Category: Our Classes

This week, we have been learning about the baptism of Jesus. We started off the week by comparing the stories in the gospels of Luke and Matthew and then took part in lots of different activities , such as hot-seating characters from the story, creating story maps and performing our own dramas so that we could really get to know the story. At the end of the week, we wrote the story in our own words and we are very proud of our storytelling!

Take a look at our photos to find out more.

In English, we have been working on writing non-chronological reports, inspired by the text Cloud Tea Monkeys. As part of our lessons, we’ve been exploring the key features of non-chronological reports. Today, we focused on writing questions and gathering information about different types of monkeys. Here are some photos of us hard at work conducting our research!

This term, we are learning about the Catholic social teaching around solidarity and peace. We are called to commit ourselves to the common good and to bring peace to those around us. This is more than a feeling of compassion or distress at the misfortunes of others: it is a firm and persevering determination to do good in the world and work together to bring about positive action. In our learning, we found out about ways of peacefully effecting change, including through protest. We made placards addressed to some of the issues that are important to us.

This week we said goodbye to Fr Francis, who is moving on. We made a card and sent a prayer of good wishes and messages of thanks.

This half-term we are learning about materials. We are learning to sort materials according to their properties.

This half-term, we are learning about materials. We are sorting materials according to their properties.

The Year 2 class wish you all a wonderful 2025.

The children have started the new year with lots of enthusiasm. They have been reflecting upon the Epiphany story and thinking about the special gift that they can bring to 2025. To mark the Feast of St Adrian, the children also learned about how St Adrian was a teacher for over forty years and so, in the spirit of great learning, they committed themselves to a personal learning challenge for the new year.

Happy New Year! It was great to see everyone back in school, raring to go. We’ve dived straight into the next Maths unit, continuing with multiplication and division. There is still a big emphasis on learning ALL times-tables facts instantly. There will be a statutory, straightforward online times tables assessment in May, call the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC). I will send home the government’s information about it. By using TTRS, the children will be well prepared for it and when they do it, it will hold no surprises in terms of content or format. Over the next week or so we will do a practice MTC on TTRS and I will let you know how the children get on.

In Maths the children are learning how to manipulate times-tables facts. The calculations don’t involve large numbers, but the children need to apply number sense and fluency in knowing TT facts to understand it properly. Here they are using counters to prove how to use factor pairs in two-digit numbers.

We have kicked off several new topics. Here are the children enjoying getting to grips with data-loggers.

We started our new book in English – “Escape From Pompeii” -which links with our History topic of the Romans perfectly. The children role-played and then “freeze-framed” the initial scene in the book to understand daily live in Pompeii.

The children were excellent Archaeologists when they were given (clean, modern replicas!) of Roman artefacts and made very sensible suggestions about what they were. “I saw there are Roman numerals so I think this is from the Roman times.” was one comment. Someone else recognised the clay lamp being similar to the artefacts we saw in the Fitzwilliam Musuem so concluded these were also Greek. Other children saw the word “Caesar” on an item so decided it was Roman. Another idea was the jewellery, some of which looked like a torque and others were decorated with snakes, were Celtic.

Spelling of the year 3/4 statutory spellings is improving. I have sent home copies of the check of all of them which we did just before the holidays. The number of correct words has increased, as has the presentation of the words which is also very good to see.

We’re all looking forward to the trip to Verulamium Museum next Wednesday, where we will see real Roman artefacts. Unfortunately, the weather forecast just now is not great, but as long as everyone wears warm, waterproof coats and clothes (tights, trousers, etc) and sensible shoes we should be fine. Nearer the time, if it looks like it will be very wet then the office will send a message asking for children to wear wellies and bring their shoes to get changed into.

I hope you all have a lovely first weekend back. It’s always tiring coming back after Christmas but the good news is that it will start getting lighter, bit by bit, in the mornings and evenings which makes things a bit cheeries.

We’ve had a fantastic start to the term! At the beginning of the week, we explored the Feast of Epiphany, delving into its significance and traditions. We also celebrated the Feast of St. Adrian, taking time to research his life and draw meaningful lessons from his inspiring work.