you Clee Academy for a fantastic art and dt afternoon. The children made bouncy monsters and learned some new art techniques too.

In Science this week, the children planned a fair test to explore how the duration of exercise affects heart rate. They explored the variables (independent, dependent and control variables) to help them design their investigation. After this, they conducted their investigation and found that their heart rate increased when they did more exercise!

This week in twist and flip, the children have been exploring activities to strengthen their hands in preparation for future lessons. 

This half term we welcome twist and flip coaches who will be teaching the children gymnastics. The children explored doing different rolls and hand stands. 

Children have learned that one of the key roles of blood is to take oxygen to all parts of the body. Blood that has high levels of oxygen in it is known as “oxygenated blood”. Once this oxygen has been taken to the parts of the body, the blood contains little oxygen and is now known as “deoxygenated blood”. Blood continues to flow around the body so that oxygenated blood can reach the parts of the body, and deoxygenated blood can travel to the lungs to receive more oxygen.

The children were able to model this using a large diagram and counters to show how the red blood cells go from being deoxygenated and oxygenated.

In Maths, we’ve been learning how to find the area of compound shapes. This week, we did a fun practical activity using lollipop sticks to create our own compound shapes. By physically building these shapes, the children were able to better understand how to break them down into smaller, simpler shapes to find the total area.

This hands-on approach helped the children to connect what they’ve learned with real-world applications, making the concept of area much clearer. It’s been a great way to apply our mathematical skills in a creative and engaging way!

We are excited to share with you how your children have been exploring the world of 3D design using Tinkercad! In our recent lessons, the students have been learning to create their own 3D models, focusing on designing a car from scratch. One of the key techniques they’ve been learning is "stacking"—a method where students combine and layer different 3D shapes to form more complex structures. By stacking simple shapes like cubes, cylinders, and spheres, students are able to build their cars piece by piece, allowing them to visualize how individual components can come together to create a finished design.

Through this process, students have learned important skills in computer-aided design (CAD), which is the digital process used by professionals to create blueprints for products, buildings, and machines. The ability to manipulate shapes, adjust sizes, and rotate objects has helped students develop problem-solving skills and an understanding of spatial relationships. As they stack and combine shapes, they also explore concepts like proportion, symmetry, and design efficiency.

We’ve been acting out scenes from Alma this week to get a feel about how Alma may have been feeling at different stages of the story. The children will be using this to help them write to express the feelings of Alma.

In art this week, the children used inspiration from Paula Wienmink to create their own dragon eye sketches. The children did such a great job and focused really hard on creating their art pieces! They focused on the detail in the eye for their focal point, just like Paula Wienmink.

In one of our writing sessions this week, we have been identifying examples of figurative language.  We took part in an activity where we needed to find an example in the text and then trade ideas with our friends, until our sheet was full with lots of examples.  It was a great way to share our ideas.  Well done everyone, great team work!

This week in Computing we have been looking at how 3D models are created using 3D printers. We now know that the first stage in this process is the design stage. We have been looking at the website 'tinkercad' and will be using it to design our own computer aided designs.

This week in Geography we made plastic pledges.  We looked at what problems plastic can cause in the ocean and how we can reduce this.  We made our own plastic pledges to show how we can help.

In English, we have been beginning to draft a balanced argument. We have explored reasons people are for Donald Trump being president and reasons why they are against.

In design and technology this week the children have been learning two very important skills: hand washing and knife skills. The children have explored the importance of food hygiene and why it is so important to wash our hands and keep surfaces clean as well as exploring the correct way to hold a knife and two new cutting techniques; bridge hold and claw grip! They all did an excellent job, first practising using plastic knives and play doh to then using some metal knives to cut a potato into wedges. Well done!

In maths this week, we have been exploring equivalent fractions. The children have learned what it means for something to be equivalent and the steps they can use to determine and find other equivalent fractions. We used a variety of representations in the classroom to help the children understand the relationships. This work also really challenged their times table knowledge as they needed to know these to help them find equivalents!

In Maths this week, children have been learning about factors, common factors and prime numbers! They have learned that a prime number only has two factors, one and itself!

In English this week we have been looking at possible theories for the Maya mass abandonment.  We debated which theories would be most and least likely.

In English this week we have been exploring the use of subordinate conjunctions to make subordinate clauses. We have used the acronym ISAWAWABUB to help us. We also played a match up game: matching the subordinate clause to the main clause.

In english, the children have been working hard on their handwriting, spelling and understanding of different punctuation within our sentences. This week our writing detectives spotted all the punctuation mistakes in our lists and possessive sentences before correcting them at each table. They even wrote their own challenges (full of mistakes) for the next pair to correct.

In art, the children started learning about our chosen traditional artist, Pieter Claesz. After trading facts about him, they looked at a variety of his still life paintings before choosing their favourite and analysing it. They considered what they could see in the foreground, mid-ground and background; the colours used and the mood it created.