What have we been learning? May 2023

Year 3

How is it possible that we are in our final term of year 3? As always, year 3 have been working so hard with a brilliant attitude towards their work. In English, we have been reading a fantastic fiction book called “The Boy Who Grew Dragons”. This has been a stimulant for our recent piece of narrative writing, where we wrote a story involving our own dragon. All of year 3 produced magical pieces of writing which have really showed off their knowledge and understanding of figurative language. Maths this half term has been a mix of measurement, fractions and money. We have been learning to convert metres to kilometres, kilograms to grams and millilitres to litres (and vice versa). Our fractions unit built upon and extended our learning from the previous term, looking at fractions word problems and fractions of quantities. Our final unit this half term has been money where pupils have been converting pounds to pence, adding and subtracting money, and calculating change. In Science, pupils have turned into botanists exploring the world of plants and learning all about parts of a plant, water transportation, seed dispersal and what plants need to survive. Finally in history, we have started our local history project of Fulwell. We have been learning about the history of Fulwell Windmill, our local churches of St Peters and St Andrews, including a visit from Reverend Tim as well as how Sea Road began and how it has changed over time.

Year 5

What an excellent start Year 5 have made to our Summer Term. During our English lessons the children have worked exceptionally hard to implement the challenging organisational feature of a ‘flashback’ into their narrative writing. This they have completed with great success. We are currently continuing to enjoy our class read of Kensuke’s Kingdom and using this stimulus for our final piece of writing this half term: a persuasive advert to a beach holiday destination. The children have continued to show fantastic attitudes this half term towards their learning in Maths. They are tackling problem solving tasks with increased confidence in working systematically and have demonstrated their resilience when working with protractors and measuring angles – a tricky task at first! To begin our Science topic this half term we have been exploring the use of groupings and classification keys when it comes to identifying living things. We have applied this learning to our conversations and Year 5 have become brilliant at using scientific terminology. In Geography Year 5 have been exploring what it means to be sustainable with regards to energy use. They have discussed the positives and negatives to using fossil fuels and are going to be looking at the impact this has on the environment compared to renewable energy sources. This half term Year 5 have been exploring their local history focusing of the traditional industry and discovering lots about the shipyards.

Year 6

Year 6 have spent the first part of the Summer Term preparing for the annual SATs tests. A range of activities around exam technique, understanding the wording of questions and recognising the question type have been undertaken. The children have applied themselves with aplomb, showing progress each day, setting their own targets and taking responsibility for their learning. It hasn’t been all work, work, work. Children have participated in Coronation events and art days and their efforts have been rewarded with extra playtimes and raffles. What a wonderful attitude. A big thank you to parents who have supported their children, ensuring that their children have arrived with the correct attitude and prepared for ready for learning. A huge team effort.

In History, the children have shown such great enthusiasm and engagement with the curriculum. This term we swill focus on World War 2. Of course, we will look at the key events and people which makes World War 2 a both fascinating and horrifying piece of history, which still resonates through our lives today. With this in mind, we will focus on the impact of war on the locality, asking the question: What effect did World War 2 have on Sunderland? We will look closely at the importance of rivers, particularly The River Wear and how industry changed to support the war effort. This obviously had an impact on gender roles. We will compare children from Sunderland and other parts of the country with those in Europe.