This week our curriculum has covered:

English – We have finished our independent writing and included dialogue, adverbials, metaphors and feelings.

Maths – Using cubes to help us compare the volume of compound shapes

Guided reading – Practising 3 mark questions 

Science – Finishing up our experiment with friction

History – Assessment on the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Geography – Assessment of Australia

PE - Rugby and Basketball

PSHE - Understanding eating habits

This week we have been learning about:

Maths – Volume of cubes and cubiods

English – Finished our final sentence stacking lesson and plotted out narrative map

Guided reading – Graphic stories were the basis for our retrieval practice.

Science – Forces and friction are still under investigation.

History – A study of the slave abolitionist Thomas Clarkson

Geography – Biomes of Australia

RSHE – The dangers of alcohol on the body

PE – Baskball 

Elsewhere in the curriculum we studied:

Maths – areas of triangles

English – we focused on dialogue, adverbial phrases and personification as we continued our sentence stacking.

Guided reading – our retrieval and inference centred around the work of J. K. Rowling

History – we continued to look into the slave trade and wrote a letter home explaining life on the plantations

Science – a secret mission had us helping Jamie Bond work out which surface gives him the best grip as we delve deeper into forces.

Geography – looking further away from home, we explored the regions and cities that make up Australia.

P.E. - Basketball 

Elsewhere in the curriculum we studied:

Maths - Area of rectilinear and compound shapes

English - Sentence work around the book Gorilla

Guided Reading - Our planet

Science - Forces: push / pull,  increase in speed and decrease in speed, change of direction and changes in shape

History - To understand the journey of The Middle Passage 

Geography - Understanding the history of Australia 

RSHE - The effects of alcohol 

Maths - Perimeter and area

English - our new text driver for this term is Gorilla

Guided reading - we were introduced to Sunshine Simpson as we explored new vocabulary, retrieved answers and applied our inference skills.

Science – Forces, specifically air resistance when we explored how parachutes work.

History - Transatlantic Slave Trade

Geography - Australia

RSHE - Vaping and the its effects

P.E. - Baskball recap 

Maths – A recap of 4 x 2 multiplication

English – Most Annoying Animal poem

Science – Living things and their habitat

History – The British Empire

Geography – A local study of East Anglia

Buddhism – An introduction

PE - Gymnastics

Maths - word problem using all four operations

English – completed our independent writes, a persuasive letter 

Science - investigated the idea that all changes are either reversible or irreversible. 

History – we wrote a persuasive letter to Napoleon Bonaparte

Geography – identify the key features of a volcano

RE - What are the key beliefs that Christians have?

PSHE - Understand how name-calling is a form of bullying and how to deal with it.

Music – performed a signed version of 'Starry Night'

Maths – We moved away from multiplication and focused on the inverse and division

English – All of our sentence stacking lessons were put to good use as we started planning our persuasive letter from Budi the main character in our English reading book.

Science – As we moved through our topic about materials, we began to understand that all changes are reversible or irreversible. 

Geography – We studied the area of the globe that boasts the most active volcanoes in the world. – The Ring of Fire.

History – Part two of our study of Napoleon, we looked at the Battle of Waterloo in more detail.

RE: We looked at the messages in the Nativity story

PSHE – We continued our study into racism

PE – We continued to develop our tag rugby skills

In other areas of the curriculum we have been studying:

Maths – we have made the switch back to multiplication and developed our fluency at 3 by 2 formal multiplication

English – we are continuing with our sentence stacking. The class have really impressed me with the quality of their independent sentence work.

Science – we tried separating mixtures and solutions to varying degrees of success.

History – our study of the French Revolution saw the introduction of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Geography – our focus turns to earthquakes, fault lines and tectonic plates as we looked more closely at the 2023 disaster in Turkey and Syria.

RE - we continue to challenge beliefs and question areas of the Christmas story 

PSHE – we are shining a light on racism and what it looks like and feels like to those affected by it.

Music – singing and playing continues to be our focus as we play along to Ghost Parade

PE - Tag rugby 

This week we got the opportunity to show off what we have learnt since September as we completed Maths, Reading and Grammar tests. We are delighted to see the progress that is being made across Upper Key Stage 2.

Elsewhere in the curriculum we studied:

Maths - equivalent fractions

English – adverbial phrases and relative clauses

Science – solutions, solutes and solvents

History – The French Revolution

Geography – A fact File about Otiz  Iceman

RE - The Christmas Story

PE - tag rugby

Art – calligraphy as part of Islamic art

Music – singing and playing in different styles

Back in the classroom, we studied the following:

Maths – we tackled equivalent fractions.

English – we came up with some beautiful prose to persuade the footballing community to get behind Child Free Labour.

Science – we investigated thermal properties in our experiments to see if cotton wool, paper towels or tin foil would insulate best.

Geography – we moved to the Alps to find out more about a 5300-year-old mystery man named Ortiz.

History – Off with her head! We continued our study of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the lead up to the French Revolution.

Music – we got the glockenspiels out and tried our best to not only keep time with the music but also remember the lyrics.

Art – we took to the paints to colour in our first attempt at Islamic art.

Spelling – we are looking at the very tricky 'ough' sound as we try to crack if it is an oh, uff, oo, or, sound

It was a long term, and we didn't take our feet off the gas until the final bell.

English – We finished our independent writing inspired by The Present

Maths – We explored prime numbers and looked for patterns

Science – A quick recap put us in the right frame of mind for an assessment on the heart and circulatory system.

History – The Silk Road was our focus this week 

Geography – Understanding contours and relief maps

RE - Celebrations and their importance in Judasim

Computing – Social media and cyber bullying

PSHE – We got into heated discussions about rewards and consequences

Art – The Rococco period

We had an exciting visitor in our class this week. PC James Smith,  Beat Manager for Gaywood, Fairstead and Reffley, came in to talk to us about his role in the community. There was a lot of interest in the equipment he carried on his person: radio, camera, baton, handcuffs and pepper spray. We were all surprised to learn that, in his 16 years in the force, he has yet to use the spray and often a threat of use is enough to detract from further escalation.  PC Smith has worked in many branches of the police force, but his current role is going to see him spend more time in school, teaching the children how to keep themselves safe, especially online.

Elsewhere in the curriculum we have covered the following:

Maths - four operations with a focus on addition and subtraction.

English - dialogue and adverbs as we build our sentence work.

Spellings - we are looking at the sc sound for s. Spellings are in reading records and will be tested next Thursday.

Science - we went outside to run around and measure our heart rates

History - more about Baghdad and what life was like in the city

Geography - flags and to understand coordinates

Spanish - becoming familiar with the alphabet and pronunciation 

Art - exploration of the Rococo Style.

It has been wonderful to welcome everyone back to Howard Junior School.

5-6H have started the year with a SPLASH, as we took to the pool for swimming lessons.  Both Miss Jacobs and I were delighted to see how many confident swimmers we had. We were especially impressed with how the class conducted themselves. A member of leisure centre staff commented that it is rare to see a class so respectful and quiet and that they were a credit to the school.

This theme has continued in the classroom. 

In Maths, we have been exploring place value in numbers up to 10 million. 

As part of our English, we threw ourselves into dodgeball to recreate the feeling of team sports in person compared to computer games.  Our text driver is an animation called The Present and the main character is obsessed with computer games. We also visited the library to take out new reading books, which we are encouraging everyone to take home and read. Additionally, we have started new spellings, and we will test the children on these next Thursday.

During Science, we have been looking at the function of the heart, including pulmonary and systemic circuits. The work produced by all was superb.

As part of Geography, we dissected the Earth using lines of longitude and latitude and the Prime Meridian.

In history, we have made steps back in time to Baghdad 900CE, as we explore their vast Empire.

PSHE had us focussing on new beginnings and what we want from our year ahead.