Spring Term 2
General
What a busy term it has been in Phase 3. Thank you for all of your support and involvement with sharing assemblies, parents evenings and the Spring Sing. It has been lovely to see those of you who were able to attend.
Phase 3 started the term with a wonderful food festival, in which children cooked some delicious dahl and chapatis. Then followed science week, and a fun Red Nose Day dance-a-thon, as well as an informative workshop about how to keep yourself safe and avoid gang culture. Finally, we are really proud of how the children learned their lines and performed confidently in their sharing assemblies, and also of how beautifully they read with Phase 1 children on World Book Day - they are fantastic role models to the younger children.
English
Phase 3 began the half term by learning features of an explanatory text, such as: bullet points, subheadings, subject specific vocabulary, images to support their explanations and much more. They were able to link their explanatory text to the science topic - forces.
Children have been consolidating and learning about the perfect past tense and present progressive, as well as relative clauses to produce an autobiography, where the children are in role as an immigrant from the Windrush Generation;
They were able to use their knowledge from the guided reading lessons when they read the book ‘Empire Windrush’ and use these facts and experiences of the characters to support their writing of newspaper articles. They produced some wonderful pieces of writing.
Reading
Our guided reading unit this term has centred around E Nesbit’s classic, Five Children and IT. Through this, children have explored how language changes over time, how humour can be created through use of language, and how authors can use explicit and implicit information to convey character. They have loved hearing about the children’s adventures with the mystical Psammead, a sand fairy, and have made some insightful predictions about the repercussions of each of their wishes.
Maths
This half term we learnt all about perimeter and area. We then extended our knowledge of fractions. We learnt how to add and subtract fractions with different denominators, to multiply fractions and simplify fractions
Science
The children have been exploring forces in science and understanding how we use forces to help us in our world. The children have learnt about gravity, water and air resistance as well as levers and how we use them to help us in our everyday lives.
Geography
This half term, pupils recapped what they knew about longitude and latitude, and learnt about how 4-figure and 6-figure grid references can be used to specifically describe location. They enjoyed finding our school on the map, and discovering what locations lay at different coordinates throughout the United Kingdom.
Art and design
Pupils developed visual spatial skills, as they looked at the shape and form of 3D objects. They used papier-mâché as well as developed skills to manipulate clay. Children looked at the work of artist and sculptor Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth for inspiration.
PSHE
Our focus this half term was “Healthy Me”. The children looked at the health risks associated with smoking and alcohol so that they can make informed decisions about their health. Pupils talked about how the media influences them and the impact it has on their health. Children were able to discuss body image and the factors that affect this. In PSHE they also learnt about emergency first aid and how to put others into the recovery position.
