Our Summer term topic - Amazon and the Rainforests

SATs week begins on the 9^th of May

Our residential is on the 18^th May until the 20^th.

*2 final SATs booster sessions will run on Tuesday 26^th April and Tuesday 3^rd May.

We are looking with a geography focus on the Amazon and Rainforests this half term. Below is a list of our main focus in some of our curriculum areas:

• North American art and artists
• Maths work with line graphs, pie charts and properties of shapes
• Relationships, including mental health and power and control
• Answering the question, ‘How does faith help people when life gets hard?’
• Spanish language for the topic of ‘Earth, the planets’
• PE focus on gymnastics
• Music unit on inspirational women working in music
• Programming variables in games during computing sessions
• Science sessions will focus on living things and their habitats this term. Some sessions may make use of the Forest School site, but this will always be communicated in advance.

Class text and English focus

Prior to SATs, our focus will be reading comprehension and grammar knowledge revision and practice. Collecting evidence of the children’s best writing evidence will be another key focus for this half term.

We will be using the text Holes by Luis Sachar for our shared class read. A pdf copy of the text is available on the Google Classroom, but some children may prefer to have their own copies of the text – whilst there is a film version available, please encourage children not to watch this just yet.

Updates for the second half of the spring term

As we  return to school for March and April, we will begin to look at a Geographical study of North America and compare it to areas in the UK. Some areas of our learning will remain unchanged (such as our class texts) from the previous half term. 

Other updates for areas of focus in our studies include:

• materials and their properties in science sessions
• algebra; volume, perimeter and area; ratio; and geometry
• an American artists study
• data and information for computing
• classroom jazz music lessons
• answering the question, 'What do Christians believe Jesus does to save people?' 
• healthy me, our PSHE focus

Our Spring term topic - The Ancient Greeks!

We are looking with an historical focus on the Ancient Greeks this half term and will even be designing and making Ancient Greek vases from modelling clay. Below is a list of our main focus in some of our curriculum areas:

• E-safety and web page creation
• Answering the question, ‘Why do Hindu’s try to be good?’
• Spanish language for the topic of ‘Transport in my town’
• PE focus on tag rugby

Class texts

We will be dipping in and out of our Teaching live sessions next half term: our class text for the spring term will be Malamander by Thomas Taylor. 

Another text we plan to read extracts from is Percy Jackson and Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. The book is always well-received and will complement our history focus.

Science sessions will focus on animals including humans this term.

If children would like to purchase and bring their own copies of the texts to school, it may help them engage with the learning, but extracts will always be given to them where required.

Our Second Autumn Term Topics

Our class text remains Cogheart by Peter Bunzel which we will be exploring during our Teaching Live sessions each week with Pie Corbett as we begin to move on from The Land of Neverbelieve by Norman Messenger.

• Maths: We are moving on to focus on fractions this half term. We will look at simplifying, ordering, mixed and improper fractions and then move through the four operations to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions.
• History: Exploring Vikings in Britain: Why did they invade? Where did they come from? How did the Kings of Britain react? Who were their Gods?
• Science: Light! The parts of the eye, reflection, refraction, shadows and spectrums will all be made clear (if you see what I did there).
• Art: During our Viking art, we will use a variety of mediums and will study the skill of shading and still life drawing.
• D.T.: Design, plan, make and evaluate a Christmas stocking! 
• PSHE: Continue our focus of keeping and staying safe including water safety and internet safety.
• R.E.: Our studies will attempt to answer the question, 'How do Christians decide how to live? What would Jesus do?'
• Spanish: Continue ways to describe our Town and numbers to 100.
• Computing: Creating media: 3D modelling.
• Music: A study of the song, You’ve Got a Friend and Music of Carole King as well as Christmas carol performances.
• PE: Continuing invasion games, including football and hockey.

Our First Autumn Term Topic

This half term our topic is Evolution! 

Our class text is Cogheart by Peter Bunzel which we will be exploring during our Teaching Live sessions each week with Pie Corbett.

English: We will work with Pie Corbett to use Cogheart as our exemplary text when planning our own creative writing pieces. 

Maths: Beginning with place value and number, we will use this term to secure our four operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Geography: Identifying human and physical features in our local area. 

Science: To fully explore evolution, we will look at inheritance, adaptation, the theory of evolution and evidence for it.

Art: During our evolution art, we will use a variety of mediums and will study the skill of grid drawing.

D.T.: After studying the evolution of bridge construction and finding out who Isambard Brunel is, we will design and make our own model bridges!

PSHE: Keeping and staying safe including water safety and internet safety.

R.E.: Our studies will attempt to answer the question, 'Why do some people believe in God whilst others do not?'

Spanish: Ways to describe our Town and numbers to 100.

Computing: We are looking at computing and systems and network communications.

Music: A study of the pop/soul genre focusing on Pharrell Williams' Happy as well as a Harvest festival performance

PE: Invasion games, including football and hockey.