We can and we will GLEBE PRIMARY SCHOOL Curriculum Newsletter Nursery This term we have been very busy learning all about mini-beasts and animals; we looked at the life cycles of butterflies, snails, ladybirds and spiders. The children enjoyed exploring the garden and collected bugs on the mini-beasts hunt. Nursery spent two weeks learning about Pirates, we made a huge pirate ship, dug for treasure and walked the plank! Over the last few weeks we have learnt about jungle and underwater animals; looking closely at the different types of animals finding out where in the world they live and we also learnt about camouflage. On Camo day we met a real soldier and got to try on his helmet! We also had a look at the food he eats when on deployment. Most of the children had their faces painted and looked fantastic! We have had a very enjoyable Summer Term! 1
Reception We have had a very busy term indeed. We have been enjoying our new adventure play area. It has been really useful for enhancing our gross motor skills. All of Reception have had our class assemblies. The Drama workshop really helped us to improve our creativity in role play. Our topics earlier in the term included Shoes, Our bodies, How We Grow and Good Hygiene and Staying Healthy. When we used the book Dogs Don t Do Ballet in our topic on Dance, Music and Movement, we discovered that boys wear tutus too. Then we grew plants from seeds including sunflowers and runner beans when we did our topic Plants, Trees, Nature and Growing. We also had lots of fun during our week on The Gruffalo. We had our Gruffalo party with our Gruffalo themed food. We became amateur artists as we created art in the style of Van Gogh, Monet and Kadinsky. Finally we also did some scientific investigations in Reception! It has been a particularly exciting term as the children contemplate the changes which will be happening in the next few weeks. We have had several transition lessons where the children were treated like Year 1 children. They undertook this challenge considerably well and now eagerly await the day when they visit their new class. 2
Year 1 Year 1 have had such an exciting Summer term! All three classes put on a fabulous performance in their respective class assembly. Your teachers were very proud! The whole year group learnt to be safe on the streets in a pedestrian training activity. We have also all been on an adventure around the world in our Geography lessons and have recreated art work from different countries. In Science, we have made the most of the sunny weather and created our own shadows and understood how they are created. PE lessons have also been spent outdoors, preparing for Sport s Day! RE has brought with it some interesting stories from the Old Testament; we have been exploring morals and the lessons we can learn. The children have been writers themselves, enthralling us with their own imaginative space and pirate themed stories. They have also worked on their typing skills during computing lessons. Maths week encouraged the children to play challenging maths games with their peers. They have enjoyed learning about time and have been practicing their number bonds. It is lovely to see the progress they have made since the beginning of the year! 3
Year 2 Year 2 have had a busy but enjoyable final term. We have learnt all about The Fire of London and wrote fantastic diary entries pretending we were present during the fire! We loved our Maths week and did lots of practical activities to bring Maths alive such as: measuring the length of the playground with a trundle wheel, creating times table games with chalk on the playground, making our own game of snap and sharing the games we made for homework with the Year 5 children. In Literacy, we have been studying non-fiction texts and made a Keynote presentation on our ipads about an animal. We have all worked really hard this term and we are looking forward to being in Year 3! Year 3 Year 3 have had a very busy term. We have enjoyed our R.E. work related to Judaism which was brought to life by a visit to the Synagogue in Northwood. In Science we have been learning about flowering plants and seed dispersal. In our Art lessons, we used food to make our own paints and then produced our own cave paintings. We have also been learning about the Stone Age and we particularly had fun on the scavenger hunt on the school field trying to gather food! The trip to the Chiltern Open Air Museum was extremely exciting, we had several workshops: one involving an archaeological dig and the other involved reenacting a Stone Age camp. We all loved making our own shelters and sitting around the camp fire. We really thought we were in the Stone Age! 4
Year 4 Our feet don t seem to have touched the ground this term in Year 4! It s been go, go, go! Not only have we designed toys using ICT but we made them in DT using our sewing skills. We have all made fabulous talking teddies of which we are very proud. The Water Cycle gave us the chance to write as raindrops, but to see what happens to the water we use, we went to visit a very smelly Water Treatment Centre which was great fun. We ve been looking at classical poetry and studied the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and used that to help us create a multi-media presentation of the Owl and the Pussycat. We ve explored just how noisy our school is as part of our Science and Computing studies using recording and data logging equipment. We can t possibly reveal which was the noisiest class!!!! Our final trip of the year (we ve done more than one or two this year) was to Wagamama in Uxbridge where we were treated to an insight into 5
how the restaurant world works and of course, we did some sampling delicious! We re all worn out with our hard work! Year 5 Year 5 have had a busy final term preparing themselves for Year 6. The main theme we have been studying is Ancient Greece. Pupils have acted out and written a range of myths based on their favourite Greek heroes/heroines and mythical creatures; some are very scary indeed! Next, the children compared and contrasted the ancient and modern day Olympic Games they even created an information book for future Year 5 classes to use. The children all enjoyed a special themed Greek day) where they dressed and acted as though they were living back in Ancient Greece. Meanwhile, in Science pupils have been busy using imovie player to create their own trailers promoting the first men to land on the moon. Their trailers are extremely impressive we definitely have some movie makers in Year 5 watch this space. Pupils have also debated why the Earth is round, not flat and they have even made their very own solar systems. Earlier this term, pupils were lucky enough to take part in tag rugby sessions each Friday afternoon. The children picked up the skills so quickly that 8 pupils were even picked to compete in a rugby tournament Well done Luke, Henry, Safia, Kiera, Millie. 6
As well as all this excitement, the children also put every effort into their end of year optional SAT exams and proved that they have learnt and progressed a great deal this year. Keep it up Year 5! Year 6 After enjoying an exhilarating school journey week, we are experiencing a very creative end to Year 6, with lots of art work, story writing and of course putting together our Alice in Wonderland production. As well as this, we were lucky enough to be invited to Vyners for a special DT day last week. The Vyners staff helped us to make our own wooden book mark and a batch of cakes the best part being that we were allowed to use all of the equipment in the technology rooms there! We have also learnt a lot on our secondary transition day and the fresh challenges that Year 7 will bring. We hope to see lots of parents coming to see us in Alice in Wonderland and of course our Leavers Assembly. We hope you have a lovely Summer. Mrs P Marks 7