This week, in Current Affairs, the children discussed the recent resignation of Zimbabwe’s leader, Robert Mugabe. It was pleasing to hear from many of the children that had already heard about this momentous event. The children watched news footage and interviews with members of Mugabe’s political allies as well as those who had lived under his rule for 37 years! The children were then encouraged to think about Britain’s role in Zimbabwe: should we help? If so, how much should we help? Do we have a duty to help? Why? Where has that sense of duty come from? As with many of our current affairs topics, we leave the room asking more questions than we have answered.
In Religion, the children have been using the Lectio Divina form of prayer to really engage with church readings at this time of year. This week, the children meditated over Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians in which Paul gives us very specific instructions. However, through creating a script of a conversation between themselves and Christ, the children realised that it is not always easy to follow through on these instructions – we are only human after all. We should always remember that we can turn to God for guidance and help. Perhaps when the children hear these readings in Mass, they will be able to ponder their role as a Catholic more profoundly.
We celebrated St. Andrew’s Day with a reading comprehension (lucky Year 6!) and a treat (very lucky Year 6!).
If you get the chance, check out Year 5’s space exploration lesson – it featured on the evening news. Year 6 got to watch a professional video of the day made by the people at Discovery Education.
https://central.espresso.co.uk/espresso/primary_uk/subject/news/video/item1105270/grade2/index.html?source=espresso-home-keystage2news#
This week, we had the first of our ‘Stay and Learn’ sessions. The children engaged with various texts in order to summarise them succinctly.
Our ‘Stay and Learn’ sessions will continue next Friday between 8.45am and 9.15am right up until Christmas. Join us next week to learn how the children tackle a different reading skill.
And finally, the children have been impressing various members of staff with their singing during rehearsals for our Carol Concert. We hope many of you can make it.
Homework Friday 1st December
- Maths – We have given you an arithmetic paper to complete.
- Times tables – Continue to practise your times tables for our weekly tables test. Practise these by chanting through them, going to the Times Tables songs on Mathletics, asking someone to test you, testing yourself, using look-cover-write-check, playing on ‘Hit the Button’ on Topmarks or J2Blast.
- Spellings – Please learn spellings for a test next week. Use Look, Cover, Spell, Check. We would then like you to use each of the spellings in a sentence. Try to make it an exciting sentence with correct punctuation. You will need to find out the meaning of the word first.
- English – Thank you for attending the ‘Stay and Learn’ session on Friday. To consolidate what we discussed, please choose a short piece of writing (your child’s current reading book or a newspaper article) and summarise the main points together.
- Extension Work: Time to be creative: how will you demonstrate the circulatory system (how blood is pumped around the body OR how the lungs take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide)? Posters, models etc. Use this website for ideas: https://tinyurl.com/ycla6lr6
Or type: bbc bitesize KS2 circulatory system into Google
Homework will be given out each Friday and is due to be returned the following Wednesday.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mr Prescott and Mr. Groarke
