Windrush Valley Private School Oxfordshire – SATs exam prep and practice for Year 6.

Foundation Unit

We have focused on trains in our topic on Transport. The Nursery class has printed brightly coloured trains using sponges and cotton reels, that look wonderful up on their classroom wall. In Reception, the children have enjoyed riding in the role play area on the train. They have made their own tickets, taken their role of the conductor very seriously and enjoyed playing together. The Nursery have focused on the letter ‘d’, they enjoyed thinking of items and collecting them in the classroom. They found a dinosaur, dolphin, digger, drinks bottle and Dulcie! They have also been learning the number 1. In Reception the focus has been on teen numbers in Mathematics. They have explored how to use the Numicon to make the numbers 12, 13, 14 and 15.

 

Year 1 & Year 2

There has been great excitement in the greenhouse – sunflowers are beginning to shoot. The children have been tending them with great care and enjoying the results. The garden around the two classrooms is beginning to look really pretty, the children are loving spending time in it. The classes are continuing to learn about their topics of Castles and Folk Tales (History) and Aiming High (PSHE). In history the focus has been the differences between Motte and bailey castles and Keep and bailey castles. Good listening is required during these lessons so the children can retain the facts being taught as well as writing them down, when they have to read and answer tricky questions. In PSHE the focus this week has been What Learning Do I Most Enjoy and My Big Achievement, again the children have been taking part in class discussions before completing their work. They continue with daily English and Maths lessons. So, they are always busy! We are starting to prepare for Sports Day and May Dancing.

 

Year 3

In History we have continued looking at the Romans and what they brought to Britain. Amongst our research we discovered they brought rabbits to the country, as well as underfloor heating and Roman roads! Some children have started learning about the bus stop division method in maths and we have continued with column work in hundreds, tens and units. English brought more work on setting descriptions and we are flying through our group reader The Spy Dog. We have embraced our country dancing and have a very exciting singing performance in practice for the May day celebrations. It was great fun playing rounders on the field, and hitting and catching skills are improving by the week. In PSCHE we looked at some mindfulness breathing techniques to do when feeling anxious or worried.

 

Year 4

We have been tackling multiplication and division in Maths, using different methods for our calculations and learning the 6, 7 and 8 times tables. We are creating poems in English, using lots of adjectives and adjectival phrases and thinking about the smells, sights and sounds of different settings. Our May dancing rehearsals are in ‘full swing’ and we are ready for our assembly on the theme of Individual Liberty.

 

Year 5

Our focus for English has been myths. Firstly, we read and discussed an excerpt from Theseus and the Minotaur. We identified the text features needed to create a good myth and then started to plan and write our own that include a hero/heroine overcoming a terrible beast. We will be continuing writing and editing these exciting stories next week. In maths we have been revising coordinates and using these to describe the position of shapes on a grid after a reflection or translation. PE this week has included athletics where everyone had success in improving their shotput and sprinting techniques. In science we constructed electric circuits and made observations about the brightness of a bulb when different components were added. We have also enjoyed trialling a new computer-based education platform called Atom Learning, getting logged on and completing some maths activities. Hopefully, in the next week or two, when everyone is fully up and running, we will be able to trial it for our homework activities.

 

Year 6

For Year 6 there has been lots of SATs exam prep and practice so we are all ready for the tests. We’ve also been swimming at Kingham Hill and spent Wednesday afternoon up at the playing field practising for the Windrush Private School Oxfordshire Sports day. French lessons are now at an advanced stage and the children have progressed very well. In Performing Arts class we begun our May dances which we look forward to performing before we break for half term.