Private School Oxfordshire – News from Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire.
Nursery & Reception
It has been an exciting ‘Space Week’ in Early Years. We have learnt about the solar system and created some beautiful marble planets. We linked Black History Month and space by learning about the astronaut ‘Mae Jemison‘. She was the first African American Woman to travel to space. She orbited the Earth 126 times while spending 7 days on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Nursery loved playing in the moon tray with the astronauts. They have also been looking at the letter ‘i’ for insect, practising their fine motor skills with spaghetti faces and learning ball skills in PE. The addition of a washing line in the classroom for matching pairs of socks proved very popular. The children enjoyed talking about the different patterns while pegging them onto the line. Reception have focused on the letter sounds ‘e, r and h’ in Phonics. They have grown in confidence with their letter formation which has seen the children visiting the free writing area more frequently. With this newfound and embedded knowledge of sounds they have been able to form simple CVC words such as ‘cat, hat, sit, rat, tin’. In Mathematics, we have been comparing and counting autumn objects such as conkers, pine cones and acorns. The children have also sorted pumpkins from the smallest to the largest.
Year 1 & Year 2
Year 1 have been working hard on independent writing. Thinking carefully about letter formation and sounding out the words we would like to use. The children have all tried very hard with this and produced some good pieces of writing. We have started looking at influential people in history for our Black History Month. We have looked at Martin Luther King Jr this week and talked about segregation and what it must have felt like not being able to go to school with some of our friends. We then listened to part of his ‘I have a dream…’ speech and then wrote our own dreams for the future.
Year 3
Year 3 pupils have been designing some amazing cave art as part of their History lessons. In geography we have been studying tsunamis and what to do in the event of one! In Science we have been looking at animals and how litter is affecting their habitats. We went through a bag of rubbish and discussed whether to reduce, reuse, or recycle! In maths we’ve moved on from place value to the column method. It will soon be the French residential trip and Mrs Nowell is taking the reins in the classroom
Year 4
Year 4 have been writing some carefully planned poems in English, all about animal sounds or movements. In Maths, they have been identifying and classifying 2D shapes and learning the names and properties of the four different triangles. The Art lesson was a huge hit (so much so that a playtime was declined!) planning and creating mood boards for their work based on the stimulus of Viviene Westwood.
Year 5
Year 5 have enjoyed writing playscripts for The BFG in English. Pupils worked in pairs and thought carefully about setting the scene; considering props, the lighting and where the actors would be placed on stage. We included clear stage directions as well as interesting speaking parts for the actors. Then we had fun performing the plays to the rest of the class. We have some great actors and playwrights in Year 5! In maths we have continued our work on fractions. This week we moved on to improper fractions, mixed numbers and addition and subtraction of fractions. In art, we continued creating our 3D pop art cityscapes which are really starting to take shape.
Year 6
We have continued with our literary theme of the Crimean War, reading and analysing Alfred Lord Tennyson‘s famous poem The Charge of the Light Brigade. We also read an account written by a contemporary of Florence Nightingale who was working in the Crimean field hospitals at the time. There has been more work on fractions and decimals this week unpicking the relationship between fractions and dividing. In History, we looked at what life was like in the trenches during WWI. The class have enjoyed their still life work with Miss Shirley and we had good weather up at the field for our sports lessons.