Watch Us Grow in Year 1! 6th February 2026 Pre-prep Science In Science, Year One have been learning all about plants. We have been busy looking at hydro-pods, planting bean seeds and carefully watching them grow. The children have been very excited to observe the changes each day, especially as the seed jackets begin to split and fall away, revealing the tiny shoots and first leaves. We have enjoyed talking about how plants grow and are looking forward to seeing how our plants continue to change and develop over time.
Year 5 Bringing Tom’s Midnight Garden to Life Through Drama 30th January 2026 Academic Creative Arts This week in Year 5, pupils have been deepening their understanding of Tom’s Midnight Garden through an engaging and imaginative drama‑based English lesson. To help them empathise with the characters and explore their thoughts and motivations, the children worked collaboratively to create a series of freeze frames depicting key moments from the story. Once in position, the class examined each scene closely, considering what the characters might be feeling at that precise moment. Pupils then added thought bubbles to represent these inner thoughts, drawing on the text to support their ideas and using inference skills to interpret emotions that may not be directly stated in the book. This approach not only strengthened their comprehension but also encouraged teamwork, creativity, and reflective thinking. It was wonderful to see the children confidently stepping into the characters’ shoes and gaining a deeper appreciation of the story’s themes and relationships. We look forward to building on this work as the children continue to explore the text over the coming weeks.
‘Was the Industrial Revolution a change for the better?’ Year 5 Investigate 23rd January 2026 Global As part of their Global question, ‘Was the Industrial Revolution a change for the better?’ Year 5 pupils have been learning about the key inventions that caused the huge changes to life in the UK. They enjoyed learning about the spinning Jenny and the steam engine and did a wonderful job presenting their findings to the rest of the class.
Reception put Spotlight on 5 16th January 2026 Academic Pre-prep Reception had a fantastic Maths Investigation Day! We turned ourselves into number investigators and worked our way around three exciting stations, exploring all the different ways we can make numbers to 5. Through hands-on activities, problem-solving and lots of discussion, the children showed great curiosity and teamwork while building their confidence with numbers. It was a fun-filled day of learning and discovery!
Year 4 Perfect Persuasive Speech 16th January 2026 Academic Year 4 have been working incredibly hard since returning from the Christmas break. This week, we have been creating adverts. We began by learning the features of persuasive adverts using FREDEPTORS; which is a tool to help us remember what we need to include. There are things like repetition, emotive language, exaggeration and the power of three. In pairs, pupils were asked to design their own product and then produce a paper advertisement using some features from FREDEPTORS. They then worked together to produce a television advert to try to sell us their product. They were all phenomenal and very persuasive! Later on in the week, we linked this work to our class text, ‘Danny Champion Of The World’ when the children created adverts using PowerPoint to try to persuade their audience to buy Danny’s caravan. Well done Year 4!
Year 3 Take a Closer Look at Plants 16th January 2026 Science This week in Year 3 science, the children learned about the functions of the roots, stem, leaves, and flower. They enjoyed reinforcing their learning by playing a memory game, matching each plant part to its job.
Inter-Class Maths Competition with Sumdog 9th January 2026 Academic To bring a superb mathematical conclusion to the end of last term, we launched an exciting inter-class maths competition on Sumdog during the last fortnight of school in December and the first week of the holidays. The children were incredibly competitive and fully engaged throughout! We are proud to announce the winning classes: 1st place – Year 3 AH, 2nd place – Year 1 JB, and 3rd place – Year 5 IP. As well as sharpening their maths skills, the competition created a wonderfully positive and enthusiastic atmosphere. Well done to everyone who took part!
Maths Masters in the Making! 5th December 2025 Academic We’re excited to see our pupils building confidence and speed with Sumdog and Times Table Rock Stars—two fantastic platforms for boosting maths fluency in a fun and engaging way! A huge congratulations to Alek M and Muawiyah, who have achieved the incredible Rock Hero status on Times Table Rock Stars. This means they can answer questions in under one second—what an amazing achievement! Muawiyah’s top tip for others: “Think quick! Practising makes you used to the questions.” Gabe adds that it helps to “block out distractions—practice until you don’t even have to think.” And Omar’s advice? “If you play every day, you’ll get faster and faster.” Meanwhile, Year 1 and Year 2 have been enjoying an internal Sumdog competition to practise maths skills in a fun way. At the time of going to press, Emily N was in the lead—well done, Emily! Keep practising, everyone—your next milestone could be just around the corner!
Stick Man Story Maps in Reception 28th November 2025 Global Pre-prep This week in literacy, Reception have been enjoying the story Stick Man. The children worked hard to sequence the key events by cutting out pictures and arranging them in order to create their very own story maps. They then used their phonics knowledge to sound out and write important words from the story, adding labels and annotations to bring their maps to life. We were so impressed with their enthusiasm, careful cutting, and brilliant early writing skills!
Year 6 Investigate the Battle of Britain Through Role Play 21st November 2025 Global Uncategorised On Thursday, Year 6 pupils had a wonderful opportunity to learn and reenact the Battle of Britain with a hands-on workshop. The Year 6 Global question this term is ‘Why do we have wars?’ and they have been looking at the causes of both world wars and debating whether they were inevitable. This workshop allowed them through role play to understand how the war impacted on civilians, especially those in London. They also learnt how the Dowding system worked taking part in the Fighter command and the Filter rooms which helped them understand how enemy craft could be detected and then intercepted. Well done Year 6 – you really took it all on board and asked some super questions throughout the session.