Welcome to Falcon class! Our teacher is Mrs Draper, who has been at Bedwell ever since she started teaching. She is really good at art and English, and she says her favourite things are meeting with friends and walking her dog, Cody. She doesn’t like unkindness very much, and is scared of being late!

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest school newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Lacey and Ayaan 

Home learning ideas:

• All of the maths we’re doing this term is dependent on quick recall of tables facts, so it would be brilliant if you could work on this. Focus on one table at a time and try: 
  • Making-up rhymes to help remember number facts (“4 x 6 is 24, bears growl and lions roar!”) 
  • Looking for numbers in that table in the world around you - on doors, car number plates, in phone numbers or when you’re out shopping. 
  • Writing-out tables with finger paints, chalk or water-on-tarmac, or make them from playdoh. 
  • Chanting, singing, whispering... Say tables out loud together whenever you have the chance.
• Each week we are set spellings to learn. Click here for guidance on strategies you can use to support your child in learning these at home.  
• Our history topic might be within living memory of some of our family members - if so, it would be great to share their memories of life during WW2. Were any great-grandparents evacuees? What do you know about any family members who fought or worked during the War? There are loads of movies, video clips and archive materials available online to support learning about life during the War - the BBC Class Clips site is a great place to start: www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/history-ks2-world-war-two/zjnyscw
• There are loads of great children’s books set during World War 2 that would be great to share - Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian, Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll and Arctic Star by Tom Palmer are all excellent places to start.

Our latest news:

• The whole of Key Stage 2 came together this term to perform The Lion King, and we were all incredibly proud of the show that we managed to create. With Year 6 taking on the lead roles, Y5 playing hyenas (and the grasslands), Y4 as African singers and Y3 dressing up as a variety of animals, it was a huge project - and we have to say a huge thank you to Mr and Mrs Humber, who made some incredible, professional quality costumes and headdresses for the lead characters.
 

 
• We rounded-off the year with our Leavers Trip. On Wednesday morning we headed down to the leisure park for a fun bowling session, followed by lunch at Bella Italia. There were lots of laughs and lots of memories shared, and it was a great way to spend our final full day of primary school. We ended the term with an emotional final assembly, reflecting on all that we have achieved during our time at Bedwell and looking forward to the amazing adventures that lie ahead!
 

 
• On 19th June, a group of 34 intrepid Year 6s set-off on this year’s PGL expedition. We spent 3 days at the Marchant’s Hill centre, trying out a huge range of activities that we would never be able to experience at home. Over the weekend, we took part in climbing, trapeze, survivor, zip wire, archery and the challenge course - and it was great to so many of us taking on challenges and overcoming fears to make the most of every session. You can find out more about our trip here.
 

 
• Lots of us took part in the Young Voices project, which gave us the chance to sing at the O2 in front of an audience of 10,000! You can find out more about our experiences here.
 

 
• Our Year 5s took part in the STEMPOINT Knex Challenge, where they were challenged to build a model rocket. There was great creativity, teamwork and determination on show from every pair, with Daniel and Matei declared the overall winners for their brilliant design. 
 

 
• A group from Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed throwing themselves into a series of workshops linked to STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. The project, organised by local charity STEMPOINT, has seen us working with scientists and engineers from companies like Airbus, GSK, Unilever and Thames Water. We have learnt how to use real world lab equipment, built boats, explored risk, carried out lots of tests and even designed fuel tanks for spacecraft (with a real rocket scientist!) It has been great fun to take part in these sessions, and it has also introduced us to lots of careers that we never knew existed.
 

We have been learning about... 

Maths - In Year 6, once SATs were out of the way our attention turned to problem solving and some practical challenges. We have carried out surveys and presented our findings using pie charts, extended our understanding of algebra, explored nets for complex 3d shapes and investigated scaling by creating a one-tenth scale model of our classroom!  

Science - This term we have focused on exploring electricity, finding out where it comes from, how it travels and how circuits really ‘work’. We’ve carried out an investigation to find out what affects the brightness of a lightbulb, and were lucky enough to take part in a work shop as part of this year’s Science Week, which taught us more about static electricity and the role of electrons.

English - In English, we have been writing stories in the style of Greek Myths and Fairytales as well as producing persuasive speeches which we presented in the style of the TV Show Room 101. We worked on balancing believable detail with the rhetorical tricks that make our arguments really convincing, in order to win-over our audience.

This term's topics

English - We will begin the half-term by completing our Planetarium unit, exploring report writing. We will develop our use of conjunctions to link ideas together and explore different levels of formality that authors use, depending on who they are writing for. We will then finish by writing reports about planets we have invented. After that, our next unit is based around the novel Wisp: A Story of Hope by Zana Fraillon. Telling the story of a young refugee, born into a world of tents and fences, this beautiful book is full of magic and hope. We will be focussing on the use of figurative language and dialogue to introduce new characters and settings, and will then use it to inspire our own work.

Maths - Our key focus for the next half-term will be fractions. We will use diagrams, models and practical tasks to ensure we really understand what a range of fractions mean and ‘look like’, and will then use these models to help us to compare and order mixed groups of fractions. From there, we will learn to add, subtract and multiply fractions, before beginning to explore mixed numbers and improper fractions (fractions worth more than 1). Finally, we will be linking fractions to their decimal and percentage equivalents and using all these skills to solve problems. Later in the term, we will also be learning to calculate the area and perimeter of shapes and investigating the properties of quadrilaterals.

Science - We will continue to investigate our circulatory system. We will start the half-term by carrying out experiments to find out how our pulse rate changes when we exercise, and will develop the way we draw conclusions from results. After that, we will learn how to keep healthy, the impact that diet and exercise have on our bodies and the damage that drugs and alcohol can cause.

Humanities - We will continue to learn about World War 2 and the Battle of Britain. After investigating which countries were involved on each side, we will be exploring how the War affected the lives of children and experiencing what life was like for evacuees. We will also explore the impact of the Battle of Britain, identifying the location of air bases on each side, the tactics used and the reasons why the attack was ultimately unsuccessful.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.