English

In English we are doing an in-depth novel study of Goodnight, Mister Tom. This will continue up to Christmas so that we can explore each of the themes, characters and events in detail. So far, we have met Tom, a cantankerous older man who lives in Little Weirwold and William, an eight-year-old evacuee from London who is billeted with Tom. We learn that even though these two characters have a huge age gap, that both are heartbroken and recovering from devastating life events. Tom lost his wife and child and has lived an isolated life ever since and William has suffered at the hands of his abusive, god-fearing mother. As outcomes for our novel study, we have written a diary entry as Tom, using his voice, postcards, emotion graphs and an extra scene. We have also created roles on the wall, explored life for an evacuee in the war and created propaganda posters. Next half term we will be continuing with the novel, focusing on how events can shape a life and link this to our Emotional Literacy learning and PSCHE.

History

This half term our enquiry has been ‘Why was winning the Battle of Britain, in June 1940, so important. We have developed a range of skills linked to analysing data, evaluating sources of information, reaching conclusions, and justifying our hypotheses with evidence. Our first ancillary question was ‘How serious was the risk of invasion by Nazi Germany in 1940?’ We started by looking at a map of Europe and learning some key vocabulary – occupied and allied. We quickly worked out that Germany was in control or allied with most of Europe at this time and the UK was the next target. This risk was further enhanced by the speech by Churchill, warning of the invasion and announcing the evacuation programme, reading Hitler’s directive which clearly stated that Hitler intended to invade Britain and the further warnings from the BBC preparing the public for the invasion. After this, we looked at data to answer ‘What did Hitler need for an invasion to succeed?’ We learnt that the Kreigsmarine was weak compared to the Royal Navy however, we know that the Battle of Britain was predominantly fought in the sky. We then looked at statistics linked to the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe. The number of planes were similar and so we concluded that Hitler needed to strengthen the Luftwaffe.

PSHCE/Emotional Literacy

This half term we have been exploring our emotions and strategies we must regulate how we are feeling. We have talked about different feelings and situations that can lead us to ‘flip our lids’ and live in our downstairs brain. We have thought about worries we have for the year and how we can deal with these to keep us well and safe. We also discussed our dreams and how we can achieve these.

Science

In Science we have been learning about evolution and inheritance. We have learnt lots of new words such as:

• Offspring
• Evolve
• Inherit
• Characteristics
• Mutation
• Genes

We have learnt about the Theory of Evolution written by Darwin and how we can see evolution in fossils. We investigated this further by becoming birds on Clippy Island and how different beaks led to survival or extinction. This allowed us to understand Natural Selection.

Following this we looked at inheritance, using biscuits to help! We each chose a different mummy and daddy biscuit and drew what the baby biscuit would look like, understanding inherited characteristics. We ae going to continue with this learning after half term, focusing on adaptation.

Maths

In Maths we have been focusing on place value and fractions. We have been refreshing our memories of the four operations as our starters. Stepping up with our learning in year 6, we have been applying our skills and knowledge more, especially around fractions to choose the most efficient methods to answer questions. We have weekly arithmetic quizzes and most of us have improved week on week. We are continuing to learn about fractions next half term with specific focus on reasoning and problem solving.

Music

The BFG’s have enjoyed their music topic – Britain Since 1930, from Musical Contexts. Listening with attention to detail we have studied the famous songs of The Forces Sweetheart, Dame Vera Lynn – The White Cliffs of Dover and We’ll meet again then Glenn Miller’s – In the Mood and Chattanooga Choo Choo trying to develop an understanding of the history of music As a group they discussed the dimensions of music and tried to recognise in the music. We recreated the atmosphere of being at a 1930’s dance when the air raid siren sounded! So, we took cover under the classroom desks. We tried to empathise how it must have felt. We then compared the air raid siren and the all clear, looking at the notation and how the all clear stays on the same pitch for a long time without moving. The children learnt that a musical sharp sign is not a hashtag! Using the classroom glockenspiels we played a chromatic scale, c major scale and attempted to plat the all clear. We have listened to four soundscapes and had a go at composing one.

For our Harvest Celebration at St. Catherine’s with Father Roger Parker, Hogwarts have been hard at work learning two harvest songs: – Cauliflowers Fluffy and Harvest Samba. We also had the pleasure of hearing our Year 5 class performing the hymn We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

Miss Whiteside, Music Lead, has led our weekly singing assembly in readiness for our celebration.

In singing lessons with Mr Garrett, the pupils have been taught the importance of warming up the voice and the importance of good posture. Areas covered in the warm ups included breathing, diction, vowel shape, intonation, dynamics, phrasing, and expression. The pupils enjoyed the warm ups and were keen to engage in practical work.

As well as singing pupils were taught to listen actively and use appropriate subject specific language when they discussed music that they had listened to in lessons. They were gradually introduced to the elements of music and through the activities of listening and performing were able to develop a deeper knowledge of how music is put together.

 Singing:

This term pupils have learned the following songs for the harvest festival:

Harvest Samba and Cauliflowers fluffy.

In addition, pupils worked through the Charanga original scheme with their singing and this term the song they worked on and performed was: Happy by Pharrell Williams

This involved some 2-part singing

Keyboards:

After a lot of initial singing this term, we started with a refresher keyboard course. All pupils also had an initial assessment.

Keyboard piece:  Rock out those E’s