This week we have been lucky to have visitors come in to support us in our Wellbeing and PE.  On Monday, we had our second visit from PC Davies, who came to talk to us about staying safe online and on Tuesday we enjoyed our final session with Miss Blacker from Deer Park, who taught us how to pass the ball in football.  We're looking forward to putting these skills into practise at the end of the year when Swindon FC come in to teach us (thank you Theo).

Thank you so much to all the parents who donated items (and possibly even bought some) for the Class 6 Toy sale.  The children made £91.71.  This week, the children voted to save their money, have another sale next term and try to raise enough money for everybody to have an ice-cream at the theatre or maybe a hot dog while we're in London.

This Tuesday, we had a lot of fun on Maths Day, considering how maths is often presented as a problem to be solved and the skills and learning behaviours we need to be able to do this.  We had great fun in the Escape room.  Huge congratulations to the Silver Team (James, Nell, Ryan, Jacob and Isla B) for being the first to solve the problems.  We then enjoyed creating our own maths day raps, poems, posters and songs to tell people all about maths and problem solving.

This week, we also held our own mock election.  The children were divided into groups to plan their election campaign.  They produced manifesto, chose a candidate, wrote a speech and made a poster.  We then staged a pre-election event, where the candidates delivered their speeches to Class 5 and everybody participated in a secret ballot.  This has really made us want to learn more about democracy in this country and we are looking forward to visiting the Houses of Parliament on our trip to London.

This week in our wellbeing lesson, we have been learning about money, worth, saving and spending wisely. To complement this, we have set up a used toys, games and book sale on Friday after school to try to raise some money to buy some of the items that the children felt would be useful for the class. Thank you to all the parents and carers who supported us by offering donations or giving their child some money to spend with us.  We'll let you know how much we raise and what we choose to spend it on.

We also really enjoyed our football lesson with Miss Blacker from Deer Park school, who taught us how to dribble the ball.  We are looking forward to our next session with her in a fortnight's time.

In science this week, we have started a topic on Light.  We can now all describe how light travels in straight lines from a source to an object and is then reflected and when that ray of light hits our eyes, we can see the object.  We enjoyed modelling this with wool.

What a busy week! On Monday, we welcomed Meg, a nutritionist from Caterlink, who came to talk to us about the school meals, thanks to the persuasive letters written by Maya and Florence.  Meg was impressed with our knowledge of the Eatwell plate, but went on to teach us a few new things, including the way Caterlink sneak in whole grains and plant based proteins into our meals, without us even noticing.  On Tuesday, we had our day in court and both of our teams made their cases successfully, the prosecution team securing a conviction and the defence team ensuring our defendant was released!  The children were magnificent! They learned their lines, acted their parts, improvised and wowed everybody - we couldn't be more proud.  Thank you so much to all the parents who helped out by providing costumes and giving lifts, it all came together beautifully.  Unfortunately, PC Davies had to cancel due to ill health on Wednesday, but we look forward to seeing her next term instead.  On Thursday, we walked to church for our Easter service, where Rev. Minns (and scruffy) encouraged us to think about what kind of King Jesus was - perfect for our next term's RE lessons!

We have really enjoyed science week this week. With visits from FGR, a forensic scientist, an aerospace engineer, a mechanical engineer and a cell biologist we have learned more about the varied and interesting jobs a scientist might do.  We enjoyed completing our own experiments and worked well in teams to build a marble run, make a lava lamp and grow gummy bears!  We hope to see lots of parents this afternoon to tell them about the science behind it all.

This week Class 6 enjoyed dismantling vacuum cleaners in DT to figure out which components we will need in order to create our own mini vacuum cleaners.  Next week, we are looking forward to making our own impellors and attaching them to motors.  In science this week, we had the opportunity to look at some real fossils and try to figure out what living thing might have left these impressions, how long ago they might have lived and what that might tell us about evolution.

It was wonderful to see everybody back and eager to get started with our new term's work this week.  We have started looking at our Mock Trial, which will take place on Tuesday 19th of March.  Please look out for letters nearer time about this.

We ended the week with some fun in the hall trying out a few different 'rock 'n roll' moves and some pirouettes.

This week, in preparation for our involvement in the Mock Trial competition, Class 6 were visited by two magistrates.  We learned to identify different offences and order them by their severity. We now can't wait to read the scripts for the competition.

This week Class 6 have been creative! They have enjoyed making their stop motion animations and contributing to the new school mosaics.  We all look forward to seeing the finished products.

What a lot of fun we had this week at the Young Voices concert in Birmingham!  It was an opportunity to perform in the world's largest children's choir, in an enormous arena, alongside professional performers.  With their friends around them for support., they confidently gave it their all and had a thoroughly fabulous day.  We were so proud of them.

For more pictures please see the music pages of the website.

Our courageous advocate this year is Martin Luther King and we learned about him on Monday, which was Martin Luther King day.  The class found out about the five key events in King's fight for civil rights and worked in groups to present an assembly for the rest of the school.  This was a great demonstration of their ability to work together.  We hope that their learning about Martin Luther King will inspire them to become courageous advocates themselves, standing up for the things they believe in.  On Tuesday we enjoyed portrait club in our art lesson.  The first rule of portrait club is, 'everybody poses!'  The children really started to look closely at each other, looking for the lines they could see rather than drawing what they think they see.  See if you can see the likenesses.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break.  It was great to welcome Class 6 back this week.  We have slipped easily back into the routine and everybody seems eager to work hard. 

Well done to those children who volunteered to read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe over the Christmas holidays as part of the LiteraSee project.  It was wonderful to see some art work already emerging.  Mr Redfern will be back next week to run the LiteraSee art club on Monday lunchtimes.  If any children who didn't previously take a book, but would now like to join in, please come and see me.

In our wellbeing lesson this week, we played some tapping games to illustrate just how fast content can be spread to many other people over the internet. The children could all explain why this means you must 'Think Before You Click!'.

We have started a new lunchtime club this term for the children interested in participating in the Gloucestershire Wildlife Quiz, they have been busy researching names of birds and insects and a host of other facts.  Their enthusiasm was exciting and I wish them all the best of luck in preparing for this fun competition.

In computing they are all excited to start their new topic, all about stop motion. We look forward to seeing their videos at the end of term.

If you missed the welcome letter and curriculum over view, please find them on the Term 3 and 4 section of the website.

Mrs Cartwright