Welcome to our fantastic team which consists of 34 happy, ambitious, resilient learners, who are not afraid to make mistakes and rise to every challenge, and 2 class teachers - Mrs Parkinson and Mrs Higson.  Our wonderful Learning Support Assistants, who support us at various times of the week, are Mrs Charnock, Miss Bush and Mrs Moores.

Teaching and learning is approached in a way that many different areas of the curriculum are connected using a common theme. Each half term will see the start of a new theme.

We are very much looking forward to a fun, successful and exciting year....

Summer 2

Theme work - The Roman Legacy

Legend - Boudicca

We have learnt all about the Celtic Iceni tribe and their leader Queen Boudicca who led a revolt against the Romans. She expertly took back the Roman towns of Colchester, London and St Albans before being eventually defeated. We undertook drama activities to explore other people's perspectives of her at the time and then in role, as Boudicca, we wrote her diary entries about the main events. We also created Wanted posters to reflect the thoughts of the Romans.

Knowledge Organiser - Please download to gain an overview of our learning this half term...

No Outsiders

 As part of our continuing work with 'No Outsiders', we read the book 'King and King' which explored gay relationships and marriage.  The children displayed a good understanding of marriage and that everyone had a choice to marry who they wished whatever their gender or ethnicity. We created wedding invites to celebrate the princes' wedding.

Summer 1

Scooting Stars

This half term, West Lancashire Sports Partnership have worked with us to develop our coordination, balance, agility, speed and control on scooters. We have also developed our spatial awareness skills and thought carefully about how to keep safe. Through this programme we have developed confidence, decision making skills and teamwork.

Theme Work - The Iron Man

Our focus text this half term is 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. We will be using this story to inspire writing in different genres and as a stimulus for learning in other subjects. In Science we will be exploring magnetic materials and the forces exerted by magnets. We will be setting up investigations to test the strength of different magnets. The children will also explore how different surfaces affect movement and we will be making careful observations and measurements. In addition, in DT, we will be creating a pop up book version of the Iron Man story. The children will first evaluate and investigate examples of pop-up mechanisms which use systems of levers and linkages to e.g. change direction, make a movement larger, make two movements interact etc before making their own.

Spring 2

Classic Poetry

Amongst many other classic poems, we explored and discussed the poem 'The Owl and the Pussy Cat' by Edward Lear and wrote our own alternative verses.

World Book Day

To celebrate this year’s World Book Day, which focuses on authors and illustrators, LKS2 listened to Jeff Kinney, the author of 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid', explain how he got into writing and where he gets his ideas from. They analysed the comic devices that Jeff uses and then thought of their own funny situation which they then turned into a comic strip. We also undertook Maths challenges linked to Roald Dahl’s stories and created our favourite book characters using potatoes and other craft materials! We had lots of fun, both at home and in school.

Theme Work - How Does Your Garden Grow?

We will be focusing on plants in Science this half term. We will be investigating their parts and what they need to grow well, in addition to extending our knowledge about their life cycle. Also in DT we will be exploring structures of different greenhouses and designing and making our own miniature versions.

Spring 1

Theme Work - Rock and Roll

This half term, we will be working scientifically to make observations and comparisons of rocks and soils. We will be learning about how life in Britain changed from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and we will be developing our printing skills to create Stone Age cave art. In addition, we will also be investigating earthquakes and volcanoes: what they are; why they happen; and how they affect the landscape and human activity. 

Autumn 2

Enterprise

We've had to work differently this year to design, produce and sell our product. With the help of our 'dragons', who talked to us via Zoom, we decided to set up a company called 'Festive Flora'. We potted up ferns and violas and adorned them with festive decorations. In making some of our decorations, we measured nets of and made cubes to produce small presents, sewed stars onto felt Christmas trees and created wonderfully festive sparkly objects using pipe cleaners and poms-poms. The children's designs were very creative and the plants looked spectacular! We made around £150 profit!!!

Mental Elf

To support the charity, Lancashire Minds, we took part in an 'elf danceathon'. Lancashire Minds are fundraising by virtually travelling from Lancashire to Lapland. We danced for an hour, in elf attire, to Christmas songs. We had lots of fun on our dancing journey and raised lots of money for this important charity!

No Outsiders

As part of our 'No Outsiders' curriculum, Piccolos and French Horns have read the book 'Dogs Don't Do Ballet' to challenge gender stereotypes and explore how to be assertive and go after a dream when faced with negativity. The children wrote a letter to the main character Biff (a small dog, with a big personality, who will stop at nothing to become a ballet dancer) persuading him to pursue his ambition. The children reflected on how they would feel if they were constantly told they couldn't do something they loved. Their writing was superb!

Quidditch

On 20th November we were fortunately back to school in time to be able to take part in a Quidditch event! We got sorted into Hogwarts Houses and played with Quaffles and Bludgers. The children worked in their teams to try and catch the Golden Snitch (namely Mrs Parkinson running around the MUGA!) The rain didn't dampen our spirits and we had such fun being back together after our two weeks at home :)

Anti-Bullying Week

Our bubble was closed during Anti-Bullying Week but that didn't stop us from producing some fantastic work at home, linked to this year's theme which was 'United Against Bullying'. We thought about bullying behaviour scenarios and produced comic strips to explore these. We also thought about the part we could play in being 'United Against Bullying' and made pledges on jigsaw pieces. 

Remembrance Week

We have had an exciting week of home learning linked to Remembrance. Everyone has produced some amazing work! Our focus this year has been the hidden heroes of the world wars.  Year 3 and 4 focused on the amazing contribution women made to the war effort and how attitudes towards women changed dramatically.

We learnt about their many roles in the war from working as land girls and ARP wardens to working in munitions' factories and supporting the armed forces.   We have written and performed shape poems about women's experiences; wrote letters home describing our new jobs and how we feel; reported on the growth of women's football; and even designed statues to commemorate their contribution. 

Theme Work - Healthy Humans

During this half term we will be learning all about the purpose and functions of the skeleton. We will be developing our working scientifically skills by identifying and grouping animals with and without skeletons and by observing and comparing their movement.

We have compared different animal skeletons and made close observations in order to create replicas using items we found around the house during our bubble closure. Have a look below at our fantastic work!

We will also be learning about nutrition and that an adequate, varied and balanced diet is vital for health. We will be developing simple cooking techniques in order to design and make a nutritional soup.

We have also learnt about nutrition and that an adequate, varied and balanced diet is vital for health. We have developed simple cooking techniques in order to design and make a nutritional soup.

Autumn 1

 Wear It Pink Day - October

As a school, we raised £266.50 for Breast Cancer's 'Wear It Pink Day'. We looked amazing in our pink attire with some sensational outfits and hairstyles on show!! We managed to find time to squeeze in some fun 'pink' activities including 'Pin the beak on the Flamingo' and also drawing cartoon pink flamingos following Rob Biddulph's online tutorials.

Black History Month: Class Assembly - October

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/watch/horrible-histories-song-rosa-parks-sat-on-a-bus?collection=black-history-month

We joined in with the Horrible Histories song which celebrated the achievements of this remarkable woman, Rosa Parks, who, on the 1st December 1955 sparked change in Montgomery, Alabama. After a long day at work, Rosa boarded the bus home and took a seat. At that time in Montgomery, seats at the front of buses were reserved for white passengers, and the seats at the back for black passengers. When she refused to give up her seat for a white man she was arrested and argued that this law was wrong - not her behaviour. In protest of Rosa's arrest, the black citizens of Montgomery came together and boycotted the buses. After 381 days of boycotting the buses, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s racial segregation laws were ‘unconstitutional’ – meaning they weren’t valid and should not be recognised. In light of such a wonderful victory, Rosa became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement”.

 Hello Yellow - Friday 9th October

As a school we came together for #HelloYellow to support young people’s mental health on World Mental Health Day. We all wore yellow and paid a donation to Young Minds. We thought about how we could promote good mental health and we discussed the power of 'positive affirmations' and thought of our own to create a special piece of art work. We also practised 'feather breathing' to calm our minds and bodies. Lastly, we designed our own Hello Yellow superheroes and thought about the qualities and attributes they would have. 

 English Focus - The BFG by Roald Dahl

We started the half term by reading a story called 'The Lancashire Giant' which linked to our theme work based around our local area and county. Alongside this, we began reading 'The BFG' by Roald Dahl. We made dream jars and wrote imaginatively and descriptively about our dreams and also wrote imaginary biographies about the main character - the big friendly giant himself!

Theme work - There's No Place Like Home

Throughout this theme, the children will be investigating their local area using maps, aerial photos and satellite imagery. They will learn where they are in the world and describe a range of physical and human features of their locality. They will begin to realise that different types of maps e.g. Ordnance Survey, Google Maps, Google Earth etc show different features in more/less detail. We will also be finding out about what our area was like in the past and discussing changes that have occurred and why. 

Please click here to view our key learning documents which outline the objectives to be covered during LKS2.