: Blog items
Date: 3rd Feb 2024 @ 10:24am
We have had another fantastic week in Year 3.
Our week began with a journey to the Stone Age. We had a special visit from Archaeologist Dr Hill who brought an incredible collection of artefacts from the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Age. The children had the opportunity to get up close and personal with genuine Stone Age artefacts. They were thrilled to get the chance to hold a Woolly Mammoth tooth and we couldn’t believe how big a Megalodon tooth was!
In Maths, we have been looking at lengths. We started by reminding ourselves of our past learning from Year 2. We then asked some key questions: Where should you start measuring from on your ruler? What is the length in centimetres? What is the length of in metres? What is the length of in metres and centimetres? Would you measure the length of the classroom in centimetres or metres? Why?
In English, we finished our book and enjoyed the ending of ‘The Stone Age Boy’. We have been developing and applying our knowledge of inverted commas and mastering past and present tense in our writing. Next week, we will use the story mountain to help us plan for our big write. In our Guided Reading lesson, we are also coming to the end of ‘The Iron Man’ we are looking forward to the big battle between ‘The Iron Man’ and the ‘Space Bat-Angel-Dragon’ monster that has invaded Earth.
In History, our Stone Age topic ended in the Iron Age. We used an aerial photograph, to speculate as to what some holes on the ground might be, before annotating an artist’s reconstruction of Danebury Hill Fort. Using the zones of inference technique; pupils work out what they know confidently, what they can infer, and what they need to enquire further to understand fully. They then helped the ‘Hopeless Curator’ to work out what the objects found at Danebury might be. We finished our lesson with the children designing an interactive App for an iPad to help people work out from a picture what life was like in the Iron Age.
During our Science lesson, we recognised that light from the sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect your eyes and skin from the sun. We learnt that the Sun is made of gas and is a star. The children solidified their learning by creating a leaflet to explain the dangers of the sun and what can be done to protect themselves from it. Next week, we will be investigating that shadows are formed when light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. We will predict where a shadow will form in relation to an opaque object and a light source.
Have a wonderful weekend Year 3!
Date: 1st Feb 2024 @ 5:20pm
And just like that, we are in February! Where did January go?
As always, we have worked incredibly hard in Year 2 this week and have shone in everything we have done.
This week in English, we focused on writing in the past tense. We learnt the different spelling rules for adding the suffix – ed and identified a range of verbs that are irregular and do not follow these rules. As we move into next week, we will build up to our ‘Big Write’, an adventure story with their own characters and destinations.
In Maths, we continued to explore multiplication with a special focus on arrays. The children explored the different multiplication sentences they could write by identifying the different rows and columns in the array. After, they created their own! As well as this, we focused on making equal groups by grouping objects together. We started by using counters, practically, before moving on the grouping using pictures. Next week, we will continue with our topic, and will be exploring dividing by 2 and 5 as well as the 2- and 5-times table.
In RE, we continued to explore the various stories of Jesus. This week, we looked at his first miracle, turning water into wine. We loved this story and worked together, using role play, to recreate the story before preforming them for our peers. It was so much for to recreate, adding actions and voices along the way!
In PE we continued with our fitness topic and this week, we had a plank off – something that has been highly requested – it was amazing to see so many children hold the plank for over 2 minutes but we did have two incredible super stars who managed to plan for an incredible 7 minutes! Well done, everyone!
In Art, we continued to explore texture, using the primary colours, and discussed how this adds more detail to our art work.
In PSHE this we focused on identifying things that made us unique and how that is something to celebrate. As a class, we discussed how highlighting these differences, in a negative way, can have serious consequences and make our friends feel a range of emotions. We all realised that it was important instead to celebrate our friends’ differences, and just like Reverend Anne said in assembly, be someone else’s light – brightening up their day.
Reminders
- Our school trip is next Tuesday. Please can children bring a disposable water bottle to school on this day.
Date: 1st Feb 2024 @ 4:50pm
What a very busy and fun week we have had!
This week in RE, the children have enjoyed listening to the story ‘Daniel and the Lion’s den this led to the children talking to each other about a time they had been brave. The children then enjoyed making lion masks to remind them of these times.
The children have enjoyed learning all about Neil Armstrong by using the fabulous book ‘Little People Big Dreams – Neil Armstrong’. This then led us onto learning about Tim Peake and his journey into space, the children especially enjoyed watching his space walk and the children were fascinated! The children then came up with a list of things that they would need to take on a space mission.
The children began the week with a visit to Forest school. The children were given the task to find different natural resources to make a snowman. We even gave them some hair! The children then enjoyed playing a game of ‘1,2,3, where are you?’ What a fabulous time we had!
In maths we have started to explore the numbers, 6,7 and 8. the children have been looking for different resources that represent each number and used their sorting skills to put them into groups. Great work everyone!
We look forward to seeing you next week for our last week before half term.
Miss Dalley and the Reception team
Reminders:
Wed 7th February – Parent Teacher Meetings in the school hall
Friday 9th February – Finish for half term
Monday 19th February – Back to School
Date: 1st Feb 2024 @ 10:00am
In Maths, Mr King’s group focused on conversions between fractions, decimals and percentages while Mrs Martin’s group have been solving calculations involving fractions and multiplying decimals by whole numbers. Next week, the children will be doing their next round of assessments to see how much knowledge they have retained so far!
As authors, we have now moved onto our fourth piece for our author books this half-term…we have been working incredibly hard indeed! This week, the children have been tasked with creating their own hybrid creature. Firstly, they used an online app to combine various animals and generate an image (which they certainly enjoyed!) and then used one of our thinking maps to organise the information they intended to share about their creation. Towards the end of the week, we looked at non-chronological reports and we are now in the process of writing our own for our fictional, fantastical animal.
In Science this week, the children have continued their learning about electricity by learning about three types of variables: independent, dependent and control variables. They then designed their own investigations and chose what their independent and control variables would be. As linguists, we focused on masculine and feminine adjectives linked to ‘Space’ before translating Spanish sentences that included a variety of these adjectives.
In PE, we revised how to do various rolls - including barrel and straddle – before focusing on forward rolls and working our way through a progression chart which showed how to work up from a basic forward roll to a more complex one. The children were able to themselves different challenges, such as rolling with no arms and starting in a handstand position. Later in the week, they then moved into the backwards roll, which some children actually found slightly easier. It was great to see lots of children raising their hands at the end of the lesson to share how they felt they had made progress within the lesson and demonstrate something they were proud of.
A special ‘well done’ to those girls who represented the school in two football tournaments this week. They achieved many match wins and should be very proud of how they conducted themselves during both events.
Another busy week! Have a relaxing weekend, everyone!
Date: 31st Jan 2024 @ 9:24am
Here is a snapshot of some of this week’s learning in Year 4….
With a little help from some friends from Sesame Street, we learnt all about Shabbat, the Jewish Day of Rest. We discovered that Shabbat happens each week from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. During Shabbat, Jewish people remember the story of creation from the Torah where God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th day. Using a flow map, we sequenced the things that happen during Shabbat including family meals, prayers at the synagogue and drinking from the Kiddush cup.
It was time to write letters this week in English, showing off our knowledge of the events that unfolded in Pompeii after tremors could be felt on the ground. It has been heart-warming to see how passionate the children are about our book ‘Escape from Pompeii’ and the historical language they have used in their writing. Connecting our learning back to our speech writing checklists, we also took to the challenge of including speech in our writing. Our letter writing concluded by answering a critical question - should the children return to Pompeii? It was great to hear the debates the children formed surrounding the question and the powerful justification they wrote to support their answers.
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, we have been re-watching our favourite short films and adding our own narration to the clips and voices to the characters. Our narration has brought emotion to the scenes and enabled us to describe the journey of events throughout the film.
We grasped how to use the Bus Stop method in Maths, to provide us with a quick and efficient method for working out division with larger numbers. In this method, we placed the number to be divided under a bracket (or bus stop) to separate it from the number to be divided by. To fully understand this method, we ensured we connected our learning with our known Multiplication facts to calculate how many times a number goes into another number e.g. how many 8’s in 40. We know this method will come in useful when dividing 3-digit numbers and when solving word problems. With knowledge of four written methods to support our calculation, we were given the challenge of selecting the correct method to use to answer a selection of arithmetic calculations; we picked from column addition, column subtraction, column multiplication and our newly learnt bus stop method.
Continuing our focus surrounding volcanoes in Geography, we learnt all about the 3 different types of volcanoes and how we can identify them based on their physical features. Using Google Earth, we identified volcanoes around the world and decided whether they are a Cinder, Shield or Composite volcano.
Bench Dodgeball has been a class favourite this week. We love the new rule which allows us to catch the ball when stood on the bench to gain our place back on the team. In Science, we have investigated how to keep a bulb alight in a circuit and discovered how to connect our electrical components in order to make a motor and buzzer work. In Art, we have explored how to use a range of tones to give a drawing texture, shadows or emphasis on key areas.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend!
Date: 30th Jan 2024 @ 8:41pm
We have had the most amazing time this week, well done Nursery!
On Monday, the children hunted for the 4 pieces of a jigsaw in the classroom that led to the clues of a favourite book by Julia Donaldson ‘The Gruffalo’. We then retold the story of the Gruffalo using the characters, using repetitive phrases and language from the book. What great storytellers we had!
The children have continued to retell the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ using the story tuff tray. The children have enjoyed our Gruffalo themed areas, making Gruffalo crumble, painting and making the characters from the Gruffalo. The children took part in the Gruffalo themed PE, we made sure we jumped with bent knees like the Gruffalo, moved quick like the mouse, high like the owl, quiet like the snake and far like the fox!
Well done Nursery!
We simply can’t believe that is nearly half term, have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Molloy, Mrs Bevin and the Nursery Team
Reminders:
Wed 7th February – Parent Teacher Meetings in the school hall
Friday 9th February – Finish for half term
Monday 19th February – Back to School
Date: 30th Jan 2024 @ 10:28am
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February has arrived and another week flies on by! This week has been typically full of learning and fun opportunities which also coincided with ‘National Storytelling Week’. Here is just a snapshot of some of our learning below…
As it is National Storytelling Week, we explored world building within various book series, video games and films that we love. Many examples included Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Avatar and many more. We considered how the creator would map out various aspects and features of their unique storytelling worlds before the story itself unfolds. Inspired, we created our own storytelling worlds, letting our imaginations take us into these new lands of endless possibilities.
In Collective Worship, we commenced our new monthly value of ‘Love’, which we have connected closely to our school value of Nurture that refers to being kind to ourselves and others. We watched a video titled ‘Love Has No Labels’ which showed us that love exists in so many different ways. The video challenged us to always be open minded and work to stop bias and prejudice in the world around us.
Our main focus in Maths was on converting between improper fractions and mixed numbers. To practise this, we used lots of games including a whole class loop game, Blooket and a version of UK gameshow, ‘Mr and Mrs’ (however retitled as Mr/Miss Improper Fraction/Mixed Number). There was lots of hard work throughout and hopefully the children can apply their understanding within this week’s Mirodo homework too. Next week, we will move onto adding and subtracting fractions.
We completed our class writing focus book, ‘Arthur and the Golden Rope’, this week too. It is fair to say that nearly all the children fell for the twist at the end as our main character was thought to have been gravely injured by Fenrir the wolf before some magic was revealed to have saved the day. We loved reading this picturebook together and exploring the various features and elements of Norse mythology throughout. Our work this week included lots of thinking map work to analyse Arthur’s various quests as well as breaking down the key elements of the story. Next week, we will start to plan a Norse adventure myth of our own!
A fun week and I hope you all have equally fun weekends too. See you Monday!
Reminders:
-A Year 5 Clarinet performance will be taking place on Monday 5th February at 2:30pm in our school hall. The children will showcase a few of the pieces that they have been learning as part of our Music curriculum offer using this instrument. Please enter the hall via the KS1 playground entrance at the front of the school and the children can be picked up and taken home directly following the performance. It will finish in time for normal end of the school day arrangements.
Date: 27th Jan 2024 @ 11:35am
What another fantastic we have had in Year 3!
We started our week with RE, continuing our topic ‘Jesus, the man who changed lives’ We started to unpick the question ‘What is change?’ We reflected on what has changed in our lives and how changes can be physical as well as emotional. We then discussed why change is important. Next week, we will look at Jesus’ twelve disciples as we unpick their stories, comparing their lives before and after they met Jesus and how their lives changed.
We are thoroughly enjoying The Iron Man book for our Guided Reading lessons. On Wednesday, we imagined how we would react if The Iron Man appeared in Formby. Asking ourselves; Where might he go? What might he do? What would he eat? How would people react? How might reactions differ? In our Thursday lesson, we focused on identifying noun phrases within the text to describe how the Iron Man appears to Hogarth. Next week, we will be delving further into our novel as we discuss alliteration, become local newspaper journalists and create some fiercely fantastic headlines.
In English, this week we started by using our 4c double bubble diagram to compare Stone Age food to Modern Day food. The children considered what foods are eaten, how it is cooked and how it is preserved for eating later. Using this to support their writing the children wrote a comparison using past tense for Stone Age and present tense for now. Later in the week, introducing the present perfect form the children concluded the week by planning and then writing a report for the ‘community leader’ detailing everything they had done during the day in the Stone Age community, focusing on applying the present perfect. Well done Year 3!
It has been a busy week in Maths, the children have been working hard and persevering with dividing a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number using flexible partitioning. It was a tricky concept to grasp at first, but we didn’t give up and used our learning curve to keep pushing through until we mastered the concept. Next week, we will conclude this unit by focusing on dividing with remainders and solving problems which will include positive integer scaling problems.
We are having so much fun in our Spanish lessons learning about ‘la fruta’. In this unit the children are learning 10 fruits and have been introduced to simple opinions ‘I like’ and ‘I do not like’ through interactive games and songs. By the end of this unit, the children will have the knowledge and skills to be able to say which fruits they like and do not like in Spanish.
In Science, we asked ‘What is reflective light?’ We discussed that we can see things because light is reflected. Light travels in straight lines. When light from an object is reflected by a surface, it changes direction. We continued to investigate looking at materials and how some reflect better than others. Smooth, shiny surfaces such as mirrors and polished metals reflect light well. Dull and dark surfaces such as dark fabrics do not reflect light well. We solidified our learning by creating an information poster to encourage children to wear something reflective when they are outside in the dark.
We also took the time this week to remember those who suffered in the Holocaust, under Nazi persecution. We created a reembrace poster to highlight the reasons why it is so important to mark this Memorial Day.
Have a restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
Date: 26th Jan 2024 @ 4:38pm
What a magical week we have had this week, full of laughter (lots of singing) and fun!
Monday brought recorders, an what fun we had there! We love it when Mrs McCardle comes into school and have been working hard on practicing where we place our fingers to produce different sounds. We cannot wait for next week!
In English, we have worked hard to develop our use of adjectives. We focused on describing the dragons in the story, and our own characters describing both their physical features and their characteristics. As well as this, we started to develop our understanding of expanded noun phrases to add extra information. As well as this, we focused on writing in the past and present tense, remembering that if it is in the past, it has already happened and identifying how we change our verbs as a result.
In Maths, we started our new topic, Multiplication. We started by connecting our learning back to Year 1 and recapped how to identify the different groups, as well as how many were in each group. After, we explored the multiplication sign, and talked about how it means, lots of or groups of. This allowed us to write our own multiplication sentences for various pictorial and abstract questions. We also learnt how, unlike addition, you cannot flip the numbers round as it has a different meaning. It was mind blowing for some!
In Art, we explored colouring mixing. We started by using water and the prime colours, mixing them and seeing the results. We saw how the colours mixed to create secondary colours and how by adding more or less on a specific paint allowed the shade to change. After, we went on a nature walk, collecting a range of natural objects, to use as inspiration. We worked hard to look at the different textures and discussed what resources we could use to replicate this. Using the prime colours again, and black and white, we used a range of martials to recreate the different objects.
In PE, we continued to focus on developing our team work skills. We worked first as a whole class, then in small groups, to pass a hoop around the circle, timing ourselves as we went. To make it more challenging, we donned blindfold (our jumpers) passing the hoop round the circle again but supporting our friends as we went. It was so much fun, a true highlight of the week!
We ended our week with a fantastic multi-sport taster session for a new club, starting after half term, which allowed us to practice a range of different sports.
Reminders
- Our school trip is on Tuesday 6th Children will need to bring a water bottle to school but packed lunches will be provided.
- Please, where possible, ensure your child’s water bottle is in school.
Date: 26th Jan 2024 @ 8:37am
We have had another great week in Year 1! We began our week with an exciting History lesson as we explored the Titanic in more detail. We used our knowledge so far to investigate what made the unsinkable sink! We wanted to go beyond a simple answer, and explored more than one explanation. We worked in teams to read a variety of explanations to why the ship sank, we then used our investigative skills to explore which answers were most likely. We used all of the ideas to help us create our own sophisticated explanation of why the disaster occurred. We started to understand how the quickest answer is not always the best, we really needed to think about all of the possible explanations before articulating our own informed ideas. I have loved seeing such enthusiasm when we are exploring this topic, Year 1 have shared such fantastic thoughts and ideas!
In Maths this week we have come to the end of our ‘Place Value’ unit. We completed this unit by using all of our knowledge on counting within 10 and 20. We put our understanding into practice as we explored number lines to 10 and 20. We discovered the meaning of halfway and put this STAR vocab into our learning as later on in the week we had to focus on the start, halfway point and end of different number lines. We then used this understanding to estimate on a number line, we explored the meaning of estimate as another STAR vocab word. We had fun estimating the amounts of different things in the classroom! We then compared numbers within 20, by using greater than and less than symbols, we then made the numbers usingmanipulatives.
This week in RE we read another story from the Bible. We read ‘The Calming of the Storm’. We are beginning to understand why Jesus is so special! We were fascinated by his amazing life performing miracles and how his miracles show that he is the son of God. We put ourselves in the Disciple’s shoes by re-enacting facial expressions and exploring how they might have felt on the boats.
Have a lovely weekend Year 1!
Date: 25th Jan 2024 @ 3:55pm
What an exciting week we have had!
For RE this week we have completed our theme of stories Jesus told by listening to the story of Noah’s Ark. The children enjoyed creating their own rainbows and thought of a promise they could make to God to help look after the world and people around us.
The children were so surprised on Monday to find the Home corner had been turned into a space station! On Tuesday we discovered and Alien had landed in the classroom and had to use our detective skills to find out where they had gone and what they looked like! The children discovered a small friendly Alien called ‘Beegu’ had been hiding in the classroom, the children have enjoyed creating Alien pictures and describing what Beegu looks like! We went on a search to find Beegu’s Mum in the outdoor area, following any clues that we came across. Once we found her the children enjoyed making space rockets to help Beegu and her Mum get back home. I wonder what other adventures Beegu will get up to.
In Maths we have been looking at weight and capacity. The children have enjoyed exploring the weight of different items around the room using scales to see which is lighter and which is heavier. We realised that just because an item is big, it doesn’t always mean that it’s heavy!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all next week.
Miss Dalley and the Reception team
Reminders:
Wednesday 31st January and 7th February - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Thursday 8th February - Reception Health Screening
Friday 9th February – Finish for half term
Monday 19th February – Return to school
Date: 25th Jan 2024 @ 9:49am
In Writing, we started to read Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Selfish Giant’ as our focus text. Towards the end of the week, we discussed how Wilde writes about the weather and seasons as proper nouns and noted how he uses personification for a more powerful effect. We connected our thinking to other examples of where we have seen this in the media, including Marvel characters (e.g. Thor, Storm) and Disney Films. The children are now currently working on creating a short piece of text that personifies a season or weather type(s) of their choice.
As mathematicians, Mr King’s group have continued their learning on algebra, this week balancing questions with more than one variable and also finding the nth term. Next week, we will be moving onto finding equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages. Mrs Martin’s group have had a week of consolidating all the knowledge they will need for SATs arithmetic papers. They have revised many topics – from long division to multiplying fractions! Next week, they will be moving onto number problems.
Our weekly Spanish lessons have continued with the children continuing with their new ‘Space’ topic. This has been a great way so far of recapping some of their Y5 Science knowledge! We have also started our Science unit on electricity, where the children have recapped on their Y4 knowledge of the topic and began learning how to draw electrical circuits.
In PE, we have continued with our athletics trials – this week, trialling for the running events – and also commenced our gymnastics unit. To begin this topic, we focused on counter balances and counter tension. In addition to this, a special ‘well done’ to those children who represented our school in a table tennis tournament at Formby High School and emerged as the overall winners! We also saw our dodgeball team taking part in a tournament at Stanley High School on Thursday, where they accumulated many victories as well. What a great effort on the sports front!
A busy and enjoyable week – have a great weekend, everyone!
Date: 24th Jan 2024 @ 1:24pm
Well done Nursery, what a super week we have had!
Continuing with our theme ‘Winter’, there was a particular interest in Penguins so we have enjoyed learning a little more about them. We also enjoyed the story ‘Blue Penguin’ and then the next day we found Blue Penguin had left our very own eggs to look after. The children had to build nests, practice balancing the eggs on their feet and waddle around like a Penguin. We also waddled like a penguin to lunch (which was incredibly funny) and took part in a penguin themed yoga session. The children also created some fabulous paintings and drawings of penguins.
Please can you ensure your child has a warm coat, hat, gloves and a FULL change of clothes including underwear and socks in school at all times and that it is clearly labelled with their name, thank you
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Molloy, Mrs Bevin and the Nursery Team
Reminders:
Wednesday 31st January and 7th February - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Friday 9th February – Finish for half term
Monday 19th February – Return to school
Date: 24th Jan 2024 @ 10:49am
We can’t quite believe it’s Friday again! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!
Year 4 were set a task this week to reflect on their understanding of Wisdom, take inspiration from the wise people we have been thinking about and instil wisdom into their everyday lives. With this challenge in mind, the children have been using their judgements to choose right and wrong in different situations and sharing their knowledge with others to help them make wise choices.
In RE, we identified clues in artwork which suggest that Jesus has authority over the others illustrations that can be seen in the artwork. We were quick to realise that Jesus is stood above or in front of the others in the illustrations, is painted in white and often has a graceful, angelic and powerful pose.
Using a checklist to ensure we have all elements needed, we created sentences including speech to show what the characters in our story ‘Escape from Pompeii’ might be saying to each other. We had to remember to always start our speech with a capital letter and include punctuation before closing the speech. It was great to hear how many variations of the word ‘said’ we could identify to make our speech sentences just that little more exciting to read. We then used a range of words to describe the mood in different points of the story and planned a diary entry to sequence how the eruption of Mount Vesuvius unfolded. Next week, we are going to include speech when writing diary entries and continue to include fronted adverbials to help sequence events in time order.
To support our practise towards the Multiplication Check, we have joined the Emile Education Times Tables competition this week, taking on the football themed contest answering multiplication questions against other schools. We have loved increasing our speed and answer accuracy to help score points for our class. Our fingers are crossed we can top the leader board this week! We have connected our understanding of using column multiplication in Maths, to now multiply a three-digit number and a one-digit number. Year 4 truly have mastered the steps they need to take in order to multiply accurately using this method. Later in the week, it was time to introduce division and practise using the bus stop method to help us to divide. Next week, we will continue to use the bus stop method to support our division calculations and draw upon our knowledge of different written methods to find the most efficient method to use to solve calculations.
We also took the time this week to remember those who suffered in the Holocaust, under Nazi persecution. We created a flame to represent the candles we lit in class in remembrance and explained why it is so important to mark this Memorial Day. In Science, we investigated what components were needed in order to make the current flow around an electrical circuit and we even unpicked the make up of a volcano, labelling the different parts on a diagram.
Year 4, you have worked your socks off this week! We hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Date: 20th Jan 2024 @ 11:33am
What a busy week we’ve had in Year 3! The children were so excited to find out that they will be leading the Easter Service at St Peter’s Church this year. We have already started practising our songs and they sound fantastic. We have also been very fortunate to start singing lessons this week with members of the Liverpool Cathedral choir. They brought such joyful songs to our classroom and had us all out of our seats copying actions and we sang our hearts out. We look forward to their return next week.
During Maths, the children have been challenged this week by multiplying a two-digit number by a 1-digit number (with no exchange). They have persevered and met the difficult calculations head-on. Next week, we will introduce multiplication with an exchange. The children are also growing in confidence with the 8 times tables. Super work Year 3!
We are enjoying our English writing book ‘Stone Age Boy’. We learnt about the different job roles that Stone Age people had. The children discussed which jobs they would like to do if they lived during that time, the most popular choice was ‘spear throwing practice’. The children were introduced to the present perfect verb form, they then experimented orally by changing past tense verbs to present perfect. Next lesson, we will plan and write a report for the Stone Age community leader, detailing everything that they have done during their day in the Stone Age community, focusing on applying the use of the present perfect.
We started our Art topic this week, Sculpture and 3D: Abstract Shape and Space. During our first lesson, we studied artist Robert Morris and learnt what defines ‘sculpture’. We were introduced to new vocabulary: structure, sculpture and three-dimensional. The children were then challenged to create and build a 3D structure that stands up on its own.
The children are thoroughly enjoying our Stone Age topic in History. This week we moved further along the timeline, and we have reached the Bronze Age of 3300 BC. The children could identify the most significant aspects of the Bronze Age culture, then they could apply their knowledge of the significant features of the Bronze Age to critically evaluate a film. Next week, we are diving headfirst into the Iron Age.
We ended our week with a fantastic workshop where we learnt all about Chinese New Year and the fantastic traditions surrounding the celebration. The children learnt some phrases in Chinese and created a traditional Chinese dragon.
Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing all your smiling faces on Monday.
Reminders:
Tuesday 23rd January - Siblings School Photos
Wednesday 24th January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 31st January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 7th February - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Date: 19th Jan 2024 @ 3:31pm
What a very busy week we have had!
For RE this week, continuing with our theme of stories Jesus told, we listened to the story of Joseph’s colourful coat. The children enjoyed creating their own coats using collage and acting out the story in the home corner.
At Forest school this week, the children were given the task of using a checklist to look for different signs of winter. The children worked really well as a team on their hunt outside. We then talked about why we may not have seen all the signs on the list that day.
As part of our theme ‘Winter’ the children have enjoyed a variety of different stories such as ‘A thing called snow’ and ‘The lights that danced in the night’ by Yuval Zommer. We talked about the types of clothing we may wear in the winter and then how they are different to the clothes we wear in summer. Later in the week we looked at different arctic animals. We talked about why they are suitable to the habitat they live in.
In Maths this week we have continued to explore the number 5. The children have looked at recognising how many is missing from a whole quantity of 5 and used a 5 frame to help them to work it out. Great maths work everyone!
On Friday we had a visit from Star sports for a multi sports taster session. We had so much fun playing different team games. Thank you so much for Adrien for a fantastic session.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all next week.
Miss Dalley and the Reception team.
Reminders:
Tuesday 23rd January - Siblings School Photos – John Howard Photography (information to follow)
Wednesday 24th January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 31st January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 7th February - Parent Teacher Meetings School Hall
Date: 19th Jan 2024 @ 8:13am
We have had another fantastic week in Year 2!
Have you seen the dragon yet? Year 2 are obsessed with finding the sneaky dragon hiding in school. To help, we created wanted posters, using a variety of expanded noun phrases to describe what it looks like as well as how it moves. Unfortunately, Mr Essery didn’t believe us when we told him so to ensure he was on board we all wrote him a letter encouraging him to look out for it and to help us find it!
In Reading, we continued with our story, The Dragonsitter, and were shocked to learn that the dragon ate the rabbit. We focused on developing our comprehension skills, using highlighters, we identified the answers in the text before attempting to write full sentences to answer the questions.
In RE we learnt about another incredible miracle Jesus performed, Feeding the 5000, talking about how sharing is important in any situation. We discussed how by Jesus blessing the food, he was able to feed everyone and have enough left over to share further. After we used our flow thinking map to retell the story in more detail.
In Geography, we learnt about the weather and climate in Kenya and compared it to ours. After we identified what clothes we would need to take as well as what items we would not need to take such as a woolly hat!
In PE. We continued with our two new topics, Fitness and Team Building. During fitness, we focused on jumping for longer periods of time, increasing our stamina each attempt we made. We discussed how being fit isn’t just eating well and running around, instead it is developing our breathing and stamina in a variety of exercises. In Team Building, we were given different animals, and working together, we had to find each other without speaking. The children focused on how the different animals moved as well as the noises they might make.
We ended our week on a high with a fantastic visit from the Confucius Institute at Edge Hill who delivered an excellent workshop to explain all about Chinese New Year. In addition, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to make Chinese Lanterns.
Reminders
- Our school trip is on the 6th February 2024, please see School Money for payment instructions
- Our PE days will contine to be on a Monday and a Thursday
Date: 18th Jan 2024 @ 5:24pm
We have had another fantastic week in Year 1! We enjoyed lots of new learning and had fun exploring our new topics.
We started our week with another exciting art lesson, as we worked on our sculpting skills. We practised our cutting and sticking skills as well as our creative thinking. We have been re-creating sculptures in our continuous provision areas, using a variety of materials such as blocks, play dough, and Lego.
We put our historian hats on as we explored evidence from the Titanic. We needed to prove whether statements made about life on board the Titanic were true, so we analysed a variety of pictures taken on the ship. We used our investigative skills to work out what was true and what was false, we loved this task! We had some interesting thoughts about 1st 2nd and 3rd class passengers, we couldn’t believe the difference in their living conditions!
We enjoyed another fun-filled PE lesson this week as we used a parachute to work as a team. We used our communication skills to work together to complete specific goals. We tried moving our arms quickly, slowly, low to the floor and high up. We had a great time playing cat and mouse and worked as a fantastic team to support each other throughout.
In RE this week, we re-enacted ‘The Calling of the Disciples’, we used our recall skills to discuss the story and explore how Jesus is so special. We focused on the word miracle and understood that Jesus performed many miracles! We used our drama skills to retell the story in groups. This was a great way to put ourselves in the shoes of Jesus and his disciples.
Have a lovely weekend everyone, thank you for all of your hard work.
Date: 18th Jan 2024 @ 9:58am
Another busy week in Year 6!
In Maths, Mr King’s group started a new unit on algebra. The children picked up the fundamental concepts very quickly and were able to solve some tricky equations in a short space of time – well done! They particularly enjoyed the range of problem-solving questions provided this week, including a task that involved them working out the values on DC and Marvel and Top Trump cards from given from algebraic equations…although they disagreed with several of the heroes’ ratings! We will be continuing to challenge ourselves with this topic next week. Mrs Martin’s group learned how to do long division this week before moving onto BIDMAS. Two very tricky topics but the children picked them up very quickly! Thank you to Mr Hirst for supporting us this week; he has been able to work with many of the children 1:1 as well to supplement their learning in this week’s lessons.
As writers, the children were tasked with writing a class blog. The children analysed previous entries from this year, identifying the range of punctuation used, as well as technical vocabulary. They then used a tree map to decide on a few subjects / class events that have taken place this year before creating their own entry. Developing our understanding of the English language further, we have also focused on subordinating and coordinating conjunctions as part of our SPaG revision. On Wednesday, the children enjoyed listening to songs about each tense and also learning how to make zines to record their notes. Many children said they would like to create more zines in the future for other topics in different subjects!
This half-term, we have commenced our new Geography topic, ‘How do we compare with Africa?’ Last week, we learned about Africa as a whole continent, which included following directions to locate all 54 countries on a map. We learned how diverse Africa is and how it can also be divided into five regions, which we were given time to research. This week, we focused on one particular country: Uganda. The children could recall our link to this country – and the town, Kalule, in particular – with the project set up by St. Peter’s Church and local community. As part of our initial investigation into what Kalule is like, we used pictures taken by Rev. Anne, Miss Morris and Miss Giles on their visits to see what we could deduce about aspects such as climate, wealth, culture and landscape. We then concentrated on the physical and human geographical features of Uganda and Kalule and compared them with England and Formby.
PE this week has seen us revisiting athletics. The children will be taking part in trials for an upcoming tournament over the next few weeks and will have the opportunity to put themselves for various events, including running, throwing and jumping.
On Friday, we were treated to two workshops on Chinese New Year from Edge Hill University. We heard stories, made lanterns and found out what a ‘dragon dance show’ entailed...a rather unique end to the week!
The children are aware of how to access their homework for next week – either on SATs Companion or in their books. Spellings have also been set. If your child is accessing their homework through SATs Companion and needs additional support, please remind them that there are support videos attached to the tasks. It is strongly advised that the children watch the video before attempting to complete the task.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Date: 17th Jan 2024 @ 10:31am
What a wonderful week in Year 4!
After recognising what authority looks like to us, this week, we identified Jesus’ authority in a range of Bible stories. By reflecting on Bible stories such as Jesus calms the storm, it became evident that Jesus has authority over humanity, as well as creation and life. In stories, it was clear that his authority is respected and admired by others, all hoping he will assert his authority to benefit them.
Later in the week, it was time to compare our lives with the life of a Roman child. We focused on the activities, games and jobs Roman children carried out and found similarities and differences to our lives. Using fronted adverbials, we created a diary explaining what Tranio, the Roman child in our story, did at different points of the day. We have been working incredibly hard to ensure our paragraphs consist of one or more sentences grouped together, which share ideas centred around one subject or element of our writing.
To support our multiplication calculations when multiplying two and three digit numbers by 1, we have learnt how to use the grid method and column multiplication method. We have completed lots of fluency questions to become confident in using these methods and at the end of the week, selected the method we felt most confident in using to support us in completing problem solving questions.
We have been very fortunate to start singing lessons this week with members of Liverpool Cathedral choir. They brought such joyful song to our classroom and had us all out of our seats copying actions and we sang out hearts out. We look forward to their return next week. In addition, we welcomed visitors from Edge Hill University who delivered a workshop to explain all about Chinese New Year. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to make Chinese lanterns and take part in the traditional Dragon dance.
A huge thank you to our Reading Ambassadors for sharing some Inclusion and Diversity books to read in class. We loved exploring the books this week and selecting our favourite to become our whole class read. To support our understanding of Volcanoes, we have also been reading an information book packed full of interesting facts about earthquakes, tectonic plates and the layers of the Earth. Our writing in English in bursting with technical vocabulary to describe volcanoes, as we have transferred vocabulary and facts learnt in our Guided Reading lessons, to our English lessons.
A reminder that a Parent briefing for the Multiplication Tables Check will take place next Tuesday in the Year 4 classroom. Information will be shared regarding what the Multiplication Tables Check is, and how you can support your child further at home.
Have a wonderful weekend, Year 4!
Reminders:
Tuesday 23rd January - Siblings School Photos
Wednesday 24th January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 31st January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 7th February - Parent Teacher Meetings School Hall
Date: 16th Jan 2024 @ 3:53pm
WOW what a busy week we have had, we welcomed to the class two new friends who soon settled and were having fun!
As part of our theme ‘Winter’ theme the children have enjoyed a variety of different stories. We have talked about the types of clothing we may wear in the Winter and then how they are different to the clothes we wear in Summer. The children enjoyed sorting different the clothes and talking about why they would or would not wear them in the winter. After reading the story ‘Winter Sleep’ the children were inspired to make bird feeders to try and attract different birds into our outdoor area. The children enjoyed creating the bird feeders using pinecones, lard and bird seed, they are very excited to use binoculars and the bird checklist to see which birds we can spot. We particularly enjoyed singing along to ‘The Winter Hokey Pokey’ learning lots of new actions to help keep us warm.
Please can you ensure your child has a warm coat, hat, gloves and a FULL change of clothes including underwear and socks in school at all times and that it is clearly labelled with their name, thank you
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Molloy, Mrs Bevin and the Nursery Team
Reminders:
Tuesday 23rd January - Siblings School Photos – John Howard Photography (information to follow)
Wednesday 24th January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 31st January - Parent Teacher Meetings in the School Hall
Wednesday 7th February - Parent Teacher Meetings School Hall
Date: 16th Jan 2024 @ 10:34am
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As temperatures dipped this week, our efforts in class most certainly did not! Here is a snapshot of just some of our many highlights…
Our Maths learning involved visualising and recreating a range of increasingly complex 3D shapes using multilink cubes. Using a 2D image representation as our guide, we had to work together with our shoulder partners to construct as many shapes as possible to earn as many points as we could. Our other Maths lessons built upon our long multiplication learning from the previous week as we were introduced to the column method for long multiplication. After mastering this method, the children will have the luxury of choice in deciding which method they prefer (column or grid multiplication) when tackling such questions.
In English, we began our writing focus text for this half term, which is titled ‘Arthur & the Golden Rope’. We have enjoyed reading the beginning of this rather unusual myth as well as using it as a stimulus to write a short Norse poem containing adventurous noun phrases and linking in relative clauses from last week’s learning too.
In our Collective Worship, we continue to focus on our monthly value of ‘Wisdom’ for January. We explored a variety of different quotes which shared some advice, life tips or could generally be considered wise. A particular favourite was “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” We enjoyed hearing and unpicking these different examples and such quotes as the above encouraged us to be the very best version of ourselves that we can be.
In Science, we continued to learn about forces and focused particularly on air resistance. As part of this lesson, we constructed paper aeroplanes and had to consider the forces acting upon them in flight as well as how to streamline our designs further in order to ensure greater success.
To conclude a busy week, we were visited by the Chinese Confucius Institute from Edge Hill University who led some exciting workshops ahead of Chinese New Year. Yunchen taught us about the origins and the customs of the celebration before we moved onto creating our own Chinese lanterns. The fun didn’t stop there as we were treated to a Dragon Dancing Show in the afternoon alongside our friends in Year 4 and Year 6!
A tremendous week and wishing you all an enjoyable weekend!
Reminders
-Homework for Maths and English continues to be set via Mirodo and should be completed on or before the following Wednesday (24th January).
-Weekly spellings are accessible via Google Classroom.
Date: 12th Jan 2024 @ 8:12pm
We have had a brilliant first week back in Year 3! I am so impressed with everybody’s hard work and enthusiasm this week.
We started the week with PSHE, where we had a lovely discussion about how aspirations, dreams and goals can give us a sense of purpose. Over the coming weeks, we will be covering how setting achievable but challenging goals can help us learn new skills, step out of our comfort zone and feel proud of our achievements along the way.
In History, we have continued our fascinating topic of the Stone Age, where we reminded ourselves of all the fascinating things we learned last term before moving on to the Bronze Age next week.
We have been working so hard during our maths lessons this week. We are continuing our topic of multiplication and division. The children will be moving on to the 8 times tables next week, so if you wish to do additional work with your children at home there are lots of additional resources on Google Classroom.
In English, we started the ‘Stone Age Boy.’ Using the clues given, we predicted what the story might be about before discovering the title of the book. We drew upon the Stone Age knowledge we had previously learnt in our History lessons to guess the title correctly. We also had lots of fun creating dialogue between the two main characters and acting out their first meeting.
We started the exciting book ‘Iron Man’ in our Guided Reading lessons. We enjoyed discussing words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination. The children are looking forward to continuing to read this book.
This Spring term, we will be delving into the world of Dodgeball and Outdoor Adventurous Activities during our PE lessons. This week the children had a great time during OAA, in which they needed to work together in teams to compete to win fun challenges. Key skills such as clear communication, balancing and teamwork were needed to achieve the final goal. We can’t wait for our next OAA lesson. In Dodgeball we will be focusing on the main attacking and defending skills, specific throwing and catching ball skills, as well as different methods and techniques used to dodge the ball.
All children across the whole school are encouraged to read each day both in and out of school. Some additional recommended Reading at Home resources can be found here.
Thank you for a wonderful first week back in Year 3!
We look forward to seeing you next week.
Date: 12th Jan 2024 @ 3:53pm
Happy New Year to everyone and we hope you had a lovely Christmas. We have loved hearing about all the children’s news about the holidays.
For RE this week we have enjoyed learning all about ‘Epiphany’ and the end of the Christmas season. We reflected on the importance of the star that guided the King’s to baby Jesus. On Thursday, Caroline kindly came in to tell the children the story of ‘Jonah and the Whale’ to introduce our new RE topic of ‘Stories Jesus Heard’. The children have since enjoyed acting out the story. Thank you so much for a lovely session.
The children also enjoyed listening to different stories all about the ‘New Year’ and talking about how this is celebrated. This brought us to start thinking about what our own New Years resolution can be.
In maths we have been looking at the composition of 5. The children have enjoyed taking their learning outside to play different games to help us find out how 5 can be made. Great work everyone!
This week in art the children have explored dot paintings. We looked at the artist Yayoi Kusama, and talked about different ways we could make dot art work. The children then created their own finger print firework paintings.
All children across the whole school are encouraged to read each day both in and out of school. Some additional recommended Reading at Home resources can be found here.
We hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
Miss Dalley and the Reception team
Reminders:
Tuesday 23rd January - Sibling school photos (information to follow)
Date: 11th Jan 2024 @ 8:46pm
We have hada brilliant first week back in Year 1! I am so impressed with everybody’s hard work and enthusiasm this week.
We began our week with a fun and exciting maths challenge, as a part of our new unit on Place Value we have been exploring 20. We started by racing each other to get to 20 in a dice game. We used our counting skills to move up and down the number line 20, focusing on one more and one less. We enjoyed some practical work using lots of different manipulatives to make numbers within 20, such as rekenreks, counting bears, cubes, and dice! We were able to develop a good understanding of numbers within 20 and can’t wait to put this knowledge to use next week as we explore 20 even more.
In art this week we began our new topic on sculptures. We were able to develop some new skills as we created our very own sculptures! We were so excited to share them with you all at home. We used our cutting, sticking and creative skills to create our colourful sculptures.
We had an interesting new object in year 1 this week, that made us all very curious! We had lots of questions about the ship living in our classroom, we spent a few days wondering why it was there and what it was for. We then discovered that it was part of our new History topic The Titanic! We began our topic by exploring what the Titanic was and why it is so famous. We shared lots of brilliant thoughts and ideas and are so excited to learn more about this fascinating topic!
In PE this week we started our new topics Team Building and Gymnastics. We loved working together as a team to complete fun and exciting challenges! In Gymnastics, we explored travelling movements, and we were blown away by some of the skills we had in Year 1!
All children across the whole school are encouraged to read each day both in and out of school. Some additional recommended Reading at Home resources can be found here.
Well done on an amazing week Year 1! Have a lovely weekend.
