What a week! The weather has been both a blessing and a challenge this week as the children have tried to balance enjoying the sun, surviving through it and continuing to produce the same fantastic work as always. They’ve all done really well and remained the positive, kind and respectful children we have seen from them all year.

English

This week in English, we have been developing our persuasive writing skills. After finishing The Highwayman, we debated whether the soldiers were simply doing their job when they killed the Highwayman. We then took our discussions a step further by considering who was ultimately responsible for his death.

The children explored the arguments for and against several different characters, carefully considering the evidence before forming their own opinions. A particular focus was presenting both sides of an argument. We discussed how acknowledging an opposing viewpoint can make our own writing even more convincing, as it gives us the opportunity to explain why we disagree.

Next week, we will begin reading The Lady of Shalott and will be focusing on setting and character descriptions.

Maths

In Maths this week, we have been exploring the true meaning of the equals sign. Although it is something we see every day, we discussed how the equals sign tells us that both sides of the equation must have the same value. For example, while 2 + 2 = 4 is correct, so is 2 + 2 = 100 − 96.

We then moved on to scaling problems, such as adapting cooking recipes to cater for different numbers of people. This gave the children an opportunity to apply their mathematical knowledge to real-life situations and think carefully about proportional reasoning.

Thematic (Science):

In Science this week, we have been exploring forces, including friction and air resistance. We began by recapping the difference between contact and non-contact forces, as well as reminding ourselves that friction acts in the opposite direction to the movement of an object.

The children then became scientists, designing and carrying out their own investigations to discover which variables affect the amount of friction or air resistance an object experiences. We started by investigating whether different types of shoes provide different amounts of grip and discussed why this might be important in everyday life.

Later in the week, we explored air resistance by building our own parachutes. Each group chose a different variable to investigate, such as the size of the parachute, the material it was made from or even the way it was dropped. It was fantastic to see the children planning fair tests, making predictions and discussing their results like real scientists.

Love to Learn:

On Monday we will hand out the white bags for the summer fair stall. If possible, we’d love you to decorate them and put in a few goodies as this is a very popular stall at every fair.

Spelling:

Mr Oxley and Mrs Mirza’s group’s red words for this term:

Familiar, privilege, sincere, suggest, hindrance, frequently, programme, interrupt, exaggerate, equipped

Challenge words:

Agonising, engulfed, trembling, terrified, overwhelmed

Miss Isaac’s group’s red words for this term:

Favourite, learn, minute, library, February, reign, group, often, forwards, fruit

Dates to remember:

30th June – Music evening at 6pm

1st July – Big fat quiz of the year (year 4 at 1.30pm and year 5 at 2.15pm)

10th July – Year 3-6 Sports day from 9.15 on the top field

10th July – School reports sent home

13th, 14th, 15th July– Transition days (children will spend these days with their new class teacher)

14th July 2.45pm – Parents invited into child’s new class to meet their teacher