Dear all,
This morning our year 6s turned 'teacher' on us and took their presentations on The Respiratory System and Asthma' to the year 3s. They all rose to the challenge and our younger pupils were treated to tours of the respiratory system courtesy of a team of air particles! Year 3 commented that they had learnt a lot and the presentations were fun so well done, all. There are a couple of photos attached for you to enjoy.
We are still working hard and have ventured into the realms of spooky stories this week. We have investigated several stories from the 'Short'/'Short and Spooky' collection of books and have used a text called Norton's Hut by John Marsden and Peter Gouldthorpe. The children have really been immersed in creating spooky atmospheres - I'm looking forward to reading their stories.
Next half term, we shall be looking at the different writing styles incorporated within walking guides. If any of you are out walking over the half term, it would be good if you were able to browse any guide books that you might have. We shall be looking at the mix of instruction, information and description.
Have a good week everyone.

Hello all,
Thank you for all the support that you gave the children running up to and during their SATs week. It could not have been calmer and we were so impressed with the way in which each and every one of them approached the tests with such maturity and determination. We are so proud of them all.
I think that the cinema trip last week went down well too. It was really funny and was made even more hilarious through the references to many other heist-type movies (Ocean’s 11, Point Break, Kingsman – some extra moments to raise a smile for the adults).
This week has been a much more relaxed affair with the children grappling with technology to produce slide presentations with script about the respiratory system and what happens during asthma attacks. They’re looking really great and I have been in conversation with year 3 to whom they shall make their presentations so ‘get practising those accents!’ (they’ll tell you what I’m talking about.) The next project will be to study spooky stories and write one of our own. In Maths, we shall continue to revise and practise our arithmetic and consolidate all the units covered this year.
In between times, rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream are now in full swing and there are some superb performances in the making. We have also been squeezing in time (during class novel times) for making a pom pom garland in Ukranian colours to grace the front of school as our sunflowers grow.
Thank you also for all the wonderful baking contributions for the cake sale today.
Have a super weekend

Maple Class blog 8th April 2022
HAPPY EASTER HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
Well … throughout the last half term the children have really done themselves proud and made some really super progress. I have sent home a couple of revision booklets (one for Maths and one for English) and would encourage them to chip away at the worksheets to keep things fresh in their minds.
After the holidays, there are two school weeks before the SATs which are during the week of 9th May from the Monday through to the Thursday at times set by government. However, they all coped extremely well with the mock SATs test that we did recently so just want to maintain the learning.
In English we have been having a lot of fun with our class novel ‘Smith’ and are compiling information leaflets about highwaymen – the description and imagination has astounded me:
‘The appearance of a highwayman strikes fear into the hearts of even the bravest of men.’
‘The glint in his eye would charm any lady but behind the shimmer, there are secrets untold.’
‘Without doubt, his red-speckled mask will be pulled over his scarlet face, but leaving hazel-brown eyes glimmering, as if to hide secrets not ready for the harsh world.’
‘His black, leather boots, littered with buckles are like the solar system, the black leather being the endless void and the buckles, the planets.’
In Maths, we have been learning about ratio and scale factors. Scaling up/down a recipe in the holidays could be a fun activity. Revision shall continue after the holiday and after Sats we shall be embarking on a project to include a lot of data handling. It would be great if the children could collect any examples of graphs, charts, timetables etc that they find in magazines, newspapers or leaflets.
Please see the Birch Class blog for details of afternoon work.
Best Regards and Happy Easter.

Hello all,
Everyone has approached the mock sats this week absolutely brilliantly and progress is evident right across the board - well done everyone. It has not been the most exciting week in year 6 in the mornings but please see the Birch class blog for details of afternoon activities.
Just a reminder to all that reliable revision materials are produced by CGP, Rising Stars and Exam Ninja should you be wanting to purchase any for use at home.
The real SATs week is the week of the 9th May.
Next week, we shall be moving onto information text about how to be a highwayman in English so start gathering together ideas re costume, habits, tone of voice, riding ability, persona etc.
In Maths we shall be starting to look at ratio and proportion. 
Have a super, sunny weekend everyone.

​Thank you everyone for the wonderful book characters who arrived in school on Thursday. Wow - you all really looked the part!
It was super to have such enthusiastic book recommendations from the children and we all decided that we would not judge a book by its cover in future after an activity where we chose books purely from their blurb (the cover being covered). It was surprising how many books were really great when we started reading them but wouldn't have grabbed our attentions from the book cover.
We also had a bit of a scavenger hunt for Wally who guided us to some really unusual reads. 
The morning flew past and it was a joy to feel the buzz around books that there was in the school.

This next week, we shall be concentrating on Time (analogue and digital), 24 hour clock and reading timetables(calculating differences in time). Any extra practice that you can give you child in this respect will be greatly appreciated.

Hello everyone! I trust that you managed to spend some extra quality time with your children during half term. They have certainly returned with energy and are working very hard.
I wince at mentioning the S word (SATs) but this is the key half term of revision prior to these tests which are in the week of the 9th May (just a couple of weeks after the Easter holidays). Should you wish extra home revision materials, the best publications are CGP and Rising Stars ones which are widely available online and from WH Smith. All past papers are freely available online KS2 SATs Papers - SATs Papers KS2 [1999-2022] - Free Downloads (sats-papers.co.uk) and on other sites. Obviously, I don't want them to use them as tests at home but to have questions to practise. The reading papers are brilliant as they are all limited length extracts at exactly the right level of difficulty.

However, we are having a lot of fun with our class novel Smith and writing composition pieces for the coming half term will include several pieces based on the book.

1. A story chapter involving a lot of discussion and argument amongst the 4 main characters about whether Smith should share his newly acquired 'document' with his highwayman friend, Lord Tom (We're really having to get inside the characters for this one).
2. A recruitment poster for new pickpockets for the Ludgate Hill gang.
3. An information leaflet about how to be a highwayman.
4. A description of a scene in Newgate gaol.

This all sounds a bit dubious, I know, but it's all in the spirit of a bit of swashbuckling fiction. You could help out by discussing ideas for the key attributes of a Georgian street- urchin pickpocket or a  highwayman.

In Maths, the remaining topics to cover this half term are reading time in 12 and 24 hour formats and calculating time differences; Measure (mass, capacity and length) including reading scales that are calibrated in different amounts and being able to convert between units of measure ( e.g. ml to l and vice versa) and Ratio and proportion (ratio can be explored in a fun way by scaling recipes up and down).
 Most importantly, it is crucial that times tables facts are quick so please regularly quiz your children at home and encourage regular Times Tables Rockstars practice.

Don't forget that World Book Day is next Thursday - children do not have to dress up for the day but they may if they choose to.  We will be having a special day filled with bookish joy. We will be welcoming a pop up bookshop from our friends at The Bookery in Crediton who will introduce children to some fun, age -appropriate books and give them a chance to buy a book from the shop. The bookshop will remain open until four o'clock at the end of the day in case any parents or carers would like to visit it. To buy a book children need to bring cash in a sealed, named envelope and give it to the class teacher at the start of the day. Children will be able to buy one book for six pounds or two books for ten pounds.


On that note, we shall be sharing favourite books in class that day and I would like to invite the children to bring in a book with a synopsis and recommendation to go with it - this can be in written form or as an oral presentation. It would be great if they could think about books they've read that others would probably not have so as to inspire and inform our wider reading.

Above all, let's enjoy the longer daylight hours and hopefully some more Spring-like weather.

It is so nice to be nearly back up to full strength again in year 6 and I'm delighted to say that everyone has managed to slip back into the sequences of work very well.
This week we seem to have mastered how to calculate the areas of rectangles, triangles and parallelograms as well as some compound shapes and we have taken this on to the next step of calculating volume. We have also been plugging away at our arithmetic and have now covered all the year 6 arithmetic skills so it's just constant practice now to build up our speed.
If you could set your child a daily addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (making them tricky with decimal numbers and multiplying and dividing by 2 digits), that would be fantastic.
The police reports related to our book 'Smith' have come on a treat and we are now moving on to writing a scene for the novel in which we vividly 'show' our reader the personalities of our characters through their speech and action.
Our most exciting news is that we had a visit today from a couple of teachers from another school. They were most impressed by the imagination and creativity of the children and your children really showed the best of their inventiveness - well done everyone!

Maple Class blog
Hello everyone,
We soldiered on with a very small class last week and really missed those of you who had to stay off due to the dreaded Covid.
However, we had a lot of fun interviewing each other in role as potential witnesses to our 'Smith' crime and have just about finished our reports- some editing and producing a best copy to be done.
We have all revised Area and Perimeter from year 5 in readiness for moving on to Area of triangles and calculating volume. We have confidence now so it was well worth it.
This next week's English writing is going to require some help from Harry Potter - that's our excuse for watching a bit of the film anyway!

Class blog Friday 28th January
In Maths, having teased the children a while back with promise of KFC ( a method for dividing fractions – nothing to do with chicken), this week we have had a lot of pieces of pie (charts!) and have moved onto measuring and calculating angles.
In English, we continue to hone our formal writing skills and we have started short, daily grammar exercises in preparation for SATs in May. The children have quickly picked up the question styles and are doing well. If you want to look at questions at home, past papers are freely available online by searching KS2 SATs – this can be for Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling; Reading or Maths.
Please see the Birch Class blog for information on their afternoon work.

​We've had another busy week. Maple class did a sterling job of starting off the new hedge at the playing field boundary and we look forward to seeing the saplings sprout in the spring.
Our command of formal language is coming on well and we have built a bank of formal words and expressions to use in our crime report.
In Maths, we have been reflecting and translating shapes on coordinates grids and refreshing our understanding of coordinates. We are now investigating the properties of 2D shapes so that we can use this knowledge to draw them and to calculate areas and perimeters.