Coming up in term 4

Please see the poster below to find out what Sycamore will be learning in term 4.

Coming up in term 4

Term 3 Update

What a term! Well done Year 6, you've been superb! 

We've had our first look into using algebra in Maths and have come a really long way in such a short period of time. Your secondary Maths teachers I'm certain will be impressed with your powers of deduction. We've also learned about ratio, proportion and have just started to delve into the important world of decimals. 

Our Writing this term has been somewhat spooky with our narratives based on a chapter from the superb The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The gothic themes of this book have been apparent in our writing with some really engaging stories being produced. We've also read Michael Morpurgo's Kensuke's Kingdom in our reading lessons, which had us all gripped until the very end.

The Georgian's influence on our local area has been our topic this term. Who knew Bath had such a fashionable past with residents such as Mery Shelly, Jane Austen and, the master of ceremonies himself, Beau Nash attending the parties in the newly built and now iconic Georgian buildings? We've been answering the question, ´Is anything eternal?' in RE and have been showing off our programming skills to create our own games using variables in Computing. Mr Phillips has been impressed with our football skills and we very much enjoyed making our voices heard in Art by combining ideas from the Mayans and using the chiaroscuro technique to create our own protest street art-inspired pieces.

Finally, in Science we have learned about evolution; how species have adapted, how inheritance and variation has shaped us all and how theories have developed, especially by Charles Darwin. 

A few reminders:

Forest will continue on a Monday. The weather will likely remain cold and wet for a while, so please come dressed appropriately. 

Football will continue on Friday. So a PE kit of black joggers, a green t-shirt and the school jumper or fleece.

Please continue with Doodle Maths, spelling and reading. I would also encourage children to start their own independent SATS revision. I will talk to you in more depth about this after the break, but please do get in touch if you would like any advice on how to best approach this.

Term 3 Highlights

Coming up in Term 3

Please read the poster below to find out what your child will be learning in Term 3. 

Coming up in Term 3

Term 2 Update

Well done Year 6 and thank you for all of your hard work and for setting an outstanding example for the rest of the school and the wider community on the run up to Christmas. 

It was almost a full term of fractions in Maths. We have demonstrated how we can now add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions as well as being able to find the fraction of integers. This is not an easy topic and we'll be sure to revisit this from time to time in the new year. 

Written work this term has been a lot of fun. We've written a persuasive text in the style of Greta Thunburg's ground breaking Our House is on Fire about how we all need to act immediately to halt the devastating effects of climate change. There has been some really powerful writing combining scientific facts with a lot of emotion. We've finished the term off with some magical and deep poems based on William Blake's fantastic poem, The Tyger. We've also finally finished reading Goodnight Mister Tom while just about holding back the tears. 

We've taken a deep look at Kenya as a changing nation in Geography with particular focus on the rapid growth of its capital Nairobi due to pull and push factors. We've discussed the pros and cons of the Maasai Mara National Park and how it's affecting its local population: the Maasai people. In RE we've discussed the importance for Christians that Mary was Jesus' mother and have celebrated differences and explored diversity in PSHE. In Computing, we've learned how to create our own websites and learned the importance of creating material with copyright and fair use at the forefront of our designs. 

Particular well done to our team who represented Longvernal at the Swimming Gala plus those who read poems and passages at recent events.

 

A couple of reminders:

  • Forest will continue on Monday. As the weather is likely to remain cold and wet, do please come in appropriate warm and waterproof clothing on Monday.
  • We are playing football this term in PE, so regular outdoor PE on Fridays. Again, joggers rather than shorts if it is cold!
  • A gentle reminder to bring reading logs and reading journals into school everyday. They will be checked on a Friday. Please make sure you are completing these with as much pride as you do with your school work. Please read the instructions on the inside cover of your reading journal for advice and inspiration.
  • Spellings will continue to be for Thursdays and Doodle Maths should be completed by Friday. Let's make sure that we continue to regularly be the Doodle Class of the week!

 

Have a fantastic Christmas!

Mr. Dobson

Term 2 Highlights

Coming up in Term 2

Please read the poster below to find out what your child will be learning in Term 2.

Term 2

Term 1 Update

Term 1 done! Well done year 6 and thank you for all of your hard work. We have come a long way in just 7 weeks and covered an awful lot. Sycamore have really impressed us all with their maths and are showing off their new arithmetic skills, especially when it comes to long division, which is never easy!

 

Their written work based on Michael Morpergo's Kensuke's Kingdom were a joy to read and were bursting with description and imagery. We are also halfway through Goodnight Mister Tom and have grown to love the characters. It has also given us a great insight into life as an evacuee during the second world war which we studied in History. Not always the easiest topic to study as it involves so much fairly recent tragedy, but we used our historian skills to look at the cause and effect of the major events leading up to and during the war. 

 

We have had particular fun in Art this term where we have learned to study famous pieces of art including: Lubaina Himid, John Singer-Sargent, Fiona Raw, Fiona Rago and David Hockeny, in more depth and applied discoveries of the underlying messages in art and applied it to our own work with some incredible outcomes.

 

A couple of reminders:

Forest will continue on Monday, as the weather is likely to get colder and wetter, please come in appropriate warm and waterproof clothing on Monday.

Swimming will continue on a Friday right up until Christmas.

A reminder that spellings will be for Thursdays and Doodle Maths should be completed by Friday. Please let me know if you are having any problems signing in. 

Term 1 Highlights

Welcome to Sycamore

Welcome everyone to Sycamore class. This, the final year at Longvernal, promises to be a fantastic and hopefully memorable year. Children have already started to visit the many fantastic secondary schools in the area and excitement is helping to ease any nerves. 

 

But back to the year at hand, we've already been taking a deep look into the causes and effects of the major events of World War 2 and what that meant for children at the time. Alongside this we have been reading the truly wonderful Goodnight Mister Tom which Mr Dobson remembers reading when he was in year 6. We have also been building our own narrative based on Micheal Morpergo's Kensuke's Kingdom and have been learning how to find new, deeper ways to appreciate and analyse pieces of art. In Science, we have been looking at the importances of eating healthily and how our body processes different food types and in computing we've been looking in detail about how information is sent and received via the internet. 

 

Swimming has been a huge success and some of the children have been considering the possibility of representing Longvernal at the Swimming Gala that is due to take place this December.

 

All in all, we are building towards what should be a fabulous year.

 

Mr Dobson and Sycamore class.