The Tick Of Time Anthology

Every week since September, we have been taking part in an online TeachingLive session with Talk For Writing founder and author, Pie Corbett. The class has then gone on to develop their thoughts and skills during our English lessons. They have all worked incredibly hard and now everyone has the opportunity to read a selection of their writing especially chosen by Pie!

Pie has released an online book, ‘The Tick of Time’, which is an anthology of selected writing from the TeachingLive project. They have been chosen from over 22,000 stories, poems, adverts, reports and many other pieces of writing submitted by children from all over the United Kingdom. 
 

Please click HERE to go directly to the Tick of Time book and see how many you can spot from the class!

Bikeability

We were very pleased to welcome the team from Outspoken Training who led pupils in Sambar and Taruca through their Bikeability course last week.

The course is offered to all of our children in those year groups as they are able to learn not only practical skills but also gain understanding of how to cycle on today’s busy roads - so important when many will be cycling to their new secondary schools in September.

To achieve their level 1 and 2 awards, the children started on the playground where they were able to show their ability to control their bike and listen carefully. Once the children were more confident, they moved to level 2 and onto the road, which gave them the opportunity to learn how to manoeuvre safely.

To find out more about Bikeability,  please click HERE.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

In Design & Technology, our textiles work has been focused around the Mexican festival “Day of the Dead.” The children have explored the origins of the celebration and the significance of the bright colours and skull symbols. The children then took inspiration from street artist Jean Michel Basquiat before designing and making their own sugar skulls. The outcomes are very impressive as you can see.

Life Education Bus

As part of our PHSE curriculum, we were pleased to welcome the Life Education Bus to the Emporium. During a very busy session, we had the opportunity to explore friendships - including the ingredients for being a good friend and how to cope with peer pressure. The children also looked at the effects of legal drugs on the body.

Christmas!

With the Emporium decorated for Christmas, we had a wonderful afternoon celebrating what had been an amazing term with hot chocolate and doughnuts! Yum!

Athens v Sparta!

This term we have been learning about Athens and Sparta. We have used historical sources of evidence to explore these fascinating city states in ancient Greece. We have also examined the results of Sir Arthur Evans’ archaeological excavations at Knossos in Crete to try to establish whether the story of Theseus and the Minotaur was true. Our work is really impressive!

Calendars

Our calendars this year were inspired by the work of the artist Tom Wriglesworth. We focused on Grantham buildings including Sir Isaac Newton's birthplace. We were so proud of our work that we sent one to Tom himself who thanked us on Twitter! 
                                                              

All About Dragons!

Wow, what can I say about the terrific work that has been done via our Teaching live sessions this term! The children worked incredibly hard throughout, not least in their work all about dragons. They have mastered non chronological reports, persuasion and discussion. They have even created their own “Breaking News” reports about sightings of dragons in the local area! Check out our writing blog to read our work - click HERE to go directly to it. 

Mythical Beasts

Inspired by all the Greek myths and legends we had read in class, we created some gruesome mythical beasts out of clay! We used a “soft-slab” construction technique which uses slabs of clay that have been freshly rolled out and are still damp. These soft slabs can be formed into lovely, flowing structures that are often reminiscent of leather. They draped the clay over hump moulds to create repeatable forms, which allowed them to concentrate more on finishing the form with surface textures and decorations.

Science Circus!

We had a fabulous afternoon exploring the properties of light through one of our science circuses! This term in science we have been exploring the Earth, Sun and Moon and the properties of light. We have measured how shadows change over the course of the day and the reasons for this. Via the science circus, the children loved doing activities to explore and link their understanding of light to what was in front of them. 

Playground Leaders

Seventeen children from the class have volunteered to be Playground Leaders this year. They completed their training with Jack from Inspire+ who taught them some safe, socially distanced games that proved to be great fun! They can't wait to share them on the playground!

Exciting Writing!

This term we have been involved in an exciting writing project working with author and poet Pie Corbett. Each Thursday morning, we have been taking part in a Zoom lesson with Pie and children from 49 other schools around the country. We have written poems using similes, metaphors and personification. We have also learned the importance of choosing language carefully in order to create a picture in the reader’s mind. Our final “polished” pieces of writing are then then “blogged” on the Teaching Live website for anyone to read all over the world.
Children from other schools are able to read and comment on our writing and we have been lucky to be paired with children from a school in Chorley, Lancashire. Each week we read their writing and offer them supportive feedback. We say something positive, ask a question about the writing, and then suggest an improvement. We have enjoyed commenting on their work but have found it equally exciting to read their comments on our writing!