Welcome to Willow Class 2017-18!

Please have a look around our page, and keep coming back to see what we are getting up to during our final year at Barwick.

Feel free to contact Mrs Evans via the school office should you wish to discuss any aspect of your child's learning. 

w/c 16.7.18

This week, we have been absolutely fabulous on stage!

Well done to everybody: the performances were fantastic, and I received so many comments about how great you all were. It has been a very long and tiring week, and you all deserve a good rest this weekend before returning to school on Monday for your final three days as primary school children. 

This week, we have also been working with Cycle Leeds, completing our Bikeability training. Please don't let me see any of you not wearing a helmet in future!

Finally, we enjoyed our Football Friday - well done to all who played against the staff team, even if you lost 4-2!!! :0)

w/c 9.7.18

This week, we have been:

• receiving our SATs test results
• spending our mornings as Y7 pupils, as Mrs Evans has been working with the current Y5 class in preparation for September, and also visiting Brigshaw, Boston Spa and Garforth
• weather reporting in Spanish
• rehearsing where possible, which is really hard without everybody here!

We are looking forward to next week's performances. Please ensure your child knows all of their lines, and can deliver them with expression and volume. We have many songs that are not fully learnt - we will work on them again but please go over the songs at the weekend to make sure your child is confident on the night!

w/c 2.7.18

This week, we have been:

• rehearsing! We are now in the final weeks of rehearsals, so all songs, dances and lines should be known. However, we are not quite at that stage yet, with some dances still needing work. Please ensure your child knows all of their lines, and can read with fluency and expression. 
• finding out how composers use music to create tension and suspense by analysing different film scores. We then used some Talk for Writing techniques to create a story map for the first chapter of 'Jaws', before attempting to create our own version of the chapter, using the techniques a writer uses to create suspense (see below!)

• creating a dramatised reading for the service at Leeds Minster: well done to all involved in this, as you performed it beautifully in front of all those people!

  Matthew 5: 14-16

   

  ¹⁴ “You are the light that gives light to the world. A city that is built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ And people don’t hide a light under a bowl. They put the light on a lampstand. Then the light shines for all the people in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, you should be a light for other people. Live so that they will see the good things you do. Live so that they will praise your Father in heaven.”

• receiving lovely messages from Dayspring Church, who presented us with a special leavers' book

• enjoying (or performing in!) a piece from the extra-curricular drama group

• trialling the ACE Dictionary Spelling intervention, which takes longer than we originally thought. Pupils have been tested on 60 words that are commonly misspelt by KS2 pupils. Any words spelt incorrectly have been added to a personalised list as a priority spelling to learn. Additional spellings have been made up from looking through past tests, and seeing if we can now spell words we previously could not. For this reason, there will not be test on Friday 6th July, but we will test the following week. 

• challenging our ideas on contemporary Africa, after spending the day with African postgraduates on Friday.

w/c 25.6.18

This week, we have been:

• reflecting on our year and reading the lovely comments made about us by Mrs Evans!
• practising our homophones, and learning the meaning of the words in context
• singing the songs from the production, and spending time rehearsing on stage
• choosing our level of maths challenge - Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum?
• exploring the tools at a writer's disposal, when trying to create suspense
• investigating vocabulary, ready for a lesson next week:
  • shore
  • agitated
  • phosphorescent
  • pace
  • snagged
  • guttural
• listening to author Malorie Blackman tell us how she creates suspense
• completing the National Writing Day task to create a group poem based on the 2018 theme of 'Freedom': please see below!
• consolidating our understanding of the weather in Spanish: El tiempo: hace sol!
• strengthening our position on Prodigy Maths
• creating pencil sketches of the school grounds
• working with Mr Mennell to find out about Indian food

w/c 18.6.18

This week, we have been:

• rehearsing! We have now run through every scene, so we need to be scripts down!
• continuing our Maths World Cup work
• writing and delivering our Sports Day Captain speeches: well done to everyone who had the courage to read in front of the whole school!
• creating our Sports Day banners
• completing a writing assessment based on 'The Floss'
• enjoying Sports Day: well done to Lotherton Team!
• walking around the village, accompanying R class to visit the new owl - what a fabulous feature of our village!
• working with Mr Mennell to learn all about Indian culture

w/c 11.6.18

This week, we have been:

• missing Miss Greaves whilst she has been helping Y5 with residential!
• getting really stuck into rehearsals - we want to be scripts down next week, so make sure you are learning those lines!
• developing our understanding of the countries involved in the World Cup
• finding interesting facts about Barwick village for our guided tour
• writing alternate endings for Odd and the Frost Giants
• practising how to know when to use different types of parentheses (commas, dashes, brackets) for best effect
• writing our own Learning Rocket to showcase our understanding of the Blooms aliens
• writing our Sports Day Captain speeches: this year, we are voting for two captains -  regardless of gender. May the best two people win!
• practising for Sports Day
• enjoying our Enterprise Week: watch this space to discover how much money we have made!
• making Father's Day cards - we hope you like them!

Volunteer Opportunity for Young People - Peer Inspectors Recruiting

The Peer Inspection Team are recruiting for young people (age 8-17 years) to take part in their project over the summer holidays.

Young people will travel around Leeds trying out different activities such as sports, fun days, art, drama etc. and feedback about their experiences. Their views are shared with local councillors and influence how money is spent on young people.

We ask young people to take part over 2 days and the dates are flexible to suit their availability. This is a great opportunity to meet new people, try new things, learn youth leadership skills and give back to the community!

Click on the links below to watch the video and to find out more information on the Breeze website:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDEX9QlCYdg

https://breezeleeds.org/news/peer-inspection

Get in touch with Caroline in the Communities Team to sign up or find out more: caroline.webb@leeds.gov.uk / 0113 3685679 / 07891 272154

w/c 4.6.18

Due to being poorly over the half-term holidays and well into the first week back, Miss Greaves was at the helm of Willow Class for most of this week. Thank you Miss Greaves!

Road's End

Who is this mysterious man in goggles and a red scarf and what has happened to him?  We are left to decide this for ourselves as the short film begins and he is inspecting the wreckage of a car; as a viewer we assume that he has survived a car crash. Help is at hand in the form of a friendly driver who stops and offers him a lift.  

w/c 21.05.18

This week we have been:

• perfecting our written pieces for our school book; we have a wide range of work in store for you: sales of a Viking house, showing excellent persuasion techniques; Kennings poetry; diary entries from the main character in our class text; non-fiction reports about Viking life; and narrative pieces based within the Viking age. We can't wait to see the final version!
• completing our Frost Giant collages, which are going up on display around the classroom - please pop in and take a look
• finishing our robots, using our knowledge of electrical circuits
• learning how millions of children around the world can't access an education, and appreciating all the benefits of being in full time education
• practising our Spanish on Duolingo (please encourage children to do this at home - they all have accounts they can log into!)
• completing our rounders tournament - well done to our Green Team! (Also, special mention to Olli, who has some incredible fielding skills!)
• rehearsing our Viking dance and performing to parents (some great Viking costumes: well done!) (Please see photos in other section)
• planning for our Enterprise project and delivering our presentations to our fabulous parent mentors. Thank you so much for offering to help. (I must say I am looking forward to some of the activities more than others!!)

w/c 14.05.18

This week, we have been:

• proving to everybody how fabulous we are by persevering through some very tough SATs papers! A huge well done to all of Willow Class: Mrs Evans and Miss Greaves are very proud of you all! 

We have also been:

• participating in a rounders tournament, refining our striking and fielding skills
• discussing diversity and celebrating difference whilst watching 'The Greatest Showman'
• writing our pieces on Vikings for the school book: we can't wait to see our work in a published book!
• celebrating the Royal Wedding - congratulations to Harry and Meghan!
• taking part in a maths treasure hunt around the school field 
• learning the infinitive form of the verbs and the first person participle of 'to eat' and 'to drink' in Spanish (comer-como and beber-bebo)
• revising for the next day's SATs; we are particularly proud of making our graffiti-style maths banner!

w/c 7.5.18

This week, we have been:

• enjoying the sunny Bank Holiday Monday! What a scorcher!
• adding the final touches to the designs of our revision games and activities, then spending time sharing and playing each other's games. What a creative class we are: obstacle course, treasure hunt, bean bag toss, matching pairs, find the missing number games... all well designed and lots of fun, whilst helping us to revise key mathematical strategies. Well done Y6!

• investigating how we may have missed marks on the 2017 Reading paper, so that we feel confident with the paper next week! 
• finding out about Viking place names. Did you know that our local area is full of place names that end in -wick, -thwaite, -by, -thorpe and -kirk? Ask us what they mean!
• singing more Viking sagas: this week was all about Goblins!
• listening to Neil Gaiman read from his audiobook, 'Odd and the Frost Giants', and answering questions about the author's choice of language.
• creating Frost Giants without using any pens, pencils or paint - these are ongoing and are looking great!
• writing adverts to sell a Viking Longhouse
• discovering who Alfred the Great was
• adding more choreography to our Viking dance
• singing songs from Oliver!
• reading with EYFS
• finding out more facts about Trinidad and Tobago
• selling ice creams to raise money for our Leavers' Party!

Good luck to all pupils next week: make sure you have a good night's sleep please, and try not to stress. These tests results are such a small part of your time here at Barwick, and do not define you as a person, regardless of the result. You are, and always will be, more than a number, so try your best, show off what you know, but please do not worry. It will all be over soon!

Don't forget to join everyone else for breakfast at 8:30am each day of the tests!

w/c 30.4.18

This week, we have been:

• making inferences based on an image (linked to our Science topic). 

• continuing research into Vikings, ready to begin our piece for the published book
• taking part in a Roman Numerals challenge with Y4, based on the TV show 'Pointless' (I am pleased to report that Y6 won, even though Y4 were pretty fantastic!)
• typing up our diary entries, to practise our word processing and typing skills
• practising our new statutory words
• role-playing in Spanish to practise how to order food
• singing Viking sagas
• revising maths topics using a variety of reasoning questions
• writing Kennings poems
• developing our choreography for our Vikings dance
• designing maths revision activities
• using our letter writing skills in RE
• celebrating Tour de Yorkshire! 

w/c 23.4.18

This week, we have been:

• enjoying a visit from a historian, who is an expert on all things Viking - see photo page for details of how we dressed as warriors and learnt about the Viking raids
• reading 'Odd and the Frost Giants' by Neil Gaiman, a story inspired by traditional Norse mythology. 
• using our retrieval skills to find evidence of Odd's appearance, and drawing him
• writing in role as 'Odd', the Viking boy in our story
• finishing our pencil crayon drawing of a Frost Giant
• learning how to calculate averages of data in statistics work
• revising all topics in Maths, using some quite complex problems
• starting to build our robots in Science
• writing letters of persuasion in RE
• learning more of the statutory spelling word list
• writing menus in Spanish
• revising Roman numerals (Y4 are studying the Romans, so we may have to challenge them on their knowledge!)
• practising striking and fielding techniques in PE
• reading through the edited script, and finding out our parts in Oliver!
• beginning to put together a dance piece based on a Viking raid
• working with a different teacher to explore another culture!

w/c 16.4.18

This week, we have been:

• working hard to complete our written work from last term, by using our purple pen to edit and improve.
• running around in the heat, namely for our Thursday PE session with our Sports coach. This term we are looking at striking and fielding skills, and Mrs Evans would also like us to work on how we coach each other who may be less adept than us at sports.
• appreciating the wonder that was Mrs Evans's homemade Viking costume, and starting to find out about who the Vikings were, where they came from, what they did and how they lived.
• completing the final paper in our practice SATs - GPV. Mrs Evans is pleased to report that she is super impressed with the scores! 
• interpreting and creating pie charts based on given data, and linking percentage data to pie charts, with some pupils working on an extension involving binary code.
• starting our new Science topic involving electricity and circuits
• practising some of the statutory words set before Easter
• performing scenes from Oliver! Mrs Evans hopes to hear everyone who wants a larger role sing by the end of the week. 
• starting to create our apps
• preparing for our assembly on Friday morning: we have split into groups to create a different section of the powerpoint - we hope you will like it!
• looking at how Christians worship God
• developing our vocabulary in Spanish

w/c 26.3.18

Apologies for the lack of update last week - being on residential meant I was unable to access the website, but I am sure parents understand this! The two days prior to residential were spent completing the 2017 Reading and Maths papers, which your child has now been given the results of. If you would like to discuss these results in further detail, please feel free to contact me. 

This week we have been:

• Exploring 3D shapes in Maths, by building shapes, breaking them down into nets and then building up again, before finding a different net. We have looked at the properties of different 3D shapes and practised working out what shape the net makes based on our knowledge of shape properties. 
• Enjoying the photos from our residential, selecting those that we feel best reflect our fabulous time. We then wrote an initial recount, and used this as a draft for a more creative piece of work, using our photos. Mrs Evans has given us autonomy over our work, meaning we understand the expectations and have the responsibility and freedom to present our work however we would like. (Mrs Evans would like to remind a few pupils to check the expectations again, before declaring a finished piece!)
• Rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing! We had a brilliant time recording our CD, and are really proud of our achievements. Please support this project by purchasing a CD - school makes just £1 from each CD sale, and we are to put any profits towards new headphones. 
• Writing in Spanish! We are enjoying our Spanish lessons with Miss Greaves, and are making great progress now, writing in sentences!
• Completing the Spelling section of the 2017 SATs - watch out for the GPV in the first week back, and then we will have a whole set of data to work from, analysing any gaps in knowledge to see what we can do to give us the best possible chance of achieving what we deserve in May. 

We are yet to finalise a date for the Residential Assembly; we will communicate this as soon as we know (possibly 20th April). Photographs will go on the website then - we want to keep an element of surprise! Photos will also be made available for the yearbook.

w/c 5.3.18 

Another strange week of upheaval! This week we have been:

- considering our senses when writing setting descriptions, then writing up our fabulous work for display

- explaining our maths reasoning to each other, thinking about how to approach a problem from different viewpoints, using alternative methods

- analysing data from bar graphs themed around International Women's Day (some began to display aspects of the data in pie charts)

- learning the 'drag, back, turn' and 'L turn' methods of dribbling in football

- exploring pointillism as an art technique

- discovering how -ce makes a soft -s sound, and practising how to recognise this within words

- finishing our presentations about our app ideas

- learning how to say 'I like' in Spanish... (mi gusto)

- showing off our fabulous characterisation skills for World Book Day, where we created 'Loose Crayons', a chat show for the aggrieved crayons of this world; we had some great performances, with little to no rehearsal time!

- proudly listening to Rose read out her Gold winning 500 Words story - The Tragedy of Little Johnny Bow' (well done Rose)

- helping our with the Usborne Book Stall, and reading with EYFS children

Please can I remind parents that homework books are due in every WEDNESDAY. This week, I received only 6 books on Wednesday, and a further 8 on Friday. Of those, not all had evidence in of any work being done. Parents, please sign and date if you know your child has been reading or practising spellings, unless there is clear evidence of this in the book. Similarly, with MyMaths, writing the % obtained is a quick way for me to see who needs additional help. Thanks.

w/c 26.2.18

What a crazy week!

This week we have been:

• refining our skills in approaching the arithmetic and reasoning questions, including making sure we are reading the questions properly, and working out information what we already know
• watching 'Alma', a spooky film involving a little girl who becomes trapped in the body of a doll. We wrote setting descriptions of the opening scene, including the snow covered rooftops. How fortunate for us that it was snowing, as we managed to get outside to improve our vocabulary and descriptive writing skills as we observed how snow behaves. We explored genre, and will be developing our writing skills using this film in the coming weeks.
• asking if we can explain inheritance, and why offspring may differ from their parents, but have characteristics of both
• learning football skills (inside because of the cold weather!)
• revising how to calculate area and perimeter of shapes, and understanding that often, shapes can have the same area, but different perimeters. We have looked at rectilinear shapes and triangles.
• reading with EYFS children: it is lovely to see some of our quieter members of the class really come to life when reading with younger children - especially when they consider how to use different voices and expression in response to punctuation.
• practising our class song, from 'The Greatest Showman'
• testing ourselves on the -tial spellings
• drafting letters to Justin Bieber to inform him of his misunderstanding around the subjunctive mood 
• writing poems to celebrate our time in the snow

Hopefully everybody managed to have fun and stay safe in the snow this week!

w/c 19.2.18

This week we have been:

• listening to how author Rebecca Colby gets her ideas and putting some of those ideas into action
• working on our short stories for the 500 words competition, including planning, drafting, redrafting, editing and proofreading our work 
• looking at words ending in -tial
• thinking about songs to record on the school CD and having a go at singing them
• learning how not to make the mistake of comma splicing, instead of using a full stop, conjunction or higher level punctuation
• writing in Spanish
• finding out about the famous author, Charles Dickens, and creating a timeline of his life
• starting to plan our Shakespeare Class Project Book
• practising converting measurements, working with both metric and imperial measurements

w/c 5.2.18

This week, we have been:

• Concluding Journey to the River Sea, with each group taking on a chapter and bringing it to life in their own way
• Starting our 500 Words stories, following tasks created by the Live Lesson
• Working out how to use and understand algebra
• Finishing our Habitats topic in Science
• Completing our birdhouse designs
• Enjoying circus skills
• Exploring Internet Safety: namely the Own It website. (See below for further details)
• Learning more about Garageband and how to record different instruments
• Loving our trip to Lotherton Hall - see our photos page for more details (The Workshop Leader was very impressed with our thorough knowledge of the Amazon Rainforest!)
• Testing our knowledge of -cial ending words
• Testing our GPV and Spelling progress this term
• Spending a bit longer finishing our presentation to develop an app
• Finishing our watercolour paintings
• Enjoying the final cut of our film to help Darwin Trotter

Please see the Homework Star for more details on HW - Mrs Evans would like the books to be handed in weekly from after half term, every Wednesday.

W/c 29.1.18

This week, we will be:

• Finishing reading Journey to the River Sea
• Starting to look at narrative writing in preparation for 500 Words, experimenting with different ideas
• Exploring prepositions and word types
• Learning our tricky statutory words
• Looking at sequencing in reading
• Multiplying one-digit numbers with up to 2 decimal places by whole numbers
• Using written methods in cases where the answer has up to 2 decimal places
• Solving maths problems that require the answers to be rounded to a required degree of accuracy
• Using our watercolour techniques to paint more animals
• Filming ourselves explaining about the Amazon River
• Reflecting on how much we share
• Asking ourselves how we use rivers
• Building a bird box
• Recording a track on Garageband
• Creating a presentation to pitch an idea for our app
• Possibly having a visit from the school nurse

Please note the SATs meeting will now take place on Tuesday 27th February at 3pm. 

The meeting will last 30 minutes, and pupils are welcome to stay. At 4pm, parents can order revision materials if they wish.

Week commencing 22.1.18

This week we will be:

• predicting the endings to Journey to the River Sea, and writing alternate endings of our own
• exploring how to correctly use colons to introduce a list, and how to use them to add additional detail to sentences
• finding out about the prefix -inter, and using Spelling Stars to learn how to spell different words
• describing positions on the full co-ordinate grid, using all four quadrants?
• drawing and translating simple shapes on the co-ordinate grid, and reflecting them in the axes?
• asking ourselves how we can be more compassionate in our lives
• using the watercolour techniques experimented with, and beginning to paint our Amazonian creatures
• working through our bird box designs
• continuing to learn Garageband, and beginning to record tracks
• further exploring gymnastics with our coach
• piecing together our ideas for an app, and putting together a pitch
• having fun in spanish!

w/c 15.1.18

This week, staff in school are starting weekly SATs booster classes, before and after school. I have identified children who would benefit the most from these sessions: if your child has been invited, you will have received a letter on Friday 12th Jan, detailing which sessions to attend. Please make every effort to ensure your child attends these sessions, and return the reply slip to confirm, so staff can plan accordingly. 

Additional booster sessions, for those pupils who have the potential to achieve a higher level mark, will be offered closer to SATs. 

This week, I will arrange a suitable date for a SATs info event, where parents can find out information about the SATs tests, including how they are arranged, delivered, assessed and reported, plus additional information such as qualifying for additional time and how best to prepare and support your child through what can (but doesn't need to be!) a stressful time. 

This week we will be:

• multiplying and dividing fractions
• continuing our journey down the 'river sea', looking closely at identifying the key points within a chapter, and presenting our summaries
• creating a sequence of gymnastics movements with help from our professional coach
• starting to think about our contribution to Darwin Trotter's request for help, focusing on the Amazon River
• learning more about classification
• developing the ideas for our app: how can we solve a problem?
• asking ourselves what compassion looks like
• exploring music technology
• investigating watercolour techniques

Please note that this year, the end of KS2 Production will be a version of Lionel Bart's Oliver!  Since announcing this, I have already had many (many!) questions about auditions and roles - closer to half term, children will be invited to state whether they want a main role, which will most likely involve solo singing and lots of lines to learn; a medium role, which will involve singing in a group but probably not a solo, and less lines; a small role, which will involve singing in a group but few lines; or a backstage role, which involves no performance. Please note that all children are expected to perform: backstage roles can be undertaken alongside a small performance role, unless under exceptional circumstances, due to the autonomy needed to carry out backstage tasks unsupervised. 

Happy New Year!

The first three days back have (unfortunately!) been rather assessment heavy, as progress data is collected across school. Although hard work, testing provides a valuable insight into both your child's current attainment and also ability to cope with exam pressure, and enables me to analyse the data to identify weaknesses in knowledge. 

I am in the process of arranging Booster Sessions for Y6, to best prepare them for the SATs tests: I will be in touch with parents regarding the sessions on offer. If you do receive an invite, I strongly recommend you allow your child to attend these boosters; they will provide your child with the best possible chance of success in May.

w/c 8.1.18 

This week we will be:

• embarking on our expedition as we explore our Extreme Environment!
• discovering more about Maia and her strange relatives in our new text, Journey to the River Sea, by Eva Ibbotson. 
• strengthening our Reading VIPERS skills 
• dividing 4 digit by 2 digit numbers, using both short and the more formal written method of long division, interpreting remainders according to context
• discovering more about classification
• working alongside a gymnastics coach to develop our abilities
• researching the capabilities of smartphones, and working with location data, such as GPS
• asking ourselves, 'What is compassion?'

General Class Update 11.12.17

It's Christmas!

This week we will be:

• rehearsing our shadow puppet Nativity stories, performing to EYFS and KS1 children (please see photos)
• being crafty, making Christmas cards and calendars
• working with Mr Cutler to refine our rapping skills, ready to perform in front of the whole school on Friday afternoon (see photos)
• finishing our writing piece, 'If I had a magic pencil...', inspired by Malala Yousafzai (well done to Max and Rose for winning a top prize!)
• singing plenty of Christmas songs
• enjoying watching the West Yorkshire Playhouse's version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Wow! What a show! We loved it!)
• feasting on our Christmas lunch
• auditioning for, and performing in, Barwick's Got Talent! (Well done to Oscar and Lily for getting through to the final!)

Have a great Christmas everybody!

General Class Update 4.12.17

This week we will be:

• sequencing and finding the nth term in maths
• learning about figurative language and literary devices such as onomatopoeia, idiom, simile, personification and hyperbole in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
• finishing writing our scripts of the Nativity Story
• making shadow puppets
• preparing for our stall at the Christmas Fayre
• finding out about how boys and girls differ
• attempting to be the fastest we can be at TT Rockstars
• exploring unstressed vowels in polysyllabic words - e.g. vegetable, different
• learning about the remarkable Malala Yousfzani, and writing about what we could do if we had a magic pencil
• practising our Spanish
• finishing our artwork 
• completing our Classroom Jazz unit in music

General class update 27.11.17

This week we will be:

• finding out more about the characters within Narnia
• creating artwork (of our eyes) for display in the library gallery
• writing to discuss
• eliminating suspects from our Science project
• starting to write a script
• exploring further Spanish vocabulary
• learning about hyphenated prefixes
• plus more!

General class update 20.11.17

This week we will be:

• consolidating how to convert miles to kilometres
• converting other units of measurement, such as mm to cm, or cl to l, and using this knowledge when solving problems in context
• using negative numbers in contact, and calculating intervals across zero
• tasting, and describing, Turkish Delight
• trying out our new Spelling Stars Books
• writing to our Class Governor, to invite her into our class
• sketching our eyes, aiming to show where the light reflects
• working as a team in dodgeball
• devising and performing scenes based on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
• answering the register in Spanish

General class update 13.11.17

This week, we will be:

• learning all about cyberbullying - what it is, and how to stop it. 
• discussing what action we should take if we see someone else being bullied
• delving further into the magical world of Narnia
• drawing 2D shapes using given dimensions and angles
• calculating, estimating and comparing volume
• developing our dodgeball skills
• visiting Vue Cinema, watching the film 'Hidden Figures', which covers themes of injustice and inequality during the Civil Rights era, and visiting Leeds Art Gallery, where we explore how natural and artificial light is used to create and appreciate art
• visited by Judith Rhodes, the daughter of an evacuee who travelled to England on the Kindertransport during World War II. She will kindly explain her mother's experiences and share some of the precious objects she brought with her on the train
• writing in role as an evacuee, using emotive language
• learning how to correctly add suffixes to words ending in -fer

Please can all parents ensure they have handed in the reply slip and paid the £8 on ParentPay for the trip on Thursday - without a reply slip (and sufficient funds to cover the cost of the coach), children will not be able to attend the visit. 

Please see the Cyberbulling information sheet in the Anti-Bullying Week 2017 star: your children have access to online forums - they need to know how to report cyberbullying, and also be aware of the effects of their own actions online. 

General class update 6.11.17

This week, we will be:

• exploring what it must have been like to be a child evacuee during WWII
• visiting Barwick War Memorial on Friday 10th Nov at 11am, to pay our respects to the dead
• viewing the WW1 and WWII war medals and related paperwork of Mr Evans's grandfather and great-grandfather
• analysing War poetry, looking at authorial intent
• creating blackout poetry
• walking through a wardrobe as we discover our fiction text for this term
• continuing our science investigation - can we eliminate a suspect, based on the angle of the light beam?
• developing our dodging skills in PE
• gaining Knowledge Points on readtheory.org (please practise at home!)
• learning about fractions, decimals and percentages equivalents
• learning how to spell words ending in -ible/-ibly, and hopefully remember which words have an -able ending, and which words have an -ible ending! (See homework pyramid for the spelling lists for the entire term)

Please ensure all children wear coats to school - although bright, the weather is far too cold for them not to have a coat! Coast must be worn at breaktimes. 

Some children seem to be having trouble logging onto MyMaths at home. The Agile Learning Suite is available before and after school for children to access should they continue to have trouble. Please see me if completing homework is a problem.

General Class Update 30.10.17:

This week we will be:

• experimenting with light in Science to try to catch a suspect
• editing together our final movie to demonstrate our knowledge of the importance of a healthy lifestyle
• displaying our Bernard Noyes inspired artwork
• describing a monster, using hyphenated words and expanded noun phrases
• comparing and ordering fractions
• discovering the festival 'Dia de los Muertos'
• writing 1st person narratives, using film as stimuli
• creating artwork inspired by Frida Kahlo
• polishing our speaking and listening skills, by presenting our Sikhism powerpoints to the class
• discovering jazz music
• learning how to know if a word has an 'able' or an 'ible' ending

...plus lots more!