Just a quick message to say a huge thank you for all of your generous gifts and cards at the end of term. We have loved teaching the Golden Eagles and wish you all a wonderful summer holiday. Year 6, you are going to be fantastic at secondary school - good luck :)

Friday 14th July 

A huge WELL DONE to all of year 5/6 on their performance of the Jungle Book. We are so proud of all that they have achieved and the play was a real success.

Thank you to our wonderful parents for supporting the children with learning their lines. A special mention to our parent make up artists, singing coaches and film director! 

In English, we have been working hard on creating suspense in our writing.

In maths, we have been applying our knowledge of perimeter, area and decimals to create our own farm.

Friday 7th July

This week it has been Arts week.

We have been looking at the work of Henry Moore. We were inspired by his sculpture work and his series of pictures based on the blitz using charcoal and chalk.

The Year 6s had their leaver’s party - it was lots of fun!

We have also been busy practising our play. We did the first run through with our outfits. We can’t wait to perform to you next week!
Good luck to all the Year 6s at their transition days at ICC on Monday and Tuesday.

Have a lovely weekend :)

See pictures below.

Friday 30th June

We have had a wonderful week. Some of our highlights include:

- Hosting the Early years Olympics. We planned different activities and then ran them for the EY children

- Sports day. It was so much fun and the Sports leaders did a brilliant job of supporting the younger children. Red house won overall!
-In maths, we have looked at mean, mode and median. We also explored money, how to budget and household costs.

- In English, we have been basing our work on the film clip ‘Ruin’ from the literacy shed. So far, we have written character and setting descriptions as well as using dialogue to advance action.

- We have been doing lots of play rehearsal for the Jungle Book. We have also been working hard on creating the scenery. You can see our progress of the staging so far.

See our photos below.

Friday 23rd June

We took a group of year 6s to the Sustainability event at ICC. The children represented our school very well and spoke about ways we are looking after the environment. The inspirational speakers were also great- particularly Al Tait.

Friday 16th June

Here's our weekly roundup:

We had our class photo today! See photos below :)
Play rehearsals are well underway and the stage is now up. Please continue to support us with learning our lines and songs at home. Remember to start thinking about costumes too :) - see email. If anyone has any green material/cargo nets etc that would be suitable for The Jungle Book scenery then please bring it in.
English: We have been continuing our work on autobiographies this week.
Topic: We have explored tectonic plates and earthquakes. 
PE: We have been working on Athletics events in preparation for sports day. We also need to start thinking about events for the Early Years Olympics which we will be hosting in a few weeks' time.
Jigsaw: We discussed how our bodies change through puberty. Mrs Doran was very impressed with our maturity and use of scientific language during these sessions.
In addition, the Year 5s have been working hard on their final assessments. 

Friday 9th June

We had an amazing day today. This morning we took part in a whole school cross county event. See the photos below for our winners. Well done everyone for taking part.

We also had an inspirational speaker, Al Sylvester, who came to speak to us about his expeditions in Antarctica and his experiences during his career in the RAF. Ask us about his team mate Pita, or what happened to Al’s fingers and thumbs. A key takeaway was ‘never give up and follow your dreams’.

Friday 26th May

We have LOVED STEM week! The whole school has engaged with this and had the opportunity explore a range of science, technology, engineering and mathematics activities. 

Golden Eagles kick started the week with a forensics workshop with Jo from Thames Valley Police and ended with a brain and neurology workshop with Dr Elizabeth. Year 6 also had the opportunity to dissect hearts at Icknield Community College. In addition to this, Golden Eagles have also taken part in Nrich problem solving activities and researched famous Scientists.

See further details and pictures below. 

Have a lovely half term :) 

Forensic fingerprinting - 22.5.23

Year 5 and 6 were lucky enough to have a visit from Jo, a reporting fingerprint identification officer from the Thames Valley Police. Jo came in to talk to us about her role within the police and how she can use fingerprinting and DNA evidence to help solve crimes and convict criminals of an offence. She showed us the different ways of collecting fingerprints and showed us all of the different equipment that she uses in her day-to-day role. We even got the chance to have a go at collecting our own fingerprints! The children showed us that there are some CSI officers in the making!

Friday 19th May

Another busy week!

Maths: we have been measuring area and perimeter of rectangles and composite shapes. Year 6 have also been looking at triangles and parallelograms. In addition, we have been looking at how to work out the volume using the formula length x width x height.

English: We started a unit on persuasive writing. Ask us what the features are!

Science: We made blood! Ask us what each part of the blood represented.

Topic: We continued our work on biomes. This week, we looked at where different biomes were located by using atlases. 
 

We revealed that our play is going to be ‘The jungle book’. Get practising this weekend and we will have autditions next week. Why don’t you watch the film with some popcorn and get some ideas for how the characters show expression etc.

Friday 12th May

Congratulations to Year 6 for their amazing attitude during SATs week. We are so proud of the way you have conducted yourselves and tried your very best. A huge well done. Enjoy a well deserved rest this weekend. 

Some of our highlights:
- Year 6 enjoyed a celebration on Friday afternoon. Including rounders and and some party food.

- During topic, we explored the 5 main biomes. In small groups, we researched key facts and additional information, including; weather and climate, animals, seasons, physical features and vegetation. Can you tell your adults what the 5 biomes are?

- The Year 5s have been looking at negative numbers and in English they wrote heir own narrative from different points of view, focusing on inner monologue.

- Year 5 looked at different media and techniques in art then created some wild fire art.

See our photos below.

Useful resources for Year 6

Friday 5th May

This week, we have enjoyed celebrating the King’s coronation. It was very exciting to see the helicopter do the fly over on Wednesday and we enjoyed a shared lunch on Friday. Mr Gale and Mrs Sterjo did a brilliant assembly on Thursday! Ask us what we can remember.

Year 6 Maths Challenge - 3rd May 

We entered the Quiz Club Maths Challenge area heats today. 2 teams took part and the quiz consisted of a variety of rounds that increased in difficulty. Mrs Doran logged onto zoom and the quiz master gave us instructions for how to take part. It was lots of fun! Watch this space to see if we reached the next heat. 

Wednesday 26th April

What a busy start to the week we have had in Golden Eagles. We have made a start on our new science topic ‘Animals including Humans’ and have lots of exciting plans in place for some visits and visitors! This week we have had a look at the heart and we have introduced the terms veins, arteries and capillaries as well as understanding that the heart has 4 chambers and pumps blood around our body. As well as this, we have also continued our French learning  on the seasons. 

Let’s keep up the good work!

Friday 31st March 2023

Happy Easter everyone!

Have a restful break and enjoy some family time (as well as some chocolate, of course!)

Year 6, don't forget your half term homework! If you lose your SATs papers then you can locate them here. I have also uploaded the cover sheet below.

In terms of residential, we are super excited! Make sure you pack your suitcase so that you know where everything is located. Find a copy of the kit list below. Please arrive at school promptly on Monday 17th April. JCA Croft Farm, HERE WE COME!!

WB 20.3.23

It’s already been a really busy start to the week in Golden Eagles. As well as spending time perfecting our drama skills at ICC, we have been working hard on completing our hot writes in English. We are still in the writing and editing stage but hope to be finished by the end of the week.

In French this week, we have continued our topic on the seasons. We have learnt how to say and write ‘There are 4 seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.’ In French. As well as this, we have focused more on winter, looking at the weather that we may experience (snow) and the temperatures that we might feel (cold). Golden Eagles have been getting much more confident with both their pronunciation and writing.

This week in science was our last session on light. We looked at shadows and complete an investigation looking at the size and shape of a shadow. We also looked at how to write up an investigation and talk about our results.

ICC drama visit

Year 5 and 6 were very lucky to be invited to Icknield to watch the final dress rehearsal for their performance of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ 

The performance certainly ignited the inner thespians in us and has made us really excited for our own end of year performance! On Tuesday morning we went back over the Icknield to take part in a drama workshop with the lead characters. We had so much fun learning the opening song, taking part in some dance and even learning some parts from one of the scenes. The Eagles classes really did themselves proud and had so much fun!

Friday 17th March

The weeks are flying by!

Maths: We have been looking at fractions, decimals and percentages. Year 6, have a look here and Year 5, click here for some revision. We will be continuing with this next week so you could even do some pre learning and get ahead of the game!

English: We have been apply the features of a non-chronological report to write effective introductions and conclusions. 

Topic/DT: We have been finishing off our robot designs and planning our pitches! We had a go at some warm up pitches such as promoting a broken tea cup or brick! We had to get rather creative!
Science: We explored how we see different colours. For example, looking through different filters at different coloured objects can make the colour change!

Friday 10th March

This week, Golden Eagles have been working hard on their reading and maths assessments. Well done - we are very proud of you all.

In science, we investigated the spectrum of light by shining a light source through a prism. We watched the light refract and separate into the colours of the rainbow on the white wall.

On Wednesday, KS2 participated in an interactive showing of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Well done to all the brave children who went onto the stage and played a part!
 

On Friday, Footy Kids came to school with their inflatable football pitch. Despite the weather, everyone enjoyed themselves during their taster session. Footy Kids will run a lunchtime club every Wednesday on the school field so look out for a leaflet in your child’s bag with information on how to sign up! 😊

The 3D printer has once again, been very busy this week: printing the children's designs from the Tinkercad app. This is a free app so feel free to download this to a PC or tablet at home. 

Author visit

To tie in with World Book Day last week, KS2 were lucky enough to have a visit from Be Free YC (young carers) charity. 
Rab Ferguson, author of ‘The Late Crew’, came and spoke to us about the writing process and the importance of representing young carers in books. We helped him to create a new character and an alien and he then used it to create a short story. 
We enjoyed experiencing the writing process from a published author and it really helped us to get excited about the rest of the week leading up to WBD.

If you are interested in reading The Late Crew, we have a couple of copies kindly gifted to us in the school library or if you would like your own copy, it can be purchased from Amazon.

Friday 3rd March 

What a wonderful end to the week with World Book Day. It was fabulous to see so many cosy different outfits and characters. Our favourite activity of the day was definitely our news broadcasts. We selected stories and characters of our choice and then acted in role to present the news. 
Other highlights of the week include using Tinkercad to 3D print. See some of designs below. 

WB 27.2.23

What a busy week we have had so far in Golden Eagles. We are well into our Science unit on light and this week we learnt about and investigated refraction. We were surprised to discover that when light travels through more dense objects than air (glass or water), then it looks like the light actually bends. This is because the speed of light slows down when it travel through these materials. We investigated what happened when we looked at images through a glass filled with water and found that it looked like the image had rotated!

In maths, we have continued our work on decimals. We have been revising addiction and subtraction of decimal numbers to 3 decimal places and what happens to a number when we multiply and divide by 10,100 and 1000. 
I have added a link below to a really good game that helps us consolidate mental calculations for working with decimals.

Friday 24th February

Welcome to Term 4! It is so lovely to have all of the Golden Eagles back in school - they are definitely all a little bit taller! A warm welcome to Miss Philp, our Associate Teacher, who is currently undertaking her SCITT training.

In English, we started learning our new model text 'What is DNA?'. This term, we will be focussing on non-fiction writing and will be composing our own non-chronological reports.

In maths, we have begun work on decimals which we will continue next week.

In PE, we have started a unit on dance. Watch this space for our routines...!

Thank you to the parents who attended the SATs parents evening on Wednesday - it was great to see so many of you there. A reminder about SATs club starting on Monday morning at 8am.

Have a lovely weekend :) 

Children’s mental health week (6-12th Feb)

This week the children in both the Eagles classes will be taking part in the daily taskmaster challenges. Every day a new challenge and treasure hunt clue will be set for the children to get them thinking, be creative, get active and have fun to support their own mental health and well being. As well as these challenges, the children will be taking part in discussions and assemblies to help them explore how to keep a healthy mind.

Monday’s taskmaster challenge: Make the best rainbow.

Tuesday’s taskmaster challenge: Design a new outdoor game with only 1 piece of equipment and 3 rules.

Wednesday’s taskmaster challenge: Make the best self portrait using materials found in nature.

Thursday's taskmaster challenge: Choreograph a dance.

Friday's taskmaster challenge: Create a hat with recyclable materials.

Friday 3rd February

Please read our sci-fi hot writes! We wrote these independently and tried to incorporate as many features as possible from the sci-fi toolkit. Lots of us chose to move away from the model text and some of us chose to 'hug' it.

A few of us had the opportunity to work with Ms Watts to build a willow house. We can't wait to use it.

Mrs Doran and Mrs G-B have been very proud of us for reaching the end of our pathway: supporting eachother.

Home learning and CEO challenge

Hello Golden Eagles! This week we have sent home some maths to complete linked to missing numbers and number sequences. We would also like you to choose a task from your home learning grid to complete. As well as this, we have attached the CEO challenge that Mr Thomas set in the video on the main school class pages.

Enjoy!

Mrs G-B and Mrs Doran 

Friday 27th January

Parents, thank you so much for coming to our classroom for the open afternoon. It was lovely to see so many faces and the children enjoyed sharing their work with you.

A huge well done to the children who attended the Athletics tournament - what a triumph! We are all so proud of you for taking part but winning was the cherry on top!

Maths: We have been continuing our work with ratio and proportion. See a worked example below.

English: We have entered the 'independent application' phase of our sci-fi writing unit. We have boxed up our own plan and look forward to our hot writes next week. It was really great to see that so many children chose not to 'hug' the model quite so closely. See a worked example below of a joint plan.

We have also uploaded some pictures of our home-learning.

Friday 20th January

Another fabulous week in Golden Eagles.

In English, we have boxing up the model text - The Wild Robot. We have also been innovating to a space setting. 

In Maths, we have been learning about ratio, including proportion and enlarging by scale factors.

In Topic, we have thought about where inventions started - the Victorian era.

We also had a wonderful afternoon with our buddies. 

Friday 6th January 2023

Happy new year and welcome back. Thank you so much for all of your generous gifts. We have kicked off January with a bang! 
In journalling, we have thought about the changes we want to make this year and what we want to leave in 2022.
Our new topic this term is Robots. So far, we have learnt about what a robot actually is. In our English lessons, we are going to be looking at Science fiction. 
In maths, we have been brushing up on our arithmetic skills.

During art, we have enjoyed exploring Eric Joyner artwork and had a go at experimenting with different robots and settings. We will work towards creating our own scenes next week.

Keep your eyes peeled for a newsletter and home learning next week :)

Have a fabulous weekend. 

Monday 19th December 

Today we have consolidated out skills during our ICT units this term. The children were asked to create a stop-motion animation using a new app on the IPads. The class had a great time exploring different aspects of stop-motion animation and have created some fantastic videos!

Friday 16th December

We have been feeling very festive in the Golden Eagles class. A visit to the church in the snow on Monday morning really got us all into the festive spirit! The children did really well in their church church performance and we were really proud of you all. Year 6, you did a fantastic job of reading the Christmas story.

In English, the class have completed their hot writes based on balanced arguments. We were really impressed with the quality of their writing and their passion for the subjects that they chose to write about. We have decided to do a short unit of work based on the John Lewis advert, ‘the unexpected guest’ from last year. We will continue to work on this until we break up.

In maths this week we have been looking at budgets. The class have been given parameters to work between to design and create a 3-course Christmas dinner with drinks. The children have really enjoyed working as a team to design and budget for their meals and looking forward to their own Christmas lunch today!

We have been taking part in some Christmas crafts this week, including pop up Christmas cards and pastel silhouettes. We also finished off our Tudor roses by painting them.

Friday 9th December 

Wow, what a class assembly! We are so proud of you all. A huge well done :)

English: This week, we planned and started writing our 'hot' discussion texts based on a topic of our choice. Here are some examples of the questions we chose to discuss:

Should the the World Cup be held in Qatar?

Should schools use a values ladder?

Look out for our finished versions on the class page next week!

Maths: We have started a new unit on measurement this week. We had a very tricky lesson converting miles and kilometres but we were very impressed with perseverance levels!

Friday 2nd December 

Wow, what a busy week! A few highlights... 

English - We have been carrying out debates. We chose our own topics such as 'should we have free chfree of snacks at school'. We are currently working on stitching our debates together on imovie and will upload them soon.

First Aid - Year 6 had I.M.P.S - see more info below.

DT - We went to visit ICC to bake some Tudor Knots. Mrs Lloyd, the food technician, commented on how well behaved the children were and what a credit they are to WPS.

Art - We made some Christmas decorations for the church.

We also had a special visitor in class... Mistletoe the Elf... who is causing lots of mischief and spreading festive cheer!

Year 6 I.M.P.S

Today the Year 6’s had a visit from imps to help teach the children about first aid. They had a great morning learning about how to keep themselves safe and what to do in an emergency situation. The children did themselves proud and have been really enthusiastic with their role play! See if your child can talk you through the recovery position!

Friday 25th November

Golden Eagles have been busy completing their assessments this week. We have been very impressed with their resilience and attitudes to learning.

One of our highlights this week has been using clay to make Tudor Roses. Mrs Doran ordered us some journals and they finally arrived this week! We did some work around the emotion 'excitement' - what it is, how it feels, why it can be positive and ways to regulate ourselves if excitement is taking over in the classroom!

We are looking forward to visiting ICC next week to do some baking.

Friday 18th November

Maths: We have been tackling fractions. We have been looking at equivalent fractions as well as simplifying and ordering. Did you know, you can compare fractions by making the numerators or denominators the same? The types of fractions may depend on which method you prefer. See some photos below. Click here for a useful link and to explore further at home.

History: We have been looking at the Tudor diet and comparing this to modern day England.

English: Our new writing unit is based on discussion texts. We have been looking at the features exploring with aspects of grammar.

ICT: See more info below! We had so much fun :)

It was anti-bullying week and we made posters. It was also kindness week so we have been carrying out random acts of kindness. 

Computing - film makers

This term in computing we have been looking at using the iPads to make information videos. Today we had a ‘tinkering’ session exploring iMovie to help us create short videos with multiple frames. We have focused on recording close-up shots, long shots and zoom. Golden Eagles had lots of fun both in front and behind the camera. Look below to see just some of our practice results!

Friday 11th November

This week, we have been analysing and creating war poetry. We then performed our poems to the class. Some of us filmed the poems and then Harry, Megan and Lucas stitched the videos together using iMovie to create a compilation. See the video below! Our poems are stuck to the classroom windows so come and pick us up one day this week to have a look!

In maths, have been looking at problem solving using all 4 operations. We also started to look at BIDMAS. The following videos will be useful if you wanted to try some at home:

BIDMAS     Priority order

Friday 4th November

We have had a busy start to term 2. Some of our learning includes:

RE: Discussing why festivals are important to religious communities.

Maths: Our brains hurt! We have been recapping short division and building our confidence with long division. It would be great to continue practising this skill at home.

Click on these links for more information: Year 6 Year 5

English: Using figurative language to create war poems. We also had a go at performing them too!

Science: Investigating the impact of other materials on the rate of oxidation. 

Science 10.10.2022

Today in science we have been looking at irreversible chemical reactions. We discovered that all chemical reactions will change the reactants involved and will create a new substance. In todays experiments we created carbon dioxide! Have a look at our experiments below to see what we did. All of the reactants that we used were all items that can be found at home. Perhaps you can have a go and explore a change of variables.

Friday 7th October

We absolutely loved Outdoor day today and had lots of fun! Have a look at the photos below to see what we have been upto.

In English, we have been looking at the features of newspapers.

In Maths, we have been applying our knowledge of addition and subtraction to solve problems.

Mrs Doran also introduced 'Listening' to our positive pathway - we hope to reach this destination soon!

Friday 30th September

Here are some of our highlights....

English: We completed our hot writes this week. Mrs Doran and Mrs Gardner-Brown were very impressed with the way we applied our toolkit to create an effective piece on a battle setting.

Topic: We discussed the validity of historical sources and then researched Henry VIII. We all loved the song about his wives! Click here to watch!

PE: We are really enjoying our swimming lessons!

Music: We are progressing well with our ukele lessons.

Thank you parents for visiting our class during the open afternoon. It was lovely to see so many faces :)

We are looking forward to outdoor learning day next week!

Friday 23rd September 

Another busy week in Golden Eagles! Here are some of our highlights:

- Retelling the Wars of the Roses in topic lessons using a comic strip or playscript. 

- Creating battle freeze frames in English. We will use some of these ideas when we do our hot write next week.

- The grand opening of our calm corner. We worked collaboratively to create some rules.

- Applying our knowledge of rounding to solve problems. This really tested our resilience!

Here is an example below:

A and B are integers. 

A = 300,000 to the nearest 100,000

B = 300,000 to the nearest 10,000

What is the greatest possible value of A + B?

What is the smallest possible value of A + B?

What is the greatest possible value of A - B?

Friday 16th September

We have been very busy this week in Golden Eagles. We have been exploring different emotions and have started using our well-being check in. The calm corner is currently under construction but we are excited to see it unveil next week - first we need to create some rules around how to use this space.

English - using figurative language to describe a setting, such as similes, metaphors, personification and hyperbole. 

Maths - representing and partitioning numbers up to 1,000,000. 

Science - creating and describing different solutions 

Topic - locating the countries and oceans visited by Sir Francis Drake and mapping out his route

School council and Sports Captains

We were very impressed with the hard work that went into your video applications. A huge well done - we are so proud of you all.

School councillors: Megan, Rosey and Maddie.

Sports captains: Matilda, James Gr, Archie, Imogen, Lucas, Freddie, Otis and Freya.