Year 4 History - Who were the Angles, Jutes and Saxons?
This half term we will be looking at how easy it was to invade Britain. Today we focused on the next period of history following on from Roman Britain which was the Anglo Saxon invasion. In groups we researched who the Angles, Jutes and Saxons were and which countries they came from. The children worked really hard to develop their understanding of the routes that each of the groups took and which parts of Britain they invaded first.
Children’s Mental Health Week and Dress to Express Worship
Today was our special ‘ Dress to Express’ Worship to celebrate Children’s Mental Health Week. The theme of Dress to Express this year is ‘Know Yourself and Grow Yourself’. Children's emotional well-being is just as important as their physical health. Good mental health helps them develop the resilience to cope with whatever life throws at them and grow into well-rounded, healthy adults Our Heads and Deputies led the worship this week and started by telling everyone how they express themselves and they asked us all how we express ourself best. We heard that some children express themselves through playing football or other sports, dancing, listening to music and art etc. Mrs Ham showed us photos of how she likes to support her mental health through walking up huge fells with her dogs and her family. We then watched a clip from Inside Out the movie when Riley looked at various memories. We met sadness, joy, fear, disgust and anger. The children and Mrs Ham then acted out an emotion and the rest of the children had to guess what it was. We all feel different emotions but these affect our mental health. 5 Ways to Well-being are a great way to support our mental well-being such as: being physically active, connecting with others, learning new skills, giving to others and paying attention to the present moment (mindfulness). A question that the children presented asked ‘ How well do we really know ourselves?’ The children really enjoyed watching the clips and guessing the emotions that the characters were showing. The children shared when they too had experienced the emotions and how it made them feel. In another clip, we learnt about a boy named Malaki who felt like he was bad at everything he tried. Malaki was encouraged to ‘level up’ by his friends and people around him who cared for him. He was challenged to try a new skill which included skiing and ballet and tried his best with both. Although he wasn’t great at ballet he was awarded recognition for his determination and resilience. The children were asked what they had learnt from the video and the responses were: to keep going even if you aren’t the best, to not fall at the first hurdle and you can do anything that you set your mind to. We are all unique and special and God gave us many talents, some of yet we might not have discovered. We should let our light shine for all the world to see. We said our special Year of Prayer about our talents again and thanked God for the talents we have and the ones we are yet to discover. Our Heads and Deputies then finished with a special prayer for Children's Mental Health Week. To end our Worship we had the pleasure in listening to Renee, Molly, Alice and Lyla who read their acrostic poems ‘ Being Me’ and we sand 'Shine from the Inside Out' with our best singing voices and actions. What a wonderful way to start our day and a great end our Children's Mental Health Week, although we know that we need to focus on our mental health and wellbeing every day, not just this week.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Zoom Meeting
What an exciting day on Monday! The Year 4s had the opportunity of linking live via Zoom with their linking class from St Matthew’s in Blackburn. The children showed St Matthew’s some of the Makaton signs they’d been learning and asked their new friends some curiosity questions they’d prepared, before answering questions from the link class. We then finished our session playing a couple of games together. It was a great first meeting and we can’t wait to meet our new friends in the summer term.
Year 5 - Emotional Literacy
Today, Year 5 explored the concept of emotional literacy through a discussion about the poster. The class developed a strong understanding of what emotional literacy means and how it can help us navigate difficult situations. Together, we identified key ways to support one another during challenging times, including being understanding, recognising emotions in ourselves and others, showing empathy, offering help and practicing mindfulness to manage emotional difficulties. Through this discussion, the children reflected on the importance of kindness and emotional awareness in building a supportive and caring environment.
Year 4- Creating Gymnastic Sequences
In our gymnastics lesson today, we were creating a sequence of gymnastic actions including matched shapes and mirrored shapes with a partner using apparatus. They also incorporated changes of level and direction. We also peer evaluated to identify the strengths of a performance and areas for improvements. The children provided constructive feedback against the given success criteria which was great to listen to. The children are working really hard to develop their oracy skills and provide comments that are both positive and helpful for their peers.
Reception - Chinese New Year
This week, Reception have been learning about the celebration of Chinese New Year. We have been looking at the traditions and festivities celebrated in China, but also by people all over the world too! We read the story of the great race and learned about the position the animals came to determine each year. This year is the year of the snake. We performed dragon dances and will be tasting some traditional Chinese food!
Holocaust Memorial Day Worship
Our first collective worship of the week had a serious and somber tone as we held in our thoughts and prayers all of the Jews who suffered in the Holocaust. We looked out of our spirituality windows to learn how the Nazis did not show love to their Jewish neighbours like God commanded but instead treated them really badly during World War II. We watched a BBC interview with a Jewish survivor, who described some of the personal tragedies he faced at the young age of 6 when his family sent him away to save his life from the Nazi regime. He shared how he travelled on the Kindertransport and a British family showed him love and compassion and became the light in the dark. Through our spirituality mirrors we were able to reflect on how hearing of these events made us feel, and how the Jews must have felt back then. Finally, through our spirituality doors we learned of the many survivors who have worked tirelessly to make people aware of the devastation that was caused so that it would never happen again. We reflected on how we should always love our neighbours regardless of whether they look like you, pray like you, speak like you or think like you and stand up to anyone who is being mean to others.
Wellbeing Warriors Badge Design Meeting
Today our Wellbeing Warriors had a working lunch, so that we could prepare for the WOW design a badge competition. The children will be launching this in Celebration Worship tomorrow. This years theme is ‘Walk with Joy’ and every child in school will get to design their very own badge for the competition. We want them to be big, bold and colourful. Diversity and originality are key to stand out from the crowd. WOW badges are only 3cm, so simple designs without small details will work best. The Wellbeing Warriors can’t wait to receive and judge the entries, so let’s get cracking!
Whole School Worship - Who Is My Neighbour?
In our collective worship, we were considering the question, “Who is my neighbour?” We discussed what it means to love your neighbour as yourself (as mentioned in parts of the Bible such as Leviticus and the Gospel according to Mark) and that there are times when it can be incredibly difficult. In hearing about the life of Martin Luther King Jr, as today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, we discovered that, even when it feels impossible to love our neighbour, when we are mistreated, ignored or disrespected as he and other black people have been, we must try harder to follow God’s greatest commandment, just like Martin did. Our children considered this and spent some time reflecting on the Christian Values that Martin demonstrated and the ways that they would like to make the world a better place and make a difference. Some of the children’s examples included: protecting nature, making peace when we have disagreements, putting a stop to pollution and eradicating poverty. We finished with prayers thanking God for Martin Luther King Jr and all that he did to the make the world a better place and asked Him to give us the courage to stand up for what is right. Rev Ben finished with a special blessing and we sang 'I can make a difference'.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Curiosity Questions
In Year 4, we are preparing for our first online meeting with our linking class by thinking of curiosity questions. Before we can write good questions for our linking class, we needed to explore curiosity questions with each other. We played human bingo, in which we had to work in pairs to find one person to match each statement on our grid. We asked questions such as, “Are you left-handed?” and “Do you like pizza and chips?”, to get to know a bit more about each other. Then in our next session we will be considering questions for our friends at St Matthew’s.
Online Safety in Year 4 - Using the Justalk Kids App
As part of our PSHE we looked at online safety both in and outside of school. Today we shared a poster that told us all about an app called Talkids. We looked at all the positive aspects and discussed these in smaller groups. Our main findings that we highlighted were: * specific to our group (13 and under) * a safe space to chat online * parental controls * helps prevent cyber bullying
India Mill Winners Disco
Well done to our children who are in India Mill House Team. Their team won the most Values points this half term and were rewarded with a non-uniform day and a disco. The children enjoyed some sweets, danced lots and played musical bumps too.