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.

Fred bingo!

30th September 2025Elizabeth Frost

This week the children have been introduced to Fred Bingo! Each child is given a sheet of six CVC words, the adult Freds the words and the children mark off the correct image, the first one to finish wins! This has been so much fun, building on our pictorial skills and our oral blending. They cannot wait for new images next week!

What can you hear?

30th September 2025Elizabeth Frost

This week the nursery children went on an environmental walk to see what they could hear. We heard a bus, ambulance, birds, and much more! The children gave meanings to the marks they made on their clip board to help them remember the sounds. This was also a great opportunity to practice our lines and circles. Then the children came back to the classroom and tried to think of the sounds we were Fredding. They were amazing at orally blending the sounds! We can’t wait to go on another walk soon.

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.