Year 3 enjoyed a fantastic trip to Flag Fen where they handled historical artefacts from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romans. The children had the opportunity to make Stone Age pottery and they saw the remains of an ancient causeway.
To enrich our learning in History, Mr Brookes visited our class this afternoon. Before he retired, he spent many years working on the railways. Now, he is the chairperson of the Cambridge and District Model Engineering Society (miniature railways). He is an expert when it comes to steam trains – large and small.
Mr Brookes showed us how transport has changed over time and he told us about the development of local railway lines. He also set us a challenge to make sure we were listening carefully. There was a prize – tickets to visit the model railway – for the person that could remember the answer to his question. ‘Can you remember when Burwell station was built?’ It was built in 1884.
When he uncovered his model steam engine, we were really excited to take a closer look at the working parts.
We also had the opportunity to ask him lots of ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions to learn more about him and the development of steam power.
Pupils from our Year 5 and Year 6 Enterprise, Cultural Capital group distributed their plant-filled pots within the community. The pupils raised all of the funds necessary to cover the costs. We hope that our act of kindness will brighten people’s gardens and make them smile.
We applied our geography fieldwork skills when out distributing our plant-filled pots.
Each group designed their own logo.
Dear Miss Mansfield,
Please could you give my thanks to the pupils of year 5 and 6 who prepared my lovely planter that I found this afternoon at the top of Parsonage lane , near the old Barclays Bank. What a lovely surprise! I felt a bit self conscious carrying it home but am looking forward to seeing it growing in my garden.It was a lovely idea; unexpected acts of kindness can have such unexpected, long term results sometimes. It certainly made my day brighter. Keep up the good work!
With best wishes to you all.
On the 20th December, Year 5 visited the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge Arts Theatre to watch Dick Whittington and his Cat pantomime. In the museum, we spent the first hour looking at paintings and then we had lunch. After, we visited the Greek and Egyptian exhibitions. It was really interesting.
In the afternoon, we watched the pantomime. It was really fun. I even got to go up on the stage at the end of the show.
I loved being in the theatre with all of my friends.
On Wednesday 7th December, 10 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils travelled to Coleridge Community College for a dodgeball and table tennis competition against other schools in Cambridgeshire. All children competed in both sports and demonstrated excellent teamwork and sportsmanship. We were thrilled to bring 2 trophies back to school. One for Toby in year 6 for winning the table tennis competition and the other one for our mixed year 5/6 team for coming 2nd in the dodgeball competition.
All children represented our school superbly!
Books for Topics have put together a list of books that are recommended for different age groups. The children have these in their reading records. We are encouraging all children to read these books in their spare time and tick them off the list as they go along. To support us in this it would be great if you can read along with your child or ask them questions about the books they are reading. Perhaps share them as a bedtime story. When children do read them it would be great if you can initial the list in the reading record to show that they have read them.
We believe that encouraging children to read this selection of books it will help to develop their vocabulary, their knowledge of common stories and story structures and, over time, develop a love of reading which will support them throughout their lives. Along with their school reading books and the emphasis on reading throughout the curriculum, children will develop into fluent and expressive readers. This in turn will support their understanding of the whole curriculum and opening up opportunities to develop deeper critical thinking and supporting successful outcomes.
Reading gives children access to the curriculum, to new and diverse worlds to explore, to information and knowledge and to opportunities well beyond the academic.
We have enhanced our reading material with a clear and progressive reading scheme which caters for all children in the school. At the parent workshop today we went through this scheme and the associated expectations. If children are to achieve their potential they need to be able to read fluently and with good understanding. Bug Club allows the school to systematically check progress against age expectations in all four elements of reading (fluency, understanding grammar and vocabulary and application). The books available are modern and engaging and build vocabulary throughout the stages. We expect therefore children to be reading their Bug Club book when they are in school so that teachers can be confident about what children know and understand. The early Bug Club books are all phonetically decodable allowing early readers to apply their known phonics as well as applying their sight vocabulary (another key skill). As children move through the stage the vocabulary becomes increasingly more difficult, as do the story structure and contexts of the reading material. In order to keep children’s interest there is a variety of text types, including non-fiction, graphic novels and comics and newspaper type layouts. Bug Club also offers some comprehension tasks to support parents with children’s understanding of the texts.
Children have brought home a Bug Club online login. This login allows children access to Bug Club via a website. The online site has the same texts as the hard copies (so there are no excuses for not reading). Some of the texts also have a text to speech version included so that children can listen and follow along. We know that for busy parents this is a very welcome support to ensure that children are reading regularly. If you do not have access to a laptop, phone or other device, please speak to the office as we may be able to support.
Finally, Bug Club is not the only reading material available. There are two other supplementary schemes in school; Collins Big Cat and Oxford Reading Tree. These will be used to support children and ensure a variety of reading material if they need to remain on a colour. Children also have access to a well stocked library four lunchtimes per week. During this time they can be supported in finding reading material that interests them. We want children to read as much as possible so although we want them to read their Bug Club book regularly it should not be exclusive. If children love finding things out there is plenty of non-fiction material in the library that they can borrow. If they love Jacqueline Wilson, Terry Pratchett, David Walliams or even Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, we have the material available and want to encourage children to read.
Reading is important, it is a very big key to success and opportunity. If you are unsure of anything to do with reading please ask your class teacher. If we know what the barriers are we can help to address them. This can include providing vocabulary flash cards, devices for online reading or simply encouragement to try a different genre.
Attached is the powerpoint shared with parents. We look forward to continuing to read with you and your child.
