Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 21st mARCH 2025

Reception

This week, we have continued to discuss our story - Katie in London, looking at famous landmarks in London and speaking about Trafalgar Square. The children have had opportunities to make silhouette cityscapes, build large scale models of famous buildings and make the king's guardsmen.

Our maths sessions have focused on the composition of the number ten and bonds that make ten (two numbers added together to make 10). It was great to see so many children be involved with this in practical ways in our garden - including through playing skittles, hopscotch and sharing stones out.

The warmer weather is great! We have spoken about St Patrick's Day and spring this week, discussing how the weather has changed and how plants are growing. The children had opportunities to make observational drawings of daffodils.

We have been completing phonics assessments with the children throughout the week. All the support at home really does make a difference, thank you.

REMINDER: Our trip to Hyde Hall is on Wednesday 25th June. More information about this will be sent home after the Easter break.

Year 1

It was lovely to see so many of you at our learning conversation evenings.

In English, we have begun our work on Jack and the Beanstalk. First, we retold the story and created a story map, then we thought about any changes we would like to make. After that we began to write our version of the story.

In maths, we have been learning how to measure using a ruler. Then we started to look at mass using comparative words such as heavier and lighter. We will continue with this next week.

Science was exciting this week as the children were shown some pictures of fruit seeds and then had to predict what fruit they thought the seed had come from. After this we showed them fruit and they were surprised by their findings.

In RE we discovered why Christians celebrate Easter by listening to the Easter story.

REMINDER: Just to remind you that Starlings are doing outdoor learning next week. They will need to wear their uniform on top half but can wear different trousers such as jogging bottoms. They will need to bring a coat/ jacket as we will go out whatever the weather. On Tuesday, we will be in PE kit as usual as we do not have outdoor learning that day.

Year 2

This week in maths, we have continued our focus on measurement and moved on to measuring the mass of objects. We have been using scales to compare the mass of different objects and have been identifying which object was heavier and which one was lighter. We have explored the units of kg and g.

In English this week, we continued our research on the Titanic. The children have been recording facts about the disaster in preparation to write a diary entry next week.

2W were very engaged in their outdoor learning this week. The children became experts at reading maps and identifying different map symbols. Excellent teamwork skills were shown as the children worked together to create their own maps of the Environmental Garden. Well done 2W!

Over the past two weeks, 2S have conducted a scientific investigation to answer the question “What do plants need to grow and stay healthy?”. This week, 2S were able to answer this question as they discovered that the cress seeds that were watered, in sunlight and had access to the air grew into the healthiest plant. Then the children recorded their results and discussed why the different elements affected the plants' growth.

Year 3

This week we finished all of our NFER tests, and we did so well with our concentration and did ourselves extremely proud. We have shown so much perseverance and resilience the last couple of weeks.

In English, we have been finishing our story of Escape from Pompeii by creating story maps, role playing and writing an alternative ending to the story.

English took place instead of our maths lessons this week due to the last of our tests, but we will be starting a new topic based on measurements – mass and capacity next week.

In DT, we have started to finalise our moving pictures and next week we evaluate our creations, explaining what we liked/disliked or would change if we had the chance to do them again.

In PE, we have been doing gymnastics and so far, we have completed different jumping styles, rolls, handstand and cartwheels. We have really enjoyed our PE this half term.

During our music lessons of the last couple of weeks, we have been playing the glockenspiels. Firstly we learnt how to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and then we created our own piece of music – our teachers were impressed by the music we created!

Year 4

This week, Year 4 have focused on their maths NFER tests. We are very proud of their efforts! After this, we continued our study on fractions in maths by looking at mixed numbers on number lines, including solving problems linked to this.

In English, we started the week by writing recounts about our fabulous trip to the Imperial War Museum last week. We focused on past tense and chronological order, as well as attempting to apply the descriptions and varied sentence structures we’ve studied so far this year. We also looked at D-Day in comprehension, relative clauses was our grammar focus and continued with our thrilling story, ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ in layered reading. We are truly getting into this story now, and developing a love for the main characters, Kensuke and Michael.

In other areas, we began our geography study on North Carolina – we were excited to learn about the different regions and some of the interesting history, symbols and other information on this state. Mrs Pinckney used to live and teach there too, so we are excited to hear even more from her experiences!

In science, we followed on from air pollution last week and dived into learning about water pollution!

Art saw us practising our painting skills by creating a background, midground and foreground as a base, inspired by Lowry. We used our previous learning of shades and tints to create different darknesses of colour to show this – lighter for further back in the painting, and darker the closer to the front.

In PE we continued our study on Handball. We have been looking at agility, quickness and ball throwing.

REMINDER: Please remember to complete your homework to earn your gold stars 😊

Please remember to still practise TTRockstars and access Reading Eggs at home. If you have mislaid your ‘everything’ password cards, please let your class teacher know so that we can get another printed.

Only 2 children from 4G accessed Reading Eggs at home last week – this is a huge difference to 4S, who racked up a huge 732 minutes as a class – well done!

Year 5

This week in Year 5, the children have completed some maths tests. A big well done to all of the students, who put in a great effort.

In English, we have started to look at the Lighthouse Keeper animation. We are at the planning stage so that the children can write an effective narrative next week that uses rich description and builds tension.

Geography has continued looking at rainforests. The children successfully identified the features of the rainforest. Thank you for the extra work that has been coming in from home.

In PE, we have been focusing on increasing accuracy over a greater distance whilst using an over arm shot.

We have started rehearsing our year group assembly. Please be sure to learn your lines at home.

Year 6

This week, Year 6 have been creating non-chronological reports based upon the Mexican celebration known as the Day of the Dead. This is a 3-day celebration where the dead are honoured. Its roots began over 3,000 years ago.

We have been looking at the relationships and links between fractions, decimals and percentages. The children are able to convert fractions to percentages and have also begun converting fractions to their decimal equivalents.

Understanding diffusion and osmosis within the human body has been our science focus. We have examined how nutrients and water can be absorbed by the human body and carried out practical experiments involving gummy bears in water, salted water, acid and sugary water and looked at what happens over a period of time.

The children are recognising that art is a way to connect to with people and can help us portray feelings.

The children have begun the construction of their own design electronic board games.