Monthly archives: February 2022

Class 2 Trip to Beatrix Potter World and Brockhole

 in Class Two / English / History / Science by

What a brilliant day we have had on our school trip!

The first part of the day was spent at Beatrix Potter World where we met Tim the Gardener and even Beatrix Potter herself. We learnt lots about her life, the inspirations behind her books and the characters featured in them. We also had fun completing an activity trail and loved exploring Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Then we hopped back onto the bus and made our way to Brockhole. We enjoyed our picnic lunch (indoors) and then learnt about some of the animals and their habitats featured in Beatrix Potter’s books through the centre’s new exhibition. Despite the weather we braved the outdoors and had a great time exploring the grounds. We identified physical and human features and completed the Beatrix Potter trail to find out more about the animals in her books.

Puzzling Perimeter

 in Class Three / Maths by

Y4 have been puzzling over how long the sides of a rectangle could be if the perimeter was 20cm. They worked systematically to make sure they had all the possible solutions, It was easier with a system too!

They then used their system to work out if it had a perimeter of 40cm.

Super systematic solving!

Humanities in the Early Years

 in Class One / Geography / History by

What does Geography and History look like in Nursery and Reception?  The Early Years Foundation Stage has seven areas of learning, rather than the individual subjects used within the National Curriculum. Communication and Language as well as Personal, Social and Emotional Development underpin all our learning in Class 1, but the key areas of learning related to geography and history are through the area, ‘Understanding the World’.

Throughout the autumn and spring terms, class 1 are busy (as usual) finding out about our world in a range of different contexts both in and outside the classroom. This has included: observing changes and recording data on weather in our work about the seasons of autumn and winter; learning about how animals like hedgehogs and birds adapt to the changing seasons; developing an understanding of significant national events such as Remembrance Day; retelling and sequencing events from different stories.

We enjoy adapting our curriculum in early years to follow the interests of the children too.  Our in-depth study on migration began with one pupil’s bird box that had made at home to put in our outdoor area.  This inspired further learning around why some birds migrate; what dangers they encounter; and even a trip to Leighton Moss where we spotted some examples of migrating birds.

Choosing where to locate our bird box in our outdoor area was another opportunity for some learning.  We discovered that it is best to position our bird box so that it faces North.  Deciding on the best location for our bird box involved lots of discussion, problem solving and team work.  We also learnt about how to use a compass to find North too! If you want to know anything about migration and how to look after birds in winter time – there are many experts who will be happy to help in Class 1!

RE in Class 2

 in Class Two / RE by

This half term in RE we have been learning about the Parable of the Lost Son and the messages that it teaches to Christians. We have developed an understanding of the story in different ways including, drawing, writing and role play. We really enjoyed using our questioning and inference skills to pretend to be the characters from the story as well as professional interviewers. We also thought about how Christians show their love to God. We worked collaboratively to generate and record ideas on a beach ball and then acted out the different ideas whilst practising our throwing and catching skills! We have enjoyed relating the story to our own experiences and linking it to the Christian values of Forgiveness and Compassion.

Safer Internet Day 2022!

 in Class Four / Class One / Class Three / Class Two / Computing / SCARF / Whole School by

Today is Safer Internet Day 2022, when schools and youth organisations across the country take part in a global campaign to promote the safe and responsible use of technology. Safer internet day calls on young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers and more to join together in helping to create a better internet.

Using the internet safely and positively is a key message that we promote in school, and celebrating Safer Internet Day is a great opportunity for us to re-emphasise the online safety messages we deliver throughout the year.

This week, Class 1 have listened to a story about Smartie the penguin, joined in with Mummy penguin’s song and learned about what to do if we feel unsure, scared or upset by something we see online. Class 2 have met “Jessie and Friends” and explored how to share pictures online appropriately and use online games responsibly. Class 3 are and Class 4 have both looked in detail at online gaming by teaching an alien from another planet about how online games work, what’s OK, what’s not and where to get help if we need it.

We would be delighted if you could join us in celebrating the day by continuing the conversation at home. To help you with this, you may be interested in downloading the free Safer Internet Day resources for Parents and Carers which are available at: saferinternet.org.uk/sid-parents.

There are top tips, quizzes, and films which you can use at home with your child.

Some other resources which you may find helpful in supporting your child online are:

● Tips, advice and guides for parents and carers from the UK Safer Internet Centre (saferinternet.org.uk/parents-and-carers)
● Advice for parents and carers from Childnet (childnet.com/parents-and-carers)
● Reviews and information about games, apps, TV shows and websites from
Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org)
● Help on using parental controls and privacy settings from Internet Matters
(internetmatters.org/parental-controls)
● Information and reporting of online grooming or abuse from CEOP (ceop.police.uk)

 

 

 

Super Space in EYFS!

 in Art / Class One / Design and Technology / Geography / History / Science by

EYFS are coming to the end of their super space topic for this half term. We started with the famous story “Whatever Next!” and enjoyed role-playing a journey to space and having a picnic on the moon. Learning about some of the planets was top of Reception’s ‘What I want to learn’ list and after finding out some interesting facts, they then designed their own using a ‘wash’ effect with felt tips and paintbrushes dipped in water. We thought carefully about the colour of our planets and what they were made from – gas, rock or ice. Constellations were also a big hit; we found out that some constellations can only be seen in certain parts of the world and then recreated some famous ones on black card using chalk. We spent two weeks in total creating our own model of the solar system using papier mache and adding details to each planet; lots of sticky fun! We learnt about gravity and watched videos of astronauts on board the International Space Station, finding out that the further away from earth you get, the less gravity there is. We have enjoyed lots of child-led opportunities in provision including puffy moon painting, making craters in moon dough, designing aliens on the light panel and baking cake pops. We definitely have some budding astronauts in the making!

STEM morning in Class 3

 in Class Three / Design and Technology / Science by

Class 3 have had a wonderful morning exploring and being engineers!

They came up with lots of ideas about what engineering was. This included engineers make complicated things, they build robots, they help other people, they build and fix things.

Our first challenge was cutting an A4 piece of paper so you can fit your entire body through it. Lots of perseverance and experimenting but no luck. We thought a partner might be useful, so we paired up and hey presto – lots of success! Engineers often work in teams to help solve problems just like this.

We then were set off to build a waterproof and windproof house for one of the three little pigs. Each group had a bucket with a range of materials and, despite a bit of trepidation, all our finished products stood up to their final wind and rain shower test and the pig stayed dry!