Windrush Private School Oxfordshire – Nursery & Reception Class
Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire Nursery & Reception class’ latest topic is ‘Festivals and Celebrations’. We have focused on the Hindu celebration of Diwali, the children have explored creating rangoli patterns with coloured rice, decorated hand templates with mehndi patterns and learnt the story of Rama and Sita. Nursery has been alive with colour!. We have made rangoli patterns, listened to stories about Diwali and learned some Hindi dances. Our letter this week has been ‘n’ and our maths topic has been the number ‘1’. In forest school we made our own stick man families and had fun recreating this iconic story in the outdoor environment. In Reception, we have been focusing on the letter sounds ‘l, f and b’. The children have been encouraged to read CVC words and use the magnetic letters to form CVC words. In Mathematics, we have revised the numbers 1 and 2. We have now moved onto looking at the number 3, they have enjoyed counting, recognising the number in a tens frame and forming the number using the rhyme ‘around the tree, around the tree now I have made the number three’.
Year 1
We are delving into the world of Paddington Bear this half term. We have started our journey in Peru and seen how far away it is from the UK. Throughout the term we will be comparing Peru to England, looking at the different cultures, habitats and human and physical features in each country. We will also be looking at everyday materials in science and which materials would be best for a Christmas outfit for Paddington and which materials would be best to build a sleigh for Father Christmas. As we continue to read Paddington’s Christmas Post we will work towards writing our letters to Father Christmas. The children are all very excited about writing their letters, we will then post them in the village postbox. In Art and History, we have been looking at Guy Fawkes and Bonfire night. We created our own bonfire night pictures, using paint, glue and glitter.
Year 2
In Maths, Year 2 class of Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire have been drawing 2-D shapes, working in cm’s then going on to work out measuring the perimeter of the shape. They all managed to complete this task in class, it will be interesting to see what they remember. In English – Jolly Grammar, the class have been working on the ‘ea’ saying the /e/ sound, and continuing to add commas to lists, and the soft ‘c’ saying the /s/ sound. In addition, pupils have been working hard on their English Speaking Board (ESB) poems.
Year 3
In English, we have been looking at the present, past and future tenses. We have also been practicing our English Speaking Board (ESB) which includes some excellent speaking and listening skills. We continue to work on these poems, readings and the talks, which are around 2 minutes long. We are working hard at putting in expression and fluency, at the same time as entertaining our audience! In geography, we have been looking at mountains and how they are formed. Maths bought us more column method work this week. We’ve also been honing our mental maths; seeing how quickly we can add and subtract in our heads using number bonds and timestable
Year 4
Year 4 pupils of Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire have been working on transforming a well known story into a playscript complete with stage directions. Story choices ranged from Mallory Towers to The Fox and the Stork and pupils will act out their playscripts in class. In Maths, the children have been flexing their multiplication and division muscles by calculating Fractions of Quantities. In art, the theme is ‘Autumn’ – We have collected a multitude of colourful leaves which we are using as a stimulus for our work.
Year 5
Pupils in Year 5 started a new science topic “Earth and Space”. We started by studying evidence from the past and present to prove that the Earth and other planets in our solar system are spherical. As part of Black History Month, we learned about the super scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock who is an acclaimed astrologer, inventor and scientist. In maths, we revisited our knowledge on acute, obtuse and reflex angles and used this to compare, estimate and measure angles. In English, we identified the features of instructional texts and everyone performed their English Speaking Board (ESB) poem to the class.
Year 6
Year 6 pupils of Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire have been working on converting units of measurement, which can be tricky, and measurement word problems. We have been picking questions apart and looking at how to translate the words into mathematical number sentences. English Speaking Board (ESB) presentations will soon be upon us so we have begun practising these in class. We all enjoyed learning about one of our most famous writers, William Shakespeare, and after discussing a number of his Histories, Comedies and Tragedies, we re-enacted a summary of the Scottish Play, Macbeth. This then led on to reading the Witches’ scene in Act IV where they concoct a dreadful potion in their cauldron. In History, we learned about the battle of the Somme. In Art, the class have continued their still life drawing.