AUTUMN 1
We have been incredibly busy during our first half term back at school. Our question for the half term was, ‘Who are you and where do you come from?’. Through this, we have explored maps in Geography and developed and built on lots of Geography skills. The children have recapped on knowledge gained in KS1, when talking about the seven continents. We went further and looked at some human and physical features of each one. We used maps, atlases and globes to find and locate countries, cities and states of the USA. We even planned a route using grid references and located tourist attractions in London, which linked beautifully to our class text ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ by Onjali Q. Raúf – a story of a refugee child who built a new life in London, forging new friendships and embarking on new adventures!
In Science, we have been learning about the human digestive system and the children have just loved all the gross parts, including talking about poo and vomit! To investigate the effects of different liquids on our tooth enamel, including sugary drinks such as Coke, we used eggs in cups of different liquids and observed the shells after 3 days. Miss Cashmore overheard one child say “I am never drinking Coke again” after they saw the decay of the egg shell! We found out that milk and water had no effect on the egg shell and so are the most sensible drinks to have to prevent tooth decay.
We also looked at food chains and food webs, including working in teams to create our own food chain display cards, showing the transfer of energy from the producer up to the apex predator in each chain.
In other areas of the curriculum, we have explored European art and artists in Art and Design – this linked really well with our Geography unit. Part of this unit included exploring Michaelangelo and the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The children loved creating their own ‘ceiling art’ by painting under the tables!
We have also explored the Creation Story in RE, thinking about what Christians learn from this story. The children came up with really profound thoughts when exploring different themes of this Bible story, including one child who said “Christians believe humans make mistakes sometimes like Adam and Eve did, but God still loves us and forgives us. We need help to be close to Him like following Jesus.”
Our Hello Yellow day was also a fantastic success, with Class 3 thinking about what makes them amazing and creating posters to show everyone else their ‘amazingness’!
AUTUMN 2
Class 3 have been working very hard again this half term. We focussed on ‘Significant Civilisations’ in History and explored Ancient Egypt! The children have absolutely loved this unit of work and have been eager every week to learn about these fascinating people. The have used different sources of information such as artefacts, books and the internet to answer historical questions and create fact files all about pyramids, mummification and the River Nile! The children even had the chance to try mummification out themselves, when they mummified tomatoes! We were then able to use this in English, when we wrote instructions about the process.
In Science, we have been learning about the states of matter: solids, liquids and gases. For our investigation, we explored different melting points of foods. Miss Cashmore used a tea light and a stand to heat foods such as: butter, chocolate, coconut oil and cheese in a foil cup. We used a digital thermometer to measure the temperature at which each food began to melt. We found out that coconut oil melted at the lowest temperature (around 30 degrees Celsius) and cheese had the highest melting point (around 60 degrees Celsius). We now understand that melting points are the point at which a solid turns into a liquid when heated.
In other areas of the curriculum, we have learned all about coding in Computing, using the Purple Mash platform. We learned what an algorithm is and how we can programme ‘code’ to give a computer an instruction. We thought about using code blocks to build our algorithms, including ‘if’ blocks so we could build in variables e.g. ‘if the input if ‘yes’ then change the object’s image to…’
We have also explored the ‘Christmas Story’ in RE, thinking about ‘how Christmas is celebrated around the world’. We explored countries such as the Philippines, New Zealand, Mexico and Sweden and what traditions they have to celebrate the one truth for Christians around the globe: that Jesus (God) was gifted to Earth (incarnation) on the very first Christmas day to help save everyone from the bad things they were doing.
Our ‘Odd Socks Day’ for anti-bullying week was a huge success, with Class 3 really thinking about how uniqueness should be celebrated and any kind of bullying should not be tolerated. We discussed what we should do and who we can speak to if we witness or experience bullying in our lives.
SUAT supports and leads in the set-up of new academies joining the partnership. The services provided by the central support function cover both educational and non-educational support. In terms of educational support, SUAT is linked to the School of Education of Staffordshire University, which is an outstanding ITT provider.