Author: Mr Freeman

This half term, our school PE focus has been gymnastics.

We have been learning and practising fundamental movement skills, such as jumping, balancing, rolling and travelling in different ways. This week, Years 5 and 6 have put their fundamental movement skills to the test on our school equipment! We had to make sure that we followed our safety protocols whilst moving around the hall and using our equipment. Here are some pictures of the children in action!

For our anti-bullying week, years 5 and 6 have been listening, discussing and supporting each other with anything and everything around bullying.

In our school, we know that bullying is when something negative happens:

Several

Times

On

Purpose

If we experience this, we know to Start Telling Other People.

 

Recently, we have been focussing on online behaviours and what respectful behaviour looks, feels and sounds like online. The class were very engaged and responsive during this discussion, providing definitions of respectful behaviour, along with advice and support to people who may have been treated unkindly online.

Here are some of the pupils with their definitions of respectful behaviour:

Help at home:

Check in with your child about their online experiences. Make sure they feel happy, healthy and safe when accessing online content and guide them in continuing to make safe and respectful decisions online.

To end the last half-term, Years 5 and 6 decided to write a letter to Miss Beatson in hope to  transform our school gardening area into a fresh, healthy space. This came about from our Geography topic – we had been working hard in learning the importance of plants, trees and green spaces around us.

Thankfully, our letters were a huge success! We spent an afternoon in the lovely rain, getting our hands dirty and working as a team to improve a part of our school. The children thoroughly enjoyed this challenge and we’re really proud of our achievement. Here’s some photos below of the garden area, before and after the transformation!

     

 

Our Living and Learning statement last week was…

I respect others

Year 5 and 6 have been learning about equality and discrimination. We have looked at many scenarios where an individual (or group) was being discriminated against. We discussed what these reasons might be and what we would do to change the world if we could.

Then, we had a look at the Equality Act (2010) and our protected characteristics that we can’t be discriminated against. Pupils were mature, engaged and active in this learning, which resulted in some fantastic discussions and advice for others.

Here are the nine protected characteristics:

• sex
• sexual orientation
• gender reassignment
• disability
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• religion or belief
• race
• age

We will continue to focus and test ourselves on these characteristics throughout the year.

Help at home:

Have regular conversations with your child about the nine protected characteristics. Ensure the children fully understand what discrimination could look like, and who they could talk to for help/advice.

Years 5 and 6 have had a fantastic second week back at school. Pupils’ behaviour and general attitude to learning has been brilliant – I can already see children making serious improvements across many subjects!

On Monday, we had our first official living and learning ‘circle time’. In this session, we get and give the opportunity for all pupils to have a voice and to listen to others. For this session, our focus was using resilience in our lives, which suits with our Christian value this half-term (perseverance), too.

All pupils responded really well and provided advice for others to overcome and succeed in different scenarios. I have since seen pupils using resilience, and many more of our 8 R’s, in school time.

Help at home:

Have conversations with your child on things they may be finding tricky in and out of school. See if you, or they, can come up with some solutions to tackle this issue by using our 8 R’s.

Pupils have also had their first set of homework sent home. Please complete the following with your child:

• times tables practice
• spelling practise (choose around 8 words per week)
• arithmetic practice (use the questions your child wasn’t sure of on their tests, which they should bring home
• read regularly with your child and sign their reading record

As we come to the end of our first week back at school, both Mr Nash and I (Mr Freeman) are super proud of each and every one of our pupils. Not only have the children come back to school calm and settled, their fantastic attitudes and willingness to learn has made our first week a great success.

We are both looking forward to a fantastic year in Year 5/6 and we know the children are, too.

A few notices to make you aware of…

Spelling – You’ll notice that the spelling has changed slightly on the homework sheets. There’s no longer a specific list spellings to learn. Instead, there are a list of spellings that the children need to learn within the first half-term. On a Friday each week, there will be a spelling test. We will keep track of our scores and support children with their misconceptions as soon as they may happen.

PE days – Our nominated PE days are on Mondays and Wednesdays. Please ensure your child comes to school in the correct PE kit for these days.

Homework books and reading records – Today, your child has been sent home with a purple homework book and a white reading record. There’s no pressure to bring the homework books back in every week, but we do need the reading records signed by an adult and shown to use every week. This is so that we can keep track of the amount of reading the children are doing at home and whether we can further support in any way.

Please feel free to contact myself, or Mr Nash, if you have any questions!

 

Year 5 and 6 have had a busy reading week! World Book Day was a great success – we had the opportunity to listen to one another talking about their favourite books and authors. The pupils thrived when visiting Year 1 to read with the younger children – we also had a surprise visit from Mrs Payne, who discussed her favourite books and authors with us.

With their refreshed love of reading, the pupils visited the school library this week. Some pupils chose to have an individual book, and some pupils chose to pair up and choose the same book. The aim of this was for the pupils to discuss their book each week and share their love for it. Here are some pictures of pupils enjoying their new books.