Computers of the past

2nd October 2025Ruth Shields

Year 6, started the lesson with a game of bingo to help us recap key vocabulary that had been covered in previous lessons. Children then had an opportunity to play a computer game that would have been found in arcades in 1981. As you can imagine, they didn’t give it raving reviews considering it was considerably slower than the games they play. The graphics were quite simple and the music was very basic. This allowed us to start thinking about computers from the past and how they’ve evolved. We briefly discussed some of the first computers and historical figures from the computer world before they started to set up their slides in preparation for creating a presentation of their chosen area. This will continue into next week and then children will present their research to the rest of the crew.

Lights, Lorax, Action!

1st October 2025Ann-Marie Rankin

This week in Crew Rankin, we kicked off our new writing unit all about The Lorax!

We started with an exciting experience day lesson where we watched the beginning of the film and then worked in groups to re-enact different scenes. It was so much fun bringing the story to life – we had to use lots of teamwork, expression, and creativity to perform our scenes. Everyone got involved and we really enjoyed stepping into the characters’ shoes. We can’t wait to explore the story further in our writing!

Classifying Plants

1st October 2025Laura Hamill

Crew Rankin were great scientists today! They began by exploring some real life plants, having a look at each of them in turn and identifying notices about them. We then came together as a crew and shared what we noticed – different shaped leaves, different colours, the different way they grow etc. We then looked at classification keys and how we can use these to identify types of plants. As a crew, we worked on organising the plants we had just looked at with a classification key. Finally, we used what we had learned about the plants characteristics to create a crew classification chart.

Variables

30th September 2025Ruth Shields

Year 4 has continued their knowledge of variables today by starting to make a timetables quiz. Our session today was a guided session as it required lots of thinking power. We worked side by side to build the code, however, next week children will get an opportunity to work independently on building the code.

Making a Loop

30th September 2025Ruth Shields

To start the lessons, we reminded ourselves of what we’d discovered last week when we were tinkering with scratch. We thought of 5 things then shared this with our partners.

Screenshot

Once we had reminded ourselves of the capabilities of Scratch, we explored making a loop by using sounds for our sprite and having them play the sounds at the same time.

Expert Visit!

29th September 2025Betty Ramsay

Crew Ramsay and Crew Barber had a very special visit from our local Firefighters today! We learned about their Firetruck and even had a go sitting in the cabin! This was a lovely ending to our first case study about Firefighters!

Vlad the Flea Immersion!

29th September 2025Betty Ramsay

In Crew Ramsay, we have been getting to know Vlad The Flea. We had a story time, watched videos about The Great Fire of London, learned new words for ‘little’ and then did a whip-around protocol to share facts about Vlad. We are now so excited to get writing about Vlad in our Literacy topic!

Immersing Ourselves Into The Lorax

29th September 2025Charlotte Newman

Today was Experience Day in our writing lesson, Crew McLoughlin practised their roleplaying skills through recreating scenes from The Lorax. Working in mini crews, everyone planned, rehearsed, and then performed their scenes for the class. There was plenty of creativity, teamwork and communication! Our crew particularly enjoyed guessing which scene each group was performing! This was a great way kick start our new writing unit.

Experience Day – The Lorax

29th September 2025Ruth Shields

In writing, Crew Gray have had their experience Day where they have immersed themselves in The Lorax. We watched the first part of the movie to familiarise ourselves with the story then we split into mini crews to do some roleplay. Each mini crew selected a scene, acted it out before performing to the rest of the class who guessed which scene they had. Massive well done to the children who pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and give it their best effort.