English:

In our English, we will be looking at developing our writing skills by studying different grammatical tools. We will investigate these tools and consider the impact they have on our writing and how a good writer can use these to their advantage.

Both Year 5 and 6 are going to be studying dialogue and understanding how this is an effective tool to move narratives forward and develop the reader’s understanding of the characters. We will then continue to focus on narrative skills as we create an extended narrative.

The year 6 children will also have their SATs this half term week commencing 13^th May. The children will sit two English papers a Spelling and Grammar test on the Monday and a reading comprehension test on the Tuesday.

Maths:

We are always working on our mental maths skills and strategies in Year 5 and 6. This half term is no different as we will continue to discuss and practise the best mental strategies for solving problems.

Alongside this, Year 6 will be looking at Geometry and angles. We will also be focusing on algebra and recapping the key areas of maths in preparation for the SATs. The maths tests will consist of an arithmetic paper and two reasoning papers on the Wednesday and Thursday of the week commencing 13^th May.

Year 5 will be moving on to Geometry – where we will be learning how to measure, draw and calculate different angles. Followed by a unit of area.

History:

In History, we are going to be exploring Ancient Egypt. During this topic, we will be learning about things such as: Egyptian civilisation, the pyramids of Giza and who were the Ancient Egyptians. Alongside this, we will be learning about Howard Carter to find out why he was a significant person during that historic time period. This is a topic we know the children are excited about learning!  We will also be visiting Leeds City Museum, where we will take part in an Ancient Egypt Workshop and come face to face with a real Egyptian Mummy.

Spanish:

In Spanish this half term, both year groups will be focusing on ‘My world’. In this unit, the classes will apply previous skills and knowledge of topic areas such as family, animals and homes to extend their conversation abilities. Children will learn how Spanish adjectives must ‘agree’ with the noun they describe, in relation to both number and gender. 

Art:

In Art this half term, we will be focusing on printing. This will include studying different designs from Ancient Egypt, exploring different techniques used in printing and creating our designs.

Music:

For our music, we are going to be studying ‘At the Movies’ unit, exploring how music is used for effect in film and investigating the different creation of sounds impacts the audience. We will then compose our own piece of music for a short film.

PE:

Our PE focus for this half term are athletics and tennis. All classes will be accessing two hours of PE every week and all children in Year 5 will continue to access swimming lessons every Monday. During the term swimming will be moving back to Rothwell, as the new pool is completed. Class teachers will keep you up to date as to when this will be. Please see below which sports your class will be learning.

Jellyfish: Athletics and Swimming

Starfish: Athletics and Swimming

Octopus: Athletics and Tennis

We had an exciting start to our Crime and Punishment topic!

We couldn’t believe our eyes, as we walked into the classroom after half term and found a size 5 boot, several footprints and numerous fingerprints! As well as a can of diet cola, a Manchester United Card, several fidget toys, a spade and clumps of black hair. Within minutes, we realised that our beloved class mascots were missing! Shortly after, we cornered off the area with caution tape, to ensure the evidence wasn’t tampered with. After working tirelessly for several days, we had our final six suspects who we interrogated carefully. The following day, we found a UV light that revealed a secret message from Mrs Hoskins! It explained that she had taken our beloved class mascots to show the special visitors at our school!

English   

The children have already written a newspaper report to inform others about the unexpected events at our school. They have also written a thank you letter to the staff at the YHA in Whitby or to Olaf (the Viking), who visited our school a couple of weeks ago to carry out an amazing workshop with the pupils.

The children are currently turning a dramatic animation called ‘Rock, Paper. Scissors,’ into a narrative. At the start of the story, the characters live in an idyllic setting until a vicious villain called Snip interrupts their utopia. Will the characters live happily ever after, or will he destroy their lives forever?   

Making writing lively and interesting is key. Therefore, the children are always encouraged to use carefully chosen fronted adverbials, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and similes to bring their writing to life. Throughout, the children are encouraged to use ARMS and COGS to edit their work.  

It is important that the children apply what they have learnt in their daily spelling lessons, so please don’t forget to keep practicing the spelling rules identified within their logbooks each week.

Maths   

Year 3 are going to complete several units linked to Shape, space and measure including length, volume, mass and money. Year 4 will learn about fractions, including finding equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions and finding improper fractions. The children will apply what they have learnt to help them to tell the time. Throughout, the children in LKS2 will continue to use mental arithmetic, structural apparatus, jottings and column method to solve one step and two step word problems.

During their fluency lessons, the children will also revisit a range of strategies they can use to solve mixed calculations with speed, efficiency and accuracy.   

We are keen for the children to become fluent with all their times tables, so extra practise at home is essential.

History   

We’re exploring how crime and punishments have changed over different periods of time, including the Middle Ages, Victorian times and modern Britain. Throughout, the children have tried hard to identify similarities and differences between each and use a range of secondary resources to extend their understanding further.

Science   

 The children enthusiastically used several working scientifically skills to help us solve our crime scene. This included, using a magnifying glass to look closely at the evidence, spot key patterns, make links and to ask key questions.

We had lots of fun!

PSHE 

The children have started to learn about drugs, alcohol and tobacco in PSHE. During their unit, the children have discussed the risks of smoking tobacco and explored the help available for people who want to stop. They will also learn that drugs (including medicines) can be harmful to people, while understanding that they can also be used to manage and treat medical conditions such as asthma.

Music  

We have been busy practising numerous songs for our Spring assembly on Thursday 28^th March 2024. During these sessions, the children have learnt how to use their voices effectively to sing in harmony, parts and rounds!

We can’t wait to show you what we have learnt.  

Computing  

The children have enjoyed putting their editing skills to the test to crop, rotate and adjust the colour of images. They are currently having lots of fun trying to copy and paste images to different platforms.   

Art

The amazing artist ‘David Hockney’ has inspired our artwork this half term. During their lessons, the children have described the similarities and differences between his work and have started to use his style and techniques to create their own scenic landscapes. They have also created a colour wheel to explore primary, secondary and complementary colours.

Spanish 

The children have worked hard to use key words and phrases to talk about families. This has included identifying different family members, talking about where they live and the pets they may have.

PE 

The coaches have taught the children the basic principles of dodge ball including moving around a space with agility and coordination, whilst throwing a ball with precision. We’ve also had lots of fun playing team games which have required the children to listen carefully, share their ideas respectfully and to identify the next steps in their learning.

This half term, each class in KS1 will be learning about a different country. Orcas will learn about Brazil, Flying Fish will learn about Japan and Swordfish will learn about Australia. The children will find out about the geography of their country, explore its culture, create art work linked to their country and even make some food that would traditionally be eaten there. At the end of the term, we hope to invite parents and carers to a special Learn with Us assembly where each class will share what they have learnt.

Our English focus this half term is instructions. Children will learn to give, read and follow instructions before writing their own based on the book ‘How to sneak a Monster into school’ and their food technology project. We will talk about the features of instructions (headings, numbers, bullet points, adverbs, imperative verbs, time adverbials) and look for these in different pieces of writing.

In Maths, Year 1 will learn about shapes. They will name and identify a range of 2D and 3D shapes including circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, cubes, cuboids, spheres and pyramids. They will then begin to describe the properties of shapes using vocabulary including sides, corners, edges, faces, straight and curved. Once this unit of work is completed, Year 1 children will begin to think about numbers to 40 and work to secure their understanding of place value within a 2 digit number.

Year 2 will complete their work on fractions and begin to look at time. They will revisit reading and making o’clock and half past times before focusing on quarter past and quarter to times. Once this is secure, children will begin to read the time to 5 minute intervals. Please help your child become confident in telling the time by practising lots at home. Staff will be sending home some useful documents that will support you with this.

Our Science unit this half term is Living things and their Habitats. Children will learn about local and world habitats and the different types of plants and animals that live in them. They will explore how living things are adapted to live in their habitats and consider what might happen if a plant or animal was placed in an unsuitable habitat. Our visit to Lotherton Hall will include a workshop about habitats and a guided tour around Wildlife World. Using their prior knowledge about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, children will look at different food chains and use the words producer, consumer, predator and prey to describe them.

In PE, children will continue to develop their throwing and catching skills. They will also use their gymnastics skills to create simple sequences of movements.

PSHE will be taught through our Where in the World? work. Children will learn about playground games from different countries, the food associated with festivals and celebrations from their focus country and be taught the importance of sun safety.

In Music, the focus is performance which will be taught through a unit all about travel. Children will use tuned and untuned instruments, alongside their voices, to perform a range of different songs.

The focus for RE is special books and stories. Children will learn about special books for Christians and Muslims and the stories that are within them. They will explore the meanings of these stories and consider why they are so important to people of the Christian and Muslim faiths.

In computing, children will look at digital photography. They will get the opportunity to use different devices to take photographs and then evaluate their quality. Children will use the words portrait and landscape to describe the orientation of a photograph and decide when it is best to use each one.

English:
In our English, we will be looking at developing our writing skills by studying different grammatical tools. We will investigate these tools and consider the impact they have on our writing and how a good writer can use these to their advantage.

Both Year 5 and 6 are going to be using different stimuli as our writing inspiration. We will be writing newspaper reports on the 2004 Thailand Tsunami as well as writing diary extracts as if we were. As part of this, we will be watching part of the film ‘The Impossible’ and interviewing a member of staff who was in Sri Lanka at the time. We will also be looking at writing instructions around baking hot cross buns.

Maths:

We are always working on our mental maths skills and strategies in Year 5 and 6. This half term is no different as we will continue to discuss and practise the best mental strategies for solving problems.

Alongside this, Year 6 will be looking at Graphs and Averages, Percentages, Volume and Area and Perimeter. We will also be focusing on our arithmetic which is recapping and practising the four operations.

Year 5 will be moving on to decimals and percentages. They will be learning how to find different percentages of whole numbers and multiplying and dividing decimals by whole numbers.

Spanish:
In Spanish this half term, both year groups will be focusing on ‘Eating Out’. They will be learning how to order hot and cold drinks; engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others and seek clarification.

Science:

This half-term, both Year 5 and Year 6 will be looking at Electricity. They will focus on developing the following skills:

• Associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells used in the circuit.
• Compare and give reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs, the loudness of buzzers and the on/off position of switches.
• Use recognised symbols when representing a simple circuit in a diagram.

Art:

In Art this half term, we will be focusing on 3D shapes. This will include sketching 3D shapes and incorporating this will clay work.

Music:

For our music, we are going to be practising songs with the entirety of KS2. This will then be shared with parents at the KS2 Easter event.

PE

Our PE focus for this half term are handball and health related exercises. All classes will be accessing two hours of PE every week and all children in Year 5 will continue to access swimming lessons every Tuesday. Please see below which sports your class will be learning.

Jellyfish: Outdoor Adventurous Activities (OAA) and Swimming

Starfish: Outdoor Adventurous Activities (OAA) and Swimming

Octopus: Outdoor Adventurous Activities (OAA) and Dance

As part of our new topic, the children will be learning about:

• The climate in Madagascar and how it is different from the climate in England.
• The Baobab trees in Madagascar and all the different uses of the tree.
• The animals that are unique to Madagascar, including lemurs.
• Some of the similarities and differences between the islands of the UK and Madagascar.

In their Phonics lessons and writing activities, the children will continue to learn to use their Fred fingers to write the letters they hear in words. Once the children have mastered learning to write words, they will be taught how to write a simple sentence.

In Maths, we will learn all about the numerals 8 and 9. We will be partitioning these numbers, learning our number bonds, one to one correspondence counting and learning the formation of numbers so we can write them correctly.

CLASS TRIP to Askham Bryan Wildlife Park on Thursday 14^th March

The children are excited to visit the lemurs at Askham Bryan Wildlife Park and ask the zookeepers questions about them. They will also meet lots of other animals and wildlife at the park. If you would like your child to accompany us on the class trip you must complete the Google Form to give permission by Monday 11^th March. The Google Form was included in a recent email to parents. If you need help paying your contribution for the trip or need help completing the Google Form, please contact the staff in the school office.

RECYCLE and REUSE! Instead of putting these items in your bin please give them to us:

• Birthday cards – we like to cut out the pictures on the cards and use them to make new cards.
• Envelopes – please save the envelopes you get in the post that have a clear plastic window. We like to use them to put our pictures inside. Please do NOT send us envelopes with your address on.
• Empty kitchen roll tubes – we like to use them to make telescopes.
• Plastic bottle tops and corks – we like to use them in the water tray.
• Pans, metal bowls, metal jugs and metal utensils – we use them in our outside Mud Kitchen.

LOST PROPERTY: Please write your child’s name in their uniform and inside PE kit hoodies so that we can reunite lost property with its owner. We are trying to put any lost property/unnamed uniform outside on the wooden bench on a morning and on the table outside at the end

Our class book this term is ‘The Stolen Spear’, Saviour Pirotta. This is a book written by an author who we had the pleasure of inviting into our school a couple of years ago. It is based around our topic of Stone Ages: Wolf has always been an outsider to his community, with his strange dreams and stargazing. When he is saved by a secretive stranger called Crow, he brings her into his village. Some time later, someone breaks into the sacred burial mound and steals a precious spear belonging to a dead healer. Convinced that Crow stole the spear, Wolf is banished by his village to find it. But the world outside the village is harsh and new… will Wolf find the strength he needs to find the spear?

Maths:

We are always working on our mental maths skills and strategies in Year 3 and 4. This half term is no different as we will continue to discuss and practise the best mental strategies for solving problems, alongside continuing to learn our times tables.
In addition to this, we will be learning about Place Value, including reading and writing numbers up to 1000 in Y3, and numbers up to 10000 in Y4. Pupils will be comparing, sequencing and calculating with numbers, using bar models to help them. Following this, Year 4 will progress onto rounding and estimating to conclude this topic.

English:

We have read ‘Stone Age Boy’ this week in classes and the children have been very inquisitive about life during the Stone Ages. We are delighted to feel the enthusiasm for this topic brewing as they will be learning lots of information during their History lessons, alongside their English ones.

In English, we will be focusing on various aspects of grammar to support the pieces of writing we have planned. The children have already made a great start of their character descriptions and we know they’re setting descriptions will follow on with as much effort. There are going to be lots of writing opportunities and we are looking forward to seeing what the children’s outcomes will be.

RE/PSHE:

Children in both year groups have already started exploring ‘What do the creation stories tell us?’. They have made a brilliant start with this and have worked hard to understand some difficult concepts relating to religion. We hope that the children will continue to show respect and understand the world around them in greater depth.

Children in Year 3 and 4 will be accessing some PSHE lessons focusing on RSE this half term with their class teachers. Parents/carers should have received an information letter which gives more details about these sessions. Please ask staff in the LKS2 team if you think you may have missed this.

PE:

Our PE focus for this half term are handball and health related exercises. All classes will be accessing two hours of PE every week. Please ensure your child wears their PE kit on their PE days – you can find this information out from your child’s class teacher.

Please see below which sports your class will be learning:

Stingrays: Handball and Health Related Exercises

Pufferfish: Handball and Health Related Exercises

Blue Tangs: Handball and Health Related Exercises

Science:

Our next Science week is w/c 25/09/2023 and both year groups will be learning about Animals including humans. Children will be working within their own year groups during this week.

Spanish:

During this half term’s topic of ‘Time to Eat’, children will learn and repeat key vocabulary. They will learn to make statements about food that they like and dislike as well as making polite requests and identifying quantities. Further into the topic, children will be drawing on their prior knowledge of adjectives in Spanish to describe food and drinks items. We are hoping that by the end of this unit, children will be able to have a short conversation about food, in Spanish.

Music:

During music lessons this half term, children in Y3 and 4 will be learning songs, beats and even some dance moves in our ‘Human Body’ topic. We have planned for children to use percussion instruments to accompany songs. They are looking forward to the challenge of being able to multitask with playing, singing and dancing! Alongside lessons in class, each class will get the opportunity to work with our outreach Djembe teacher – Autumn term: Blue Tangs.

History:

In History, we will be learning about the Stone Age, the Iron Age and the Bronze Age and just how long ago these periods were! We will learn about people’s way of life during this time and how this changed over the time period. As we don’t have any written records about prehistoric times, we will find out how archaeologists have discovered what life was like then.

English:
In our English, we will be looking at developing our writing skills by studying different grammatical tools. We will investigate these tools and consider the impact they have on our writing and how a good writer can use these to their advantage.

Both Year 5 and 6 are going to be starting our knew class book – Street Child. The story follows Jim Jarvis, a young orphan who escapes the workhouse in 1860’s London and survives brutal treatment and desperate circumstances until he is taken in by Dr. Barnardo, founder of a school for the city’s “ragged” children. This book also fits in nicely with our History topic ‘Education through time.’

Over the course of the half term, the children will be writing diaries from the perspective of Jim Jarvis, holding a debate and writing a persuasive letter to Lord Shaftesbury around Child Labour and finally, turning the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ into a narrative.

Maths:

We are always working on our mental maths skills and strategies in Year 5 and 6. This half term is no different as we will continue to discuss and practise the best mental strategies for solving problems.
Alongside this, we will also be learning about Place Value, including reading and writing numbers up to 1,000,000. Pupils will be comparing, ordering, rounding and calculating with numbers, using bar models to help them. Following this, Year 5 and 6 will progress onto calculating with large numbers using the four operations to solve calculations and word problems.

Year 5 will be moving on to geometry- where they will look at types of angles, drawing angles and finding missing angles on straight lines, around a point and in quadrilaterals. They will also begin to deepen their understanding of regular and irregular polygons.

Spanish:
In Spanish this half term, both year groups will be focusing on ‘The Wider World’ (el mundo a mi alrededor). The children will learn new key words and phrases relating to places in our world e.g. continents, animals, countries and the United Kingdom. They will conversate in Spanish asking each other questions such as, “Where do you live?”, and “Where is Spanish spoken?”. Not only will this enhance their Spanish skills, but their Geography knowledge too.

Science:

This half-term, both Year 5 and Year 6 will be looking at Animals including humans. During this topic, the focus will be on identifying and naming the main parts of the human circulatory system, recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their body functions and finally, describe the ways in which nutrients and water are transported within animals including humans.

Art:

In Art this half term, we will be focusing on specific artists. We will be looking at Alma Thomas and Kadinski and comparing the different styles of art. We will even be trying a few of their techniques.

Music:

For our music, our topic will be ‘keeping healthy’ which includes us looking at singing and playing scales and chromatic melodies accurately.

PE

Our PE focus for this half term are handball and health related exercises. All classes will be accessing two hours of PE every week and all children in Year 5 will continue to access swimming lessons every Tuesday. Please see below which sports your class will be learning.

Jellyfish: Handball and Swimming

Starfish: Handball and Swimming

Octopus: Handball and Health Related Exercises

We are excited to begin our last summer term and enjoy all it has to offer!

English   

During this half term, the children will be writing biographies on a person of their choosing. They will need to gather research, group the information and use this to write the biographies. We will be publishing these as posters and we can’t wait to see what is produced! We will then write an explanation text about an invention, the ‘Teacher Pleaser’ machine. The children will design and explain how it works and why different elements happen – cause and effect. Towards the end of term, LKS2 will also do some more work on poetry.

We will continue to work on proofreading and editing skills each lesson to further improve our writing.

The children will have daily spelling lessons so it is important that they are given opportunities to apply what they have learnt at home.  At the start of each unit, the children will record some common exception words in their logbooks and additional words they may find tricky to spell.  These words will change each time they learn a new spelling rule.  

Please ensure that your child returns their jotter and logbook to school every day.

Maths   

Year 3 will start this half term learning about time, looking at telling the time using ‘a.m.’ and ‘p.m.’, telling time to the minute, using analogue and digital time, and telling time by using both the minute and hour hands. Pupils then learn to use the 24-hour clock and clocks using Roman numerals. We will then start to look at statistics (pictograms and bar graphs) and being able to read and interpret information. Finally, Year 3 will be measuring and calculating perimeter.

Year 4 will start by learning about money. They will make links between tenths and hundredths, and decimal notation for money. Pupils will be taught how to round money to the nearest pound and understand contexts – in which this would be a useful skill to know. They will use this skill to estimate amounts and totals. We will then start to look at volume, area and perimeter, and finally geometry, where they will extend their previous knowledge of types of angles, previously learnt in Year 3.

During fluency lessons, the children will revisit a range of strategies they can use to solve mixed calculations with speed, efficiency and accuracy.   

We are keen for the children to become fluent with all their times tables so extra practise at home is essential.     

Geography  

Our topic for this half term is ‘Around the World’, comparing the United Kingdom and China. We will start by looking at place knowledge by locating the UK and China on a world map and comparing key facts and the physical geography of each country. This will then lead on to comparing cultural differences, including Chinese celebrations, food, wildlife and trade.

Science   

Year 3 and 4 will continue their learning about ‘Living Things and their Habitats’, before completing lots of ‘Awe and Wonder’ activities towards the end of the half term to practise our working scientifically skills further. This will also be a great opportunity for outdoor learning and pattern seeking.

Art  

In Art, pupils will be focusing specifically on painting styles linked to our Geography topic, ‘Around the World’. They will compare paintings and artists from both Europe and Asia to practise different techniques and use these to produce a final piece.

RE

LKS2 will look at different places of worship in the local and wider community and their significance to believers. This will look specifically at how places of worship are used by the community as a whole e.g., playgroups, youth organisations and community groups. 

RSE

As part of our PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) curriculum, Year 3 and 4 will have lessons that will focus on RSE (Relationships and Sex Education).

For Year 3, lessons will include pupils learning about the physical and emotional changes associated with puberty and personal hygiene.

Year 4 will learn about the physical and emotional changes associated with puberty including menstruation, wet dreams and personal hygiene.

All pupils will also have opportunities to ask questions.

Music 

The children are going to complete two units this half term which involve, exploring the pentatonic scale through traditional Chinese music and make music inspired by technology and computing. Within these units, pupils will explore different ways of notating pitch as they sing, read and compose music, ending with a musical celebration of Chinese New Year. They will also explore and compose sounds for earcons, emoticons, mobile phone ringtones, computer games and apps.

Computing  

Children will continue their learning on spreadsheets this half term, further understanding their purpose and collecting data to create their own. Within this, they will look at more advanced functions of the Purple Mash ‘2Calculate’ feature by creating their own pie chart and bar graphs, using the ‘more than’ and ‘spin button tool’ features and learn about describing cells, using their addresses.

Spanish 

During this term, LKS2 are going to cover two units including, ‘Shopping’ and ‘My Routine’. Children will learn specific vocabulary about fruit, vegetables, clothes and schedules. They will learn key phrases for asking the questions needed when going shopping and how to read timetables and TV schedules, answering simple questions about these.

PE 

In Physical Education, children will be doing athletics and tennis. They will have the opportunity to develop their existing running, jumping and throwing skills. They will be learning about an effective sprint technique, including sprinting over obstacles. The children will be given opportunities to use a variety of throwing techniques, including the underarm and overarm throws, to throw for distance and for accuracy. In tennis, children will develop their forehand, racket control and game skills.