It has been a very short term of only 4 weeks, but we’ve still managed to cram in plenty of learning, and Year 6 have completed their end of key stage assessments (SATs) this term which they approached with calmness, diligence and determination – we are extremely proud of all of them and hope that their positive potatoes brought them the luck they deserve!

     

We have started our new Summer Term topic – The Mystery of the Maya – and to start our topic we pretended to be explorers seeing the ruins of the incredible Maya cities for the first time, just like the Victorian explorers Catherwood and Stephens. We have found out that the Maya lived in Central America, and their civilization lasted for over 3000 years! Our big question is ‘Can we unravel an ancient mystery?’ and one of the things that we definitely want to find out is what happened to them. We made the most of the beautiful weather by going on a fact-finding mission on the field, gathering information from posters about the places that the Maya lived.

     

In English, we have been revising lots of grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives including relative clauses, modal verbs and root words. We have also been researching the animals that were important to the Maya, to write a non-chronological report about them. Excitingly, Ted and Amelie both received responses to the persuasive letters that they wrote about river pollution before half term.

     

Reading for pleasure is always on the agenda in Oak class, and whilst year 6 have been revising for their SATs, year 4 and 5 have been enjoying a whole menu of activities related to their reading. They have designed comic strips, produced wanted posters, created character profiles and much, much more. Don’t worry year 6, you will get your chance now that you’ve completed your assessments!

In maths, Oak class have been working on measurement and shape. They have converted units of measurements including length, mass, capacity and time, and investigated the properties of 2D and 3D shapes, including nets. We keep our calculation brains ticking over with daily ‘Flashback and Fluency’, and year 4 are working hard on their times tables with Mastering Number ahead of the Multiplication Tables Check which is coming up in June.       

      

In our science work we have been learning about light – how we see it, where light comes from and which surfaces reflect it. Year 4 and 5 have also investigated shadows, and how opaque, transparent and translucent materials create different types of shadow.

In RE, Oak have been learning about Pentecost, which is the time in the Christian calendar 50 days after Easter when the Holy Spirit came to the Apostles so that they could spread the word of Christianity. They worked in groups to make some beautiful Pentecost banners.

PSHE has been all about relaxation, growth mindset and how to set goals – a perfect subject to be looking at this term, when year 6s have been preparing for their SATs. It was Mental Health Awareness week the same week as SATs week, so we were mindful of looking after year 6’s mental health with some relaxing down-time in between the tests.

For PE this term, Oak have been developing their cricket skills, trying out sending, receiving and travelling techniques and playing small-sided games.

     

 On top of all that we’ve started learning the songs for our end of term production…watch this space for more news!