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We have had a lovely week in school. I have enjoyed visiting all classes in school to see how they are settling in and it was lovely to see them all engaged and excited about their learning.

What a great week the children had as they welcomed more new children into nursery and made lots of new friends.  The children have been exploring sensory play as well as learning new songs, dancing and beginning phonics phase 1.  They loved the musical instruments and began to play in time to some of our new songs.

This week, Reception have been continuing to learn their class routines such as lining up, tidying up and following their carpet rules. They have enjoyed singing lots of counting songs and acting them out with puppets. Their favourite was 5 currant buns! The children have also been using some fantastic mathematical language such as ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’ and enjoyed using the scales to weigh different objects.

Their topic focus this week has been ‘I am special’ and the children have been exploring what makes them special and unique. They developed their artistic and fine motor skills through painting self-portraits for their class display.

Year 1 had a very exciting visit to a ‘Builders Yard’ this week. They took great care to ensure they were safe by putting on their hard hats and jackets and checking the equipment. They also enjoyed looking at different house designs and having a go at building a house for the three little pigs.

In Year 2 this week the children have been developing their understanding of two digit numbers by using Base 10 in maths. They have enjoyed using the equipment to partition in different ways. In Science, they have started their new materials topic which involved a materials hunt around the school. The children found lots of different materials in our hall!

In Computing, the children have used the iPads to take a variety of photographs as part of their photography unit. They looked carefully at what makes a good photograph and they really enjoyed taking photographs of their friends. 

It has been another busy week in Year 4. In English, the children have written diary entries in the character of Rhodopis from ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’ and have used lots of powerful vocabulary, fronted adverbials and comparative conjunctions in their writing.  In Maths, they have continued their work on place value, plotting numbers to 10,000 on a number-line and estimating where numbers might go on blank number-lines. 

In History, The children have learnt about the location of Egypt and why The River Nile was so important to the ancient Egyptians.  In RE, they have begun looking in more detail about Hindu’s beliefs about god and how they worship, exploring bhajans (religious music) and how it is used in worship.

Year 4 began their new Science topic this week too.  They will be learning all about humans and animals this term and they started this topic by thinking about food and digestion.  The children all enjoyed a biscuit and thought carefully about what happens to it from the moment it enters their mouth.  Once they had shared their ideas, they learnt about the different parts of the digestive system.

The children also enjoyed their first Music lesson in Year 4 this week. They had a lot of fun singing and have been introduced to their new instrument; the recorder!

In Year 5 this week, the children have been learning all about methods of transport in Spanish. They demonstrated some great Spanish accents, the teacher found it difficult to choose only 3 stars! In English they revealed their new book; ‘Weslandia’ and the children wrote an informal letter of advice and used their inference skills.

In Maths, they have continued with Place Value and portioning numbers to 1,000,000. In Science they created their own solar system in their pockets and learned all about the order of the planets and their movement and position in relation to the sun.

It’s been another busy, fun-packed week in Year 6! In science, they’ve started their new Evolution and Inheritance unit of work – they began by creating a physical timeline of the Earth’s history. Learning that humans have been on Earth for only a fraction of its existence proved mind-blowing for Year 6. The lesson also focused on fossilisation and understanding that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago. Year 6 enjoyed ordering pictures to show the stages of fossilisation and then they created their own posters to detail each stage.

In English, Year 6 identified features of persuasive writing and some pairs even identified the red herrings that they’d been given too.  They received another postcard thanking them for their brilliant persuasive pieces along with their new book: Jemmy Button. They’ve enjoyed the start of the book and are already intrigued by the central character and whether he should venture to a new land with the visiting explorers – they even held their own debate to consider the question!

Year 6 fully immersed themselves in their new guided reading text: Holes. The predictions they made about the book based on the front cover were superb and they enjoyed finding out interesting facts about lizards too.

Welcome back! We hope you have had a good summer and are excited about the term ahead. It has been lovely to see all the children and welcome our new Nursery and Reception children, as well as couple of other new pupils across school. We have all enjoyed hearing all their news!

This week we have welcomed lots of new children into Nursery. They have settled well and begun to make new friends.  We have been finding out where to put our coats, bag and snacks as well as learning about the classroom.  In the craft area we have all decorated the first letter or our name to go on the wall with our first day at Nursery picture.

The children have had a wonderful first week settling into Reception in small groups. They have made lots of new friends, explored their new classroom and learnt the carpet rules. The children have been getting to know our routines, practising writing their name and singing counting songs to 5. They are looking forward to another busy week of learning and playing!

Year 1 have settled well into their new classroom and class routine. The children have worked hard to complete English, Maths and PSHE tasks. They have also created their class charter and enjoyed new experiences like church assembly. The children have been completing a sorting task in Maths and describing the three little pigs in English.

Wow, what a wonderful first week back for Year 2! The children have all settled in really well and have enjoyed starting their new topics. In Maths, they have been using the base 10 to make two digit numbers and in English the children have been creating very interesting predictions about what they think will happen to Erin in ‘The Secrets of Black Rock’.

In Geography, the children were able to confidently use their knowledge from Year 1 to identify the four countries within the United Kingdom. They then moved on to identifying different settlements within the UK and the children LOVED using the atlases.

The children have really enjoyed their first week back in Year 4 which has been full of fun and learning.  They started their new history topic on Ancient Egypt and began reading their class English text ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’.  They compared this book to the original version of Cinderella and used comparative conjunctions to compare the main character, Rhodopis, to the servant girls. 

Year 4 have also begun their Guided Reading text, James and the Giant Peach and are really enjoying this book.  In Maths, the children have been consolidating their understanding of place value of numbers up to 1000 and have used practical equipment and drawings to help them with this. 

Their new RE topic is all about Hindus in Britain today.  They already know quite a lot about Hinduism because of their lessons in Year 2 and 3, so they will be delving deeper in to this religion during this term.  Year 4 have also enjoyed their first dance lesson of the term.

The children have had a fantastic start to Year 5! This week, they created artwork inspired by their Guided Reading novel, Wonder. The children drew self-portraits in the style of the book cover, used watercolour paints to decorate them, and added positive words to describe themselves and their classmates to complete their portraits.

In Maths, they’ve dived into Roman Numerals and Place Value. The children worked with Place Value charts and counters to help them visualise and understand numbers up to 1,000,000.

The class have eagerly chosen their first books of the year and enjoyed reading them in their cosy reading area. The children are all excited to see where their learning will take them next week and throughout Year 5!

Year 6 have really hit the ground running this week and made a brilliant start to their final year at Micklehurst! They have showed some real creative flair already by using mixed media and a range of techniques to produce self-portraits that express their personality. They’ve also enjoyed working together to produce their class charter and setting their goals for the year.

The children loved exploring the world of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse and discussing the themes of the beautifully illustrated text. They then combined their superbly creative artistic skills with their own quotes inspired by the examples in the book and the results were incredibly impressive.

Not only have they been displaying their artistic talents, Year 6 have also been demonstrating the excellent knowledge they have of place value in maths. They used place value charts and counters to represent numbers to 1,000,000 and 10,000,000 and used them effectively to solve problems.

It has been a lovely final week of term. The children have enjoyed their end of term activities, parties, Y6 hyperbowling experience and our summer raffle! I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and restful summer. Enjoy the holidays and we will look forward to seeing you on 3^rd September.

In Nursery this week, the children have enjoyed a fantastic pirate party. The costumes were amazing and the children enjoyed a pirate feast and games.

Reception have enjoyed their last week of the summer term. They have been learning about pirates and enjoyed their EYFS Pirate party!

The children enjoyed playing ball games in PE where they learnt different ways to throw. They also developed their concentration and fine motor skills by making loom bands this week. They showed lots of perseverance and made jewellery for their friends!

Year 1 have had a Superhero party to celebrate the end of year. This tied in with their English text ‘Nat Fantastic’ and the children have enjoyed becoming Superheroes for the day!

It’s been the final week in year 5 and what a week it’s been! To end the year with a bang Year 5 held their very own talent show. From comedy to gymnastics, to football and magic, we saw it all! The children enjoyed watching each other and cheered everybody on. What a lovely way to end the year!

We can’t quite believe that the final week of term is upon us and our Year 6s have certainly been making the most of their final few days as Micklehurst pupils. As well as working hard to prepare for their Leavers Assembly on the final day of term, the children were treated on Wednesday to a hyper bowling trip. They travelled to Denton Wellness Centre where they battled it out to see who would reign supreme on the bowling alleys. The children loved the range of interactive games available from hyperbowling to mad bowling and there were certainly a fair few strikes to celebrate! Year 6 have also been competing wholeheartedly in our final ever round of The Pirate Game - the children eagerly plotted their coordinates and hid their treasures before competing in a fearsome fight to destroy their enemies and build the healthiest bank balance in the class. 

On Friday afternoon, Year 6 came together around the campfire and enjoyed their final afternoon at Micklehurst by toasting s’mores and sharing some of their favourite primary school memories. We wish them every success as they take their next steps and hope they will come back and visit us next year! 

It has been another fun week in school. On Monday, some of our Key Stage 2 children took part in the Mossley Olympics at Mossley Hollins. It was a fantastic afternoon and the children took part in a range of events including long jump, the javelin throw, an egg and spoon race, a skipping race, a sack race, the 50m sprint and the relay. Our team performed really well and lots of them received medals. The winners were St Georges but well done to everyone who took part.

On Thursday, two of our Y6 children had the privilege of carrying the Olympic torch to Buckton Vale Primary School where they handed it over to two pupils before it continued its journey to Millbrook Primary.

On Thursday, we also had the Bouncy Castle in school and the children thoroughly enjoyed bouncing with their friends. Friday was our Summer Fair and the children were excited to have their faces painted and then spend the afternoon winning prizes and taking part in a range of games. Thank you to everyone who has supported the event.

Africa has been the topic this week in Reception. The children found Africa on a map and noticed it was far away from England. The children learnt that Africa is hot as it is near the equator and they have been learning about animals they might see on a Safari. The children enjoyed watching videos of elephants, zebras, hippos and a lion with its almighty roar and writing sentences to describe them.

In Maths, Reception have been delving deeper into the concept of heavier and lighter. They tested four different boats in the outdoor water tray, investigating how many marbles each boat would hold before it sinks. They found that the paper boat sank with only four marbles and the plastic boat was the strongest, holding all twenty of their marbles! The children then got busy creating their own boats to test.

In Year 1 it has been the final week of Arts and Crafts club and the children have completed a collaborative large-scale model of a wave. They have then decorated it with sea creatures. They are super proud of their model.

In Year 2 this week, the children had a fantastic trip to St George’s Church in Mossley as part of their RE unit based around special places of worship. Before the visit they had generated many questions that they wanted to ask Reverend Denise about the Church and how she came to be in her role. The children loved exploring the Church and listening to Mrs Chapman playing the organ! The children’s behaviour was exemplary, and they were a credit to the school.

This week, Year 3 have been engrossed in their guided reading text, The Butterfly Lion. They made some super inferences about the main character called Bertie and they could verbally back their ideas with evidence from the text. The disgruntled groans that rang out when the final session of the week ended and on a cliffhanger too was a definite sign they are hooked.

In English, they have continued to write their own innovated version of the story ‘The Man on the Moon’. They used some super expanded noun phrases and some fantastic prepositional phrases too. They are looking forward to sharing them when they are finished.

In Science, Year 3 have loved learning about famous scientists. They thoroughly enjoyed learning about the work of Marie Curie and they loved researching about her life with many children finding out more information than they needed due to their interest in her. They were equally as fascinated when learning about the work of George Washington Carver and the number of uses he discovered for peanuts. 

This week has been another busy one in Year 4.  In Maths, the children have continued their unit on shape, looking at quadrilaterals and their properties as well as other polygons.  In English, they have been using interesting pictures as stimulus for their writing.  The children have enjoyed undertaking some creative writing challenges where they have been able to show-case everything that they have learned this year in terms of vocabulary, spelling and punctuation. 

In History, they have learned more about the impact of the railways in Britain and in RE they have explored why people choose to get married and how different religions prepare for and celebrate marriage.  The children have also enjoyed lots of other fun events this week, including Mossley Olympics, the bouncy castle and the school’s summer fair.  All events were a great success and were enjoyed by everyone who attended.

This week in Year 5 the children have been extremely busy collecting all the donated raffle prizes for our Summer Fair. We are super grateful for all the donations we have received and we are really proud of the children's efforts in collecting all the raffle prizes, well done everyone. The children have completed their very first SATs papers this week ready for Year six. The children absolutely smashed it, and I am sure they will do great when it’s the real thing! 

It’s been another busy week in Year 6; the children have been working hard to prepare for our upcoming Leavers Assembly and the classroom has certainly been abuzz with the sound of music. It promises to be an impressive celebration of our wonderful Year 6s and the children cannot wait to share it with their friends and family. 

The children have also been putting all of their electricity knowledge from our science unit in to good use in our Design & Technology lessons this week. They have been tasked with researching, designing and making a Steady Hand Game complete with a working circuit to bring the game to life. There have already been some brilliantly creative design ideas from cars manoeuvring around race tracks to rockets touring the solar system and we can’t wait to make our games next week!

It has been a brilliant week in school because we have celebrated Science Week! Our week began with an exciting assembly led by Katriana from Science Boffins. The children loved watching a range of experiments and observing the chemical reactions that took place. They have then been involved in a range of activities throughout the week including making their own marble runs, making slime and finding about famous scientists to name but a few!

On Tuesday, Year 3 and Year 4 showcased their musical talents as they performed for the school and their parents, carers and family members. It was a fantastic performance and the children demonstrated super concentration and enjoyment.I was very impressed with how much progress they have made and how well they played their ukeleles and recorders. Good job everyone!

Our KS 1 and Y3 Cheerleading team took part in Tameside’s Cheer Fest at Copley on Wednesday and the children had a fantastic time performing. They have worked so hard practising their routine and they came in fourth position. Well done to the team!

Science week in Nursery has been amazing.  The children have been trialling a variety of experiments and have been predicting, changing variables and evaluating.

Experiment 1 – the children used skittles and hot and cold water for this experiment.  They laid the skittles in circles on a plate, then they predicted which plate of skittles would make colours the fastest using hot or cold water. The hot water worked the fastest.

Experiment 2 – the children mixed different colours to see what they would make, then they painted with them.

Experiment 3 – with celery, food colouring, water and a glass. Does water travel up the celery? The children put coloured water in the cup and waited to see if the water travelled up the celery and made it a different colour.  Lots of them didn’t think it would work but it did, and the celery turned blue inside.

Experiment 4 – Can an egg bounce?  The children didn’t believe this, so they set about trying to find out if it was possible.  They filled a jar with white vinegar, placed an egg in the vinegar, put the lid on the jar and waited for 24 hours.  They are still waiting to see if an egg can bounce!

Reception have been Scientists this week and have enjoyed their experiments. The children observed capillary action in a rainbow colour mixing experiment. They also enjoyed adding raisins to sparkling water and watching them ‘dance’. Making slime was their favourite activity this week as they loved getting messy!

In line with Science Week, the children have been learning about Marie Curie. They learnt that she invented X-rays during the war, so the children used white paint and art straws to make their own model of an X-ray.

Their maths focus has been making complex maps and drawing a map of their journey to school.

In RE, the children read the story of Muhammad and the kittens. They reflected on how they can care for animals and thought about what their favourite animals are and why.

This week in Year 1, the children have been exploring and observing changes over time. They have explored how chocolate, ice and a stone changed when they held it in their hands for 3 minutes. The children had a good discussion about how some of these items changed and why. They have also completed the skittle experiment but changed the variables from water to milk.

In Year 2 this week, the children have LOVED celebrating whole school Science week. They enjoyed kick starting the week with some fun experiments with Science Boffins, this involved creating their own lemon sherbet and it really got their taste buds going! In class they have been exploring the concept of time – this has involved creating their own marble runs that had to start and finish in 15 seconds. They enjoyed working as a team, trying different angles on their runs, and using the timers to measure how successful they had been.

Science Week has not disappointed in Year 3 and it began with an explosive start. Rockets launched, containers exploded and taste buds where all tested during the Science Boffins workshop.

Learning about the famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton also caused a buzz of excitement and discovering about his law of gravity got Year 3 asking many questions. They loved finding out about the moment Newton discovered gravity and re-enacting the moment the apple fell from the tree sparked lots of enthusiasm too. Year 3 really enjoyed the opportunity to share their research about him in their own way. Some children made posters, leaflets, books and some used Seesaw to create informative slides about him.

With time as the focus for the week, Year 3 explored boats through time. Having found out about the three important things a boat must do, they then experimented with different natural materials to find out which could float, which could travel in a straight line and which of the natural materials could carry a strong load. Following the investigation, they made super conclusions about which material would be most suitable to make a boat. Having found out that the sailing boat came next, they loved making their own sailing boats and loved testing them to see if they could float and move in a straight line.

Year 4 have had a really exciting week.  This week, it has been Science week, and the theme has been ‘time’.  The children have therefore conducted a variety of experiments and carried out research linked in with this theme.  They have looked at reaction times as well as creating different pendulums and recording how many swings in a set period of time.  They have looked at patterns and tried to create their own hypothesis based on their scientific knowledge. 

They have also learnt about the planets in the solar system and the varying lengths of days and years on each planet and why this is.  The children created solar system mobiles to help them remember the order of the planets from the sun.  Linked in with space, they also learnt about Mae. C. Jemison, who was the first African-American woman in space.  Year 4 carried out research into her life, achievements and legacy and created Mae. C. Jemison biographies. 

They have also managed to fit in their usual Maths lessons this week where they have learnt about the properties of different triangles, quadrilaterals and polygons.  On Tuesday, the children showcased their performance talents during their musical show.  The children were fabulous and Miss Snioch was very proud of them.

Science Week has been a blast in Year 6 and the children have proven themselves to be quite the budding scientists as they’ve worked their way through a range of enquiries, investigations and research tasks. The week started with a wacky workshop experimenting with different senses – the children combined a range of elements to make snow, sherbet and even a tornado in a bottle.

In class, they’ve been exploring technology through time and the children discovered the chronology of some major scientific innovations, such as the telegraph and the mobile phone. They also created a communication device using an electric circuit and then used this to decipher morse code – Year 6 had great fun sending messages to one another even though it was slightly more complicated than WhatsApp!

Later in the week, the children were tasked with creating a working vacuum cleaner. They experimented with different motors and fans and learnt all about vacuum flasks in order to build their own machine. There was a lot of trial and error involved but before too long, the children were busily cleaning the classroom with their innovative vacuums!

It has been a very exciting week in school as the children have experienced their transition morning in their new classes. They have all enjoyed being in their new classrooms, meeting staff and getting to know all about their next year group. We also welcomed our new Nursery children and some new children who will be starting Reception in September.

Some of our Year 3 and 4 children represented school in the Tameside Quad Kids event at East Cheshire Harriers on Wednesday. The team took part in four events including the 400m, standing long jump, a vortex throw and a 60m sprint. The children performed brilliantly and some of them had real success in certain events. We now have to wait until the points from every school are collated and we get the final results!

Reception have been busy this week learning about under the sea creatures. The children made a fact file about a sea creature of their choice; they enjoyed drawing pictures of the creatures and writing facts about them. The children were amazed to learn that jelly fish do not have a brain!

The children have worked hard in phonics and have learnt the new digraphs ‘ur’ and ‘er’. The children have been busy writing sentences to describe different under the sea creatures and included their new digraphs in their writing.

Their Maths focus has been models and maps this week. The children explored replicating small world models and construction scenes and made a giant map of their classroom layout.

This week in Year 1 as part of their English work, the children have been very excited to be part of their Talk for Writing process where they have been creating a story map based on their text Nat Fantastic. The children demonstrated how well they knew the story and added actions and punctuation to their story map. They will use this to support them when they come to writing their own Nat Fantastic stories next week.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been developing their Computing skills using Chrome Music lab. They have used shapes and pictures to respond to Gustav Holst’s work – they all had their own very different interpretations. They then used the music lab to draw and create sound pictures which sounded amazing!

Year 3 have loved starting their new maths unit, which focuses on shape. It began with them learning what an angle is and then what a right angle is. The enthusiasm they showed when finding right angles in the playground was a joy to see. Exploring 2D shapes to identify the angles within them was also particularly enjoyable for Year 3. They used their right angle checkers very efficiently to describe the angles within the shapes. They are now angle experts, who can identify acute angles, right angles and obtuse angles. Well done Year 3!

Innovating the character in The Man on the Moon was another highlight for Year 3 this week. They enjoyed generating new twists on the main character of Bob. Ideas ranged from a teenager on Saturn to a grannie on Neptune. Their creativity did not stop there because the story plans they produced were full of imaginative ideas. They can’t wait to write their stories next week.

This week has been another busy one for Year 4!  The children have begun writing their Railway Children recounts in English, learnt more about angles in Maths and carried out research into Thomas Edison in Science.  They went on an electrical appliances hunt around school and had a think about what life would be like without some of these things.

In History, they have learnt more about the growth of the railways in the 19^th century in Britain and in RE they have learnt about the Hindu sacred thread ceremony.

The children are keen environmentalists in Year 4, so in Guided Reading they have learnt about why plastic is a problem for the environment as well as reading about the life and campaigning of Greta Thunberg. 

On Thursday, the Year 4 children spent the morning in Year 5, meeting their new teachers and familiarising themselves with the Year 5 classroom and routines. The children came back really excited about their next chapter in Year 5.

This week has been an exciting one for our Year 5s! They had transition day on Thursday which they loved! They took part in some lovely activities and came back to Year 5 excited to start in Year 6 in September.

Earlier in the week in RE, the children looked at the Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony that young Jewish people take part in. They created some wonderful fact files! In English they have read some more of their class text and even more of the story is unfolding and making sense! In Science they looked at the life of Sir David Attenborough and created some brilliant pieces of work about his life and work.

There’s been an air of both anticipation and excitement this week in Year 6 as our soon-to-be Year 7s had their first real taste of high school life. The children have been really looking forward to their transition days – they’ve been keen to discover who their form tutor will be, what new lessons they will encounter next year and perhaps most importantly, how much homework they’re going to get!

As well as taking on the challenge of transition, our Year 6’s took on another kind of trial this week – a mock trial. Sean, from Greater Manchester Magistrates, visited school to lead the children through a mock trial complete with magistrates, an usher, a defendant and both prosecuting and defending solicitors. The children worked their way through the case of R v Jo Stockwell, which focused on the theme of knife crime - they had to listen to witnesses, hear the arguments from both sets of solicitors and then reach a final verdict: guilty or not guilty?

It has been another busy week in school! The children have all been enjoying getting their teeth into their new topics.

What a busy week for Reception! The children have enjoyed their ‘Under the Sea’ topic. Inspired by their class text, ‘Sharing a Shell’ by Julia Donaldson, the children used collage technique to design their own shell. They then thought of their own adjective sentences to describe their shell and wrote them independently. The children also discussed the differences between the seaside in the past and in the present.

Miss Austin and Miss Burney have observed lots of language rich role play in the beach café role play area this week. The children have been making different flavour ice creams and pretending to build sand castles.

The children have enjoyed replicating and building constructions in Maths this week and have explored visualising a small world scene from different positions. They worked hard in pairs to build matching small world scenes.

This half term, Year 1 have been looking at the text Nat Fantastic as part of their English work. They have shared the story of Nat Fantastic and then used role play to create ideas for the next problem that Nat was going to solve.  The children had a great time performing their ideas to each other!

In Year 2 this week, the children have been combining nature and computing! In Science, they used the iPads to identify different types of trees – this involved taking pictures of the leaves and uploading them to a plant identification website. They used their observational skills to draw pictures of the trees and leaves and the also used tape measures to measure the circumference of the tree trunk. The children had lots of fun in the sunshine.

In Computing, they have been exploring and creating different rhythms using Chrome Music Lab – this was so much fun!

What a fantastic week it has been in Year 3! It began with a letter from John Fardell, the author of The Day Louis Got Eaten’, expressing his delight in the quality of the non-chronological reports that he had received from us. Their reports and the creatures they devised last half term were so good that the author decided it would just be too hard to pick out a winner. Instead, Year 3 all received a certificate from him and he included £10 in the envelope, which he said must be spent on something Year 3 all agree on. They cannot wait to vote on what to spend the money on.  

Starting work on the Victorians was another highlight for Year 3 this week. This unit began with them exploring a picture of a prominent figure during this time and recording any inferences they had made about them from looking at the image. It was of course Queen Victoria, which many pairs had correctly worked out. They loved playing detectives and exploring different sources to deduce what it was like to live in the Victorian period. The ideas they came up with were fantastic and they could explain their thinking too. There are definitely some budding historians in Year 3!

In English this week the children have been generating lots of ideas for a recount that they are going to write next week.  They have drawn story-boards and carried out role plays to help them with their writing. 

In Maths, they have been looking at time.  The children have looked at analogue and digital clocks and have converted between the two.  In Science, the learnt about the two scientists who discovered oxygen,; Antoine Lavoisier and Joseph Priestley.  They even carried out their own oxygen experiment, looking at how lit candles require oxygen to burn.  In History, the children have learnt about the growth of the railways and in RE, they learnt about the Jewish Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations. 

This week in Year 5 the children have been writing newspaper reports in English all about the treacherous boat rescue at Budmouth Point from their class novel, ‘Letters From the Lighthouse’. In Maths it has been all about decimals; they have added and subtracted decimals and the children are gaining confidence even when completing additions and subtractions with a different number of decimal places.

In RE, they researched a key Jewish event: Yom Kippur. The children created some beautiful and very informative pieces of work. In Science they looked at the life and work of Eva Crane and made some very amazing fact-files.

Year 6 have been busy writing some incredibly compelling setting descriptions this week. Inspired by their new text, The Matchbox Diary, they used their senses to bring to life a perilous journey across the ocean. The children combined a wide range of strategies, including personification and metaphor, to add detail to their writing and paint a very vivid picture of the tumultuous sea during a storm. They’ve also been thinking about what will happen to the main character in the story once he arrives at his destination: New York City.

On Thursday, the children took part in a workshop delivered by mental health charity, Kooth. The theme of the workshop was transition and there were lots of brilliant tips that the children can try over the summer to help them prepare for their first week of high school in September.

What a fantastic week we have had in school! The children have loved Sports Week and have thrown themselves into every activity on offer. Monday started with a visit from Freddy Fit and the children enjoyed a range of energetic exercises and activities. On Tuesday it was lovely to welcome parents, carers and family members to Sports Day and the children loved showcasing their skills in a number of races. On Wednesday and Thursday the children enjoyed Dance and Football sessions and on Friday each class experienced a yoga session.

On Monday, Year 6 attended the Leavers Celebration Service at Manchester Cathedral. It was alovely service and the children enjoyed singing and dancing with the entire congregation as well as saying The Lord’s Prayer in British Sign Language.

On Tuesday, Year 4 went to The Bridgewater Hall to the Come and Play with the Halle event. The children were in awe when they entered the hall and heard the orchestra playing. It was a wonderful experience for them to play and sing alongside the Halle orchestra and the children were fantastic ambassadors for our school.

In Nursery, Sports Week has been an amazing success. The children have enjoyed it from start to finish, they have shown amazing resilience and perseverance in learning new skills.  They have had Freddy Fit in showing them how to exercise their body, sports day with lots of fun games and races, cone it and dance.

The children have also been learning about England as one of the teams playing in The Euros. They have located it on a map, learnt about the capital and the flag.  They particularly enjoyed finding out that the lion was England’s national animal.

Reception have enjoyed all aspects of Sports Week. They had fun with Freddy Fit where they learnt to hula hoop and limbo and enjoyed their Sports Day races. They have also taken part in yoga and football sessions and they played team games in the hall.

Reception’s focus country has been Italy. First the children spotted Italy on a map and made Italian flags. They have been learning some Italian words such as ‘ciao’ and ‘grazie’ and found it funny to watch the Italian version of ‘let it go’ from Frozen. Reception have also learnt about Di Vinci’s Mona Lisa and designed their own vibrant and colourful version of the Mona Lisa using collage technique. The children very much enjoyed eating Italian pizza too! Other Italian activities this week included comparing different types of pasta, selling pizzas at their beach café and learning Italian numbers.

Year 1 have been very excited as they enjoyed all the activities they have had a go at during Sports Week.

Year 3 have absolutely loved the challenges and fun of Sports Week. There have been some memorable highlights from the week, from working with Freddy Fit and learning how to play cone it, to Sports Day and a dance session with Becki. During each activity, Year 3 gave it their all and regardless of whether they won or lost, they displayed a positive attitude. Well done Year 3!

Year 3 also really enjoyed learning all about Germany! Year 3 loved playing ‘Each One Teach One’ to find out facts about Germany and then they created some fantastic posters displaying all the facts they had learnt during the game. To find out the names of other European countries, Year 3 played a game of ‘Maps from Memory’ and worked collaboratively in groups to fill a blank map of Europe with all the names of European countries. Towards the end of the week, they researched about a German football player using their iPads and produced some fantastic player profiles.

The children have been really active in Year 4 this week as it has been Sport’s Week.  They have done daily Wake-up Shake-up, Freddy Fit, cone it, dance, football and yoga.  As part of Sports Week, they have also enjoyed learning about The European Cup and have carried out research into Portugal, one of the participating countries. 

Tuesday was a particularly busy day as Year 4 performed at the Halle in Manchester which was an amazing experience.   On Tuesday afternoon, they also had our Sports Day, which was great fun!

This week in English, the children have written a persuasive letter in the role of Bobbie from The Railway Children.  In History, they have really enjoyed researching and learning about some of the earliest locomotives and in Science they learnt about and carried out some research into Alexander Bell’s life and inventions.

What a week for Year 5! The children have been so busy with Sports Week, I’m sure they will all sleep this weekend! They had a brilliant session with Freddy Fit on Monday, all the children loved it. Tuesday was Sports Day and Swimming, Wednesday they had a dance session where children worked in groups to create dances to show both Year 5 & 6. On Thursday the children had a fun football session where they brushed up on their football skills and Friday they had a lovely, calm yoga session followed by Mini Stations where children had to use different skills to complete a circuit.

In class, they have written non chronological reports and created some amazing informative videos using Adope Spark on the iPads.

They’ve had an incredibly active week in Year 6 – the children have taken part in a wide range of sporting activities throughout the week and really enjoyed each and every one, we’ve certainly got some athletes in our midst! On Monday, they took on the challenge of a session with Freddy Fit and pushed themselves to complete the exercises in time with some brilliant tunes! On Tuesday, the children competed in their final Sports Day at primary school – they showcased some pretty impressive skills as they battled it out to be sprint champion, hurdles hero and of course, to keep the egg on the spoon. They’ve also taken part in a dance-off with Year 5 during their lesson with Miss Becki, a football session and a yoga workshop.

On Monday, Year 6 also attended the Leavers Celebration Service at Manchester Cathedral. The cathedral provided a beautiful setting for the service and the children really enjoyed singing and dancing with the entire congregation as well as saying The Lord’s Prayer in British Sign Language.

Welcome back! We hope you have had a good holiday and a lovely break. It has been a busy first week back and the children have enjoyed learning about their new topics.

In Nursery the children have had an amazing first week back starting their new topic ‘Under the Sea’.  The children have loved their new story finding out about Little Fish.  There are lots of colours in the story and they have been learning them in Spanish.  Their favourite Spanish colour is Amarillo because they like the way it sounds.

In Maths the children have been sorting and categorising different mammals, sea creature and birds.  There are lots of mammals that also like to be in the water so they were a little unsure sometimes what category they were in.

Nursery have also been busy designing their display for the classroom.  During their squiggle and write session they made the sea using different arm movements.  They can’t wait to share it with you when it has all their work on it.

Reception have had a great first week back at school and have enjoyed sharing their half term experiences during a circle time and through drawing pictures and writing sentences. The children have been busy exploring role play opportunities relating to their new topic ‘Travel here, travel there…’ and enjoyed reading their new topic book ‘Sharing a Shell’ by Julia Donaldson.

Their Maths focus has been sharing into equal groups and odd and even numbers. The children have been sharing objects equally between their three class teddies and investigating how to find out if a number is even or odd.

The children have also been working super hard during their phonics sessions and learnt their first trigraph this week: igh. They have worked really hard writing sentences on their handwriting boards.

Year 1 have had an exciting first week back and have been looking at their local area in Geography. They have used google maps and their walk through Mossley to make a map of Manchester Road and the surrounding area. They have really enjoyed trying to locate and position each place on their map.

In Year 2 this week the children have started their new, exciting topic all about Explorers of the past. They became historical detectives this week when they had to closely examine a variety of clues to find out about the life of Christopher Columbus. The children had some very interesting ideas about why Columbus was such a significant individual.

In Computing, the children have started their digital music unit – this has involved learning about Gustav Holst and some of his very dramatic pieces of music. The children used a variety of adjectives to describe his work and talked about how his music made them feel.

This week, Year 3 have thrown themselves into their brand new English unit. Having been given a picture from the text that they are going to read next week, they were tasked with completing three sentence stems based on what they saw in the image, what they wondered about the image and what they inferred. They made some excellent inferences and they were able to back up their ideas with evidence from the image itself. Having accurately inferred that the man in the image has an interest in space and the moon, the following lesson centred on researching about space and the moon. They thoroughly enjoyed working in pairs to do this and chose how they wanted to record the information they had found out from creating a poster to making informative pages on Seesaw.

That’s not the only subject that they have immersed themselves in this week. They have also really enjoyed their new art unit, which is based on animated drawings. The week started with them sketching two still images of a snail. They used their medium, a pencil, really well to create the outline, to shade and to add detail both to the snail itself and to the background. There are some definite budding artists in Year 3!

Year 4 have had a busy week back at school.  They have started their new History topic on the history of railways and their new Science topic on famous inventors and scientists.  Linked in with these topics, they are using E. Nesbit’s famous novel ‘The Railway Children’ to inspire their writing in English.  This week, the children have had fun reading and performing a variety of railway themed poems, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘From a Railway carriage’.  They used thesauruses to find synonyms for train related words and then used some of these words to write their own train themed poetry.

In Year 5 this week, the children have continued with their text ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ in English and the children have written diary entries about the refugees that made it to Devon. In maths, they have being learning how to translate shapes on a grid, as well as reading and plotting co-ordinates.

There is only one word to describe the first week back in Year 6: fantastic! It has been a busy week filled with lots of amazing activities and we are really proud of the effort that every single child has put into their first week back of the final half-term. They have continued to practice their songs ready for their visit to Manchester Cathedral on Monday, and we are certain that their singing voices and dance moves will blow everyone away!

In science, the children have been introduced to their new topic: ‘light.’ For part of their first lesson, they were tasked with creating a list about all of the things that they already knew about light, alongside questions regarding what they would like to find out about light. As part of the weekly science experiment, the children were tasked with entering a darkened part of the classroom. They were then quizzed about this experience, and they had a whole-class discussion about how and why it can take a while for our eyes to adjust to darkened settings.

In P.E this week, the children have been learning all about the Olympics. As part of this, they have completed a range of athletic-style challenges, including: javelin, relay races and long jump. Alongside this, twelve of the year 6 children were selected to take part in a triathlon event, consisting of swimming, cycling and running. All of the children did a fantastic job and each received a medal for their outstanding efforts - we could not be more proud of them! 

What an exciting week! The children have enjoyed finishing off their units of work this week. Year 1 have been making tasty fruit salads and Nursery had a lovely time at their Bug Ball.

Some of our Year 1 and Year 2 children took part in the MCSP athletics festival at Mossley Hollins and enjoyed competing in a range of events including javelin, long jump, sprints and relay races.

The children from Year 1 up to Year 6 represented school in the Whit Walks today. It was lovely to be part of the procession as we walked with the other Mossley Churches and Primary Schools, accompanied by all the local brass bands. It was great to see so many parents and carers supporting the event.

Reception have had a busy week learning about flowers and gardens. After their nature walk, the children painted a picture of a flower, labelling the stem, roots, leaf and petals. Reception then wrote two sentences to describe their flower.

In RE, their focus has been observing the beauty of the natural world. The children drew pictures of some natural objects and thought of some adjectives to describe them.

In Maths, the children have enjoyed learning about sharing and have been finding ways to share equally between 2 and 3 groups.

The children have also enjoyed their learning about Alan Titchmarsh and have been designing their own gardens.

This week in Year 1, the children have been designing, making and evaluating a fruit salad as part of their Design and Technology unit of work. The children enjoyed tasting a range of fruits and deciding which ones they were going to have in their fruit salad. They’ve had a great time!

In Year 2 this week, the children have been looking closely at their plant experiment and have been using their maths skills to measure and compare results. They then wrote brief observations and each group fed back their findings. Year 2 have really enjoyed being scientists this week!

If you are wondering what the best conditions are to grow plants, Year 3 are definitely the people to ask. A couple of weeks ago, they set up an experiment to see what happens to plants if they are exposed to different conditions. Since then, they have been monitoring the plants closely and have taken photos of them on different days of the investigation. This week, they were very excited to make their final observations and conclusions.

Year 3 have worked incredibly hard this week on their handwriting and what has been most pleasing is that they have transferred their skills into their written work in English and history too.

Having finished their non-chronological reports, a group of children were given a challenge to include a diary entry within the report too to show a contrasting genre style. Together they discussed whether a newspaper report or a diary entry would be most contrasting. They came up with some great reasons as to why a diary entry would best. They produced some fantastic diary entries too!

The final week at school has been jam-packed full of hard-work and fun in Year 4.  In Science, they discussed and wrote up the results of their sock experiment from last week and the children now understand that the sock hanging from the window in the direct sunlight dried the quickest because the warmth allowed the liquid in the sock to evaporate (turn from liquid to gas).  The sock in the fridge is still wet because it is too cold in there for evaporation to take place.

In RE, the children learnt about Desmond Tutu and how his Christian beliefs affected his actions.  In Geography, they learnt about energy in the UK, looking at renewable and non-renewable energy sources and their impact on the environment.

In English, the children finished off their magical setting descriptions and in Maths they finally completed their work on fractions and decimals, completing end of term assessments which focused on this area of Maths.  The children did really well with their assessments. 

To finish off their learning this term, the children also enjoyed doing lots of still-life art work.  They learnt about Paul Cezanne and a number of other still-life artists; both traditional and contemporary and used their artwork to inspire their own, creating some Cezanne inspired still-life collages.  And finally, they had a great time taking part in the Whit Walks.  It was so nice to come together with all the other schools and churches to celebrate this local tradition.

It’s been another busy week in Year 6; the children have been using the green screen to transport themselves to the raucous jungles of the Australian wilderness in order to perform their I’m A Celebrity themed narratives. They’d worked incredibly hard to use a wide range of techniques to build tension in their writing and the finished pieces were incredibly impressive. Our Digital Leaders helped to support the other children in recording, editing and publishing their final videos and we think even Ant and Dec would be blown away by their dramatic tales of Bushtucker Trials.

The children have also been continuing in their preparations for the Leavers Celebration Service at Manchester Cathedral; they’ve been practicing the songs and have worked together to create a flag on the theme of ‘hope’. Inspired by two of our favourite class texts this year - Skellig and The Final Year - the children chose to combine painted feathers detailing their wishes for the future in order to create our flag of hope.

It has been another busy week in school. Our Year 6 children have been completing their end of Key Stage 2 assessments and we are very proud of how hard they have worked. They were focussed to the very last minute of the tests. Well done Year 6!

Some of our Year 3 and Year 4 children took part in the Tameside Glow Dodgeball competition on Tuesday at Astley Sports Village and the team enjoyed playing five games of dodgeball against five other Tameside primary schools. The team played really well and showed great sportsmanship.

In Nursery this week, the children have read ‘The Very Quiet Cricket’ by Eric Carle.  They have talked about how he kept trying and trying to make his wings chirp even though he was struggling.  The children discussed things that they have found difficult and things they need to keep trying with.  Perseverance is the new word the children have learnt this week. 

What a treat Nursery had on Tuesday when Sammy the Spanish teacher from Mossley Hollins came to read us ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ in Spanish.  It was fun learning new words for the different fruits and minibeasts, our favourites were Mariposa – butterfly and Oruga – caterpillar.

Nursery have also recorded their class ‘The Busy Spider’ story from last week.  Parents and carers loved listening to it.

Reception have been learning about seasonal change this week and exploring the joys of spring. The children enjoyed a sunny spring walk around the school grounds; they found ladybirds, bird’s nests, buds, flowers, leaves, birds and sunshine! They ticked them off on their spring hunt tick lists and then came back to class to write some ‘I can see’ sentences and drawings about what they spotted on their walk.

The children have enjoyed their continued learning on shape this week and have been manipulating and rotating shapes to create new bigger shapes. They also used various 2D shapes to create three different shape houses for the three little pigs.

This week, Year 1 were lucky enough to have our Year 6 children come to share stories with them at the end of their SATs. Both Year 1 and Year 6 children thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Thanks Year 6!

In Year 2 this week, the children have had lots of fun being creative architects! They have studied a variety of interesting buildings and created their own observational drawings. They have also looked at the work of Hundertwasser and created visual notes in response to his building designs. Then the fun began, and the children used various card boxes to create their own buildings – the can’t wait to show off their final outcomes next week.

With the deadline of the completion of their non-chronological reports looming, Year 3 have been busy editing and publishing their reports. They have worked incredibly hard: thinking of interesting ways to organise their reports whilst remembering the features that they identified at the start of the unit. John Fardell, the author of The Day Louis Got Eaten, is going to have a very tricky decision deciding which creature to choose. Their creature reports are all so informative and after reading their introductions, who would not want to read on to find out more.

In geography, Year 3 loved applying all their map skills and knowledge of ordnance survey maps to draw a map of the route they took on their local area walk last week. Not only did they draw fantastic maps, they also included a key to identify the features they had marked on their maps. Their finished products are fantastic!

Year 4 have been super busy again!  The children have had a vocabulary focused week as they have been gathering ideas for writing a magical setting description.  In addition to this, they also started gathering ideas for the ‘Once upon a dream’ poetry competition that the children are entering.  The children are writing poems on bad dreams/nightmares and so they have spent a lot of time discussing collecting spooky and terrifying vocabulary in preparation for writing them. 

In Maths, they have finished off their work on decimals and fractions and in Science they have carried out an experiment to find out where washing will dry the best.  The children now understand that the water in washed clothes does not simply disappear, but actually evaporates into gas!  They have also spent some time this week looking at the different industries in the UK as well as completing some further work on temptation in RE. 

This week in Year 5, the children have been making a new home in the Computer Suite due to SATS. The children loved their new learning environment and were enthusiastic about their working.

In Maths they have been identifying and calculating angles around a point and on a straight line. The children loved this type of investigative maths and did really well.

This week Year 5 bid farewell to Forest School in their last session where they made a fire to cook, created art pieces with clay and of course set up the hammocks and swings. The children loved Forest School and are already eager to start again.

Year 6 have proven this week that anything is possible if you put your mind to it; they have absolutely worked their socks off during SATs week and have done us all very proud. The children started each day with a special SATs breakfast of toast and cereals before showcasing their knowledge on each of the six papers. We can without doubt say that each and every Year 6 gave their all to the tests and we couldn’t have asked for any more!

On Thursday and Friday, there was a definite sense of celebration in the air as the children enjoyed some well-earned post-SATs treats! They loved being outside for extra football, competing in a round of Kahoot quizzes, reading stories to Year 1, pitting their wits against each other in The Pirate Game and relaxing in the hall for a movie afternoon complete with popcorn! 

The class have also been busy beginning preparations for the Year 6 Leavers Service at Manchester Cathedral: they have been rehearsing the songs and using their artistic skills to plan and create a class flag on the theme of hope that we can fly high on the day.  

It has been a fun filled week in school and it has been lovely to enjoy some warmer weather and some sunshine.

In Nursery this week, their Eric Carle story has been ‘The Very Busy Spider’.  The children have loved finding out about how spiders spin their webs and investigating why spiders don’t stick to their own webs.

The children have written their own ‘The Very Busy Spider’ stories changing the animals, the noises they make and the question that they ask the spider.  They can’t wait to share them with you.

This week, Reception have been busy making cards and pictures for the Nurses at MRI to celebrate International Nurses Day. The children also worked together to create some flower bouquets for the Nurses too.

The children have enjoyed learning about shapes this week and have been creating tangrams. They have been using their Maths word of the week ‘rotate’ to talk about their tangrams.

In RE, the children have been learning about how babies are welcomed into the Muslim faith. They talked about kind things they could whisper to the baby such as ‘we love you’ and ‘you are so special.’

This week, Year 1 have been working hard during their English lessons. The children have been using their story map to write their own version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Mrs Moorcroft is very impressed with the writing that the children have produced.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been making the most of the glorious sunshine. On Thursday afternoon, they decided to take their science investigation outside and planted their seeds in the school garden. The children are going to use their observational skills to investigate ‘Which materials seeds can grow in?’ Watch this space for their end results!

Although this has been a shorter week, it has still been jam-packed with excellent learning and lots of fun too! Year 3 absolutely loved their local area walk and being true geographers with their very own clipboards too. This field work enabled them to see first-hand the different human and physical features that are within their local area. At one of the points of interests along the walk, they recorded the different things they could see in the north, south, east and west. At another point of interest, Year 3 enjoyed using their senses to explore what they could see, hear, smell, feel and taste. They became very excited when they heard a train and a plane and some heard the leaves rustling too.

Year 3 were disappointed last week when they finished their guided reading text: The Sheep-Pig. However, their disappointment did not last long because they are already fully engrossed in their new book: The Butterfly Lion.  The first lesson centred on exploring the front cover of the text and then they completed different sentence stems that encouraged them to wonder, observe, predict and infer. The ideas they generated were fantastic!

In computing, Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed developing their publishing skills. After exploring different invitations and looking at the different fonts, text size, text style and colours that had been used, Year 3 then used Seesaw to create their own. Over the course of the lesson, they changed the size and style of the font, the colours and some children even added images to their invites too.

Despite it being a shorter week, Year 4 have managed to fit an awful lot in. In English, the children have been writing a non-chronological report on broomsticks which included rhetorical questions and subordinate clauses.  In Maths, they have continued with their work on decimals and fractions, making a whole with tenths and making a whole with hundredths.

In Geography, the children have been further exploring the physical and human features of the UK and how human activities can alter the environment. In RE they have been learning about Humanist beliefs and what ideas and rules this group are guided by.  They’ve done lots more too, including Music, PE, Guided Reading and Spanish! 

This week in Year 5, the children were busy practising for the Big Sing at Mossley Hollins. On Thursday they performed with other Mossley schools, our class were absolutely amazing and definitely did Micklehurst proud!

The children have opened their Wondrous Book Club books this week and the children are already loving the books, this term’s topic is ‘humour’.

In Maths they have been identifying and classifying angles and in English they have been writing diary entries in role as characters from our current class novel, ‘Letters From the Lighthouse’.

In the final week before Year 6 take on the challenge of those pesky SATs papers, the children have shown a real determination to be as prepared as can be. On Wednesday, they worked together to complete our mighty SPAG quiz! Hidden around the playground were 12 grammar questions and once they had been located, each team had to crack the code and collect the correct letters…the letters then spelt a mystery phrase and it was a battle to see which team would find the winning combination first! As well as practicing tackling a range of SATs style questions, the children have also been busy making their very own revision flip books – they’re very creative and packed full of helpful nuggets of information.

They’ve also been enjoying competing in a week-long tournament of Mathematical Pointless. Inspired by the BBC’s very own game show, the children have worked hard to find as many pointless answers as they could whilst revising key mathematical terms and concepts at the same time!

It has been an exciting week for some of our Year 5 children! They went to Mossley Hollins to take part in the Mossley and Carrbrook Schools Partnership Maths Challenge on Thursday and they worked really hard as a team to answer some quite tricky problems. It was a close competition right up to the final round, but I am thrilled to inform you that having used their logic and a systematic approach to the final problem they achieved full marks putting them in first place! Well done to our Year 5 team!

This week, Reception have been learning about growth. The children enjoyed observing their grass seeds as they grew throughout the week and have been drawing pictures of them.

Reception also used their phase 3 phonic knowledge to write simple instructions of how to plant grass seeds and have been writing spring ‘I can see’ sentences.

The children have also been developing their understanding of numbers to 20 this week. They have been busy writing number sentences to 20, using manipulatives and visuals to support them.

Their RE focus has been Baptism. The children enjoyed a circle time sharing ideas about how we might welcome a new baby into their religion and they had fun role playing a Baptism with dolls.

This week, Year 1 have been working with Emily, Dan and Kate from the Vale. They have

been helping to create a living dress. The children started their learning by picking dandelions to then boil to create a natural dye. After that they painted a piece of material with soya milk to make patterns and pictures. Once this was dry the children placed their material into the dye and left it for a couple of hours. Following this, they planted indigo plants and some seeds to create other colours of plants to make different colours of dye to be used to create other dresses. It was vey exciting and the children had a great afternoon.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning about different seeds in Science. They been using their classifying and sorting skills to sort a variety of seeds using their own criteria. The children loved looking at a variety of seeds and they are very eager to plant them in the coming weeks.

What a fantastic week it has been in year 3! Year 3 loved being scientists this week when they dissected a lily plant. Using scissors and their hands, they split the lily into its different parts and, after removing each one, they placed it on a piece of paper and labelled it. They now know so many other parts of a plant and through discussion, they know some of the functions they perform too. There were many surprised faces when they felt how sticky the stigma was and how yellow the pollen was too.

Year 3 were very excited to be returning to fractions this week. To check what Year 3 had remembered from the previous fraction unit, they played a game of ‘Spend a £1’. During this activity, they loved showing off their fantastic knowledge and they had remembered so much of the fraction vocabulary too! 

This week in English, Year 4 have been continuing with their magic theme and have begun learning about and planning a non-chronological report about broomsticks!  In Maths, they have continued to learn about decimal numbers, comparing, ordering and rounding them. 

In Science, the children had great fun carrying out experiments on melting solids.  They used a thermometer to measure the temperature of water and the melting points of different solids.  They learnt about how particles are arranged in solids, liquids and gases and what actually happens to these particles when they are heated and cooled.  They had lots of fun pretending that they were particles!

In Geography, Year 4 researched the physical features of the United Kingdom and in RE they looked at the similarities and differences between The Ten Commandments and The Beatitudes. 

This week in Year 5 the children have been eagerly reading more of their class novel; Letters From the Lighthouse and they have produced some amazing pieces of work including a diary entry in character and character profiles of their choice.

In Maths they have been looking at statistics. The children have drawn line graphs and interpreted two-way tables.

In Geography this week, the children have been discussing what a town needs for families to be fit for purpose. They worked really well together to discuss this in small groups, then had a whole class discussion where everyone put their ideas forward in a polite and meaningful way.

Year 5 have also been discussing the dangers and risks of using social media when underage. Children were thoughtful and came up with plans together to make their online experiences as safe and enjoyable as possible. 

It’s been another busy week in Year 6 – the children are working incredibly hard to prepare for their upcoming SATs and we’re really proud of their determination to succeed. They’ve been revising key concepts and applying their skills to a range of tricky SATs style questions – the children have taken so much ownership of their learning and love it when they’re able to beat their own high scores!

Alongside their SATs preparation, they’ve also found time to complete their Design & Technology projects this week. The children were tasked with designing and building a set of playground structures – they combined a range of different media and techniques to construct their projects and have even evaluated their final products. 

They’ve been getting creative in our English lessons this week too! Inspired by a tense extract from Ian Fleming’s James Bond, the children have been planning and writing their own short pieces of narrative. They’ve used some of Fleming’s techniques to build tension in their writing but have innovated both the setting and the plot choosing to base their pieces around the terror-inducing Bushtucker Trials of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

It has been another busy week in school. On Monday we celebrated Earth Day and our Eco Councillors challenged each class to consider the damage single use plastic is having on our environment. Each class had to count how many items of single use plastic they disposed of in school on Monday so that our councillors could collate and analyse these figures.

Year 6 welcomed our resident author, David Mason, into school on Thursday. The children have written some excellent pieces of creative writing following this visit where they immersed themselves in a range of drama activities to really think about the emotions they would have been feeling in order to inspire their writing.

Nursery have been learning all about symmetrical patterns this week.  The children have made symmetrical butterflies and used mirrors to find out which objects in their classroom are symmetrical and which are not.

Nursery’s caterpillars have grown so much this week, they are already the size of their little fingers and the children can’t wait to see them transform into a cocoon.

This week, Reception have innovated their ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ text map. They enjoyed thinking of lots of different weird and wonderful foods the hungry caterpillar may have eaten and worked super hard to write sentences to innovate the story.

Teen numbers have been their Maths focus this week and the children have been using counters, numicon and ten frames to build the teen numbers. Reception have also been counting by rote up to 50 and they have played lots of games to develop their understanding of the number system. 

In RE this week, Reception have been thinking about different groups they may belong to. The children shared different groups they are a part of, such as Micklehurst All Saints school, football teams, dance classes and swimming clubs. They then talked about different religious groups people belong to, such as being a Christian or Muslim. The children were proud to be part of Reception and designed a badge for their class.

In Year 1 this week, the children have enjoyed Arts and Crafts Club where they completed observational paintings of Spring flowers. Don’t they look amazing!

In Year 2 this week, the children have been exploring the life cycle of a sunflower. They enjoyed working in groups to act out each key stage in the cycle. They then drew their own life cycle in their science books and used scientific vocabulary to carefully describe each stage.

This week has been another busy and exciting week in Year 3! There were lots of gasps when they received a letter from John Fardell, author of ‘The Day Louis Got Eaten’, asking if they could create a new creature to eat Louis. There were some fantastic creatures created and some super expanded noun phrases used to describe them. Not only did John Fardell want them to create a new creature, he also wanted them to write a non-chronological report about their creature.  In preparation for writing the report, they worked in pairs and compared different non-chronological reports to find out the features.  

Year 3 also loved getting stuck into their science unit ‘Plants’. This week’s lesson centred on the different parts of a plant and the function that they perform. Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed exploring different flowers to see if they could identify the parts. They wowed us with their fantastic knowledge; some children even drew a labelled diagram of a plant. 

In Geography this week, Year 3 continued to develop their knowledge of the local area. Their learning focussed on human and physical features of Mossley. Year 3 loved working in groups to sort the features. Once they had sorted them in groups, they then worked with a partner to produce an advert persuading people to live in Mossley based on the human and physical features it has to offer. Some pairs recorded videos and others produced posters. There are definitely some budding estate agents in Year 3!

Year 4 have been busy again this week.  In Science, the children carried out some experiments, making predictions beforehand as to what they thought would happen.  They didn’t realise that if you mix white wine vinegar with Bicarbonate of Soda, it produces a gas.  The children carried out this experiment and the gas produced actually inflated a Latex glove! 

In English, the children began writing instructions for ‘How to brew an invisibility potion’. In Maths, they have been dividing 1 and 2 digit numbers by 10 as well as writing hundredths as both fractions and decimals.  In Geography, they enjoyed using atlases to locate the UK’s major cities and in RE they learnt about The Ten Commandments and discussed which of these rules they considered to be the most important.

This week in Year 5 the children have started their new English unit in historical texts which the children have really enjoyed. They are currently reading Letters From the Lighthouse and the children have been enthralled from the very first page. They have produced some amazing ‘missing’ posters for one of the characters and used their inference detective skills to help them.

In Maths we have been learning how to find area and perimeter looking at regular polygons and rectilinear shapes.

In Science this week, their focus has been on gravity and the difference between mass and weight. The children conducted an investigation where they used the same weight for a pendulum but different length strings to see if it had an affect on how long it swung for. They found out that the longer the pendulum the longer it swings for.

This week in Year 6 has been an absolute blast! The children have shown determination and perseverance during their final practice SATs - no matter how challenging they have been! They also played a super competitive game of Rounders in P.E with Jack - the results between the two teams were certainly close!

In Science, they have been looking at buzzers and testing decibels. They were tasked with finding out how the number of batteries used would impact the volume of the buzzer. As a whole class, they came to the conclusion that increasing the voltage across a circuit meant that there was an increase in the volume of the buzzers. Following this, they had the task of plotting their data on to a line graph which they successfully completed.

On Thursday, the children were privileged to be in the presence of David Mason (a renowned author) who helped them to create an astonishing piece of writing using their creative flair. Throughout the day, they used elements of drama - like freeze frames and slow motion - to come up with ideas for their piece of writing. They were also tasked with writing a piece of poetry entitled ‘Freedom’ - the results were both creative and from the heart and they certainly enjoyed writing with so much independence and experimenting with different styles and genres. 

Welcome back to school. We hope you have had a lovely Easter and a relaxing break. It has been lovely to see all the children return to school excited about their new learning.

This week in Nursery the children have started their new topic ‘In the Garden.’ The children were very excited by the arrival of caterpillars in class.  They were all very keen to have a look at them and see how tiny they were and the children can’t wait to see how big they get before they turn into butterflies.

The focus of this topic will be minibeasts with a particular emphasis on Eric Carle stories.  This week’s story is ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, they have been on a bug hunt to see what they could find in the nursery garden, made a minibeast tuff tray together, cut out pictures from the story and linked their maths work to the fruits that the caterpillar eats.  The children worked hard building towers using the numbers 1-5 helping their friends and working together.  They can’t wait to show you their symmetrical butterflies.

Reception have had a fantastic first week back. During circle time, the children shared their favourite part of the Easter holidays. They then drew pictures and wrote sentences about the fun things they got up to.

The children have begun their new topic- In the Garden- and have been busy learning their text map for their new story, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

The children have enjoyed a challenge in Maths this week as they have been learning the teen numbers. Reception have played lots of number games, practiced their number formation and have composed teen numbers using numicon and ten frames.

In RE, they have been thinking about the things that make us special. The children drew lots of pictures to represent all the things they are good at such as riding a bike or giving cuddles.

On Wednesday, Year 1 enjoyed their first dance session with Miss Becky. The children had a great time making poses and starting a dance routine. Watch this space for their completed dance routine at the end of this half term!

In Year 2 this week the children have been using lots of technology to enhance their learning! In Geography, they have started their new topic based on Zambia – they throughly enjoyed using the IPads to discover and research all about Zambia and they found some very interesting facts to share. In Computing, the children have started their new unit based on pictograms. They learnt how to create tally charts and they then displayed their data on Seesaw.

This has been a fun-filled first week back for Year 3 and has been filled with many firsts. Year 3 absolutely loved their first swimming session at Copley and the excitement was tangible even on the coach journey there. When in the pool, the teachers were wowed by their level of swimming ability. They did us proud!

In music this week, Year 3 had their very first lesson learning how to play the ukulele. Miss Hind was incredibly pleased with their ability to pluck the strings to make some notes. There are definitely some budding musicians in Year 3!

Not only do we have some budding musicians, but we also have some excellent geographers too! Year 3 loved getting stuck into their brand new geography unit, which focuses on the local area of Mossley. The unit began with a game called ‘Memory Mapping’, which involved the children working in groups to populate a blank map of the UK with the different countries and cities that it is made up of. They worked brilliantly in their teams and communicated their ideas clearly to their team members. Year 3 showed off their knowledge of continents of the world and they loved sharing a song that they had learnt to help remember them.

As usual, Year 4 have come back from their holidays and got stuck into their learning straight away!  In English, the have begun their wizard inspired unit on instructions.  The children have had fun designing and describing their own wizard characters as well as following instructions to make Harry Potter wands.

In Maths, they have been looking at tenths, both written as fractions and decimals.  In Science, the children have begun their new topic on states of matter.  They looked at a variety of materials and began sorting them into groups of solids, liquids and gases using a Venn diagram to do this.

In RE, Year 4 have also been thinking about rules and how they apply to religion and life in general. In Geography, they have begun their new topic on the UK and they have been using maps and atlases to help them learn about the different countries which make up the UK and the varying landscapes across these places. 

It has been a busy and exciting first week back in Year 5. In English they have started to edit their Brazil videos. The children have been able to set the Brazilian background themselves, add effects, edit video lengths and add background music all while thinking about the audience.

In Maths they have been looking at fractions, decimals and percentages and how they all go hand in hand. In Science, they investigated forces. They created their own data tables and estimated before recording how many newtons each activity took.

It’s been a busy start to the term for Year 6 as they’ve launched straight in to a Design and Technology challenge that is both complex and engaging at the same time. The children have been tasked with designing and making structures for a playground. They’ve carried out research in to playgrounds by both drawing on their own experiences and looking at online sources before experimenting with the strength and durability of different structures. It was then time to start making models of their playground structures – the children combined different materials and techniques to build slides, swings, climbing frames and other playground components.

In maths this week, they’ve been busy calculating the area of different 2D shapes from rectangles to parallelograms. They’ve even recapped their knowledge of the different types of triangles and the children have discovered the formula to find their areas. There have definitely been some tricky problems for our Y6 mathematicians to solve and they’ve relished rising to the challenge!

It has been a lovely end to the term this week. The children have thoroughly enjoyed our Easter Bingo event with parents, carers and family members joining them to win some Easter goodies. We also had our Easter service on Wednesday and our Ethos group did a great job of leading our service and sharing the story of Easter and the meaning behind the cross as a Christian symbol.

In Nursery the children have been really engaged in their learning about the Easter Story and have enjoyed role playing the story. They have also been busy making Easter gifts.

Reception have had a fantastic week learning about the Easter story. On Monday, the children learnt about Palm Sunday. They made palm leaves and sang ‘Sing Hosannah’. On Tuesday, they read ‘The Easter Story’ and learnt that Jesus was crucified and then he came back to life. The children worked hard to sequence the Easter story pictures.

Reception have also been learning about how we celebrate Easter and we talked about the Easter bunny, chocolate and Easter egg hunts. The children worked hard to make baby lamb Easter cards for their grownups at home.

The children have excelled during our Maths sessions this week as they have been learning about repeating patterns. They made musical repeating patterns with their bodies such as ‘tap-tap-clap!’ and created Frozen patterns using Elsa gems and beads.

In Year 1, the children have been looking at making sculptures during their Art lessons. They have completed observational drawings of birds and feathers using different mediums. They then used their drawing of feathers to collage onto their bird shape. Finally, they made legs from wire and created 3D bird sculptures. They look fantastic!

Year 4 have had a busy final week before Easter.  This week has been Design Technology week, where the children have designed and made free standing structures.  The children learned about pavilions and designed their own, thinking about the aesthetics of their structure as well as how to make it stable by reinforcing it with card and tape.  The children then weaved card and created cladding roofs.  The project was quite a challenge, with some of the children’s completed pavilions being quite unstable.  They have therefore spent lots of time evaluating the finished structures, thinking about some of their problems and how they would overcome them if they were to make their pavilions again. 

The children have also had fun completing a Times Table Rock Stars inter school challenge this week as well as making Easter cards.  They finished off the week with some Easter bingo, with lots of prizes for all to enjoy.  The children have worked incredibly hard this term and we hope they all have a very well deserved Easter break.

This week has been a busy week in Year 5! They have been recording their tourism programmes about Brazil with the green screen and they have all been very enthusiastic! We have definitely seen some budding presenters in our midst!

The children have also worked very hard with their mid year assessments and Mrs Fernandez is so proud of everyone! Well done!

On their last day the children took part in Easter bingo which was lovely! We hope you all have a lovely two weeks off!

The children have had a very exciting week in Year 6! In Computing, they have been using an I.C.T program called Scratch. Through Scratch, they used elements of coding to design and create their own games. The aim of each game was to catch as many items as they could (using a basket as a prop), and they were tasked with collecting the highest amount possible. The children found this challenging at first, but they showed perseverance and determination as a whole class. By the end of the lesson, everyone had designed their own game - each one was absolutely brilliant!

They’ve had an eggcellent time celebrating Easter this week – the children put their art and design skills to the test in order to make some impressive Easter cards and they thoroughly enjoyed Easter bingo on the last day of term - the chocolate prizes proved particularly popular and we definitely ended the term on a high!

It’s been a busy week in school. We have welcomed some of our Governors into school to experience a science learning walk. The Governors really enjoyed their visit and were amazed by the scientific knowledge and use of technical vocabulary that they saw in lessons and that the children used when talking to them about their learning.

Year 5 have enjoyed their Experience easter event at Mossley Methodist Church this week where they visit a number of stations to find out about the Easter story.

This week, Reception have been learning about the story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. The children were very excited to have a visit from Goldilocks on Monday. They put her in the hot seat and asked her lots of questions and Goldilocks then took them on an adventure outside to hunt for the three bears. The children have enjoyed retelling the story using props and masks and used their cutting skills to sequence pictures of the traditional tale.

The children also had a teddy bears picnic this week where they brought in their favourite teddy from home. The children learnt how to make porridge and enjoyed sharing it with their teddy bears.

3D shapes have been their maths focus this week and the children have been using lots of fantastic mathematical language to describe the shapes. They enjoyed creating shape pictures using paint and 3D shapes and they have been building towers too.

Year 1 have been busy listening to and then re-enacting the Easter Story through role-play this week. The children have considered how each person in the story would feel and how they acted and they have all got a very clear understanding of the main events of the story.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been completing their ‘eggciting’ Design Technology unit which has been exploring making leavers, pivots and linkages. They really enjoyed looking at a variety of designs and they used this inspiration to design, create and evaluate their own moving Easter mechanisms. All the children showed perseverance and determination when creating their linkages as it was quite tricky. Well done!

This week has been another brilliant week in Year 3! In R.E, the children wowed us with their knowledge of our Easter unit so far. They shared this knowledge during a great game of ‘Quiz, Quiz, Trade’. Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed learning about Maundy Thursday and they loved re-enacting the last supper.

In English, Year 3 have worked so hard on completing their innovated Manfred the Baddie stories. They really enjoyed sharing them with others. There are definitely some budding authors in Year 3!

Year 3 wowed us in science this week with their fantastic understanding of magnetic and non-magnetic materials. They remembered so much about friction and how it effects the movement of an object. Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed exploring to see if an object could be moved on top of a whiteboard when a magnet was placed underneath. They used this knowledge brilliantly to plan an investigation which we will complete next week.

The children have had another great week in Year 4.  In English, they have enjoyed writing poems on the different stages of a river.  They have used their geographical knowledge of the upper, middle and lower course of a river and combined this with their creative use of figurative language to create some wonderful poems.  The poems are especially fitting, because it was World Poetry on Thursday 21^st, so they enjoyed sharing their poems on this day as well as reading and performing pieces written by some well-known poets. 

In Maths, the children have continued to learn about fractions, adding and subtracting fractions and converting improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa.  In Science, they learnt about how wind-turbines can create electricity and they even had a go at making their own.

In RE, they learnt about the traditions of Lent and on Friday, they all enjoyed a fantastic trip to Park Gate, where the children were able to consolidate what they have learnt about rivers this term and to see first-hand, some of the features that they have been discussing in class. 

Year 5 have had a lovely week, especially their visit to Mossley Methodist Church for Experience Easter. The children took part in different activities to reflect on how Christians celebrate Easter. The children discussed how they can pray for others in need, they wrote about hopes and dreams on stones, learned about Holy Communion and Baptism.

They have been eagerly writing persuasive non-chronological reports on visiting Rio in Brazil. Once completed their aim is to create a tourism programme using the green screen which the children are very excited for.

Year 6 have been brushing up on their archaeology skills this week by delving further in to the lives of the Mayans. They’ve been thinking about how historians and archaeologists work together to infer what life would have been like in Central America more than 1000 years ago. The children were given images of a key piece of evidence from the discovery of King Pacal: a grand mask. They then worked together to establish key lines of enquiry and determine what this particular piece of archaeological evidence could tell us about Mayan culture.

In science this week, the children have been working hard to understand how simple circuits work. They were challenged with recognising a range of symbols, and they even had a go at building their own circuits!  Some of the children expanded on their simple circuit designs, adding extra batteries, bulbs and switches.

It’s been another busy week in school. Some of our Year 3 and Year 4 children participated in the MCSP Dodgeball competition at Mossley Hollins on Tuesday evening and both teams played brilliantly, earning them second place. Well done to both teams.

This week Nursery have been reading the Mick Inkpen book ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’.  The children have enjoyed being Jasper and each day they have looked at what Jasper did with his bean, and then they did the same with theirs.  They are hoping their beans grow into tall beanstalks!

They have also been focussing on mathematical language of short, shorter, shortest, tall, taller and tallest.  The children worked out who was the shortest and tallest in the class.

Reception have been busy learning their number bonds to 10 this week. They enjoyed learning and singing a new number bonds song and have been exploring different ways to make 10 using dinosaurs, conkers, cars and numicon; they have been writing number sentences too.

The children have enjoyed retelling the story of The Little Red Hen using their text map. They then had a go at writing the story using their phonics knowledge.

There has been some wonderful language rich role play from the children in the bakery this week. The children have been wearing baker’s hats and using flour and playdough to bake bread rolls and cakes for their friends.

The children in Year 1’s Arts and Crafts Club had a great week using their imagination to create junk models. They have created a spider that is also a man, a tree monster and an Easter Garden.

In Year 2 this week the children have been learning about volume and capacity. They have enjoyed looking at a variety of measuring jugs and cylinders and they have learnt to measure in millilitres and litres. In Computing, they have been learning how to use Scratch Jnr to programme characters and move them around the screen. Some of the children progressed further and also added voices and different backgrounds – the possibilities were endless.

This week has been a fantastic week in Year 3! In history, the children thoroughly enjoyed investigating the lives of rich and poor people in Tudor times.  They used a video clip, non-fiction books and information researched on their iPads. They enjoyed working in pairs to produce a creative poster showcasing what they had found out.

In science, the children have been continuing to develop their understanding of ‘Forces and Magnets’. They enjoyed investigating to see which everyday materials are magnetic and which ones are non-magnetic. They used some super scientific language too when sharing what they had found out.

Year 4 have had another jam-packed week, full of exploration, discussion and problem solving.  In Maths, they have learnt more about fractions and now understand what proper, improper and mixed fractions are.  They even learnt how to convert improper fractions into mixed fractions and to add and subtract fractions. 

In Science, the children learnt about the functions of switches.  They had fun making their own switches using card, split pins and paperclips. In English, they have spent the week writing diary entries, writing in character as the Tear Thief.  In Geography, the children learnt about the different stages of a river.  Next week, they plan on using their geographical knowledge to help them complete some cross-curricula writing in English. 

In RE they have enjoyed learning more about Jesus’ time in the wilderness and what he did prior to and after his time in the desert.  They have also enjoyed observing and holding the baby chicks.  The children will be very sad to see them go, but have loved having them in the class.

This week in Year 5, the children have been busy writing their own versions of Leon and the Place Between. The children have used some brilliantly adventurous vocabulary and amazing figurative language.

In RE they learnt all about Mother Teresa and discussed how Christians today follow Jesus’ teaching about justice and forgiveness.

In Science, the children looked at reversible and irreversible changes and heated different items to see if they changed. They even tried to make butter but this was a long process that they didn’t quite reach!

This week, our Year 6s were further immersed in to the world of William Shakespeare when we were treated to a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Young Shakespeare Company. The children were immediately enthralled by the show’s humour and mystical setting as the actors brought to life the characters and the plot in their unique twist of this treasured classic. Before long, the children themselves were playing a vital role in the play, adding sound effects, actions and even taking on some of the different characters too - who’d have thought we had such Shakespearean talent in our midst? As a class, we’ve decided that Puck was our favourite character although the ass was a close second! By immersing themselves in the production, the children gained an incredible understanding of what is an extremely complex tale!

They’ve also been experimenting with electricity in their science lesson this week; the children worked in teams to carry out a number of investigations involving wires, batteries, bulbs, switches and motors. They refreshed their understanding of simple circuits and then applied their knowledge to a series of problem-solving tasks!

It has been a fantastic week in school! On Thursday we celebrated World Book Day. Everyone dressed up as their favourite book character and the children and staff all looked amazing! Parents and carers were invited into school to take part in our Book Swap event and the children were able to swap a book of their choice from home for a new book to read. Throughout the day, the children enjoyed a costume parade, performed poems in our poetry slam and enjoyed lots of other activities in their classroom including Book Bingo.

On Monday, some eggs arrived in school and Year 4 volunteered to look after these until they hatched into chicks. We were thrilled to come into school on Thursday to find that we had six new chicks. We are hoping that the rest of the chicks hatch before the weekend. The children have loved visiting our new chicks and watching them play together.

In Nursery this week, the children have opened a garden centre in their role play area to develop their spring theme. They have been busy making special surprises for a special person on Sunday and have learnt a song about their Mummy to share. During World Book Day the children enjoyed dressing as their favourite book character and reading lots of stories. They also took part in the book swap event and enjoyed decorating their wooden spoons.  

Reception have had a visit from The Little Red Hen this week. The Hen left a huge mess of red feathers, flour and dough. On Monday morning, the children were excited to find a letter from the Hen asking them to make some bread. Reception had a fantastic day making bread rolls. They enjoyed mixing the ingredients, kneading the dough, adding jam and butter and most of all eating them!

The children saved a bread roll for The Little Red Hen and used their beautiful handwriting to write letters to her to say thank you.

Their Maths focus this week has been finding 1 more and 1 less. The children enjoyed singing lots of number songs such as ‘5 little men in a flying saucer’ and using manipulatives to act them out and write number sentences too.

In RE, the children have been focusing on Diwali. Reception enjoyed drawing mehndi patterns, watching videos of fireworks and decorating Diwa lamps.

This week Year 1 have been looking at the Easter Story and Easter symbols. The children have used what they have learned to design an Easter garden.

Year 2 have had a fantastic week in school. The children have enjoyed celebrating World Book Day and learning their poem, 'When Daddy Fell in the Pond,' for the Poetry Slam. They have also made some brilliant book characters using their wooden spoon.

This week has been another busy and exciting week in Year 3! The children were all really looking forward to World Book Day and it did not disappoint! They thoroughly enjoyed learning their poem ‘I’m Walking with my Iguana’ and some of them even did extra practice at home! In the afternoon, they performed the poem for the rest of the school as part of our ‘Poetry Slam’. They were all amazing!

In science, the children have been learning about ‘Forces and Magnets’. They know that to make things move they need to apply a force to them. The class thoroughly enjoyed investigating to see if the distance a car travels is affected by the surface it travels on.

The children have made so much progress with their knowledge of fractions this week. They now know the difference between unit and non-unit fractions. As well as this, they know, and can explain, the difference between the numerator and denominator. Well done Year 3!

This week Year 4 have been really busy with all sorts of activities.  In English, the children have been doing some drama and using this to help them plan a diary.  They are writing diaries as if they are the Tear Thief from Carol Anne Duffy’s book. In Maths, they have been learning more about fractions; looking at mixed numbers and improper fractions and how they can convert between the two.

In Science, the children have been looking at insulators and conductors.  They tested lots of materials to see whether they were insulators or conductors.  In Geography, they looked at how people use rivers across the world and in RE they have been thinking about what the word ‘temptation’ means and why this word is significant during Lent.  The children considered how they are sometimes tempted and whether they are tempted by the same things as Jesus was. 

They have also had lots of fun this week making Mother’s Day cards and celebrating World Book Day.  On World Book Day, the children enjoyed all sorts of activities including ‘Book Bingo’ and our whole school poetry slam.  They also enjoyed sharing some of their favourite books and had a go at some creative writing games. 

It has been a great week in Year 5. The children have been working hard in Maths finding fractions of amounts to finish off their fractions unit. 

In Geography they have been comparing climates with the UK and Brazil, naming countries in South America and their capitals. Children were very surprised to learn about time zones and loved finding out what children would be doing in Brazil at different times of our day.

I must admit, Year 5 smashed it at the Poetry Slam with their performance of World Book Day by MC Grammar. They were amazing, check out the video! We are so proud!

In Year 6 this week, they’ve thoroughly immersed themselves in to the world of literature in order to celebrate World Book Day. They’ve been mastering a classic Shakespeare verse for our whole school Poetry Slam and loved taking on the role of haggard witches conjuring a spell as they brought to life a famous scene from Macbeth – we can’t wait to go and see the Young Shakespeare Company perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream next week!

On World Book Day itself, the children enjoyed helping to run our whole school Book Swap event and loved helping some of our younger children choose a new book to take home. They’ve also been discovering which Hogwarts House they belong to by sporting the Sorting Hat and once they discovered where they belonged, they’ve found everything there is to know out about their houses in order to write a magically persuasive text.

It has been an exciting week in school. We were all very pleased to find out that Mr and Mrs Bradley’s little girl had arrived, weighing 7lb 5oz and is called Nancy Jayne. Mum and baby are doing well. Congratulations to them both!

The children have enjoyed their Top of the Tree reward activities at Tumbles, Summit Up and Doodle Pots this week. It was lovely to welcome so many visitors into school today for our achievement assembly. Lots of children enjoyed sharing their certificates with parents, carers and family members.

In Nursery this week, the children have started their new topic of spring. They have read a new text -‘The Trouble with Tadpoles’ and have found out all about the life cycle of a frog. They have made frog headbands and painted tadpoles and frog spawn.

In their maths work they have been jumping on lily pads and adding one more. They have used flip frogs to have a frog race and have placed the frogs in order. The children enjoyed messy play with jelly frog spawn and raisins!

Reception have enjoyed beginning their new topic this week- Traditional Tales. Their focus text is ‘The Little Red Hen’ and the children have enjoyed learning the text map to retell the story with actions. There has been lots of fantastic role play from the children as they have been retelling the story using puppets and small world with their friends.

Their number of the week has been the number 9 and the children have enjoyed exploring different ways to make 9 using numicon and building blocks. The children have all been practicing their number formation too.

In RE, the children have enjoyed their learning on the Jewish religious celebration- Sukkot. Reception have worked hard to design their own Sukkah.

This week, Year 1 have been looking at the story ‘Space Ant’. In the story there is a character called a ‘Tigeroo’ that is half tiger and half kangaroo. The children have been busy creating their own animals and will soon be writing non-chronological reports to describe their animals.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning about measuring in centimetres and metres. They have enjoyed comparing lengths and heights and have used a variety of apparatus to measure different items around school.

This week has been busy and fun packed week in Year 3. It started with the exciting news that Mrs Bradley had welcomed her gorgeous new baby girl, Nancy Jayne. Year 3 wishes Mrs and Mr Bradley huge congratulations.

The children have been excited about their learning too! They were very proud of their finished letters to Manfred the Baddie and they could not believe it when they received a special delivery from him: a book entitled Manfred the Baddie.  The children could not wait to read it!

In history, they thoroughly enjoyed moving around the room and exploring different historical sources from the time of King Henry VIII. They then made conclusions about what his appearance and character was like.

They loved reading chapter four of their guided reading text, ‘The Sheep-Pig.’ They enjoyed using their super scanning skills to find different words in the text and then matched them to their meanings.

Year 4 have had another jam-packed week, full of exploration, discussion and problem solving.  In maths, they have learnt more about fractions and now understand what proper, improper and mixed fractions are.  They even learnt how to convert improper fractions into mixed fractions.

In science, the children learnt more about electricity; the components required within a circuit and how a circuit must be complete in order for electricity to light a bulb or make a buzzer work.  In English, they have written character descriptions and have just begun writing a persuasive letter.

 In Geography, they have enjoyed learning more about the features of rivers and in RE they have used the gospels to carry out research into what happened to Jesus in the wilderness.  The children have also enjoyed their second Forest School session and have begun rehearsing their class poem in preparation for the World Book Day poetry slam!

This week in Science, Year 5 have been investigating the difference between melting and dissolving and seeing which materials are soluble and insoluble. They predicted what their materials would be then used hot water to see if their materials were soluble.

In English the children wrote some super-impressive descriptions that Mrs Fernandez was so proud of! They described the infamous ‘Abdul Kazam’ from their new book Leon and the Place Between.

In Maths they have been multiplying fractions, the children were very confident with this and enjoyed the lessons! Check out their Homework Help video on Seesaw to see the methods they used!

Year 6 been thinking all about the future this week and thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the MCSP Careers Fair at Mossley Hollins. At the event, the children were given the opportunity to visit stalls in small groups and ask questions to a wide variety of people about their careers – there was a police office, a paramedic, a nurse, an estate agent, a forensic scientist and even an ecclesiastical lawyer! The children asked some brilliant questions and there was lots of interaction on each stall, they even had a go at valuing a house with the Estate Agent and interpreting a historical document from 1888 with the lawyer.

The event also involved taking part in a workshop delivered by Scott from Live ‘N’ Learn. Through a range of problem-solving and interactive activities, Scott explored with the children the role that mindset plays in success.  They discussed effective communication, first impressions, teamwork and the fact that success usually only comes to those willing to work for it.

Welcome back to school! We hope you have had a good half term and are ready and raring to go for the next half term ahead. It has been an exciting week in school as the children have embraced their new topics and units of work.

In Nursery, the children have been celebrating Chinese New Year. They have used their passports to travel on an aeroplane to China and have been busy finding out how families celebrate Chinese New Year. On Tuesday the children had a special visitor, Mrs Lyness, who came to talk to the children about Chinese New Year and she showed them lots of artefacts from China.

In class the children have enjoyed role play in their Chinese Takeaway and have been busy mark making by copying Chinese symbols using chopsticks. The children have also listened to the story of Chinese New Year and have been role playing it using animal masks.

Reception have also been celebrating Chinese New Year this week. They have enjoyed listening to Chinese music, using chopsticks, exploring Chinese New Year decorations, making lanterns and writing Chinese numbers. The children also tried Chinese food this week; their favourite was the chicken noodles!

In Maths, the children have been learning about time. They have been singing their days of the week song and talking about the months of the year. They also looked at sand timers and challenged themselves to balance on one leg for 30 seconds.

This week in Year 1’s Arts and Crafts Club the children have been exploring printing with a variety of tools and materials. They had lots of fun experimenting with the different tools and materials.

In Year 2 this week, the children were thrilled to see their finished Van Gogh artwork being displayed outside their classroom – they really enjoyed creating different textures with the oil pastels. In Music, the children have been learning how to play the notes G and A on the recorder and in computing they began their new programming unit using Espresso Coding.

Mrs Flint has had a lovely week getting to know Year 3! The children have thrown themselves into all aspects of their learning from their new Life in Tudor Times topic to their English work based on the book Manfred the Baddie.

On Monday, the class received an email to inform them that there was a possible stolen bag on the school premises. When they investigated, they found a bag hidden outside Year 3 and when they inspected inside the bag, they made conclusions about who the owner of the bag could be and why the bag was on the playground. Later in the week, the children discovered Manfred the Baddie had stolen the bag and they have begun to write a letter to him urging him to stop this villainous behaviour. They just hope he listens to their pleas.

The children have loved the start of their history work all about life in Tudor times. They were given the challenge of seeing if they could identify Henry VIII’s portrait amongst six other portraits. They made predictions about what he might look like and then once they had looked at all of them, they decided which one was of Henry VIII. Year 3 were very shocked to find out that they were all portraits of him from different times during his life.  After this, they played a game called ‘Each One Teach One’ to find out more about Henry VIII.  

The children have got straight back to work in Year 4, starting all of their new topics and beginning to read new texts.  In English, they have started to read ‘The Tear thief’ by Carol Ann Duffy and they will be using this text to inspire their writing over the next few weeks.  In English, the children have looked at figurative language and used some of these literary techniques to write a class poem.  They have also begun to plan a persuasive letter which they will begin writing next week. 

In Maths, they have begun their new unit on fractions.  The children have been looking at how fractions are equal parts of a whole and have begun understanding unit fractions. In Science, they have started their new topic on electricity, and they began this unit by thinking about electrical appliances and sorting these into groups, depending on whether they are mains or battery powered.  They realised that some appliances are both mains and battery powered, such as mobile phones and laptops. 

In Geography, Year 4 began their new Geography topic on rivers.  They looked at the geographical definition of rivers and began thinking about and learning some of the correct terminology for their features.  In RE, they commenced their new topic on Lent.  The children started this topic by looking at the significance of Ash Wednesday and discussed the meaning of the word ‘sin’ and why admitting to sins can be hard. 

They also started their new Guided Reading text this week which is ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ by Michael Morpurgo.  It looks like it’s going to an action-packed and mysterious book and the children are all looking forward to reading more of it next week!  As well as all of these new topics, they have also managed to fit in their weekly PE/Swimming, Spanish, Music and Forest School lessons.  What a busy, fun-packed week it’s been!

In Year 5, the children have had a fun first week back! They kicked off their new English topic with a bang! The children entered the classroom that had been turned in to a circus! They enjoyed candyfloss and popcorn, watched the acrobats and even tried juggling. The children had a great morning immersing themselves in the new book: Leon & The Place Between.

In Maths they have started using the bus stop method for division which the children are becoming very confident at. In Geography they identified famous human and physical features of South America.

In Science they conducted an investigation to separate materials and the children had to think about which strategy would be the best to separate one material from another.

Year 6 have made a particularly fantastic start to the new term; they’re already hooked on their new class text: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. After exploring some of the beasts within the beautifully illustrated book and even joining Newt Scamander on a tour of his suitcase with a clip from the film, the children were gifted their own unique beast. They’re now tasked with helping Newt write a second edition of Fantastic Beasts and the children are each going to write a non-chronological report detailing the peculiarities and wonders of their very own wondrous critter. We can’t wait to see what they’ll produce next week!

The children were also keen to get started with their new science unit this week: electricity! They’ve shared what they already know and have been researching the lives and inventions of two key scientists: Alessandro Volta and Thomas Edison. They’re looking forward to carrying out some experiments with electricity in the coming weeks.

It has been a fun week leading up to half term. The children have celebrated Children’s Mental Health Week and Safer Internet Day and have been involved in a range of activities to celebrate these events.

Year 6 enjoyed their visit from Safe Squad where they discussed how to keep themselves safe in lots of different scenarios, from being safe online to safety near water, fire safety and lots of things in-between.

It was lovely to see so many parents, carers and family members join us in school on Tuesday morning for our Year 3 and Year 4 musical performance. Each class shared some of the songs they have been learning and played a number of tunes on their instruments under the guidance of Miss Hinds from Tameside Music Service. We were all very impressed with how much the children have learned and how confidently they performed. Well done!

Some of our Year 5 and Year 6 children took part in the Tameside Multi Sports Panathlon event at Ashton Sixth Form College on Thursday and enjoyed participating in a range of sports.

In Nursery this week the children have been learning all about Valentine’s Day. They have made Valentine’s cards and hats. The children also enjoyed a session with our Digital Leaders finding out all about Safer Internet Day.

Reception have enjoyed a week full of love as they too have been learning about Valentine’s Day. The children enjoyed making and giving gifts to one another in the tuff tray and using their cutting skills to make a bouquet. They made Valentines crowns and enjoyed a love themed number hunt. Reception are learning to be kind and thoughtful and have enjoyed complimenting each other and drawing pictures for their friends. They have also worked hard to make Valentines cards for a loved one.

The children have been busy with their Maths learning this week. They have been using lots of maths vocabulary such as longer, shorter and taller. They enjoyed building tall towers and finding long and short objects around the classroom.

This week in Science, Year 1 have been completing experiments using their senses. They have had a great time tasting crisps, completing a feely bag task and using their noses to guess smells.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been enjoying their art week. They have been looking at expressive artwork and using acrylics to create different techniques. They are building up to their final piece which will be inspired by Vincent Van Gogh.

Year 3 have had another extremely busy week this week in school. They have been making their own volcanoes. They started by making the volcanoes using lots of newspaper, they then painted the volcanoes and exploded them.

Year 3 have had their music performance this week, where they did a fantastic performance for their parents, carers and family members.

In RE, the children have been designing their own multifaith prayer room. They have used the knowledge that they have learned looking at what different religions do during prayer. In Science, they have been looking at what their bodies need to stay healthy and have looked at the different nutrients they need and what they do for their bodies. They have also designed their own healthy meal.  

In Geography, the children have been looking at earthquakes. They have located on a world map four famous earthquakes and have looked at the impact of the earthquakes on people and the measurement on the Richter scale. They have also looked at the long term and short-term impacts of earthquakes on the people and on the land.

Year 4s final week in school before the holidays has been a super busy and fun one as it has been Art week.  The children really enjoyed learning about plinths and how they are used to display sculptures and other pieces of art.  The children learned about ‘The Fourth Plinth’ in London and also studied the sculptors of Thomas J Price.  The children began to appreciate that anything can be art and enjoyed considering how plinths help to display creations, giving artist’s creations status and grabbing people’s attention.  Creating their own plinths and selecting their own objects to be displayed, the children curated their own pocket-sized art gallery. 

Linking in with their History topic on Romans, the children also created mosaic tiles.  The children created a piece of art-work based on Jesus. They spent time looking at different of representations of Jesus on the internet.  Each child selected and printed one or two of these images. They then put them together to create a large, class collage, including some of their own representations of Jesus created using printing techniques. 

The children have been so excited setting up their own art-gallery, especially since local artist, Chris Cyprus, had agreed to come along to take a look at their creations.  In tribute to him, they also created their own Chris Cyprus inspired class collage.  As you can see from the photos, we think that Chris was quite impressed! 

This week in Year 5, the children have been creating maps using the bold drawings and typography techniques that they have learned over the half term. The children were so proud of their maps and they should be, they were amazing!

In Spanish the children were creating Valentine’s Day poems and were able to translate them and write them in both English and Spanish.

In English they wrote speeches to show how the Big Bad Pig had changed to a Big Good Pig. Once finished and edited they used an app to bring them to life!

On Monday, Year 6 were treated to an afternoon of workshops delivered by Tameside’s Safe Squad. Our visitors led the children through a series of hands-on activities and engaging talks surrounding issues of personal safety, online safety and community safety. The children particularly enjoyed learning about Basic First Aid, which included spotting signs and knowing what to do in an emergency as well as having the opportunity to practice CPR on specially designed manikins. Year 6 responded to each session brilliantly and asked some extremely pertinent questions!

Their geography lessons have transported them to the continent of North America this term and they’ve really enjoyed getting to know everything they can about its physical and human features. As their unit of work comes to a close, they’ve focused on one of the continent’s most vibrant and eclectic cities: New York. The children explored what it’s like to live in the Big Apple and how it differs from their own town of Mossley. They also used a little bit of green screen magic to recreate an iconic photograph from 1930s New York: Lunch atop a Skyscraper.

It has been a busy week in school. Some of our Year 5 and Year 6 children took part in the Tameside Athletics heats on Wednesday at Denton Community College. The children felt they performed really well, so they are hoping they have got through to the next stage in the competition. They also took part in the MCSP basketball competition at Mossley Hollins on Tuesday. Despite playing well, they didn’t make it into the top three on this occasion.

This week in Nursery the children have been continuing their work on healthy food and healthy bodies. They have looked at their healthy lunch boxes and sorted lots of different fruits and vegetables. The children have enjoyed selling healthy fruit and vegetables in their market shop.

The children have enjoyed exercising and playing games outside to keep their bodies healthy. They have talked about the importance of hygiene – washing their hands and wiping their noses. They have also talked about what happens if their bodies are hurt and need ‘fixing’ by putting plasters or bandages on and they practised doing this with the class dolls.

In Reception this week, the children have used all their knowledge of dinosaurs to create a dinosaur fact file. They enjoyed learning new facts from reading non-fiction books and used their phonic knowledge to write a sentence.

In Maths this week the children have been learning about doubles. They used a magic doubling cauldron to investigate doubles and made double butterflies with paint. The children also learnt the maths vocabulary ‘odd’ and ‘even’ and enjoyed exploring this with numicon and making odd monsters.

This week in Year 1, the children have been writing their own versions of Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates.  In Maths, they have focused on ordering and comparing numbers to 20.

In Year 2 this week, the children have continued learning about the importance of hygiene. This has involved learning about different microbes and they had the opportunity to create their own bacteria, fungi and viruses. The children really enjoyed doing this!

They were very crafty at Forest School last week and created their own bracelets and key rings and they also got to use a variety of tools to whittle the wood.

Year 3 have had another great and busy week in school. In Maths, they have been working hard when dividing 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers using a range of formal methods and their times tables knowledge. In English, they have continued to write their Greek Myths and have been including inverted commas for speech.

In RE, the children have been looking at prayers and blessings for the world. They have looked at what they are thankful for, what they would like help with, what they are sorry for and what they would like people around the world to be protected from.

In Geography, the children looked at the features of a volcano and were able to label a volcano and identify the features of a volcanic eruption. In Science, they have looked at muscles and were able to identify the different muscles in their body that they use when carrying out different activities. They were also able to name how many muscles there are in the body and identify how they can keep their muscles healthy.

The children have had a really fun and productive week in Year 4.  In Maths, they have just begun their new Maths unit on perimeter and length.  They have spent some time converting between km and m’s and have begun calculating the perimeter of rectangles.

In English, they have finished off their ‘Escape from Pompeii’ recounts, using Talk-for-writing to guide us.  The children did a fantastic job incorporating speech into their recounts and correctly punctuating this, as well as including fronted adverbials and powerful vocabulary. 

In History, the children learnt more about the Celtic warrior Boudicca and wrote inspirational battle cry speeches.  In Science, they carried out an experiment aimed at exploring how the distance from a sound source affects how loud it is heard.  They used a data logger to record the decibels detected of a sound source at varying distances.  After that, they had a go at recording their results in a line-graph.  It was the first time that the children had come across line-graphs and so the task was quite challenging, but they amazed Miss Snioch with their determination and resilience. 

The children have also been working really hard to perfect their recorder and singing skills in preparation for their music performance next week.  The children can’t wait to showcase their musical talents.

This week in Year 5, the children have been busy writing up their innovated Twisted Tales for the Three Little Wolves making sure they’ve been adding expanded noun phrases, dialogue and relative clauses. The children have been really excited to write their own versions and share their ideas with the class.

In Maths they have been securing their knowledge of multiplying two-digit numbers by two-digit numbers using the long multiplication column method. The children have been trying really hard to perfect the method and even answer tricky word problems.

In Art this week they have been looking at bold drawings on busy map backgrounds. The children drew things that were famous in Mossley or the surrounding Greater Manchester areas on their maps and made them bold by using shading and over-drawing techniques.

Year 6 have been well and truly globetrotting in geography this week as they’ve turned their attention to the 50 states of the USA. They’ve been learning all about the physical and human features of North America for a few weeks now and the children were keen to delve deeper and explore the diverse nature of America’s states. They worked in small groups and focused on one state each to discover everything they could about its population, history, physical features and what it’s like to actually live there. Our budding geographers then presented their findings in the form of a website, which links brilliantly with their ICT unit of work and was a great way to showcase their computing skills!

It’s been another busy week in school. The children enjoyed National Handwriting Day on Tuesday when they were given the opportunity to showcase their handwriting skills whilst writing poems for display in school. Some of our Year 4 and Year 5 children had an action packed Thursday with Freddy Fit as they trained to be play leaders for our Wake up, Shake up and lunchtime activities.

In Nursery, the children have been thinking about Healthy Schools this week and have linked this work with their text ‘Handa’s Surprise.’ The children have enjoyed acting out the story and recognising the different fruits and animals in the text.

In Reception this week, the children have been working super hard on their writing. Their dinosaur egg hatched and they found muddy dinosaur tracks in the corridor meaning the dinosaur had escaped. The children worked hard to make wanted posters to see if anybody had seen the dinosaur.

Their number of the week is number 6. Reception have been representing the numbers 6, 7 and 8 on a 10 frame and with numicon and have been practising forming the numbers with chalk. 

The children have enjoyed learning their new sound of the week- j. They have been feeding the j words to the jellyfish and went on a j hunt around school, spotting things that begin with the j phoneme.

In Year 1 this week, the children have been using talk for writing to start to plan their story writing based on their text Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates. They have also continued their RE unit of work all about sacred buildings and have been thinking about why a church is sacred to Christians. They have thought about some of the special artefacts they might see in a church and what they are used for.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning about the importance of hygiene. They completed two scientific investigations which involved using glitter and oil to see how germs can be spread from person to person and to different surfaces. They then explored the most effective method to remove germs and made predictions before trying out their different theories. During this week’s forest school session, the children made their own dens in some very windy conditions!  

In Maths, Year 3 have been working hard dividing 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers with remainders. The children have used a range of methods and used their times tables knowledge to help them. In English, they have been writing their Greek myths and have included some fantastic descriptions and details.

In RE, the children have been looking at where and how Hindus pray and they discovered that they can pray anywhere. They also looked at the Hindu shrine and decided which of their own special items they might put on their shines.

In our Spirituality session this week, the children looked at what they are thankful for. As a class they created a list of everything they are thankful for and why they are thankful for these things. The children worked hard and came up with some brilliant ideas. In Geography, they have looked at the Ring of Fire and locating some of the world’s volcanoes and earthquakes. In Science, they have looked at the three different skeleton types and they sorted animals which either have an exoskeleton, an endoskeleton, or a hydrostatic skeleton.

This week has been really fun in Year 4! In English, the children began writing their recounts of ‘Escape from Pompeii’ using their talk-for-writing to help them.  In Maths, they learned how to divide 2 and 3 digit numbers, using place value counters and part whole models to help them.

On Tuesday, it was ‘National Handwriting Day’ and so the children spent some of the morning copying out poems to show-case their fantastic handwriting.  Year 4 have made so much progress with their handwriting!  On Wednesday, Year 4 went on a school trip to Mossley Library.  Many of the children became members and lots of other children felt really inspired by the trip and plan to become members in the future. 

In History, they learned about Boudicca and how she led a rebellion against the Romans.  They acted out the rebellion and then wrote rebellious speeches in the role of Boudicca. In Science, they carried out some experiments to help them understand what pitch is and why some sounds are high pitch and some sounds are low pitch.  In RE the children learned all about Jesus’ eight Beatitudes and had a go at writing their own.

This week in Year 5, the children have been looking more closely at subtracting fractions in Maths. They have recapped converting mixed numbers to improper fractions and back again in order to subtract two mixed numbers. The children have been sharpening their Maths and English skills with Countdown this week! They have all enjoyed trying to get the number (or as close to it as possible) and sharing with the class how they got there. They have also been trying to make the longest words possible using their spelling knowledge. They even had their first Countdown champions!

Some Year 5s joined Y4s this week for Freddy Fit training where they updated their Wake up, Shake up moves and play leader activities.

In Computing they have been enjoying using the Spheros. The children used the Spero Edu app to make codes for the Spheros to follow, this week’s challenge was to see if children could make their Sphero follow the shape of a square.

Year 5 also celebrated National Handwriting Day on Tuesday by finding some of their favourite poems by David Mason (our resident author) and writing them up as neatly and as beautifully as possible. They did a fantastic job and everyone produced some amazing handwriting and creative thematic backgrounds for their work.

It has been another jam-packed week in Year 6! It started with the children throwing themselves in to their volleyball session! The warm-up of running three times around the pitch got their hearts racing and after a little time to regain their breath, and mine too, they got stuck into the volleyball session. 

Maths this week has been all about life-learning. If you ever need to know how to change the proportions of a recipe, then Year 6 are just the people you need! They loved solving a range of recipe ratio problems and then to put it into a real-life context, they took a flapjack recipe that serves 6 and made enough for 24 people. They applied all the skills they had acquired over the unit to make the flapjack with enough for one piece each. It was delicious too! 

Year 6 were also given the opportunity to interview a Humanist this week – they have been learning about codes for living and the difference between being ‘good with God’ and being ‘good without God’. It was fascinating to talk to Kevin about his life as a Humanist and it was really interesting to discover that actually there are a lot more similarities between Christianity and Humanism than they thought there would be.

It has been a very cold and snowy week at Micklehurst. The children enjoyed being able to play in the snow on Tuesday and make snowmen. We are hoping that the ice that remains will have thawed over the weekend so we can get back outside at playtimes!

It has been Healthy Schools Week in school and the children have been working really hard to eat healthily, bringing healthy snacks to school for playtime and having healthy packed lunches or eating all their fruit and vegetables for their school meal.  They have talked about how exercise can help us stay healthy and how it can help our own mental health and wellbeing. The children have also covered the content in the RSE curriculum and have had the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about a range of subjects related to Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World.

In Nursery this week, the children have been continuing to learn about winter and they observed first hand how cold it can be at this time of year. They enjoyed exploring the snow and seeing what it felt like and they have been finding out all about penguins by looking at lots of information books. The children have also enjoyed a mini athletics session this week.

This week, Reception have been continuing to learn about dinosaurs. They practised their text map for our topic book ‘Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp’ and used their phonics knowledge to write captions to retell the story. The children were very excited to find a dinosaur egg in our classroom; they are hoping it will hatch soon!

Our Maths work has been focused around weighing. The children have enjoyed exploring weighing different objects using the scales and have been using the maths vocabulary ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’ to describe what they noticed.

The snow has been a wonderful addition to our topic work this week. The children wrapped up and went on a Winter walk, spotting signs of winter and observing the seasonal changes.

In Year 1 this week, the children have been using a range of adjectives to write descriptions of the characters in the text Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates. In Maths, they have been looking at numbers up to twenty and thinking about the numbers that are one less or one more than a given number. Year 1 have also enjoyed their RSE work this week where they have been labelling the main parts of the body, thinking about who is special to them and who looks after them in their family but also the special people who might help them within the community.

In Year 2, the children have absolutely loved their first Forest School session – they made fires, climbed trees, litter picked, played in the mud kitchen and best of all they toasted their own smores! It was so much fun exploring and they can’t wait to build their own dens next week.

Year 3 have had another great and busy week in school. In Maths, they have been working hard dividing 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers using visual methods and the partitioning method. In English, they have been designing their own Mythical creature, creating a plan for their myth and the children have started writing their opening to their myths.

In RE, they have been looking at how Muslims pray. They have learned about prayer times, which way they face when they pray and how they use a prayer mat. In class, they designed their own prayer mats.

This week for healthy schools’ week, the children have been looking at a range of different areas. They have looked at safe and unsafe situations and discussed how their bodies feel during these situations. They looked at how their body gives us early warning signs to show and tell us when they don’t feel safe. They have also looked at different types of secrets and how they can be good or bad, looked at how to stay safe online and understanding touch and their own personal space.

Year 4 have been learning all sorts this week.  In English, they have been focussing on powerful verbs and possessive apostrophes. The children are going to be writing a recount of the ‘Escape from Pompeii’ book and hope to be able to apply their learning into their writing.  In Maths, they have been learning how to use formal methods of multiplication and division.  Initially, they used practical equipment to help them with this, but now most of the children are quite confident to solve multiplication and division problems without it! 

In RE, the children have been learning about the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and thinking about why Christians find this story so inspiring.  In Science, they have been making and using yoghurt pot phones which have helped them to understand that sound is caused by vibrations and that the further away you are from a sound source, the fainter the sound.  Year 4 have also enjoyed learning about the Roman Emperor Claudius in History.  They carried out their own research and created fact files all about him. 

They spent any spare time that we had this week looking at our Year 4 RSE curriculum and learnt about all sorts of things, including puberty, peer pressure and bullying. 

It's been very busy in Year 5 as they have been celebrating Healthy Schools Week. The children have been learning all about puberty and the changes their bodies will go through. They’ve also explored feelings and emotions and they enjoyed creating emotion ladders and anger sandwiches filled with strategies to keep ourselves calm.

In English this week, they’ve been enjoying exploring their new text, a twisted fairy tale: The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig. The children have explored the characters and the plot and giggled endlessly at the creative twists on the original text. They’re now busy writing diary entries from the perspective of one of the key characters.

In Maths they have been becoming masters at adding, subtracting and converting fractions. The children’s confidence is really growing!

As part of Healthy Schools Week, there has been lots of purposeful discussion in Year 6 – the children have learnt about growing up, puberty, healthy relationships and how to keep themselves safe when using social media. We’ve been really impressed by their mature attitudes and thought-provoking questions.  

In English this week, their attention has turned to all things innovative! The children have taken key elements of their class text, The Lost Happy Endings, and creatively innovated them in order to plan their own version of the fantasy narrative. They’ve looked at creating their own vindictive villains and used drama to plot out the events of their sticky end – it’s been great fun getting creative with the story and they’re looking forward to putting pen to paper next week and producing their own literary masterpieces.  

It has been a very busy week in school. The children have been working hard and enjoying lots of exciting learning.

In Nursery this week, the children have continued to learn about winter.  They have been on a winter walk, looking for signs that winter is around us. The children enjoyed finding crunchy ground and twigs with no leaves.  They all collected a twig which they decorated with white paint and sparkles to look like snow and ice.

They have made their own information books all about Winter, selecting their own pictures and then having a go at overwriting winter words.

This week, Reception have enjoyed learning about dinosaurs. Their focus text for this half term is ‘Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp’ and the children have enjoyed learning the text map to retell the story. The children have been busy hunting for dinosaur eggs and spotting tricky words. They also made dinosaur tracks using dinosaurs and paint and painted different kinds of dinosaurs.

In Maths, Reception have been finding 1 more and 1 less. They have been singing lots of number rhymes and acting them out using masks and props. The children’s favourite was 5 currant buns!

In Year 2, the children have been learning about different Jewish artefacts in RE. They enjoyed looking at the artefacts and completing their own research using the Espresso app. In English, they received a very exciting visit from a pirate dinosaur who requested that they make some new crew members for him. The children loved being creative and modelling their dinosaurs and they are now going to create their own non-chronological report about their dinosaurs.

In Science, the children have been learning about the importance of having a healthy diet – they then looked at a variety of food labels to compare their sugars and fats.

Year 3 have had another fun and busy week in school. In Maths, the children have been working hard multiplying 2 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers using visual methods and using the column method. In English, they have been retelling the myth 'Theseus and the Minotaur' and have done this verbally by creating a class performance of the myth and using a story board. They have worked very hard creating wanted posters for the Minotaur using a range of descriptions.

In Science, they have continued their new unit called ‘Animals including Humans and this week have looked at the function of the skeleton. The children discussed the reasons why they have a skeleton and looked at some of the joints in their bodies.

In Geography, Year 3 have been looking at the earth’s tectonic plates and have been labelling the different tectonic plates on a world map and identifying which plate they live on. In RE, they have been looking at why we talk. They have created a list of different reasons why we talk and discussed special people we could talk to. In Computing, they have started looking at the new unit on an app called ‘Scratch’. The children had great fun navigating around the new app.

This week, Year 4 have enjoyed reading more of their class text ‘Escape from Pompeii’.  They have had fun acting out one of the scenes from the book and using this to help them to complete some work on speech and how to correctly use inverted commas.  The children have also delved deeper into their class topic on Romans, learning about the highly organised and skilled Roman Army, what life was like for Roman soldiers and what equipment and clothing they had. 

Our Year 5s have thoroughly enjoyed showcasing their scientific enquiry skills this week as they’ve delved deeper in to their Animals including Humans topic. They’ve been looking at the development of the foetus during pregnancy where they discovered at what stage the foetus develops lungs, joints and even fingernails. The children represented their findings in the form of a scatter graph and were very precise with the data that they collected.

In Maths this week, the children have been learning to add fractions including using mixed numbers and improper fractions. They have been focussing on using a range of methods to find their answer and then discussing which is the most efficient for them – they’ve been impressing us with some fantastic mathematical vocabulary and some very accurate calculating too!

In Art the children enjoyed looking at typography and different font styles. They then began to create their own in their art books which they were very proud of!

During English they’ve been looking more into the trial of the three little pigs and ran a debate as to whether they should be found guilty or not guilty. The children enjoyed the challenge of speaking formally and arguing respectfully! Finally, the children received their Wondrous Book Club books this week and they are eagerly getting into their new books from the Fantasy genre.

Year 6 were definitely intrigued at the start of this week to discover what their new book would be and there were some very interesting questions raised when they were presented with a sack full of rather bizarre items. Our band of inquisitive linguists were tasked with making predictions about what the text may be by looking at the contents of the sack, which included a woolly scarf and hat, a child’s t-shirt, underwear and some gloves…with six fingers! Eventually, it was revealed that their new text was Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘The Lost Happy Endings’. Since then, they’ve been busy delving in to the atmospheric story and finishing their forest-inspired artwork.

In Maths this week, they’ve been introduced to the concept of ratio and the children have been using a range of manipulatives to answer increasingly more challenging questions. They’ve learnt about the meaning of the symbol for ratio and have been looking for patterns when solving problems.

Happy New Year! We hope you have had a lovely Christmas and a restful break.

It was lovely to welcome the children back to school on Wednesday and hear all about their Christmas activities.

In Nursery this week the children were pleased to see Mrs Brown return to school. The children have talked all about their Christmas holidays and the special gifts they have had from Father Christmas.  They have also begun to talk about their new topic ‘Winter’.  Their Story is ‘Jack Frost’ and the children have designed their own Jack’s, made hats, scarfs and gloves for him and been looking for signs of winter.

Reception have had a wonderful first week back at school. The children have enjoyed talking about the Christmas holidays and sharing what Father Christmas brought them. They then drew pictures of their favourite present and used their phonics knowledge to write a sentence about it. The children have enjoyed being back playing with their friends and enjoying the new dinosaur provision for our new topic.

In Year 1 this week, the children have satrted their new Art ubit of work. They have been busy experimenting with water colours using different techniques e.g. wet on wet and splattering.

In Year 2, the children have had a fantastic start back to school after the Christmas break. In Geography, they have started their new topic which is all about Continents and Oceans and have enjoyed using the globes, atlases and Google Earth to locate where we are in the world.

In English, the children have had a very exciting visit from a pirate dinosaur who left them a variety of clues and a new book. They really enjoyed working in partners to look at the first page of the story and they made a variety of inferences and predictions.

Year 3 also had a great first week back at school. They have been extremely busy with all of their learning.

This week in English, they have been looking at the Greek Myth ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’. The children have studied the maze where the Minotaur was kept and tried to find their way out of it as well as thinking of questions to ask the characters in the myth.

In Maths, they have been multiplying and dividing 2-digit numbers by 10 and using related calculations to help them with multiplying and dividing. In Science, the children have started their new unit called ‘Animals including Humans and they started off the unit by looking at the human body and labelling the skeleton with both the common name and the scientific name. They worked scientifically by conducting their own research to name the bones.

In Geography, the children have started looking at volcanoes and earthquakes and this week they have looked at the layers of the earth and were confident to label the layers and name some facts about each layer.

Although it’s only been a three-day week, Year 4 have managed to fit quite a lot of fun and learning in!  The children have started their new History topic on Romans, which they began by doing some work on chronology and learning about Julius Caesar.  Linked in with this History topic, they have begun reading their new class text ‘Escape from Pompeii’ by Christina Balit.  The children enjoyed reading the first few pages together which describe what Pompeii is like and writing their own descriptive settings.  They have also enjoyed acquiring some new vocabulary this week, using thesauruses to find synonyms for some familiar words. 

As well as this, Year 4 have begun reading their new Guided Reading text ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes.  In Maths, they have been looking at factor pairs and have also begun learning how to multiply decimal, one, two and three digit numbers by ten.  Their new RE topic is all about Jesus and why some people find him inspiring.  The children began this topic by considering who their own heroes/heroines are and discussing why they were inspired by them. 

Year 4 also enjoyed their first Dance lesson of the year on Wednesday.  The children had fun learning new dance moves, working in teams and showcasing their own dances.

It's been a great first week back in Year 5! In English, the children have immersed themselves in to the world of Twisted Fairy Tales. They began by using role play to recall the events of one of their favourite classics: The Three Little Pigs. This proved to be absolutely hilarious (there were some particularly expert wolf impressions!) and it gave us the opportunity to establish the key features of Fairy Tales. The children then experienced their first Twisted Tale as we watched a riveting news clip that cast doubt on the wolf’s guilt – they’re now fully engrossed in trying to work out who is the guilty party!

In their science lesson this week, they launched a new unit of work focusing on Animals including humans where they looked at different animals and learnt lots about different animal types – there was some brilliant scientific vocabulary used and lots of prior knowledge recalled too. Their enquiry skill for this week’s lesson involved looking for patterns and they made predictions about the gestation periods of a number of different insects and mammals.

It’s been a busy start to the term in Year 6. This week, they’ve embarked upon a brand new Graphic Design project as part of their art curriculum. The children brought in samples of cardboard packaging from home and they explored the design elements of each box and thought about what appeals to customers. The children also investigated a number of artists tasked with re-branding familiar products for supermarket shelves. They then explored the nets of their packaging and redesigned each one using different media and techniques – the children have really enjoyed learning about Graphic Design and it seems like it could be quite an interesting future career prospect for some!

They’ve also launched their new class text this week. Whilst the children are yet to discover the title of their upcoming fantasy picture book, they have been introduced to the villain! Our keen linguists used a range of descriptive writing techniques to describe the witchy-looking rogue and then used marbling and silhouetting to display their work in a brilliantly vivid and creative way.

It’s been a fun last week of term! Nursery and Reception performed ‘The Wriggly Nativity’ and were such superstars as they confidently told us the story of Christmas. The children have also enjoyed their Christmas parties and our Ethos Group led a wonderful assembly to encourage us to think about how we can show compassion to others over this festive period.

Our choir have been spreading festive cheer this week. On Monday, they visited Sandon House Care Home, the COOP in  Mossley and Tameside General hospital to sing a range of Christmas carols and songs. Christmas bingo took place on Tuesday and the children enjoyed our Christmas Jumper Day today.

In Nursery, as well as their fantastic performance in the nativity, the children have enjoyed their Christmas lunch, pulling crackers and wearing their Christmas hats. At their party on Wednesday the children enjoyed lots of games and a bouncy castle. They even met Father Christmas and he loved their super singing! 

The children also enjoyed Thursday’s activities including having their faces painted with festive characters and playing on the bouncy castle. It’s been a fun week with lots of happy children. Mrs Nield wanted to tell you how much she has enjoyed working in Nursery and getting to know the children during Mrs Brown’s absence.

Reception have had a wonderful week enjoying all the festivities. The children made us all proud in their Nativity and had lots of fun playing Christmas bingo. They used their phonics knowledge to complete some Christmas labelling in literacy this week and made gingerbread houses on the cutting table. In Maths, they have been learning the differences between night and day and playing lots of Christmas counting games. The children also enjoyed their Christmas dinner this week.

Year 1 have had a very exciting week. On Wednesday they went to watch Lost and Found at the Aviva Studios in Manchester and they were mesmerised by the whole experience.

In Year 2 this week, the children have really enjoyed being festive. They have finished designing and sewing their Christmas stockings and have thoroughly enjoyed getting their faces painted too! In History, they finished off their Great Fire of London unit by learning the very popular nursery rhyme ‘London’s burning’. They used a range of percussion instruments to enhance their performances and created some musical masterpieces!

WOW what a busy and Christmassy week it has been in Year 3. The children started the week by continuing to learning their 8 times tables in Maths and then they started to look for patterns with the 2, 4, and 8 times tables. In RE, they retold the Christmas story and worked extremely hard to include some time adverbial phrases.

Year 3 have taken part in Christmas bingo where they had lots of fun and lots of chocolate winners. The children have been making their Christmas cards which included some painting. They had their Christmas party on Wednesday afternoon, where they enjoyed lots of games, pass the parcel, had some treats to eat and had a special gift left by Santa! They have also had their faces painted, been on the bouncy castle and made their Christingles. They have had a brilliant and busy week!
 

Although it’s been the last week before we break up, Year 4 have actually been continuing with their usual work!  Last week, they wrote fantastic poems about the Kraken and so this week, they edited them and then typed their perfected poems up using Seesaw.  The children are going to show off their fabulous work on one of the school display boards. 

This week, Year 4 also finished their Guided Reading text ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and completed reviews of the book.  As a Christmas treat, they also watched the film and spent some time comparing the book to it.  The children have completed their RE unit of work all about celebrations this week, learning all about the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah.  They learnt about the kinds of food that Jewish people eat during this time and the symbolic significance of each food item. 

Of course, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without all the fun and games in school too.  This week, they have made Christmas cards, played bingo, enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner and had much merriment at their Year 4 party, bouncing around on the bouncy castle and having their faces painted. 

In Year 5, the children have been festive too! They have been making their Christmas cards, playing bingo and making their Christingles. They also enjoyed their Christmas party and Christmas dinner!

They’ve had a brilliantly festive end to the term in Year 6. The children have taken part in several Christmassy activities throughout the week and have thoroughly enjoyed getting in to the festive spirit! They’ve tried their luck at Christmas bingo, used a range of artistic techniques to produce some mince pie themed Christmas cards and showcased their dance moves at the Christmas Party. 

In maths this week, they’ve been working on their understanding of BODMAS and solving some gift-themed calculations. In English, the children planned and wrote persuasive letters to Santa Claus in order to apply for the position of ‘Elf’ at the North Pole - they came up with a whole host of arguments that would persuade Saint Nick to hire them, their letters were hilarious and full of elf-thusiasm! 

It’s been a great term and a fabulously fun week, but now we are all ready to spend time with our families over the Christmas holidays. Have a lovely Christmas everyone!

What a fabulous week! Key Stage 1 have performed their Christmas production ‘It’s a Baby’ for parents, carers and family members and Key Stage 2 have performed ‘Elf.’ The children have all worked hard remembering their lines and the lyrics for their songs. It was lovely to see the children enjoying themselves and it is starting to feel a lot more Christmassy!

On Wednesday afternoon, our Street Dance team took to the stage and showcased their performance which they have been learning for the competition. They had a brilliant afternoon and performed fantastically.

In Nursery this week, the children have been very busy decorating their Christmas tree. They have made winter pine cones, candy canes and reindeer to put on their Christmas wreaths. The children have also been very busy rehearsing their part in the Nativity, ready for their performance on Monday. They have also written letters to Father Christmas and he now has a very long list!

Reception have enjoyed a festive week in school learning about the Nativity story. The children painted a stable and then used their cutting skills to add the nativity characters. They then labeled them. They have made Santa decorations, written letters for the elf to take to Santa and made gingerbread Christmas cards.

In Maths, the children have been learning about shapes. They sorted squares, triangles, rectangles and circles into 4 hoops and then organized them into 2 groups- 4 sides and not 4 sides. Reception have also been drawing the different shapes on the whiteboard and making festive shape pictures with them.

In Science this week, Year 1 have been looking at the seasons of Autumn and Winter. The children have enjoyed a number of experiments to remove colour from leaves and have made snow and ice crystals. It was lots of fun!

In Year 2 this week, the children have been completing their textiles Design and Technology unit, which has involved creating their own Christmas stockings. They enjoyed creating their designs, making a template and cutting out the felt. They then learnt how to thread a needle, tie a knot and join two pieces of material together. The children loved their finished Christmas stockings and also enjoyed peer reviewing each other’s stockings.

WOW it’s been another busy week in Year 3. In Maths, the children have been looking at the four times tables and have been learning to confidently multiply and divide in 4s. In English, they have been writing some fantastic descriptions of the Weather Monster and Joe from their book and they have used some superlative adjectives, similes and adjectives.

In RE, the children have been looking at Humanism. They have been discussing the different values they live their life by and looking at which they think is the most important.

The children have been working extremely hard when practising their songs and lines for the Christmas production. In Guided Reading, they have continued looking at their new text, ‘Stone Age Boy’ where they have been making predictions and answering retrieval, explanation, summarising and inference questions.

Yet again, it’s been another busy week in Year 4.  The children spent a lot of time this week rehearsing their lines and songs for the KS2 Christmas performance.  They are so glad they did though, as all their hard work paid off and they did a fantastic job with their performance.

In between, rehearsing and performing, the children still managed to fit most of their usual lessons in (I’m not sure how they did, but they did!).  In English this week, they enjoyed listening to more of their class text ‘Pugs of the frozen north’ and using it as inspiration for some vocabulary and poetry work.  In the book, there is a Kraken and they used thesauruses to gather some powerful vocabulary that they might use to describe it’s appearance and movements.  The children then used some of this vocabulary to create similes and alliterative phrases, before combining some of these to create a free verse poem.  They had great fun and produced some fabulous poetry. 

Year 4 have also spent some time reading James and the giant peach this week.  They have been focussing on how to summarise pieces of text/chapters.  In Maths, they finished off their unit on multiplication and division, focusing on multiplying three numbers together and developing their understanding of how this is commutative (i.e. it doesn’t matter what order you complete the multiplication in, the answer will always be the same). 

In Geography, the children learnt about famous mountains across the world and created fact-files on some of them.  In RE, they learnt about the Jewish celebration of Shabbat and why this weekly day of rest is so important to Jewish families.

This week in Year five, the children have been working super hard all week completing assessments. The children have done really well and definitely deserve a well-earned treat- a Christmas film!

They are starting to feel the Christmas spirit this week too as they have their lovely tree and decorations up and even personalised baubles!!

In English Year 5 have been creating newspaper articles on Pages on the iPads, they look really effective and very professional! In Science they have been creating bee pollination diagrams and in Geography they have learned all about the Amazon Rainforest and created layers of the rainforest infographic on Adobe Express.

It might be the penultimate week before we finish for Christmas, but this has not stopped Year 6 from working hard on all areas of learning. Year 6 threw themselves into the new English unit of work, which is based on the 2021 John Lewis Christmas advert, and centres on Sky (an alien) and Nathan. Having watched the advert, they discussed and ordered the events within it. It sparked a discussion about traditions that surround Christmas, and they then created a Chatterpix explaining one of traditions from the perspective of Sky.

In Science, Year 6 found out about the different parts that make up a balanced diet. They had a great discussion and debate about food myths that commonly exist. For instance, are all low fat versions of food actually better for us? Year 6 then found out more about what the different food groups do for the body.

It has been a very busy week in school. The children have been working hard learning lines and songs for their Christmas performances and have been practising a lot!

Our Ten Pin Bowling team took part in the second stage of the Greater Manchester competition this week in Bolton but despite bowling well they did not make it through to the regional finals. Well done to everyone for getting this far.

In Nursery this week, the children have been sharing their ideas about what Christmas means to them. They have watched the ‘First Christmas’ story and made a lovely Nativity display in the classroom with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. They have also painted angels and stars and acted out the Nativity story using character masks.

The children have enjoyed singing songs with actions and getting ready for their performance. They have learnt a new song – Five Christmas puddings in the bakers shop!

This week, Reception have enjoyed their learning based on the story ‘Mrs Honey’s Hat’. They have been labelling the different items that were found on Mrs Honeys hat and counting how many there were.

In Maths, the children have been learning all about the number 5. They went on a number 5 hunt outside, completed various exercises 5 times such as jumping, clapping and tapping their head and enjoyed performing 5 little speckled frogs. Reception have also been finding 1 more and 1 less using various manipulatives this week.

The children were very excited to find that our Christmas elf has arrived today and have been busy creating their gingerbread Christmas cards.

This week, the children in Year 1 were very excited to finish their puppets. They have been sewing, then cutting and sticking, to turn their designs into a completed puppet. Finally, they have evaluated their puppets and shown them to Year 4. Don’t they look great!

This week in Year 2, the children have been learning all about the properties of 3D shapes – this has included naming the number of faces, edges and vertices. They really enjoyed creating their own 3D shapes using the construction kit. In Design and Technology, the children have begun their very exciting textiles project, where they are creating their own Christmas stockings. They have created their designs, made their templates and cut out their felt ready to sew next week!  

WOW it’s been another busy week in Year 3. In Maths, the children have been looking at the three times tables and have been learning to confidently multiply and divide in 3s. In English, they have been writing their instructions for the birthday cakes they have designed.

In RE, the children spent the afternoon at Mossley Methodist Church where they took part in the ‘Experience Christmas’ workshop. They looked at the different elements of Christmas including the promises that were made, the messages and good news given to Mary and the Shepherds, the journey that Mary and Joseph embarked on and the gift of Jesus.

Year 3 have been working extremely hard practising their songs and lines for the Christmas production. In Guided Reading, they have continued looking at their new text, ‘Stone Age Boy’ where they have been making predictions and answering retrieval, explanation, summarising and inference questions.

Well done to our bowling team who competed in the Greater Manchester finals at Hollywood Bowl in Bolton on Wednesday morning. They had a great time!

This week has been Year 4’s Design Technology week.  They have learned all about the tradition of Kantha in parts of Southern Asia.  For those of you that don’t know, Kantha is the process of recycling and repurposing of old saris and fabrics into new blankets and garments.  Kantha purses are sewn together using running stitch, so they practised this stitch in a needlework lesson.  They also learned about different kinds of fastenings (zips, buttons, Velcro, toggles etc).  The children thought about the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of fastening before deciding which kind they wanted to use for their purses.  They also spent some time looking through sari scraps and deciding which bits they might incorporate into their designs.  They then spent time designing their Kantha purses (including a paper prototype), before making them.  The children really enjoyed designing and making their purses. 

In Year 5 this week, the children have been busy! In English they have been writing their own newspaper reports on the Gritterman losing his job and they made them look super professional on their iPads! In Maths they have been looking at fractions and converting improper fractions to mixed numbers using bar models.

On Wednesday they celebrated ‘No Pens Day’. The children learnt the British Sign Language alphabet, some useful phrases and even how to sign one of their favourite songs, ‘My Lighthouse’.

It’s beginning to look – and sound – a lot like Christmas in Year 6 as preparations have begun for their Christmas Performance. They’ve been busy practising songs and learning lines and the children are already looking fabulous on stage – they can’t wait to wow their audience next week.

On Thursday it was National No Pens Day so in the morning, they put their writing tools back in their pots and learnt something totally new: British Sign Language. The children discovered how to sign a range of greetings and questions as well as how to say their own names and they then collaborated with Year 5 to perform one of their favourite songs – My Lighthouse – in sign language. It looked brilliant and the children really enjoyed learning a new language!

They’ve also been getting to grips with some tricky new concepts in maths this week and the children have proved themselves to be quite the experts when it comes to fractions – they’ve been multiplying and dividing using fractions and even solving some complex two-step problems!

It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas in school as the children have started to learn songs for their Christmas Nativities and performances. The children are starting to get excited as we prepare for Advent. We have also welcomed Freddy Fit into school and all classes enjoyed a fitness session with him on Monday.

This week in Nursery, the children have had a very busy week. They have been reading ‘Elmer’ by David McKee. They listened to lots of Elmer stories and talked about what makes them special and unique. They have enjoyed painting a patchwork elephant and designing their own patterned Elmer. This work has led to the children looking at patterns and they have printed two step patterns using different colours. They have also enjoyed learning an Elmer counting song, playing instruments and making an Elmer head band.

This week, Reception have been learning about birthday celebrations. They enjoyed role playing in the birthday themed home corner, putting up birthday banners, writing birthday cards, opening presents and wearing the special birthday hat.

The children have been busy making playdough birthday cakes, writing tricky words in cake icing, designing and using their phase 2 phonics knowledge to label the ways they celebrate their birthdays.

In Maths, Reception have been focusing on the numbers 4 and 5. They have strengthened their fine motor by threading 4 and 5 beads onto string and used various manipulatives to make groups of 4 and 5. In RE the children have been thinking about special people. They enjoyed dressing up as ‘people who help us’ and drawing pictures of their special jobs.

In Year 1 this week, the children have taken part in a workshop called Crafty Penguins. This Lost and Found Adventure was an interactive and immersive workshop linked to the themes of Lost and Found including resilience and friendship. The children embarked on an adventure to take penguin eggs found in our school to the South Pole. However, to get there they had to cross the stormy sea. The children took part in solo, partner and group activities including drama, dance and discussion games. When the children arrived at the South Pole they made penguin sock puppets and could see their penguin come to life!

What an exciting week Year 2 have had! On Wednesday they visited the Fireground Museum in Rochdale to find out more about the Great Fire of London. At the museum, the children had the opportunity to wear the firefighters helmets and look inside a fire engine. They had great fun sliding down the firefighters pole.

Year 3 have had another very busy week in school. They started the week by taking part in a ‘Freddy Fit’ workshop where they had lots of fun! In Maths, they have moved onto their new unit of multiplication and division and the children have been able to create equal groups, make arrays and confidently recall multiples of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. In English, they have been looking at the features of instructions, understanding adverbs for how and imperative verbs and then they have been editing a set of instructions using their acquired knowledge.

In Art, the children have been looking at cave art in caves in France. They looked at the different designs on these caves and then were able to create some of these designs. In RE, they have been looking at Hindu Gods and Goddesses including the Trimurti. In Guided Reading, Year 3 have started reading their new text, ‘Stone Age Boy’ where they have been making predictions and answering retrieval questions.

In Science, the children have continued their unit on rocks, looking at the process of fossilisation and ordering the process. They have also found out about the famous paleontologist ‘Mary Anning’ and looked at her life and work. Year 3 have been working extremely hard practising their songs and lines for the Christmas production.

Well done to our Year 5 and Year 6 Hockey team and our Year 6 dodgeball team, who took part in Tameside's Glow Festival. They all had a fantastic time!

As always, it’s been really busy in Year 4.  The children started their week with a Freddy Fit session, which was super fun and energetic.  In Maths, they have continued working on multiplication and division and this week, they have been multiplying and dividing by 7, 11 and 12.

 In English, the children have begun writing their character descriptions, based on characters from their class text Pugs of the Frozen North.  In Science, the children learnt about the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees and used classification keys to help them identify different leaves.  In Geography, they’ve used atlases to locate the main mountain ranges and significant mountains across the UK and in RE they learned about why and how Muslims celebrate Eid and compared this celebration to Easter, thinking of similarities and differences between them.  Christmas preparations have also commenced this week, with Year 4 practising their class poem and Christmas songs!  They have had loads of fun and can’t wait to continue their learning next week!

This week has been a very busy week for Year 5! To start their week off they had a visit from the police to talk about cyberbullying and being safe online. The children asked very insightful and thoughtful questions.

They then had a visit from Freddie Fit who got all the children taking part in his energetic boot camp! The children loved it!

We enjoyed our STEM day with the RAF and Smallpeice where we took part in their Road to Riat. The children learned all about how to rockets and all the science behind it. They planned their designs, tested them using scientifically fair tests and recorded their data. One child managed to make their rocket fly almost 5 metres! 

Year 6 started their week with a visit from Holly, who works for Greater Manchester Police. Holly’s visit was to share with the children about ‘Cyber Crime’ and how to best protect themselves against this. Their knowledge of how to stay safe on social media platforms was widened, as well as knowing about the importance of things such as: protecting passwords, having a positive digital footprint and the laws around ‘Cyber Crime’.

Year 6 showed stamina and skill when they completed a workout session from ‘Freddy Fit’. During the session, they took part in a warm-up, individual challenges using a bean bag and an aiming game that was completed as a team.  The session culminated in an energetic workout that got everyone’s heart rate going!

In Science, they have been continuing to develop their understanding of the circulatory system. This week’s lesson centred on knowing the components that blood is made up of. Year 6 particularly enjoyed making their own blood and thinking about what each of the parts might be. For instance, we came to the conclusion that the marshmallows represented white blood cells because there were fewer marshmallows than Cheerios (red blood cells).

The children have enjoyed another busy week in school. They have been involved in Anti-Bullying week and have been ‘Making a Noise about Bullying.’ This has been the focus for their PSHE lessons throughout the week. They have also enjoyed supporting Children in Need today. They came dressed in non-uniform and wearing spots, yellow or anything Pudsey! Thank you to everyone who donated to this event.

Our Year 5 and Year 6 hockey teams played in the Tameside Hockey Competition this week and played brilliantly. Our year 6 team came in second place and our Year 5 team came in fourth place. Well done everyone!

In Nursery this week, the children have been reading The Gingerbread Man. They have then been on a gingerbread man hunt around school, and they were so excited when they found some! They have also been designing their own gingerbread man and baking it. The best bit was decorating it with a range of goodies.

This week, Reception have been learning about seasonal change. Reception enjoyed their Autumnal walk outside and found lots of conkers, colourful leaves and trees. The children have worked hard to create Autumn books and used their phonics knowledge to label the Autumn pictures.

The children have enjoyed their shape work this week and have been focusing on triangles, squares and circles. Reception went on a shape hunt around school spotting different shaped objects and have drawn pictures using different shapes.

In Year 1 this week, the children in Art club have been exploring watercolours. They have used eaves as an inspiration or a tool to make shapes and patterns. Have a look at the photos to see some of the work that they created.

In Year 2 this week, the children have really enjoyed their music lesson and Mrs Willcox was amazed at the amount of progress they had made. This week they completed their ‘silly face’ warm up, before learning a new song and two new notes on the recorder. In Computing, they have been using paper bots and bee bots to follow algorithms – the children found it quite difficult to follow the instructions correctly but had a good go!

It has been another busy week in Year 3. In Maths, the children have been adding and subtracting 3-digit and 2-digit numbers and solving a variety of mixed word problems and some multistep problems. In English, they have been looking at the features of instructions and creating a what you will need list including adjectives and quantities.

In History, they have been looking at changes during the Stone Age. The children have looked at how farming changed the lives of people and the different settlements they lived in. In RE, they have been looking at the names of Allah and have learned there are 99 names. The children have had a go at writing these names in Arabic.   

In Science, Year 3 have continued their unit on rocks and have been testing the different properties of rocks. They looked at the rocks density, durability and permeability. In Computing, they have used a website to create their own branching diagrams using yes and no questions. Well done to the certificate achievers this week.

The children been up to all sorts of fun things in Year 4 this week.  In Maths, they have been looking at multiplying and dividing by 9.  They have used arrays to help them with this and have begun to notice some patterns which help them to remember their 9 times tables. 

In English, they have enjoyed listening to more of ‘Pugs of the Frozen North’ and have completed persuasive posters and character profile fact files.  In Science, the children have learned about what vertebrates (has a backbone) and invertebrates (does not have a backbone) are and how they can classify living things according to these characteristics.  They looked at lots of pictures of living things and sorted them into ‘vertebrates’ and ‘invertebrates’ groups and then went outside for a mini-beast hunt.  They now understand that all mini-beasts are invertebrates.

In Geography, the children have been looking at what the climate of a mountain is and why and in RE they have learned more about the Hindu celebration of Diwali.  Year 4 have also been busy with their daily Guided Reading and arithmetic as well as spelling and handwriting practice, not to mention Music, PE/Swimming and Music lessons.