Year 1

This week we have been looking into the past in Year 1 as we’ve been discussing and learning all about the history of our school. 

Using our curiosity skills we have been exploring the school grounds to spot some of the old and new features. We were really surprised to learn that girls and boys would come in through separate entrances when the school first opened. Some of us spotted the signs are still on the doors too.

  

We also spotted some differences in the buildings; newer buildings had lots of glass, but older buildings were made out of bricks. 

We are excited to continue learning more about our school history and what school was like 100 years ago. 

Year 3

Year 3 travelled to Embankment and spent the day at ‘The National Gallery’. We spent the morning looking at art that’s over 500 years old. The children thoroughly enjoyed the tour and had lots of questions about the art and the artists.

   

The children grew a deeper understanding of art, portraits and styles in which different artists may paint. 

We then spent the afternoon choosing pieces of art that we would attempt to draw freehand. 

The children thoroughly enjoyed their trip to the day and look forward to returning in the future with friends and family.  A special thanks to Ameera’s and Noah’s parents, our parent volunteers who assisted us on our travels and throughout the day.

          

In Maths, we have been working collaboratively, using counters to work out place value on a part-part whole model. We have been partitioning numbers up to 1000. We have been using our knowledge from year 2 and the relationship with numbers to 10 and 100 to help solve trickier tasks.

Year 2

We love reading in year 2!

In year 2 we show that we love to ‘try new things’ such as choosing fiction or non-fiction books to take home. We are also curious about the world we live in, so we like to choose books about different people and places to read about. Every week we also make book recommendations to each other and ask to swap books with other children in the class. This helps us to think about what we are reading and develop our opinions on why we like (or don’t like!) certain books. Reading is a skill that is so important to all of our learning which is why we read every day in school to practice becoming more confident and ambitious readers.

  

Thank you parents for supporting your child’s reading by ensuring they are reading at home daily. We’ll be going on a trip to the Idea Store library in November and parents will be very welcome to join with their child - more information to follow soon!

Year 4

4 Maple have had an excellent week. We have been just like Taibah the tiger and have tried new ways of improving our fluency skills. This week we have rehearsed a poem to perform to our class using actions. We thought carefully about the pace and volume of our speech to match the poem being performed. We really enjoyed being creative in our poetry performances and look forward to reading another.

   
  

We have been curious about animals and their habitats in Science. We have used all of our knowledge to write our own explanation texts all about vertebrates. In our explanation texts, we have been using conjunctions to explain information and compare the differences in animals in some incredible paragraphs.  Well done 4 Maple!

                              Safiyyah                                                                         Ayaan

    

           Rizwana                                                                                     Oscar

Reception

This week the children have been exploring the woodwork area. The children made sure to wear their safety goggles and listened carefully to instructions. They each had their own hammer and piece of balsa wood which they hammered the nails into. They paid close attention to what they were doing and maintained focus throughout.

          

            

Year 6

Beach Exploring at Mersea

We enjoy looking back at warmer days and sunnier weather when we look at Mersea photos, especially from the beach. We loved being by the water and combing the sand for interesting stones. Some of us found so many shells and interesting sea glass. 

   

Artistic science 

Last week we took part in a fun experiment based on the artist Jackson Pollock. We tested what happens when we drop paint from varying heights using a stepladder. It was so interesting to see how the paint spread and splattered in different ways depending on the height.

    

 

We then mixed the paint with water to thin it out to see if that altered the paint splatters in any way too. It was great to see how science and art can mix!