Immersion

Today we took the opportunity to immerse ourselves in our expedition. Children came dressed up as evacuees which was lovely to see. The minute the sirens went off, we had to quickly build an Anderson Shelter to protect themselves from the bombs being dropped by the Germans.

Once we realised it was no longer safe, it was time to pack our suitcase and head off to the countryside.

The suitcases were packed and we then boarded the train so we could leave London and move to the countryside where we’ll be safe.

WW2 – Hook Week

This week we’ve started building some background knowledge about World War 2. We also put the main events into a timeline which took some great team work. Children had to consider days and months due to quite a few events happening in the same year. When we’d completed this, we used the timeline to help us create a knowledge organiser that highlights the key events and people.

Welcome back Crew Shields

We’ve had a lovely week back in school and we kicked the week off by spending time focusing on crew and building positive relationships. This will allow us to have a successful year.

Our guiding questions was ‘What does crew mean to me?’ and we’ve spent lots of time talking about the importance of crew. When we shared our thoughts today some of the things children said crew is a big family, happiness, supporting each other and holding each other to account.

On Wednesday we were lucky enough to take part in an escape box challenge. This required us to really put our heads together and use each other’s strengths to help us work out all the clues. The clues were maths linked and had problems solving elements. Even I had to get the odd clue to figure out the next step.

Space Art

Today, Crew Hamill proved what fabulous artists they are by fully engaging themselves in a painting of either the Sun or the Moon. After researching the artist Andy Warhol, we used our inspiration to create images of the Sun or Moon in outer space. We used a variety of skills and tools in order to produce these including the use of varying brush strokes, dabbing of a sponge and flicking of a toothbrush to create different elements of our image.

Wonderdome

To kick start our expedition, Upper Key Stage 2 were whisked off to the Milky Way within the amazing Wonderdome. We were able to fully immerse ourselves into our solar system, exploring each of the planets and learning in-depth information about the Sun, Earth and Moon. Matt, our space expert, was extremely knowledgable about all things space – past, present and future. We were able to discover that Earth is the only planet that humans can live on as it is in the habitable zone (also known as the Goldilocks zone) where the conditions – temperature, water and oxygen – are just right! We were also taught about the first astronauts to travel into space and land on the moon. Did you know there were THREE astronauts? Interestingly, it wasn’t just Neil Armstrong (the first man to step on the Moon) but it was also Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the Moon’s surface alongside Neil, and Michael Collins, who stayed in the space craft to keep it safe. We were excited to find out that there will be another attempt to travel to the Moon next year, with 4 new astronauts set to orbit the moon!

Chapter One Celebrations!

This year, as a school, we have taken part in Chapter One.This has meant that many of our pupils in KS1 have had the opportunity to read 1:1 with a volunteer at least once a week for the whole year, that’s reading at least a whopping 40 times this year! Not only has this reading opportunity supported our pupils to develop their reading skills and better their fluency it has also boosted their love of reading! All of the pupils that have taken part in this have made fantastic progress with some now reaching the top book band level! We are super proud of them all! Yesterday, we got to take part in a live call with our Chapter One representative, as well as many of the volunteers that have been reading with our pupils. It was lovely for us all to put a face to people, as well as listen to the lovely feedback that our volunteers shared. It was such a lovely moment to share with our pupils, and the great news is there will be much more of this in the next academic year!