Category: Academic
Year 3 Take a Closer Look at Plants
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
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!
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
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
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.
Collaboration and Connection Creates Confidence
Our recent Maths Investigation Day was a fantastic opportunity for pupils to develop reasoning skills, collaborate with peers, and make connections to global topics—all while having fun! Reception explored creative ways to make numbers 1, 2, and 3 through hands-on activities like Beanbag Hoops, Animal Families, and Dot Investigators while Year 1 explored estimation and measurement by guessing and weighing dinosaur models. Year 2 linked their global topic on bees to maths by designing bee tangrams and investigating properties of 2D shapes. Year 4 tackled the Japanese puzzle game Sudoku, applying logic and perseverance to complete grids. Year 5 and 6 worked collaboratively on challenging domino puzzles, The day was filled with curiosity, problem-solving, and confident mathematical thinking!
Caterham School Early Offer Holders Catch up with Mr Jones
We were delighted to welcome Mr Ceri Jones, Headmaster of Caterham School to Copthorne today. Mr Jones came to meet and chat to Year 6 pupils who received early offers to Caterham School starting in Year 7 next September. It was a great chance for Mr Jones to get to know the pupils and their interests and the children all said how much they had enjoyed the experience. Mr Jones meets all the children joining the senior school from the Caterham Family of Schools to get to know them better ahead of their new adventures at Caterham. Whilst here, Mr Jones also met with parents for an informal chat over coffee this morning and sends his thanks to everyone who came along to what was a really enjoyable morning.
You can find out more about Early Offers to Caterham School here
Year 5 Find the Solution
This week in science, Year 5 have been looking at dissolving and what constitutes a solution. They used their powers of observation to conduct a series of experiments where they tried dissolving different substances. By observing what happened and what they were left with in their beakers, they could decide whether or not a solution had been formed.
Rocking Our Science Lessons!
This week, Year 3 have been busy investigating the different properties of rocks. They tested the hardness and permeability of various samples and even explored how rocks might react to acid rain by carefully adding vinegar with a pipette. It was a fascinating, hands-on way to discover more about the world beneath our feet!
Game On for Great Maths!
Every Friday afternoon, some children from Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 take part in Sumdog Club. It’s a fun and engaging way to consolidate their maths learning through exciting educational games. The children love challenging themselves, earning coins and spending them on virtual gifts as a reward for their hard work. It’s a lovely way to round off the week with lots of smiles!
