Summer 1
In literacy, we have been using our geography learning on Kenya as inspiration for our writing lessons. First, we looked at poetry by creating our own riddles. We researched, and used our prior learning, on animals found in Kenya to help us. These riddles were read out to the class and the children had to guess what animal it was from the clues. We then moved onto a book based in Kenya called Lila and the Secret of Rain by David Conway. We used this book to predict what the story could be about, just from the title. After, we were given a picture of the front cover and had to use our inferencing skills to see what we could find out from the picture. Before we read the story, we interpreted pictures from the book by guessing how characters were feeling and what they were thinking. We then shared the story and then using all the information we had collected to help us; we wrote our own blurb for the story. We also pretended to be Lila and write a postcard to one of our friends explaining what life was like living in Kenya, using the events from the story to support us. We wrote a setting description using a picture from Kenya, inspired by the story, making sure we included adjectives and expanded noun phrases. During our geography unit, we compared the Kenya and England. Using this information, we wrote a village comparison on Bumala’B and Draycott-in-the-Clay where conjunctions were used. The final activity based on the book was where we re-wrote the story, using the correct story language and adding more detail. We finished off this half term by writing a travel brochure that used all our learning from both geography and literacy.
In year 1, children learnt about multiplication and division where we counted in 2s, 10s and 3s, recognised equal groups, added equal groups, made arrays, made doubles, and made equal groups by both grouping and sharing. We then moved onto fractions for the first time. We recognised and found half and a quarter of an object, shape and quantity. We finished off the half term with position and direction, learning about how to describe turns and position, using the correct vocabulary, as well as ordinal numbers. Year 2 children learnt about fractions where we were introduced to parts and wholes, equal and unequal groups, recognising and finding a half, quarter and third. We also found the whole, looked at unit and non-unit fractions, recognised the equivalence of a half and two quarters, and counted up in fractions to a whole. We then moved onto time and revisited o’clock and half past, learnt about quarter past and quarter to, telling the time past the hour and to the hour, telling the time to 5 minutes, looked at how many minutes in an hour and how many hours in a day.
Science was focused on living things and their habitats. We compared the differences between things that are living, dead, and things which have never been alive; identified and named a variety of plants and animals in a microhabitat by going on a hunt around the school grounds to see if we had any. Following on from this learning we designed a suitable microhabitat for where living things could survive. We found out what animals eat to survive in habitats by thinking of an animal, coming up with questions and researching to find out the answers. We understood food chains by creating our own in a paper-chain style, drawing the animals and seeing what they linked to. Finally, we understood the journey food makes from the farm to the supermarket by matching living things to their produce and discussing the process.
In geography, we completed a unit on comparing Kenya and England in various ways. We began by comparing these countries in a broadly by using what we knew so far. We then watched videos on a typical day in the life of a child living in both urban and rural Kenya and then compared it to our lives. We moved onto being more specific and located Draycott to later compare to a village/town in Kenya. We found the UK on a world map, England on a UK map, Staffordshire on a map of English counties, and then Draycott on a map of Staffordshire. We identified and located both physical and human features of Draycott too. Jordan, our Christian schools worker, who has connections to Kenya due to family having lived there and his work with a school in a small town called Bumala’B, came in to speak to us about both Kenya as a whole and Bumala’B. Following on from this, we identified both physical and human features of Bumala’B. Using all this learning, we compared both Draycott and Bumala’B using a Venn diagram. We finished off by inviting our parents to our African Showcase, where we displayed examples of our work and spoke about all the things we had been learning about.
In art, we completed a unit on landscapes and cityscapes, linking to our geography unit. We started off by using Claude Monet’s Garden as inspiration for painting our garden at school. We then looked at Monet’s Cityscapes by creating a version of London using pastels. We moved onto Vincent van Gogh’s Landscapes to inspire our painting of Bumala’B. We then looked at van Gogh’s Starry Night by creating a version of Nairobi using paint. Finally, we used Jean Metzinger’s Landscapes and mosaic artwork to create a comparison design of Bumala’B and Draycott by splitting squared paper into two and drawing one on each side. We then cut up squared pieces of paper and stuck them over the top of our designs to create a mosaic masterpiece. These were also shown during our African showcase.
Our question for this term in RE was ‘Who made the World?’. First, we looked at the Christian Creation story and the importance of it to Christians. We then focused on Harvest and the meaning of why it is celebrated. We discussed how to take care of God’s world and labelled a picture of the world with ideas, where some of us used our science learning on habitats for inspiration. We finished off by thanking God for our world by writing Him a prayer. We continue next half term looking at Creation stories from other religions.
Our focus in PSHE was ‘Who helps to keep us safe?’. We looked at people who have different roles in the community to help us keep safe. We discussed who can help in different places and situations/how to attract someone’s attention or ask for help. We learned how to respond safely to unknown adults and who is a safe stranger that we can trust to help us. We discussed what to do if we feel unsafe or worried for ourselves or others and the importance of keeping on asking for support by drawing a table of people we trusted. Finally, we looked at how to get help if there is an accident and someone is hurt by acting out calling 999 in an emergency and what to say.
In PE, we have looked at hockey this half term. We started off by learning how to correctly hold a hockey stick and to ensure our grip was right too. We then moved onto dribbling, practising how to stay in control of the ball and ensuring that we were using the correct side of the hockey stick to do this. When confident with how keep the ball, we moved onto passing. This was about practising how hard and light to hit the ball and also a focus on direction to make sure it ended up in the right place. After this, we learnt how to score. Using the previous skills of dribbling and passing, we knew how to get from one area, into the semi-circle to score and how hard to hit the ball, to help us in managing to score as many goals as we could. Finally, we learnt about the different positions of hockey, ready to play our first games next half term.
In PE, we started off by having an enrichment day involving circus skills and bowling. Our main sport this half term was football. We learnt how to dribble by keeping control of the ball with slow and steady movements, passing by aiming and thinking about how hard to kick the ball, shooting by aiming and the different positions involved in football. We used all this learning to play a game as a class, moving onto mixing with KS2 to play games in a competition style format.
Summer 2
In literacy, we have been using our history unit on the 1969 space landing to complete writing in a range of genres. We began by recapping how to punctuate sentences using full stops and capital letters, in addition to using the conjunction ‘and’ in year 2. We then moved on to using the book ‘Man on the Moon: A diary in the life of Bob’ to look at adjectives, write a character description, identify the features of a diary entry and write our very own diary entry. The book ‘Whatever Next!’ helped us to learn about how changing just a couple of ideas can make a completely different story. Finally, after all our learning in history, we wrote a newspaper report on this important event. We really enjoyed learning about space and our writing was brilliant!
In literacy, we started off by using our previous learning on the Maasai to write a set of instructions to make a necklace inspired by what they wear. We created our own necklaces using paper plates and paint by following a set of instructions before writing our own, including time connectives and imperative verbs. We then moved onto our final book of the year called Wild by Emily Hughes based on our learning of habitats in science. Before knowing the name of the story or seeing the front cover, we drew a picture of the main character by listening to clues. We then used our inferencing skills to describe the character when shown the front cover without the title. We were then given the title and had to predict what the story was about. We wrote a character description by using language from the book to make it better. We finished off by writing and editing the story of Wild by including more detail than the original and putting our own thoughts into it. Our final activity for the year involved using our learning from geography this half term about the Fauld explosion. We wrote a newspaper report detailing all the facts from the local event.
In maths, year 1 children learnt about place value within 10 where we sorted, counted and represented objects, wrote numbers as words, counted forwards and backwards, compared and ordered numbers, and looked at the number line. We then moved onto addition and subtraction within 10 where we were introduced to the part-whole method, writing number sentences, worked out fact families and used number bonds to add and subtract. Year 2 children learnt about place value within 100 by learning how to partition into tens and ones, writing numbers to 100, using number lines and counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. We then moved onto addition and subtraction within 100. In this unit, we learnt used number bonds, fact families and related facts to help us add and subtract 2-digit numbers.
In maths, year 1 children learnt about place value to 100, where we counted from 50 to 100, looked at tens to 100, partitioned numbers into tens and ones, used the number line to 100, identified 1 more and 1 less, compared numbers with the same number of tens and compared any two numbers. We then moved onto money for the first time where we were introduced to unitising, recognised coins and notes and counting in coins. We finished off the year by learning about time. This involved looking at the meaning of before and after, naming and using the days of the week and months of the year, learning the difference between hours, minutes and seconds, and finally, telling the time to the hour and the half hour. Year 2 children learnt about statistics by making tally charts, tables and block diagrams, and drawing and interpreting pictograms. Finally, we learnt about position and direction. This involved looking at using the correct language, describing movement and turns, and creating shape patterns with turns. Year 2 then finished off with revision in preparation for their SATs.
Science was still about living things and their habitats, but this time a focus on habitats around the world. We learnt about habitats by matching animals to their habitats. We moved onto appreciating that environments are constantly changing and how we can support this. We completed a litter audit of the school and discussed the importance of our impact on animal habitats. We explored the rainforest and its problems by creating a fact file with a partner. We then described life in the ocean by creating a fact file on the blue whale. We discovered the Arctic and Antarctic habitat by sorting animals into a Venn diagram, linking to our previous learning in Autumn in geography. We finished off by creating a model of a habitat in groups using all the learning from the whole term.
In geography, we learnt about a local event called the Fauld explosion. Some of us visited the site during the half term and we shared pictures. We then used a map to identify where the school was and where the Fauld explosion happened. We researched about the events using both laptops and books. We looked at what the RAF Fauld site looked before the explosion, what it looked like after and what it looks like now. We then finished off by writing a newspaper report detailing all the facts we had learnt.
In DT, we completed a unit on sensational salads. We focused on where our food comes from, linking to previous learning in science and Harvest in RE. We looked at what was in a root salad and then did a taste test by trying a range. We prepared salads by following instructions, designed a fruit salad, created our own fruit salad and finished off by evaluating them. They were delicious!
Our focus in PSHE was ‘How can we look after each other and the world?’. We looked at how kind and unkind behaviour can affect others, how to be polite and courteous and how to play and work co-operatively. We identified the responsibilities we have inside and outside of the classroom, linking back to our RE unit on caring for the world. We learnt about how people and animals need to be looked after and cared for, drawing pictures of how we help look after others. We researched what can harm the local and global environment and how ourselves and others can help care for it, also linking to our habitats unit in science. We looked at how people grow and change and how needs change as we grow from young to old. We finished off by learning how to manage change when moving to a new class or year group.
In PE, we have looked at rounders this half term. We started off by learning a two-handed catch and how to throw underarm. Once we were confident on these two main skills, we moved onto learning how to bat correctly. We practised running at speed so we could move around the bases with ease. We learnt how to field correctly by ensuring we spread out and always focused on the ball. We then played a game as a class, moving onto a competition-style format when mixing wit KS2.
