During the Autumn term our new head boy, head girl and team of prefects have begun their roles; they worked alongside Mr O’Donnell in taking all the school’s harvest donations to the local foodbank. We look forward to them taking a leading role in setting an example to the other pupils. 

This half term the children have made a super start to their English, writing very moving pieces based on the short film ‘The Piano’. We have been impressed with their superb vocabulary and emotive writing. We have also studied the text ‘The drop in my drink’ which is a particularly challenging piece of writing fusing elements of storytelling and non-fiction together into what is known as a non-fiction narrative. The children have done a fantastic job on a collective write about ‘The blood in my body’ and are now making excellent progress on writing about their own chosen subject, using the style of the original text. 

In our reading sessions the children are enjoying the class text, ‘Wonder’ by RJ Palacio. It has stimulated some great discussions about disability, family life and acceptance. After half term we look forward to studying Shakespeare and reading ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. The children might like to purchase their own copy of the book to follow the text more closely. We will continue to use accelerated reader to support independent reading and understanding, however please ensure that you keep reading with your children as in previous years. Children at this stage are reading using comprehension skills and need your support just as much as when they were learning! 

In maths the children have been getting to grips with place value, and have moved on to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They have been using their reasoning skills to solve problems and how to select the most efficient mental or formal method to solve calculations. We will be starting on long division and fractions in the coming weeks. Remember to keep using TTRS as good times tables knowledge makes multiplication, division and fractions much easier. 

In history this half term, we have been studying the story of the Trojan Horse with a particular focus on drawing our own conclusions about how much of it is fact or fiction. This will lead into a new piece of writing after half term where the children will create a balanced argument, laying out the facts and fiction to lead their readers to a conclusion about the story themselves. We have also taken inspiration from this story into our art. We have looked at artists who work in 3D and are drawing upon the techniques of artist Chris Gilmour to build a miniature Trojan horse out of cardboard.