Living and Learning: I know what a drug is.
Over the next couple of weeks in our Living and Learning sessions, we will be focusing on “Being Safe”. Our discussions this week have centred around what a drug is, and how they might handle the pressure of being asked to use these by friends or peers. As a class we discussed the various strategies young people have at their disposal; passive, aggressive and assertive, and looked at a number of scenarios to see how they might react if they found themselves being put under pressure to take drugs.
Help at home: ask your child if they know where to get help if they’re worried about drugs or being safe. They could talk to a trusted adult. Do they know who their trusted adults are? They could also contact Childline on 0800 1111 or even contact the police using 111.
Reading stars!
This week, I have been blown away by the dedication of year 5 with their reading. Some children continued to read during the Christmas holiday and have been reading daily this week too. They have even completed a reading task. This is amazing and well done!
Help at home: please continue to read daily with your child at home. This really helps to improve their fluency and understanding. Don’t forget that there is a task set each week that needs to be completed in the journals. Please make sure you sign the journal too.
Here are some examples of the work from over the Christmas holiday.
Living and learning: I know what a drug is.
As part of our ‘Being safe’ theme, we have been discussing what a drug is, including alcohol. The children were encouraged to think about how they would manage risk and deal with influences and pressure. We talked about why people might choose to use drugs, smoke or drink alcohol. What would they say if they were placed in a scenario where they were offered any of these drugs? When discussing how to manage such scenarios, some strategies they could apply included being passive and not actively joining in. Other options included being more willing to confront people about what they were doing.
Help at home: ask your child if they know where to get help if they’re worried about drugs or being safe. They could talk to a trusted adult. Do they know who their trusted adults are? They could also contact Childline on 0800 1111 or even contact the police using 111.
Welcome Back!
Hopefully both parents and children feel rested and ready to start a new year. What a half term we have coming up.
Our main topic focus will be geography this half term. As geographers we will be exploring the environment and natural disaters. In this topic, we’ll look at the effects of global warming and discuss the use of fossil fuels and renewable energy. We’ll be using digital resources to look at how erosion has taken place over the last 100 years and how sea defences, such as groynes, help to minimise the effects.
In science we’ll be venturing further afield (not literally) into space as we explore the relationship between the Earth, Sun and Moon. We’ll resreach how opinions about space have changed over the years.
Our Living and Learning theme this half term is being safe. In the next two weeks, we’ll be discussing some influences associated with drugs and alcohol.
At home, continue to discuss our topics and perhaps carry out some reaseach for yourself. Keep an eye out for our moon study homework in the next few days.
Living & Learning: I recognise that mental health is important
Over the last three weeks, year 5 and 6 have been discussing mental health. We’ve looked at ways to engage in self care techniques. We discussed who we could speak to if we have concerns.
Help at home: discuss the idea of having a trusted adult that your child can talk to either at home or in school.
Thank you!
We have been absolutely overwhelmed by your generosity. At the recent Christmas productions, we collected for our school charity, Cancer Research UK. You didn’t let us down and you managed to raise an amazing £266.91.
Thank you so much.
Class 5/6A News
This time next week we will have wrapped up our first term of the year! Our pupils and staff are working flat-out at the moment, having survived test week, and the end is in sight. Let’s see what we have been getting up to this week.
Maths, Reading, Grammar and Spelling tests have been on the agenda for our Year 5 pupils this week, whilst our Year 6 pupils have tackled Maths and English SATS papers. We are proud of how our students have adapted to test week and the effort they have put in. Learning Updates will be sent home with pupils on Wednesday. These will provide an update on your pupils attainment, progress and attitude to learning during the first term, with targets on how you can help support your child’s learning at home.
Whilst we have the Year 5/6 Christmas party to look forward to on Wednesday, it will be business as usual next week in terms of learning. Pupils have today been issued Book Club homework as well as a list of spellings and times tables ahead of our regular tests on a Friday morning.
Help at home: Help your child with their spelling practice by testing them daily on this week’s words in the car, around the dinner table or on the journey to school. Practising everyday can make a big impact on a child’s retention of these spellings.
A slightly shorter Class News this week (I’ve been out of school for a couple of days due to illness), but I promise to make up for it with a bumper post next week. Just time for our certificate winners:
Certificate winners:
Living and Learning – Ella. Provided some excellent ideas on how we can use self-care to help protect our own mental health.
Great learning – Amelie. Pushing herself in every subject, particularly in Maths, to be the best version of herself.
P.E – Arthur. A ‘pocket rocket’ who has dazzled on the football pitch this week.
Peer recognition – Luella. A real role model for learning and friendship. Never without a smile on her face. Freya – providing a shoulder to cry on and support for a classmate who was in need.
Printing masterpieces
We are sadly coming to the end of our Art topic and we have spent the week finalising our prints and adding the last final touches. The children were working on overlaying their prints with different colours or adding detail to their designs. The children really thought carefully about their colour choices, choosing complementary colours or vivid contrasting ones.
Some children took their designing skills further and designed a new printing tile – still inspired by nature. They created new designs of different sizes and their aim was to try and create their own repetitive patterns, very much like wallpaper. They considered colours carefully again. Here are some fabulous pictures of their finished pieces. Parents, you can breathe a sigh of relief as hopefully they won’t be coming home with much paint on them next week!
Class News: 5/6A
How is it Friday evening already? Another jam-packed week of learning and fun has come to an end in Class 5/6A. Let’s take a look at what our pupils have been up to this week.
Firstly, a huge thank you to all parents who came today to join us for our Topic Review. We took part in a quiz which saw us reflect upon all of our Topic learning since the beginning of September. With the parents writing the answers, pupils had to use their books to retrieve information on the Stone Age, druids, mummification and William Morris amongst other things.
Our Writing work this week has seen us complete a set of instructions, linked to our Topic work of creating a lead print. Students have been looking at using parenthesis (brackets, dashes and commas) to join two independent clauses together, as well as structuring equipment lists and putting instructions in a chronological order.
Despite the cold weather this week, our class have been red hot on the hockey pitch in P.E this week. We have developed our skills by working on our defensive blocks – the jab and the block tackles. After practising preventing our opponent from dribbling past us, we then turned into attackers and honed our shooting skills.
Living and Learning this week has seen us continue our discussions around Mental Health, and recognising the importance of talking about how we feel. Identifying those we feel close enough to to share our feelings with is absolutely vital to help young people deal with the wide variety of emotions that they experience.
This week’s Talk Time homework poses a moral question:
Is physical health more important than mental health?
Certificate winners:
Living and Learning – Will. Provided some excellent ideas on how we can use self-care to help protect our own mental health.
Great learning – Elisa. Pushing herself in every subject, particularly in Maths, to be the best version of herself.
P.E – Amelia B. Super dribbling and passing skills in hockey. Fantastic control and awareness.
Peer recognition – Sam Webb. Giving up his own lunchtime to support an injured friend who could not play outside.
Have a great weekend!
Mr. Robson
Living and Learning: Mental Health
Over the past couple of weeks, we have been focusing on the topic of Mental Health in our Living and Learning sessions. In class we have had numerous discussions about what we understand by the term ‘Mental Health’, how do we recognise our own feelings and those of others, and what we can do to provide “self-care”.
We have also explored the importance of talking about our feelings. Talking about our feelings, whether they’re big or small feelings, is a great way to have good mental health. Sometimes it’s starting to talk about things which is the hardest thing to do. As a group we explored our ‘support circles’, recognising those individuals who we have close connections with that we may be able to talk to in times of need.
