It has only been a short term, but what a lot we have packed in! With two assessment weeks, World Book Day, British Science Week and our Spring Fair to prepare for, we have definitely earned a rest.

      

We started the term with a visit from local author Troy Jenkinson, who read us some of his wonderful inclusive stories. Oak class then became authors, writing their own mini picture books inspired by one of Troy’s stories. They also enjoyed meeting Thunder the African land snail!

      

This term, we have continued with our Glorious Greeks topic, answering the question: ‘What have we gained from the Greeks?’ We’ve focused on the legacy that the Ancient Greeks have left behind, finding out about philosophy, democracy and the Greek alphabet, as well as learning about the Gods and Goddesses and Ancient Greek beliefs.

In English, we have been writing our own Greek hero myths, with a twist. We decided that anyone can be a hero, so some of our main characters are quite unusual heroes with unusual powers. We have loved reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and we are brilliant at recognising the Gods and monsters when they appear in the story. We have been incorporating all sorts of fantastic sentences into our writing, and perfecting using inverted commas accurately for dialogue, as well as practising our spelling and beautiful handwriting.

In maths, we have been learning about decimals and percentages this term, relating them to fractions and learning about the place value of tenths, hundredths and thousandths. We have compared different decimals and rounded them to the nearest whole number, or to one or two decimal places. Year 5 and 6 have converted between decimals, fractions and percentages, and year 6 have also solved percentage problems.

We have also been learning about area, perimeter and volume, working out the area and perimeter of compound shapes and answering questions like: ‘If two rectangles have the same perimeter do they also have the same area?’

    

We have continued learning about forces in science this term, investigating how mechanisms can make a smaller effort do more work, for example a lever in a wheelbarrow makes it easier to lift heavy objects, and the gears in bikes help us pedal up hills. We put our knowledge to the test in DT, using levers to design our own catapults. Our science afternoon for British Science Week was great fun – we answered lots of scientific questions about magnets, floating and sinking, sound, light and electricity. We also had the opportunity to meet and feed some of Arthur’s lambs!

      

In RE, Oak class have been learning about the five pillars of Islam this term, and how they help Muslims live a good life.

A highlight of the term has definitely been preparing for our second annual enterprise fair. Oak class voted to make bookmarks and keychains, and they have been busy making, advertising, budgeting and pricing for the fair. They are hoping to make their money grow so that they can spend it on something new for the class.

In PE, the class have been practising their archery skills, learning how to load and fire the arrows and developing their accuracy with a range of games and challenges. They have continued with their Daily Boost every day for 10-15 minutes to keep active which has included everything from daily mile laps and mini-games to Just Dance – a Friday favourite!

    

We are now looking forward to the Easter break and returning to (hopefully) some nice weather and exciting new learning opportunities in the Summer Term.