Year 6 - Presentation of Learning
Today, Year 6 presented their English learning to Year 5, all centred around Mary Poppins. The children confidently shared a range of work, including detailed character descriptions, thoughtful book reviews and vivid setting descriptions that brought the story to life. The children also performed imaginative kenning poems inspired by Mary Poppins, using expressive language and performance skills. This presentation celebrated the children’s creativity, reading comprehension and writing skills, while also giving them the opportunity to speak clearly and confidently in front of an audience. Year 5 were a fantastic audience and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the high-quality work produced by Year 6.
Year 6 - Smart School Council
During our class debate, the Smart School Council led the session based on the question: Is a new year actually a new you? The children shared a range of ideas, including whether people really change or simply make better choices over time. Some children felt a new year offers a fresh start and motivation to set goals such as being kinder, improving behaviour or trying harder at school. Others suggested that people stay the same but can improve habits gradually through effort and perseverance. The children discussed the importance of realistic goals, resilience when things go wrong and how support from friends and adults can help positive change.
Reception: Helicopter Stories
Reception class have really been exploring pre writing skills. They have been learning to orally tell a story using adjectives and sentences. The children told a story about a dolphin called Charlie who was looking for a home. Luckily Bob the whale helped him to find somewhere to live in the ocean. The children acted the story out and did a wonderful job. Well done!
Year 6 - Geography
Today in Geography, the children began the lesson with a diagnostic question exploring why people might choose to live in London. Using talk tokens, they practised their oracy skills by sharing ideas, listening carefully to one another and building on responses within their groups. This supported thoughtful discussion and helped pupils justify their opinions. The lesson then moved on to exploring how human activity has shaped and changed the landscape. The children examined key concepts such as urbanisation, agriculture and erosion management, considering both the positive and negative impacts humans can have on the environment. They used examples to deepen their understanding and made links to real-life locations, developing their geographical vocabulary and critical thinking skills throughout the session.
Year 4 - English: Performing Haikus
It’s been a super busy start to the Spring term in Year 4! In English, we have been analysing the structure of haiku poetry and modifying poems to fit this structure. We finished off this short unit performing our modified poems to the rest of the class, with a focus on the use of intonation and expression to convey the theme of the poem.
Year 4 - RE: Beliefs About Jesus
Our Year 4 Bible explorers also became defence lawyers today in our mock courtroom trial. The question was “Is Jesus the Son of God?”, their task was to defend Christians and provide evidence from the Bible, from the miracles Jesus performed. After taking time preparing their arguments, the children presented their evidence and put up some strong counter arguments each time the prosecution attempted to refute their evidence.
Year 6 - Smart School Council
This week’s Smart School Council meeting focused on the idea of who children would like to sit next to in class. The discussion explored different options, including sitting next to a friend, sitting near a celebrity or choosing to sit independently. Pupils shared their opinions, considered the benefits of each choice and reflected on how seating arrangements can affect their learning and wellbeing.
Year 5 - Science
We continued our topic on the properties of materials by exploring what hardness means. The children used nails and coins to try to scratch a variety of materials and used their observations to order them from hardest to softest. They general found iron to be the hardest materials to scratch and fabric/sponge to be the softest. The children worked well together in groups using oracy skills to discuss their conclusions.
Year 5 - Presentation of Learning
We finished our English topic of narrative poetry by presenting our learning to Year 6. The children told Year 6 all about the Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. They spoke clearly and fluently about the themes of the poem and the techniques the poet used to create a picture in the reader’s mind. They told year 6 about the metaphors, expanded noun phrases and onomatopoeia within the stanzas before performing the poem as a class using physical actions to communicate meaning.
PSHE - Stereotypes in Year 4
In our PSHE session this week, we were looking at stereotypes. Discussing Stereotypes help to teach the children limiting beliefs about who they are and what they can do, often based on gender, race, or appearance, which can impact their self-esteem, career choices, and relationships. We can challenge stereotypes by using gender-neutral language, establishing role models, encouraging all children to try different activities, and developing critical thinking skills so they can question stereotypes they encounter in the media or from peers. The children worked in smaller groups and used their oracy skills to share these with the rest of the class which was brilliant to see.
Year 4 - Presentation of Learning
The Year 4s were very excited to present their learning to the Year 1 class this week. The children were put into groups of 6 to create a model of the human digestive system. They rehearsed their explanations of what each part does to the food and then proudly presented to small groups of Year 1 children. To start with, their explanations were a little bit complicated for our younger audience because they were keen to use the scientific vocabulary they’d learned, but we practised again using our best Mr Tumble impressions to make our explanations more Year 1 friendly.
Year 6 - The Human Heart
Today, we began our new science unit on Animals Including Humans, focusing specifically on the human heart. The children used their talk tactics, particularly their talk tokens, to discuss and debate whether the heart is the most important organ in the human body. They thoroughly enjoyed sharing their ideas and demonstrated excellent oracy skills throughout the discussion. Following this, the children took part in an experiment to explore how the heart responds to exercise, recording their results carefully. Later in the lesson, they investigated the structure of the heart in more detail, labelling its different parts and learning about the functions.