WILLOW CLASS

Welcome to Willow Class

The wonderful Year 5 and 6 children in Willow Class are taught by

Mrs Pontet, ably assisted by Mrs Jackson and Mrs Larkins.

We have had an amazing STEM week!  The inter-house engineering challenge, science fair, motorbikes and an afternoon spent in every class completing 6 different activities in chemistry, biology and physics.  We have learnt so much and also had a lot of fun!

Friday 17th March - What an amazing start to STEM week.  We took part in a forensic science workshop, learning about fingerprints, DNA and shoe prints and how this information is used to solve crimes.  We all had a go at experimenting with these techniques and then had to use our new knowledge at a crime scene.  We were shocked to discover who the culprit was!

Thanks to Mr and Mrs Hounsell for running this fabulous session, and to Mrs Welch and Mrs Smith for their assistance.

Willow Class has a new class pet - a tiger!

We have used some of our class sale money to sponsor a tiger with the World Wildlife Fund.

Friday 10th March

Inspired by our trip to Kew Gardens, we have been experimenting with drawing tropical leaves.

Using a variety of media, we practised our sketching, painting and blending skills to great effect!

Tuesday 7th March - We had a fabulous time at Kew Gardens. 

We explored the grounds discovering The Hive, the Treetop Walk and a cool mirrored greenhouse.  The Palm House was amazing and as well as being able to look around by ourselves, we also had a Kew volunteer show us some useful plants in the rainforest.

Friday 3rd March - World Book Day

What fun we have had, dressing up as a word has certainly increased our vocabularies.  Even I learnt some new words to use in my writing!  We loved having Owls Class visit us from the Infants as we shared books with them.  In Willow Class we do love to read.  I hope this continues as it not only helps our knowledge and understanding of words and the world around us but is also such  fabulous thing to do.

Keeeeeeeeep reading!

Useful dates:

Friday 10th February - INSET day (no children in school)

13th - 17th February - Half term holiday

Friday 24th February - PTA Super-sport event

Tuesday 7th March - Trip to Kew Gardens

Sunday 19th March - WASMA choir concert at the Hexagon

week beginning 20th March - STEM week

Tuesday 28th and Thursday 30th March - Parent/Teacher meetings

Friday 31st March - End of term 1.30pm

I love reading! 

I expect everyone in Willow Class to have a good book in school.  You will have regular opportunities to read your own choice of book as well as read and discuss a variety of texts in lessons.

February 2023

Friday 24th February - Only a week back from half term, yet so much done already!

In English we have begun our new unit on persuasive arguments - parents be warned, the children will be able to articulate intelligent reasons why they should be allowed to do something now!  We've discovered what trade is and where some of our favourite products come from.  And in art, we have loved discussing Henri Rousseau's life and paintings.  Our cams D.T. project is completed - please see the video above to see them in action.  Today was also exciting as we completed a Team Super Sports event with the PTA; Commonwealth Gold Medallist Adrian Patrick was very inspiring as he told us all about his life in sport. We took part in lots of different exercises with him too.

Don't forget, next Friday is World Book Day - come dressed as a word (higher level vocab please!).

Thursday 9th February

Phew, what a busy week!  We have written our own versions of a dramatic fight scene from Romeo and Juliet, studied weather and climate in Brazil, developed our understanding of e-safety, heard more Sikh stories and discussed their meaning, dissected eggs in science and completed our cams project. In gymnastics we found it tricky to create sequences in unison with our groups but loved having all the apparatus out!  We also walked down to The Piggott School and took part in activities on the astro-turf.

Have a well-earned half term break.  See you all on Monday 20th February 

Friday 3rd February

Willow have been very dramatic this week as we have learnt all about Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.  We have loved learning quotes from the original text and acting out the fight scene between Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt. Gymnastics and hockey were fun and we've continued problem solving in DT to ensure our cams work efficiently.

Next Wednesday, we're off to The Piggott School for the leadership programme.  I can't believe we only have 4 school days until half term!

January 2023

Spring 2023

I hope you have all had a fantastic break, spending fun times with your family and friends, and are ready to begin some new topics and continue learning.

This terms concepts are: Nurture, Hope and Wisdom and we will be considering the key questions - 

How should we protect the natural world?  How do we hope to improve the world? How can we learn from our previous mistakes? Is it better to be wise or clever? 

Our new geography focus is South America.  We will learn all about this fascinating continent, the people, the wildlife and of course The Amazon River.  Science will be linked with this as we study a biology unit all about lifecycles and how the natural world is classified.  Our first English unit is focused on writing non-chronological reports about animals.  We'll even learn how to talk about animals in French!

We'll be making cam mechanisms in DT, studying Henri Rosseau in art, further developing our understanding of the Sikh faith in RE, as well as continuing with music, PE, computing, PSHE and of course maths!  So much to fit in in a short term - I hope you're ready! 

You always need your pencil case with 'Super Six', (Handwriting pen, pencil, rubber, sharpener, ruler and glue stick) all named, a refillable water bottle, a reading book and a positive attitude.

Please wear your PE kit to school on Tuesday and Thursday.

Don't forget your water bottle, reading book and pencil case everyday.

December 2022

November 2022

Friday 25th November

Assessment week was a great way for us to showcase our progress this term but we also did lots of new learning too.  In geography, we discovered how different mountains are formed.  We began our new dance unit in PE and in art we completed our pointillism creations inspired by Georges Seurat.  Instruments were played, binary code experimented with and we even recreated our solar system! 

We finished this week by leading class worship; joined by some of our family members.

I'm looking forward to the Christmas Fair tomorrow - see you then 

Friday 18th November - Lots of 'space' work this week: learning about the phases of the moon, listening to Mars by Holst in music and learning about the Mars Rover in computing and how it sends data back to Earth.  We've also learnt about the features of mountains (they're not all pointy!) and used our knowledge of pointillism to create amazing landscape paintings (pictures will be posted next week when they are finished!).  I've been really impressed with all the diary entries written in English too.

Thursday was our last swimming lesson  - thanks so much to Mrs Tawse for leading this.  And of course, we all got to wear our PJ's to school to help raise money for Children in Need.

Friday 11th November - The whole school gathered at 11am today to mark Armistice Day with a two minute silence, prayers and poems.  We have all contributed to a display of poppies at the front entrance.

This week we have written fact files about Katherine Johnson, begun our 'space' topic in science, experimented with pointillism and even had a visit from Santa's reindeer!

Friday 4th November

Learning our new model text, a diary entry inspired by Katherine Johnson has been fun - we have created our own text maps to help us.  We coded the micro-bits to score a game of 'rock, paper, scissors' and have been practising our football skills in PE. In art we have begun learning about pointillism and Georges-Pierre Seurat.  I'm surprised we have any energy left for the disco tonight!

October 2022

Friday 21st October -  What a brilliant end to our first half term - designing and building bridges. 

We had to think about a given design brief, consider factors to be included, draw a design with measurements and then use our practical skills and team work to build them.  What's amazing is how different they all look!

This week we have completed our scientific writing in English, continued developing our coding skills with Micro bits, considered the benefits and disadvantages of dams being built and discussed how Sikhs demonstrate their faith through sacrifice.

I hope you have a fabulous half term break and look forward to seeing everyone back in class on Tuesday 1st November. 

Friday 14th October

Composing a response to "O Fortuna", learning about how rivers change due to erosion and deposition, carrying out dissolving investigations, developing our understanding of coding with Micro bits as well as using passive voice in our writing are just some of the many things we've done this week!  No wonder everyone is tired!

I'm looking forward to seeing all Willow parents next week at our individual meetings to discuss how your child has settled in and their progress in their learning.

Have a great weekend 

Friday 7th October - Wow what a busy week!  Not only have we celebrated Harvest at St Mary's Church but have done lots of learning too. Learning how to write a formal science investigation in English. coding animations on micro bits, separating materials in science, learning the features of a river and building prototype bridges in DT are only some of the fun lessons we've had this week.

We have also welcomed 3 new people to Willow Class - a year 6 child and Miss Raison and Miss McCarthy, who are training to be teachers.  So much going on 

September 2022

30th September

Today we raised money for MacMillan Cancer Support by eating cake!