Welcome to Fox class! Our teacher is Mr Roberts, who has been at Bedwell ever since he started teaching, 18 years ago. He particularly likes science, storytelling and sport, and is also our Deputy Headteacher.

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

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.  
• All of the computing tasks we’ve worked on in class are available at microbit.org. There are links to the MakeCode editor we’ve been using, loads of ideas in the projects library and lots more info about these clever devices. 
• Play around with torches, mirrors and reflection at home - can we use a mirror to see around the corner? Which clothes and materials reflect light best in the dark? How many different sources of light can you find around the house?
• There are loads of great documentary series that explore rainforest habitats and are well worth a watch - Planet Earth, Green Planet and Tropic of Capricorn are all available on BBC iplayer at the moment, with some great episodes on the Amazon and other rainforest environments around the world. 
  

Our latest news:

• In March, we travelled into London, firstly to the Sealife Centre where we saw a huge range of species ranging from sea horses to sharks! Then, we walked across Westminster Bridge, viewing the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, before heading to the National Gallery, where we immersed ourselves in the incredible collection of priceless artwork.
 

 
• We loved tacking part in a busy Science Week, including our planetarium session, sensory trails, Knex construction and our Egg Drop challenge
 

 
• We were delighted (and a little bit amazed) by the massive turn-out for our Stay and Spell event earlier this term. Mrs Draper and Mrs Thomas shared lots of ideas for supporting us in learning our spellings at home in fun and interactive ways, and lots of us have been putting these into practice in the weeks since, helping to improve our spelling knowledge. A big thank you to all of the parents and carers who attended.
 

 
• Year 5/6 leapt at the chance to take part in the Young Voices project this year., singing at famous venues as part of a massive choir. Having learnt a collection of (pretty tricky) songs, they headed into London to take part in a huge performance at the O2 at the end of January.
 

 
• We visited one of our local churches to learn about the Easter story. It was a lovely afternoon, with lots of volunteers from the local community making us feel really welcome in their church.      
 

We have been learning about... 

English : Biographies - We explored the lives of some great female scientists, including Marie Curie, Katherine Johnson and Mary Anning, and were then inspired to write the biographies of other great women from history. You can read a great example of our work below:

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was one of the first black women to challenge segregation in the USA. She lived at a time when various laws meant that black people were treated worse than white people, so how did her actions make a lasting change? Read on to find out more!

Rosa Parks, who was born on 4th February 1913, grew up in Montgomery, Alabama. The society that she lived in was very racist and she wanted this to change. This was difficult as she was a black woman and did not have many rights. 

After several years, she started getting involved in the civil rights movement (trying to stop racism). On December 1st 1955 she refused to give up her seat in the white section of the bus. At that time, black people had to sit in the back of the bus (or stand up) if a white person wanted their seat, and she felt this was unfair. As a result, she was arrested, taken to prison and put on trial.

Following this, black people all over the city refused to use the buses until the law got changed. For over a year, they walked to work or got lifts, until finally there was a change. This was the first step in ending segregation across the USA. Rosa Parks was rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. She died in October 2005.

History : Battle of Britain - Throughout the term we have been learning about the Second World War and, in particular, about the Battle of Britain. To support our learning, we visited the RAF Museum in Hendon. During the day, we saw lots of planes from World War 2 and took part in a workshop where we learnt about (and dressed-up as) lesser known heroes and heroines. Here are a few of the things we learnt: 

In our group, we learnt about a man called Douglas Bader. When he was showing-off to his girlfriend, he crashed his plane and lost his legs. However, even though he didn’t have any legs he kept flying, and during WW2 he led a fighter group. He was shot-down and taken prisoner by the Germans. He lost his false leg, so the RAF were allowed to parachute a spare one into the camp where he was being held! - Carson 

Bonnie and I were Joan Mortimer. She did a very good job by placing red flags to warn the pilots that there were bombs scattered around the airfield. She was awarded with 12 medals for her bravery! - Nyoreme 

I think my favourite part of our trip was the section where we got to design our own plane. We got to choose the size and shape of the wings (as well as the colour of the plane) and then when you started playing in the simulator, you could play with the plane you had designed, so you could see if it worked! - Chloe 

This term's topics

English - We will start the term by returning to non-chronological reports, using the texts The Street Beneath My Feet and The Skies Above My Eyes to explore the way that writers organise their writing to make it both engaging and easy to navigate. We will focus on the use of fronted adverbials and commas to separate clauses, and will then use these to help us to write our own reports for a class book. Later in the term we will return to story writing, using the story of The Watchtower by Gary Crew to explore the way that authors introduce characters. We will then experiment with different ways in which to add suspense to our writing, building up to writing exciting descriptive recounts.

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 - Our next science unit will see us exploring light. We will explore how we see things, how light travels and the reasons why we can’t see around corners. We will investigate shadows in more detail, planning and carrying out our own experiments to discover what factors affect the size of a shadow. Finally we will learn about refraction, and the way that this makes rainbows, lenses and prisms possible.

Humanities - We will be learning about rainforest environments this term, discovering what makes them special, where they are found and what it’s like to live there. We will plot rainforests on a variety of maps, linking their locations to the tropics, and will compare them with other environments we know about, such as deserts, mountains and local forests. We will also learn more about the different layers of the rainforest, comparing life on the forest floor with life in the treetop canopy

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