As part of their autumn term PE topic looking at movement, the Reception children were faced with a tricky ‘jungle run’ in the sports hall. Taking it in turns, and waiting patiently for the child ahead of them to complete their obstacle, the determined children had to test their balancing skills to cross a fallen tree, traverse a moving rope bridge and make their way across a crocodile-infested river before delivering a magic gem into a treasure trove. Key movement skills such as balance and coordination were tested and developed during the challenge as the children demonstrated great resilience and determination.

Dan Bather, Director of Sport

In phonics, Year 1 have been practising using their split diagraphs. Today, we focused on the u-e sound. The children were encouraged to use their ‘Fred in our head’ learning technique to independently read words containing that diagraph and spoke clearly when blending and segmenting alien words. The children are feeling much more confident using their split diagraphs and continue to practise applying these to their writing.

Hannah Feery, Year 1 Class Teacher

This term, the focus of Year 2’s weekly forest school sessions has been woodcraft. After listening intently to safety instructions and understanding the risks of using tools in the woods, the children learnt how to use a sheaf knife to whittle using the push-thumb technique. Once the children mastered this advanced carving technique, they made mallets and tent pegs. Year 2 have also used drills and mastered the important stop cut. As a reward for their excellent forestry efforts, the children toasted bread over the campfire before buttering it themselves. In an ever-increasing digital world, opportunities to use traditional tools arms the children with a sense of creativity, mastery and responsibility.

Kerri Wilkes, Year 2 Class Teacher

In maths this week, Year 3 have been busy exchanging ones to make tens and exchanging tens to make hundreds as part of the two-figure and three-figure addition process. To do so, the children demonstrated a sound knowledge of number bonds to ten and a hundred. To help them with their tricky addition sums, Year 3 used trusty resources such as place-value grids and a combination of dienes and counters.

Rebecca Lane, Year 3 Class Teacher

Year 5 have been getting to grips with net packaging in DT this week. The children understood that they had to pay careful attention to instruction as any misstep in the creation process would affect the overall design, with folded sides not meeting and making the object uneven. Having decided on their designs, Year 5 demonstrated great determination and patience to fold and score their lines for their chosen designs. The project gave the children a greater understanding of what makes an effective package design, something which will stand them in good stead for future DT projects.

Jamie Dew, Head of DT

In PRE, Year 6 have been comparing creation stories from religion and science. Having previously looked at the story of Genesis and the Hindu creation story, the children this week considered The Big Bang and Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. As many people have their own pre-conceived ideas when it comes to religion and science, it was important that the children considered the importance of listening to other people’s opinions and taking them on board, not simply dismissing them out of hand. After a positive discussion, Year 6 were tasked with writing a newspaper article about Darwin’s theory, either from a scientific viewpoint or the view of the Church.

Ed Elgood, Year 6 PRE Teacher

This term in French, Year 7 have been looking at the core vocabulary they need to travel to a town across the English Channel, including key verbs and prepositions. This week, the children put their speaking skills to the test when they prepared a short role play for assessment. Acting as tourist and travel agent, Year 7 found out what there was to visit in a specific town and made suggestions on how best to get there. The young linguists rose to the challenge with some lovely vocabulary, ideas and performances.

Jo Longshaw, Head of Modern Foreign Languages

Year 8 are enjoying working on their ‘identity’ pieces in art this term. Their canvases have been prepped with paint and today they learnt what the word composition means artistically. As a result, the children took time to consider where best to place specific images on their canvases before working at creating some of those images. The result was impressive, with the varied identities of the children really starting to shine through.

Tamsin Pearson, Year 8 Art Teacher