Author: Scott Grason-Taylor

Exploring Calculations

Scott Grason-Taylor

The Pioneers have been very busy this week exploring calculations. We have returned to subtraction and the links with addition are becoming clearer. We have been working with teen numbers using a variety of manipulatives to support our work. The Pioneers moved form teacher to teacher trying out calculations with Numicon,Numberframes,Stickies,Moshimonsters and Tens and Ones. We wrote calculations and used Part/Whole Models to record our thinking. The quality of talk was high.Everyone was focussed and organised their resourses to get the right answers. Number formation is looking good and any reversed digits were quickly corrected.

Well done Pioneers.

Friday 9th June 2023

Scott Grason-Taylor

The start of the final half term of the year has been a busy one in Leaders class.

To start the week, on Monday, we visited St Hilda’s Church for a music concert. It was brilliant to listen to the wonderful musicians at the event. In addition to this, the children have continued to work hard in our class band music sessions, ready for our performances later in the half term.

This week, the children have continued to work hard on their writing, focusing on creating narrative pieces. Using the music video for ‘Titanium’, the children created brilliant stories, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

On Friday, the children demonstrated their creativity in art. Inspired by our focus artist, Ben Giles, the children created collages using the images and materials available to them. Check out the gallery below to see the amazing work that was created.

 

Another Week In Adventurers!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Hello families, 

This week in PE, Adventurers have been doing cricket. They think this is really fun and cannot wait to get back at it next week. We have also learnt a new dance to ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ and we love it!

In Science, we have been exploring states of matter and looking at how states change. We looked at how heating and cooling can change state. 

In English, we became reporters and interviewed each other to build speech for our newspaper reports about Zambezi Sunrise Trust.

Adventurers 🙂

What a Wonderful Week

Scott Grason-Taylor

The sun is shining and that makes everything feel wonderful.

We all did our writing outside and playtime was bursting with energy. Our sunflowers are stretching up tall and the snails have all disappeared into the shady spots.

We were inspired by Matisse to create some collage. The Pioneers added their own frames and really enjoyed “painting with scissors.”

We got out on the field to get to grips with the organisation required for Sports Day which is fast approaching. That field is mighty big when you are 4 or 5. We are learning not to cut the corners!

Friday 19th May 2023

Scott Grason-Taylor

So much learning has been happening in Leaders this week. Here is our weekly round up!

In English, the children have been planning and writing narratives based on the animation, ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. The vocabulary and sentence types used are really making for some excellent stories! I can’t wait to read the finished products next week.

In history, we have continued to learn about the Mayans. This week, the children learned about the four main time periods for this time in history: the preclassic, classic, post classic and contact and Spanish conquest. We explored some key events from each time period to consider the differences between them and plotted them onto a timeline. The children then learned the different theories of why the Mayan civilisation declined. 

We are currently learning about collage in art on Friday we researched and learned more about one of our focus artists, Ben Giles. We learned that Ben Giles works from his studio in Norwich in the UK, where he creates commissions for companies such as Google and Apple as well as many magazines. We enjoyed exploring his collages before the children created pages in their sketch books to demonstrate what they had learned about him as well as spending some time evaluating his artwork.

In Collective Worship this week, we focused on Christian Aid week. This is a charity the children are already familiar with from their work earlier in the year in RE. Together, we explored some of the people and communities Christian Aid help.

On Thursday, we were joined by the Zambezi Sunrise Trust, which is a charity that helps to provide education to children in Zambia. The children learned about the charities work and what life is like for the children who attend school in Zambia. We are looking forward to working with this charity to forge a link between Sleights and the Linda Community School. Next Friday, we will be holding a coffee and cake afternoon to raise funds for this amazing cause. 

Finally, we had tennis success on Wednesday, when eight children from Leaders competed in a tennis tournament. The children secured a wonderful third place! Well done!

A Fabulous Week!

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have had a lovely week in Adventurers class this week.

In maths, we have finished our mass and capacity topic and will be moving onto fractions next week.

We created forest backgrounds, in art, using water colour. This was inspired by the artist Megan Coyle. 

In PE, we did cricket and loved it! We managed to hit the ball really far across the field!

Adventurers 🙂

A Magnificent Week of Work

Scott Grason-Taylor

We have had another four day week but we have certainly done five days’ worth of work. The Pioneers have been on fire. We have been building up our knowledge of the creatures living on our school site and we focussed on snails. However,when we went on a snail hunt we only found one snail and a couple of rather large slugs. There were plenty of woodlice. Thankfully our wonderful families made up the shortfall and we imported a large number of snails all of which have found new homes outside…with a few inside too.

We have really enjoyed spotting pattern and shapes in shells and plants and recreating these using loose parts and pastels and pipecleaners.

The whole week has been just wonderful.

Music is in our soul.

Scott Grason-Taylor

In Re this week, we have been celebrating everything wonderful about our world. We learned that Christians believe that God made the universe and everything in it. We had some meaningful discussions and drew pictures of the things in the world that we found most wonderful!

In music, we continue to enjoy soul music and have been singing and clapping along to the beat. Learners class sing with joy and enthusiasm.

In PSHCE we have been recognising stereotypes and were able to give some great examples. We then drew pictures to recognise that jobs and careers are achievable by any gender, ethnicity and background!

In Maths the Year 2’s have been getting to grips with time and have been dedicated in using our class clock to determine different times of day during this week. The Year 1’s on the other hand have been enjoying learning about capacity and volume.

As always we have enjoyed sharing stories together and reading our favourite stories.

Don’t forget it will be class photographs this Tuesday 16th May.

 

A Week With Adventurers!

Scott Grason-Taylor

Another fabulous week in Adventurers!

In art, we learnt about Elizabeth Gower and created our own collages inspired by her artwork. In science we discussed solids, liquids, and gasses and then acted out being each state of matter.

We have started to explore capacity and mass in maths and found it challenging at first but we are starting to get it. In English, we used Jamboard to find facts about the climate crisis to help us write letters next week. 

We also practiced our skills on scratch in computing with Mrs Gurney. We managed to make three different characters move in the app!

Adventurers 🙂

 

Friday 12th May 2023

Scott Grason-Taylor

It has been a busy week in Leaders Class.

This week, Year 6 children sat the SATs. The children approached the week with positivity and demonstrated excellent effort throughout. A big well done to all of the Year 6 pupils from Leaders.

The Year 5 Leaders have been exploring angles this week. They can identify and estimate angles and are looking forward to learning more next week.

In art this term, our focus will be on collage. This week, the children demonstrated the collage skills they already have when designing their own cover page for this unit. Next week, we will begin to explore our focus artist so keep an eye on our class blog for updates. 

In writing this week, Leaders have finished their character descriptions, with a focus on Scissors from the animation ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. The children have really pushed themselves to use new and challenging vocabulary and have succeeded; the pieces were extremely interesting to read. 

A big well done to Leaders for another brilliant week!