Welcome to Eagle class! On Mondays and Tuesdays we are taught by Miss Shaw, our Headteacher. On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, we are taught by Mr Lester, who is really good at French and computing, and is keen to make learning as much fun as possible (especially if it means using silly voices and lots of drama activities!)     

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest class newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Aaliyah and Reggie

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.  
• To learn more about the Mayans, have a look at the BBC Bitesize resources, here. This includes really quick video clips that explain who the Mayans were and where they came from, and will give us a good head-start in lessons. Mayan art is bright, colourful and exciting, so have a Google for Mayan masks or Mayan art KS2 and see if you can spot something you’d like to have a go at making. To start with, there are some nice step-by-step instructions for making a Mayan mask here.
• We’re investigating forces in science this term, so keep an eye out for examples of forces around us - magnets that hold things shut, friction that slows us down, gravity stretching springs etc. What are the strangest examples you can find? Remember, it’s not magic - it’s science! There are lessons online to support our next topic on the Oak Academy site.

Our latest news:

• A group of our most talented writers visited Moss Bury School, where they met the author Tamsyn Murray and participated in an inspirational workshop to build on their great writing skills. They had a fantastic day and were talking about her books throughout the week that followed! 
 

 
• We thoroughly enjoyed our World War Two Day, when we experienced different activities such as: ration cooking, building air raid protection, Make Do and Mend, singing ‘Run Rabbit Run’, using war-time coinage, creating a remembrance mural, code-breaking and making gas masks. At the end of the day, we were excited to show our parent guests what we had been up to - and we were delighted that so many of you were able to attend and hear about our day! 
  
 

 
• We visited the RAF Museum at Hendon, where we all had a great time exploring the planes and equipment used during the Second World War. This linked with not only our work in History, but our English writing too. We learned all about the Battle of Britain, what it meant to be an evacuee and how the battle became a turning point in the Allies defence and subsequent attack.
  
 

We have been learning about... 

Science - This term, we have been investigating the heart and how to stay healthy. We learnt about the structure of this vital organ, the way it keeps every part of our body supplied with oxygenated blood, and we also designed and carried out investigations to test pulse rate.

History - Throughout the term, we have been learning about the Battle of Britain, discovering why this key moment is considered a 'turning point' in British history, as well as finding out what it was like to grow up during World War 2. 

English - We have focussed on Fiction Genres, exploring differences between fantasy, mystery, historical, science-fiction, realistic and comedy stories - and then messing around with these conventions by writing our own adventures that bounced between several different genres. 

This term's topics

English - Our next story writing unit will see us learning to build suspense, surprise and a spooky atmosphere as we focus our work around ghost stories. There will also be lots of opportunities to practice writing in a wide range of styles and genres, including poems, descriptions and letters, all linked to the spooky stories and settings that we encountered on our trip to Knebworth House last term. We will be reading lots of ghost stories as well, looking in particular at ways in which authors use weather, sounds and movements to create spooky atmospheres and a sense of ’something’s coming’ in their writing. We will also continue to revise reading across the curriculum, in preparation for our SATs in May.

Maths - We will start the term by developing our understanding of shape, building (and naming) 3d shapes, matching them to 2d representations and using them to solve problems. After that, we will explore reflection and translation, working out what shapes will look like in a mirror or after they have been moved around coordinate grids. Later in the term, we will return to the topic of angles, developing our ability to measure, plot, name and calculate angles. Finally, we will return to our key calculation strategies, revising the use of written methods for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and using these to solve increasingly complex problems.

Science - We will be investigating forces, identifying different forces that act on objects in a variety of situations. We will look at air and water resistance and the effect that these can have on moving objects (such as planes and ships) and the way these are designed. Finally, we will explore how levers, pulleys and gears are used in everyday life and the ways in which they can help us.

Humanities - We will begin by discovering who the Mayans were, where they lived and when their civilisation existed. We will then investigate their daily lives, comparing their homes, schools, clothes, food and warriors with other historical civilisations we have already learnt about (eg. Greeks, Romans, Vikings and Normans). We will also be exploring Mayan Gods and religion and examining the way that historians can learn about lives in Mayan times. Finally, we will be exploring Mayan Art and using this to inspire our own work.

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