Autumn 2024

And here we are again!  We hope you enjoyed a restful and relaxing Summer - or what was supposed to be - and are ready for some funfilled learning and experiences in the new school year.

This half term our Geography topic will be The Alps, and we will be learning all about what life is like there.  I'm hoping to share some of my experiences of The Alps as it is a place close to my heart - I spent two weeks of this Summer's holiday there this year.

You will all be able to shed some 'Light' in our Science lessons and we will even be trying our hand with a needle in our DT lessons.

Welcome back everyone, here's to a fantastic Autumn Term.  Watch this space to see what we enjoy.

In Maths, we have been consolidating our understanding of Place Value.  Base ten, place value counters and place value charts have helped us with this.  Why not ask your child about a Gattegno Chart?  It certainly got our brains thinking!

In Computing, we looked at how we should all try to limit our screen time before bed.  We discussed the best ways to 'wind down' after a day at school and give our brains a rest from screens.  Children were very sensible during discussions.  We even practised some calm, relaxation techniques.

In Science, we have started our unit on 'Light'.  Children from year 4 investigated darkness as an absence of light and identified that we really do need a source of light to see.  Year 5 looked into how we actually see.  We used string to show how the ray of light bounces off the object and into  our eyes. 
Did you know that light travels in straight lines?
Did you know that light travels in waves?

We looked at artificial and natural sources of light before discussing misconceptions about the moon!

In English, we are continuing our work on 'The Tempest'
Caliban- man or monster?  The children used evidence from the text to justify their own opinion.

In Science, we spent some time preparing our own Scientific Enquiry question.  We have made puppets using different coloured acetate and will be testing out predictions next lesson.  One key Enquiry Question was:  How far away should the light source be to display the clearest image?  One of our year 5 children suggested that the angle of the torch would also make a difference.  Keep checking back to see how we get on!

In Geography, we have been getting deeper into our topic of the Alps, looking more into specific areas - Innsbruck, Austria.  We have been comparing similarities and differences of our local area and an Alpine area.  Before we could do this, we investigated our local area.  We studied several different maps of our local area and looked at recreational use of the land to allow us to understand what there is in our local area (Carlisle).  We were then able to complete Venn diagrams for comparison.

We are trying our hands at sewing in DT, making stuffed toys.  This week, we were practising and/or learning and trying for the first time blanket stitch.  Some of us were little wizards!

We continued our learning on computer systems and networks this week and were looking at digital systems.  We found it really interesting learning about pedestrian crossings and how they are timed or work on sensors.  Looking at online catalogue stores followed on from last week's learning about smart lockers - helping us to really put our learning into the context of real life.

In French, we are building little conversations nicely, and our pronunication is absolutely fabulous.  We can say hello, ask what is your name, how are you and even how old are you?  We can also reply to all the questions too, why not ask your child to ask you some of the questions, or tell you their replies in French to showcase their skills!

Learning to write a non-chronological report in our current unit of English as seen us study rainforests.  Our sentence structure is developing nicely and some children have mastered using relative clauses with commas to boot!  There has also been some lovely technical vocabulary choices making reading the writing very interesting.

RE Week 
We have been incredibly lucky to begin our RE Week with a visit from Rachel Gleave (NISCU) .  Our focus for RE Week is the seven 'I am' statements for Jesus.  Rachel focussed on ' I am the bread of life'  Children then used bread dough to create their own symbol for Jesus.  We had a variety of images with children justifying their reasons why.  Ideas included: a dove, a door, a heart, a star and the cross.  We were very impressed with the children's knowledge and understanding and are looking forward to celebrating our learning with two other local schools at the end of the week.  Thank you Rachel!
We began the day with Whole School Collective Worship - time to reflect was given as we shared the focus of RE Week. 

 

Year 4/5 shared their song with Rachel- I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

Children enjoyed making their symbols with the bread dough.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our RE Week Art Work

Our Year 4 children retold the story of Lazarus. 
We looked at the statement-  

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Dear God,

Thank you for listening to us and helping us when we need it most. Thank you helping us to have hope in our darkest times.

Amen

Art – Butterflies:  How are butterflies symbols of hope?

• How are we like or unlike butterflies when we will experience new life after death?
• What do you hope will happen when you live forever with Jesus?

In a way, when Lazarus stepped out of the tomb to new life, he was sort of like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon. However, there’s a lot more meaning to this passage. Eventually, Lazarus had to die again, even though the Bible doesn’t tell us about that. But death no doubt was still defeated by Jesus’ power, allowing us all to live forever with Jesus. It is in that power that Jesus gives us hope.

For the end of Autumn 1, we introduced our new topic for Autumn 2 - WWII and the impact it had on British people.  In our English lessons, we looked at, read, and appraised some WWII poetry.  We focussed on alphabet poems and the children produced some really heart felt, moving poems.

We made stuffed toys in DT this half term using blanket stitch.  Children we able to practise initially on scrap pieces of material before the real thing.  The humble donut was a very popular design!  Children showed great teamwork helping each other with different parts of the making lessons too.  Well done :-).

After learning about The Alps for the first half term, the children performed a wonderful assembly and parents were able to be welcomed back into school to watch it too.  It was lovely to be able to share all our learning once again.  They then used all their new knowledge to produce some cross-curricular writing - learning how to write non-chronological reports in English allowed skills to be practised and showcased in Geography with some NCR about the Alps.  An awesome job!

Remembrance Poems

Tullie House came for an outreach visit at the beginning of this half term, to hook the children into our new topic - WWII and the impact it had on British people.  We spent a whole afternoon looking at pictures, hearing stories, handling artefacts and even performing a little drama as some of the characters we had met!  Safe to say - we all had a ball!

 

 With week 1 being the lead up to Remembrance, we decided to do some remembrance writing (poems) in English.  The second half of the week, we followed a webinar from the Royal British Legion and Tomos Roberts.  Tomos took us through his writing process, explained how to gather ideas, what to do when we feel stuck, and shared different ways of sharing the ideas that have been gathered.  The children really got on board with all the methods of producing poems and wrote some lovely poems.  They began as Haikus, but were then put together as verses to produce longer pieces.

 

Children have been enjoying their Gymnastcs sessions.  They have worked on balances, movements and transitions and have even developed some lovely routines.  Well done Year 4/5!

We have elected two Collective Worship Leaders who have worked so hard to develop our classroom Prayer Space.  Children have designed their own gift tags to display on the Christmas Trees.  When they have been presented with a 'gift' they add this to their gift tag.  We have had many gifts already - kindness, patience, care and compassion to name but a few! 

Our class had a fabulous day to mark Children In Need.  During the week, Rockcliffe Village was lucky to be part of Paddy McGuiness's Ultra Bike Challenge.  We made an amazing poster to welcome him to our village and some members of our school community came back in the evening to cheer him on!  Well done Paddy!

Our Collective Worship Leaders did a fabulous job in leading their first Class Worship session.  They were supported in their delivery before providing a lovely opportunity to reflect on Remembrance.  We have added our own reflections to the Whole School Reflection Book.  Well done to our Collective Worship leaders!

In Art, children sorted a range of Space themed images into different categories including textiles, photographs, paintings, prints and computer-generated images.  They then went on to pick their favourite image which inspired them to experiment with a mix of media.  There were some lovely interpretations of the images- a wonderful flow of creativity was evident through our classroom!

 

Wow!  Our children demonstrated an amazing level off creativity when producing their final art pieces.  They made their own collagraph plates before printing a retrofuturistic background.  We used inks to show a variety of colours and children worked with mixed media to design the foreground.

Here are some of our wonderful finished pieces: