Hello Summer!

Though it will be a short half term, it will be a very exciting one!

In English, we will start by writing about "Cracking Contraptions!" Using inspiration from the great inventors - Wallace and Gromit! - the children in Birch Class will learn how to write an instructional and informative piece about a cracking contraption of their own! We will examine the structure, verb choice, technical vocabulary and passive voice before starting out piece.

We continue our decimals topic in maths, now looking at how to add and subtract them. The children will build on their knowledge from our addition and subtraction topic to help them. Some of their multiplication and division knowledge will be needed as we look at multiplying and dividing decimals by powers of ten (10, 100 and 1000) before we move onto our unit on shapes later in the half term.

Our afternoons are just as exciting as we look at the civil rights movement in History. We started by discussing inequality throughout history and then focusing on life in America in the 1950s. This knowledge will help us look into the lives of Oliver Brown and his case against the Board of Education, Rosa Parks and her civil disobedience and Martin Luther King Jr's dream. This topic will take us to one week after the half term and we will end by seeing how the civil rights movement impacts the world today. 

When we put our metaphorical lab coats on for science, we will be studying how humans and animals change over time. We started by focusing on evolution where the children in Year 5 and 6 learned how and why evolution happens and about the man behind evolution's discovery, Charles Darwin! We even looked at a case study about the evolution of giraffes so feel free to ask them what they know about that!

RE looks at the importance of faith in a number of religions including ones we've studied this year and a few knew ones. We will look at one religion a week, talk about their faiths and later compare some of them to see how they overlap and why faith plays a key role for the believers. 

And don't forget students will be taking part in a whole school performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream where Year 5 and 6 will play key roles. We are excited to start workshopping this week!