What a wonderful first term in Willow Class! The children have loved our hilarious class novel, The Explorer by Katherine Rundell, and eagerly await the title of our new book after the half term break. The Explorer lent itself perfectly to the children’s Writing lessons where they created their own action-packed narrative, using short snappy sentences and strong Tier Two verbs to build tension. More recently they completed a brilliant transmission from a narrative poem based on The Highwayman.

In Maths this term, the children continued to use their concrete, pictorial and abstract approach to tackle place value, addition and subtraction and multiplication and division. An absolute favourite has been using factor bugs to work out factors.

In Science, the children have focused on physics, immersing themselves in knowledge about our forces including why gravity and water resistance. They have also deepened their understanding of fair testing and variables.

In History, the children have learned about Mayan civilization, particularly enjoying our lessons about how bloodthirsty their beliefs were! In Computing, the focus has been systems and search engines, which has given the children the skills necessary to complete efficient internet searches. RE is a firm favourite in Willow Class. Our focus religion is Hinduism and the children have considered how Hindu people show their commitment to God. In PE we have been lucky enough to have Mr Philips the brilliant football coach and Forest as well as cooking the children have also created forest crafts. 

I look forward to another amazing year in Willow Class. I hope you all have a well earned rest over the half term break. 

Ms James

We have had a lovely start to the term, in Willow Class. They have started their learning with enthusiasm, covering Roman numerals in Mathematics. In English, they have been sentence stacking a narrative based on our class novel The Explorer by Katherine Rundell. In Science, they have started learning about forces and enjoyed investigating the effects of friction. In PE, the children were very excited to see the return of Mr Phillips, our professional football coach who used to play for Manchester City. 

Homework will be set on Doodle Maths. Children should complete 20 minutes per week. I will check their progress on Friday mornings.

The children will bring home between 3-6 personal spellings on Fridays. These will be words that they collect themselves that they have spelt incorrectly in their work. They will then be tested on them the following Friday.

The children must read at least 3 times per week. Throughout the week they will participate in Book-Talk, where they will share their reading with the rest of the class - often enthusing others with what they read. As well as this, your child should complete one Reading Journal entry at home every week. This will be a high -quality, scrapbook style, creative entry. They should bring their books and journals to school daily. The journals will be collected in on Friday morning, ready for celebration assembly. I am passionate about getting children reading as the amount children read at home is the greatest signifier of future success. It has even been proven to enhance mental wellbeing!

P.E. is on Friday afternoons. Children will wear the correct kit (Longvernal PE t-Shirt;  school sweater; black shorts or sports trousers; and daps or trainers) to and from school on these days.

Forest School is on a Monday afternoon. They will come to school in their Forest kit and must wear a long sleeved top and long trousers—to protect their arms and legs from insect bites and branches of trees. Sessions will take place in any weather (other than high wind or thunder and lightning storms) so please can you ensure their kit has the appropriate items of clothing (waterproofs, spare socks, wellies, gloves and a hat for colder months).

Please don’t forget to check out the school website and Facebook as we will be updating both regularly!

Finally, if there are any parents/carers/grown-ups with talents or passions, it would be great for you to come in to visit the class to share them. Or, maybe you would like to come and read a story or listen to readers across the school. I will be available on the playground every morning and outside when I dismiss at the end of the day so please don’t hesitate to speak to me if you have any worries, concerns or queries.