Proud fathers got to see first hand the wonderful skills that their Reception children have acquired at forest school with an exciting morning in our fabulous woodland. The children rooted happily around the forest with their special guests, collecting natural resources with which to make intricate and artistic birds’ nests. Then came the piece de resistance as the adults and children worked together carefully to whittle sticks to a sharp point on which to place marshmallows for toasting over the campfire – always a favourite activity on a cool autumn day!

Rosie Snagge, Reception Class Teacher

In science this week, Year 1 have been exploring materials and their properties. Specifically, the children were tasked with discovering whether various objects in their classroom were magnetic or not. After using resources at their disposal in the classroom to work out what it means to be magnetic, the children got busy testing the magnetism – or lack of it – of everyday items such as scissors, elastic bands and paper clips. As the children undertook their scientific experiments, they carefully recorded the results in their books for a later discussion.

Hannah Feery, Year 1 Class Teacher

In phonics, Year 2 were tasked with revising their set three sounds and writing sentences using ‘red words’ – or words with phonemes that sound like they are spelt differently. Modelling sounds to create words, the children displayed excellent progression with their work, including being able to identify and explain any common mistakes. As a result, Year 2 gained a great deal of confidence from the lesson as well as cementing their ever-expanding knowledge of tricky spellings as they continued to build on their strong foundation of phonic sounds.

Charlie Millsom, Head of Year 2

Year 3 excelled in a series of football matches against their near neighbours from Churcher’s College Junior School. Split into three teams of mixed abilities coached by Mr Bather, Mr Rodriguez and Mr Knapp, each team played three games and registered plenty of wins. The boys played really well, putting in committed tackles, passing effectively as a team and scoring some great goals. The matches were all played in a respectful manner and Year 3 showed great sportsmanship and maturity as they happily took turns to play for Churcher’s to even up the numbers when they were shorthanded.

Dan Bather,  Year 3 Football Coach

In English, Year 5 are currently reading Beowulf, an epic poem believed to date back to the Middle Ages. Having learnt that the poem is widely regarded as one of the most important and most translated works of Old English literature, the children were challenged to explore the misery of King Hrothgar, the Danish king who is a central character in the poem and closely linked to the eponymous Beowulf. And they rose to that challenge, using both the book and available resources to probe the king’s character and mindset and how he was portrayed in the poem. The result was a series of carefully considered and compelling pieces of creative writing which demonstrated Year 5’s impressive understanding of this traditional poem.

Kelly Reed, Year 5 Class Teacher

Year 6 went to Oxford to visit the University’s Natural History Museum. This linked in with their study of classification of living organisms and evolution. While in the museum hall, the children completed a worksheet researching Charles Darwin’s travels and the formation of his ideas about natural selection. And in a fascinating workshop they were shown, and handled, a variety of artefacts that helped them to chart the process of evolution, from aquatic creatures to amphibians to reptiles and on to mammals and birds.

Peter Hesselmann, Year 6 Science Teacher

In maths, Year 7 have been exploring the rules of calculating with negative numbers. When the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are performed on negative numbers, they follow a certain set of rules. Among a host of golden rules, the children learned that the sum of two negative numbers is a negative number, the sum of a positive number and a negative number is the difference between two numbers, and that the product of two negative numbers is a positive number. Armed with this knowledge, the children were divided into two teams for an interactive game based on 1980s TV quiz classic Blockbusters. Working together, they had to solve problems involving negative numbers to get their team across the board first.

Danny Parkinson, Head of Maths

Year 8 have this week been examining the political climate in Europe in the lead up to the First World War. They did so by reflecting on a previous piece of marked work during dedicated improvement and reflection time. Having reflected on their work and read through the teacher’s feedback, the children chose from specific improvement tasks with a view to bettering their initial piece of work. This was then shared with peers for further feedback, followed by a chance to upgrade their responses before handing it in for remarking. This gave Year 8 the opportunity to be reflective about their work and the process of formulating extended responses. It also showed the importance of resilience to get feedback and constantly try to improve your work.

Mikayla Van Den Berg, Year 8 History Teacher