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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.  

This week, Year 5 have been celebrating Anti-Bullying week. They had such a lovely morning writing kind words to describe each other and sharing them in front of the class. Each child then gave their kind words to each other. It lifted their spirits and brought a smile to everyone’s faces!

In English, the children have been looking at formal and informal writing by writing different types of letters and a diary entry.

In Maths they have been multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1000 and the children used place value charts to help them visualise how it worked. They have done really well and are all little maths whizzes!

Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed reflecting on the value of kindness in order to celebrate Anti-Bullying Week - they were keen to spread the love to each other and sent messages and compliments around the room that made them all smile. The children were inspired by their recent Art and Activism unit to produce ‘zines’ designed to promote Anti-Bullying messages – they combined different media and techniques to create some truly eye-catching and thought-provoking pieces of work.

It was time for the big reveal in English this week too as our budding detectives were finally given the last piece to the puzzle and discovered what truly happened at the crime scene they’ve been investigating. They discovered that their new text was The Highwayman and listened to the poem to find out how the events unfolded – the children also completed a very complex puzzle in order to define new vocabulary from Alfred Noyes’ famous poem.

It has been another busy and exciting week in school.

In Nursery, the children have been learning all about Diwali. They have worked well together to create a large Diwa lamp for their display. They have also really enjoyed their ‘Stay and Play’ session with their parents and carers today. The parents and carers enjoyed tasting the indian food and completing the activities with their children.

This week, Reception have been learning about the Hindu festival, Diwali. The children have enjoyed reading Binny’s Diwali and creating Diwa lamps from clay. They have been making rangoli patterns in the rice and sand and also by using numicon. The children have been busy designing mehndi patterns and making Diwali paper chain decorations.

To mark remembrance day the children have made poppy bracelets to wear this weekend using paint and washing up liquid. They also made remembrance wreaths.

In Design Technology, Year 1 have been learning about puppets. The children created four different designs before completing their final design. Some of the children have also managed to sew their puppets together. Watch this space to see their finished products because they have had great fun making them and have been working really hard.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning all about Remembrance Day and the importance of the poppy appeal. They participated in the Mossley Town Council remembrance activity and used the Ipad’s to research the lives of different soldiers who had fought in World War 1 and World War 2. The children have displayed their tributes to the Mossley soldiers on the windows of our classroom. In Computing they have been learning how to program bee bots and the children loved watching their bee bots move!

WOW what an extremely busy second week back Year 3 have had! In English they started the week by writing some brilliant poems related to Remembrance Day. Then they received a letter from Tom from their English text asking for ideas to cheer up his friend, the Weather Monster. The children have created a list of ideas to cheer him up, including making sunshines and baking him a cake. They really enjoyed baking cakes!

This week in Maths, Year 3 have been working extremely hard subtracting two 3-digit numbers. They have been using the column method and have been exchanging both in the hundreds and the tens. They have also been learning their 3 times tables. 

In RE, the children have been looking at Holy Trinity and the three parts. They used this to create their own trinity linked to their own lives. In History, they looked at how life was very different in the Stone Age and looked at how they survived. 

In Science, the children have continued their unit of work about rocks and have been learning about the three different groups of rocks. They have also looked at the different properties of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks.  

Year 4 have been really busy this week.  In English, they have begun writing their non-chronological reports on Pugs.  In Maths, they have started their new topic on multiplication and division.  The children have begun looking at patterns and using little tricks to help them remember some of their times tables.

In Geography, the children have started to learn about the different types of mountains and how they are formed.  They used plasticine to construct models of the different mountains.  In Science, they looked at how they can use classification keys to group things according to their characteristics.  The children had a go at arranging themselves in the playground and then they used a classification key to group Pokemon characters.  After that, they had a go at grouping some animals.

In RE, the children have been looking at why Holy Week is a special time for Christians.  They looked at some of the symbolism associated with this celebratory week.  As usual, they have also had their weekly Music, Spanish and PE lessons.  The children have been focusing on giving their bodies full body workouts in the form of stretches, jumps, squats and some yoga moves.

This week in Year 5, the children were very excited to come to school in their pyjamas as they started their new English text – The Gritterman. They have also been learning about factors in Maths.

Our Year 6s have blown us away this week with their resilience and determination to succeed. They’ve been put to the test with some practice SATs papers and have definitely risen to the challenge – the children were really keen to discover their results and spot any mistakes that could help them learn.

They also enjoyed a visit on Thursday from two members of Greater Manchester’s ‘Magistrates in the Community’ team as they launched their brand new topic: Crime and Punishment. Sean and Karen, both Magistrates themselves, delivered a workshop detailing the role of the magistracy, including who they are, what they do and sentencing options in the Magistrates court. 

Welcome back after half term, we hope you have had a good holiday and enjoyed the break.

It has been a fun week in school. Year 6 children have had the opportunity to take part in the MCSP Maths Challenge and the Debating Society this week. Please read on to find out how they performed!

Children throughout school have enjoyed their Top of the Tree reward and have enjoyed a visit to Summit Up in Oldham where they took part in a clip and climb session.

Nursery have had lots of fun learning about Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot this week.  The children have learnt all about Bonfires, fireworks and keeping safe whilst out celebrating. They have made some amazing pictures of fireworks, sparklers, Catherine wheels and bonfires. In the finger gym area, they have made sparkers from pipe cleaners and beads.

The children also enjoyed having sparklers on Friday, writing their names with them and watching the different colours that they made.

Reception have had a wonderful first week back learning about Bonfire night. They enjoyed watching videos of Disneyland fireworks and listening to the different sounds a firework can make. They then used their phase 2 phonics knowledge to spell the sounds, ‘pop’ ‘bang’ and ‘fizz’.

The children have enjoyed creating firework artwork. They painted glitter mixed with water and PVA glue onto black card to create a starry night sky and then used lolly pop sticks and vibrant paints to create the fireworks. Well done Reception on creating such an effective piece of artwork.

In Maths, the children have been focusing on the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and sorting objects, numicon, counters and numerals into 1, 2 or 3. Reception have also worked hard ordering numerals 1-5.

Year 1 have had a very exciting start to the term! A penguin appeared in their classroom this week! The children have been very busy thinking about good adjectives to describe him and have then made found posters to try and find out where he has come from.

In Year 2 this week, the children have started their new History topic all about The Great Fire of London. They enjoyed being History detectives as they studied a variety of clues to work out why The Great Fire of London is a significant event in History.

In their computing lesson the children looked at what it means to programme a robot. They then took it in turns to give each other instructions to move around the classroom. They really enjoyed following instructions to create different pictures.

In Music, Year 2 appraised and learnt a new jazz song and they even tried to play along on the recorders!

The children have had a great first week back in Year 3. They have been extremely busy with all of their learning.

In English the children have been looking at the author Julia Donaldson and the story of Zog. They have written some brilliant sentences in the past tense, including adverbs for how, and descriptions of Zog. They have also created firework safety posters and written bonfire poems using their senses.

This week in Maths, Year 3 have been working extremely hard when adding two 3-digit numbers using the column method and exchanging both in the hundreds and the tens. They have also been learning their 3 times tables. 

In RE, the children have been looking at representations of God. They have thought about what if God was a colour or a letter in the alphabet or an animal, what would they choose and why. This week in PE, they enjoyed their Dance sessions and have taken part in their Forest School session.

In Science, the children have started their new unit of Rocks and Soils and have looked at different types of rocks. They worked in groups to sort the rocks into different groups based on their size, texture, colour or appearance. In Computing, they have been looking at different question types and sorting questions depending on if they are yes or no or open-ended questions.

In Year 4, their first week back has been full of new topics and fun.  In Maths, they have been learning about area, counting squares to help them calculate the area of shapes.  In English, the children have started to read ‘Pugs of the frozen north’ by Philip Reeve.  They have been looking at some of the figurative language used in the book, including similes, personification and onomatopoeia.  They have also begun looking at the features of non-chronological texts and carrying out research into the Pug breed as the children are going to be writing their own non-chronological reports next week. 

In Science, the children have begun their new topic on Animals and their habitats.  They looked at how and why animals are classified and thought of some of their own ways of sorting them.  In RE, they began their new ‘Celebrations’ topic and have discussed a variety of celebrations that they know about and sorted them into religious and non-religious celebrations.

In Geography, Year 4 began their new Mountain topic and learnt what the correct definition of a mountain is and the geographical features that a mountain always has.  As well as being introduced to lots of new topics, the children have also completed their usual daily/weekly activities too; lots of guided reading, arithmetic, spelling, Music and PE/Swimming.  Busy, busy, busy!

Year 6 have had a very busy start to the term and have represented Micklehurst at a number of challenging competitions this week. On Wednesday, a team of budding Year 6 mathematicians attended a maths competition at Mossley Hollins – it turned out to be quite a challenge but they did us proud and finished in second place after a close battle to become champions. On Thursday, it was Year 6s turn to compete in the MCSP Debating Society’s first competition of the year. Before the event, they held their very own class debate in school to hone their technique and explore the contentious topic in detail – should fizzy drinks adverts be banned before 9pm? On the evening of the competition, our debating team were superb! They debated with passion, skill and composure and certainly wowed the audience with their professionalism. They won their debate so well done Year 6!

They’ve also been working on a new art unit in Year 6 this week – Art and Activism. The children explored how artists often use their work to convey messages and stand up for causes they believe in. They then experimented with a number of techniques in order to create their own ‘zines’ filled with messages of protest linked to causes close to their hearts. 

It has been another busy week in school and today the children have enjoyed sharing the work they have completed during Black History month. 

Year 6 have had a fantastic time on their residential at Crowden Outdoor Activity Centre in Glossop. They enjoyed a range of activities including orienteering, archery, weaseling, canoeing, crate stack and a night line walk. They have also enjoyed spending time with their friends, even though some were a little homesick on occasions!

This week, Reception have been learning about emotions. After reading the colour monster and meeting the colour monster teddies, Reception used an action to show everybody how they were feeling. The children then drew a picture to represent how they were feeling and labelled it using their phase 2 phonics knowledge.

The children have worked really hard in Maths this week, recognising repeating patterns and continuing them. They practised some musical repeating patterns altogether and also used autumn objects to create their own repeating patterns.

The children have enjoyed exploring seasonal change, playing outside in the autumn leaves and watching them float in the wind.

As part of their science work on materials, Year 1 have enjoyed completing experiments to test materials to see if they are waterproof or not. First, the children made predictions and they tested these to see if we were correct or not.

In Year 2 this week, the children have thoroughly enjoyed completing their Art week. This has involved creating a variety of spirals using different media like wax, pen, pencil, oil pastels and chalk. One of their favourite lessons was drawing large scale spirals in the playground – they thought it looked amazing when it was finished. 

This week in Maths, Year 3 have been working hard subtracting multiples of 1 and 10 from 3 digit numbers.  In English, they have been writing their own version of the story ‘The Owl who was afraid of the dark’ and they have been working really hard using a range of grammatical features.

In RE, the children have been looking at when a Christian might use a Bible in their everyday life and how these can be used in the family home, in church, at a Christening or a wedding and when someone is looking for guidance. In Geography, they have been looking at Italian culture including religion, family life, food, carnivals and the opera.

As part of their work in Black History month, the children have been finding out about Rosa Parks and have looked at her story and how she was treated unfairly. They created a fact file about Rosa Parks and looked at her life. They have also been doing lots of singing and practising their song ready for our assembly on Friday.

Year 3 have also been completing their D+T unit this week and have designed their owl decorations, created a template and sewn their owls together. They have evaluated these and worked extremely hard when doing this.

The final week at school before the holidays has been fun-packed in Year 4.  The children have finished off their Maths unit on addition and subtraction.  They found subtracting with more than one exchange a little tricky and so they did lots of practise questions to help consolidate their understanding and so that they can remember the process. 

In History, to conclude their topic, the children looked at other ancient civilisations such as Mesopotamia, The Indus Valley and Ancient China and compared them to Ancient Egypt.  They found lots of similarities between the civilisations, but also identified a number of key differences.  In RE, they also finished off their topic, looking at how and why Hindu life is so vibrant and considering why it might be hard at times for Hindu children in Britain to live across two cultures. 

Perhaps the most fun they have had this week though is during their Art sessions.  The children have been looking at patterns in art and exploring the work of various artists who use repeated patterns in their creations.  They created their own tessellated pattern art-work based on Morris Escher and Bridget Riley and are really pleased with their creations!

On Friday, it was ‘Wear Red for Racism Day.’  They all wore red as a symbolic statement; giving racism the red card!  The children used this day to deepen their understanding of what racism actually is and why it is so harmful to individuals and the world.  They also used this day to perform their Black History Month song by Stevie Wonder ‘Ebony and Ivory’ and to display the placards that they created in response to learning about Martin Luther King.  Year 4 performed their class ‘We have a dream…’speech.  Wow!  That was one busy week!

This week in Year 5, the children have been celebrating Black History Month. They have researched all about the amazing and inspiring Mae Jemison who was the first black woman to become an astronaut and go to space. Her aspirations didn’t stop there though; she was also a qualified doctor who had been a GP for a while then went on to become a medical officer in the Peace Corps. She also set up the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, which runs science camps for students aged 12 to 16, among other projects. The children were amazed by her story, and they created some wonderful fact-files and biographies all about Mae Jemison.

To end their Anglo Saxons and Vikings topic with a bang, the children listened to the harrowing and gruesome story of Beowulf and Grendel the monster of the night. The children sat in darkness on the edges of their seats!

For our final day in school, the children took part in astronaut training which was lots of fun! It ended with them on their backs on chairs in the hall as they launched into space!

Our Year 6's have risen to the challenge of a Crowden Residential this week – they’ve proven to be daring, adventurous and resilient teammates and have made memories that will last a life time. The children rose to every challenge with gusto – they weaseled their way through caves, climbed crate towers, honed their shooting skills in archery and canoed their way across the cold waters of Crowden. They even ventured out in to the dark each night as they went for a walk under the stars and mastered an orienteering course that really put their team working skills to the test. With all that said though, it seems that the toughest challenge of all was making their own beds – there were definitely some interesting methods on show!

What a busy week! The children have been enjoying finding out about significant black people and the impact they had on society during Black History month.

Some of our Year 5 and 6 children have been taking part in Tameside’s Tag Rugby competition and the MCSP Tag Ruby competition this week. Both teams have played well as a team and shown great skill and determination and our Year 6 team came second whilst our Year 5 team came first in the MCSP competition. Well done to both teams, we are very proud of you!

This week in Nursery, the children have begun to think about Autumn and the changes that take place during this season. They have been on a walk around school collecting leaves and used these to make leaf plate collages.  They loved how all the leaves were different colours and were different shapes and sizes. Their leaf printing and conker rolling pictures are all very impressive too!

In Maths the children have been learning about heavy and light.  It was good to see how the scales worked and how the different objects made them move up and down.

This week, Reception have been learning all about their bodies. After drawing around Alby on a large roll of paper, the children labelled his different body parts and coloured him in. The children enjoyed singing ‘I have a body’ and joining in with the actions. Reception then went on a ‘body part’ hunt on the tyre park with clipboards and ticked off when they found the different pictures.

In Maths, the children have been focusing on the vocabulary ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’. They enjoyed using the scales to weigh different objects and toys and observe which is heavier or lighter. 

The children also enjoyed vegetable printing using different coloured paints and making bodies out of playdough.

This week at Forest School, Year 1 have enjoyed spending the afternoon playing in the mud kitchen, making dens, and relaxing in a hammock and on the swing. They ended their session by making a fire, whittling wood and toasting crumpets to enjoy with a drink of juice, a biscuit and a reflection.

This week, Year 2 have been using their tens frames and counters to add by making 10 – they found this a little tricky, but they enjoyed using the concrete apparatus to support their understanding. In computing, the children have carried on their photography unit by learning to take pictures in both portrait and landscape mode and then they have uploaded them to Seesaw. 

In Year 3 this week, the children have been working hard adding 1 to 3 digit numbers in maths and have been crossing the ten. They have looked at different methods to work this out using place value counters, base ten resources, counting on and using a number line.

 In English, they have been retelling the story of ‘The Owl who was afraid of the dark’ and creating a story board. They have designed a new character for their story and created their plan to help them write their own version of the story next week.

In Geography, the children have been looking at the human features of Italy. They have learned about the different regions in Italy and then looked at the different cities in these areas. They also looked at famous landmarks in the cities and looked at why people visit the different areas.

In RE, the children have been looking at the story of ‘The Lost Sheep’ and have discussed the meaning of the story, looking at how everyone is equal. They looked at times when they have been kind and supported someone when in need.

In Science, Year 3 have been answering the question ‘does my shadow move throughout the day?’ The children looked at and measured their shadow at different times during the day and noticed that their shadow moved and changed in size throughout the day.

This week, the children have been up to Mossley Hollins to take part in Spanish day. They had a great morning taking part in a range of activities learning about animals, colours, numbers, retelling the story of ‘The Hungry Caterpillar and learning about Spanish culture.

The children have been super busy in Year 4 this week.  In Maths, they have been looking at column addition with exchanges and they have also begun to look at subtraction too.  They used the column method in Year 3, so they are fairly confident using it.  However, the children are now focusing on problem solving and reasoning tasks which require them to apply this method. 

They have done lots of writing this week as they have begun writing instructions in English and writing non-chronological reports about pyramids in History.  In Science, they have been learning about food chains and in RE they have been learning about Mahatma Gandhi and why he was such an inspirational Hindu.  As part of their Black History Month learning, the children have also continued their learning about the inspirational Stevie Wonder and Martin Luther King JR.  They have learnt all about the Civil Rights Movement and have created their own Civil Right placards. 

In Art this week, Year 5 have started to use two media types; ink and oil pastel together. They looked at how they can build up and blend colours and were very proud of the seascapes they created.

In R.E. the children looked at the natural world outside and brought in one item each. They have sketched these items and discussed whether they were too beautiful to be by chance and how they can be seen as evidence for Christians to believe in God.

In Science the children looked at the movement of the Earth and Moon and how they rotate and orbit the sun. They used the motorised planetary model to help us!

There has been extra excitement in Year 6 ahead of their residential trip to Crowden next week. As well as finalising plans for the trip, Year 6 have had a very productive week across all areas of the curriculum. 

In Maths this week, Year 6 have been learning about BODMAS and they used this to complete calculations in the correct order. They could explain how they arrived at the answers they did and justified their choices referring back to BODMAS. Great work Year 6!

In Science, Year 6 have been continuing to explore adaptation with a focus this week on animal adaptation. After listening to ‘An Evolution Story’ by Isobel Thomas, they chose three animals and researched how they had adapted to survive in their environments. They immersed themselves in this learning and produced some great work as a result.

With the Mossley Carrbrook Schools Partnership debate on the horizon, Year 6 have been preparing for this by learning about both the structural and linguistic features of a balanced argument. There was a buzz in the air when the topic of the MCSP debate was revealed. The debate centres on the question, ‘Should fizzy drinks adverts be banned before 9pm?’ Year 6 threw themselves into researching arguments for and against. The arguments they have come up with are brilliant!

It has been another busy week in school. Our school councillors led part of our Assembly on Monday to introduce Black History Month in school and explained to the children what the theme of the month is and what each class were able to do to contribute. It sounds very exciting!

We have also welcomed our new vicar, Reverend Denise Owens into school and the children enjoyed meeting her and welcoming her to our school. We look forward to seeing Denise in school again next week when she is joining us in assembly.

On Wednesday, six of our Key Stage 2 children participated in the Tameside Bowling competition and we are delighted to inform you that our children played so well as a team that they won the competition! Well done everyone, we are so proud of you!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Harvest Service this morning. The children were thinking about how thankful we are for the food we have and where the food comes from. Our kind donations will be given to Mossley Foodback to help people within our local community.

This week, Nursery have continued to learn about ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and homes.  They started the week by going on a stick hunt, the children had lots of fun finding different sized sticks and working together as part of a team.

Later in the week the children painted a pig each and decorated a jumper for their pig.  They have pretended to be the big bad wolf and built up their physical skills by building houses for all the pigs. On Thursday Nursery had a wonderful time at forest school.  Thank you Mrs Distin Webster!

This week, Reception have learnt about their 5 senses. They have enjoyed exploring fidget toys, smelly perfumes, classical music and nature sounds. The children got stuck in to a citrus tuff tray, investigating the texture, smell, taste and colour of citrus fruits. Reception also went on a listening walk outside and around school and drew pictures of the things they could hear.

In Maths, the children have been recognising a simple set of objects, such as a packed lunch or a set of nature objects. They have enjoyed sorting using the sorting bears and coloured cups.

In English this week, Year 1 have been learning to write a set of instructions. The children have been very busy following instructions to make a pig mask, thinking about the features of instructional writing and have then written a set of instructions of their own.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been using their knowledge of different materials to create a protective coat for their eggs. They then had lots of eggciting fun dropping the eggs and looking to see if their predictions were correct.

This week in Year 3, the children have been working hard in Maths. They have been using their number bonds to 10 and applying their knowledge of these when adding numbers to 1000. They have also been able to add and subtract 1,10 and 100 to 3 digit numbers.

 In English, they have been writing a letter and trying very hard to include a sentence including ‘although’ and describing the character of ‘Plop’ from our new story ‘The Owl who was afraid of the dark’. In Geography, Year 3 have been looking at the physical features of Italy and have learned about the different mountain ranges and rivers in Italy. They were able to locate these on a world map and label some of these on a map of Italy.  

In RE, the children have been looking at the story of ‘The Prodigal Son’ and have discussed the meaning of forgiveness, thinking about a time when they have been forgiven or times when they have shown forgiveness.

In Science, Year 3 have been looking at ways to protect themselves in the sun. They carried out an investigation to see which sun cream, protected our IV beads the best. They have also been looking at transparent, translucent and opaque materials and were able to name different materials in different groups. The children then looked at how the length of a shadow changes through an investigation in class.

Well done to our Year 3 Stars of the Week. Look how proud they are! Harrison treated us to a musical performance when he played in front of the class.  The children enjoyed their cakes during the MacMillan coffee morning.

This week has been seriously productive in Year 4!  The children have carried on with their place value work in Maths, rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000.  In English, they have enjoyed writing newspaper articles on the i-Pads.  The class has spent a lot of time perfecting them by proof reading and editing them.  After finishing them, they have begun looking at instructions as they are going to be writing their own soon. 

In Science, the children have been categorising animals into groups according to what their diets consist of (herbivore, omnivore and carnivore).  They carried out their own research too and were surprised by some of their findings!  Who knew that a tadpole is a herbivore while a frog is a carnivore? 

In History, Year 4 have been learning about the importance of the after-life to the ancient Egyptians and the process of mummification.  They have begun making their own Canopic jars, decorating them with hieroglyphics.  In RE, they have also been learning about the after-life as they are learning about Hinduism.  The children have learnt about how Hindus believe in dharma, karma and moksha. 

They have also done lots of guided reading this week, using James and the Giant Peach and non-fiction texts on mummification as their basis for discussion and VIPERS questions. And, to finish off the week, they have started to learn about Stevie Wonder as part of Black History Month!  Wow, that was one busy week!

This week in Year 5, the children had a special treat in science. They had a zoom call from Benjamin who is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University College of London and it was all about the Euclid Space Telescope. Benjamin plays leading roles in developing, running and analysing some of the largest and deepest galaxy surveys ever undertaken.

Euclid is the name of a new space telescope that has recently started observing millions of faraway galaxies. The children were able to get to know Euclid, explore how it uses small hints in the light that it collects from these galaxies to find signs of the mysterious dark matter.

In Art this week, Year 5 used ink to create landscapes diluting it for backgrounds and using it neat for the foreground. 

The children had fun learning new skills in Hockey this week and they are really looking forward to playing some matches next week!

This week, our Year 6s have been working incredibly hard to refine their story writing technique – they were thrilled to finally discover the fate of Jemmy Button in their class text and had lots of opinions about the decision he made to return home to his native island. They then made some interesting innovations to the original text and planned their own version of the story. There has been a particular focus on using a range of descriptive writing techniques and varying their sentence structure by using parenthesis and the children have risen to the challenge with gusto – their stories are brilliant!

In geography, they have been continuing to develop their knowledge of the world’s climate zones! After identifying the location of each zone on a world map last week, the children have worked in groups to hone in on one particular zone and research its weather and climate patterns. They’re really looking forward to sharing what they’ve learnt with the rest of the class.

The children have had a busy week in school and have really enjoyed choosing new books from our Book Fair, with their parents and carers. Thank you to everyone who has supported this event. We hope you enjoy reading your new books.

In Nursery this week the children have been reading the story of The Three Little Pigs and all their learning this week has been linked to this traditional tale. The children have been busy builders in the construction area, building a house and then seeing if they could blow it down just like the big bad wolf!

Reception have been learning about their homes and family this week. The children enjoyed sharing photos of their families and talking about who they live with. They then drew pictures of their families and labelled them.

The children have enjoyed messy play with gellibaff in the tuff tray and in Maths have been sorting natural objects into groups. Reception have learnt their first few phase 2 sounds in Phonics this week and have been writing letters in the sand and hunting for objects around the classroom beginning with the sounds.

In Year 1 this week, the children have been very busy writing a recount about their visit to a ‘Builders Yard’. They took great care to ensure they were safe by putting on their hard hats and jackets and checking their equipment. They also enjoyed looking at the designs and having a go at building a house for the three little pigs.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning about changing the shape of different materials. In Computing, they have learnt how to take a good picture and then used their editing skills to upload them to Seesaw. In Music, the children really enjoyed making silly faces as part of our warmup. They then listened and appraised a piece of music.

This week in Year 3, the children have been working hard when ordering and comparing numbers to 1000. They have also been super stars at counting in 50s. In English, they have been working extremely hard when writing their non-chronological reports on owls. They have included lots of facts and some brilliant grammatical features. In Geography, the children have created their own fact files about different countries in Europe by using the internet and information texts.

In RE, Year 3 have been looking at the story of Adam and Eve and temptation. They have understood the story and looked at the meaning of temptation and have discussed times when they might have been tempted to do something wrong or when they blamed someone else when they did something wrong.

In Design and Technology this week, the children have been practising and developing their sewing skills. They were all able to thread a needle and then practised the running stitch ready for their final product.  In PE, they have enjoyed participating in both Tag Rugby and Hockey.

This week, Year 4 have once again been super busy!  In English, the children have begun looking at the features of newspapers and planning their own. They have had a lot of fun using drama to help them gather quotes for their newspapers!  In Maths, they have continued with their place value work, rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100.

In History, the children have enjoyed learning about how archaeologist, Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb.  They looked at different sources relating to this and used these to help them write their own diaries, as though they were with Howard Carter when he made his exciting discovery. 

In Science, Year 4 have been learning all about teeth.  They spent some time looking at their own teeth and identifying the different teeth that they have.  The children also learnt about their different shapes and functions.  After that, they looked at animal’s teeth and spent some time identifying the different teeth that herbivores, omnivores and carnivores have and why this is. 

They have also fitted in their usual Guided Reading, RE, Computing, swimming, dance, Spanish and Music lessons this week too.  Year 4 are particularly loving their Spanish sessions, where they have been learning the vocabulary for different countries and nationalities. 

The children have had a fun week this week in Year 5! In Art, they have been looking at land and cityscapes, the children had to use their photography skills to take a picture of the school building and sketch it using charcoal in books. They did really well and used different techniques to capture small details and shadows.

In English they have been presenting their innovated civilisations in front of the class, the children have been really brave and used amazing presentational skills to discuss their work with the whole class. In Science the children have been looking at the distance between planets in their Solar System, to represent this the children have made their very own ‘Pocket Solar Systems’! They look very effective and are loaded with facts about each planet! 

Year 6 have had yet another busy week! In Computing, the children further developed their understanding of IP addresses and were introduced to data packets. Writing their own data packets created lots of excitement and they can’t wait to see what next week’s lesson has in store for them.

In Guided Reading, they’re finding the drama and humour Holes even more exciting as the weeks go by! They’ve enjoyed getting to know Stanley Yelnats and learning more about the true nature of Camp Green Lake. The children have also been working hard to acquire new vocabulary, develop their summarising skills and answer increasingly more complex inference questions. 

It was lovely to welcome so many parents, carers and family members into school on Thursday for our Top of the Tree achievement assembly. The children were very excited to be back in a whole school assembly celebrating their achievements with their families. Well done to our certificates winners this week!

The children have also enjoyed having a sneak preview of the books that are available to purchase at our Book Fair next week so please check the timings on the newsletter or Seesaw detailing when you are invited to come and choose a new book with your child.

This week in Nursery the children have been busy learning about shapes.  They have looked around the school at the different shapes of objects and discovered the windows can be square and rectangular. Mrs Brown has been finding out what the children already know to help them on their learning journey.

They have also played lots of games with shapes, corners, pass the bag around the circle and used the interactive whiteboard to play eat the shapes and shape train.  All the children have worked very hard this week.

Reception have had another busy week filled with lots of learning and exploring through play. The children have been learning about ‘growing up’ and enjoyed sharing their baby photos with the class. They talked about what things they could do as a baby, compared to all the things they can do now and practised their cutting skills to sequence the stages of growth.

The rain hasn’t stopped Reception as they have been enjoying their Forest School sessions, making a fire, swinging on rope swings and hammocks, hunting for minibeasts and making gloop. They had heaps of fun.

On Friday, Year 1 enjoyed their first Forest School session of the year! They had gorgeous weather and the children enjoyed a range of activities that included drawing, litter picking, tree swings, tree climbing, a mud kitchen and Frisbee. They finished off the session with a drink of juice, a biscuit and a reflection.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning about different animals that live at the coast. They’ve researched their different habitats and created their own non-chronological report about them.

In Year 3 this week, the children have been working hard in Maths and recalling their 2,5 and 10 times tables and division facts. They have also been partitioning 3-digit numbers flexibly, adding 1,10 and 100 to 3-digit numbers and understanding hundreds, tens and ones.

 In English, they have been looking at the features of a non-chronological report. The children created a plan using all the facts and information they had learned from their owl and next week, they are going to be writing their own reports on owls.

In Geography, the children have been conducting their own research and answering questions about places in Europe. They used their iPads to conduct this research and they found out the highest mountain and longest river in Europe.

In Science, The children have been looking at which material reflects the most light. They made a prediction to which material they thought would be the most and least reflective. They then used an app which measured the Lux measurement and tested a variety of materials.

In RE, Year 3 have been looking at the very first book in the Bible. They read the creation story and watched a video and then they were able to create a story board to retell the creation story.

This week Year 4 have been busy as ever.  In Maths, they have continued with their place value work, looking at number lines and plotting numbers to 10,000 on them.  In English, they have begun preparing for story writing.  The children will be writing a story based on The Egyptian Cinderella and so they have done some drama and drawing to help them with ideas for this. 

In Science, they had a lot of fun carrying out a digestive system experiment.  They used food and a variety of apparatus to create the journey that food takes in the digestive system.  It was a lot of fun, but pretty messy!  In History, the children have begun looking at Egyptian pharaohs.  They already know a little about them because there is a pharaoh in The Egyptian Cinderella and they have discussed him a little. 

In RE, the class have looked at Hindu music and how it is used in worship.  They enjoyed listening to some songs and talking about how it made them feel and what instruments they could identify.  In our actual Music lesson, the children did more singing and continued to develop their recorder playing skills. 

They also had a lot of fun in their dance and swimming lessons.  The children have all been put into swimming groups now and will be learning a new skill each week, depending on their ability.  And lastly, in Computing, they have been looking at routes and exploring websites.  This builds on their work from last week where they learnt about how the internet is made of a variety of complex networks and the role of switches and routers within this.

In Year 5 this week, the children have been playing Tag Rugby in PE. They have enjoyed learning all the basics of this sport and will continue to learn more as the half term progresses.

They have been getting in to the swing of TTRockstars yet again with their 1^st ever weekly baseline of 100 times table questions and the start of their daily Rockstars focusing on the 3 times table this week. The concentration levels were very high!!

In English, the children have been innovating Weslandia to create their own civilization. The children are now very eager to begin writing all about it!

Year 6 have had a very active week this week! The children threw themselves into their new P.E. unit which focuses on tag rugby. They thoroughly enjoyed playing different games to accustom themselves with their tags and belts. As well as this, they became more confident in passing the ball to a partner and later, passing the ball backwards to a partner too. In Dance this week, they worked collaboratively in their group to both learn and then perform a routine. Well done Year 6!

Learning about Charles Darwin this week also created enthusiasm. They loved asking questions about him and his work and then researched the answers themselves. Year 6 enjoyed testing which utensil would be best to move raisins from one cup to another. They repeated the test, discussed how to ensure the test was fair and then drew conclusions from their work. Charles Darwin would have been very proud of our budding scientists. 

We have had a busy week in school. On Thursday we welcomed Melanie Barratt into school to complete our SIAMS (Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools) and she has asked me to share with you that she had a lovely day meeting staff, children, governors and parents and getting to see how we live out our school vision at Micklehurst All Saints. She will now write her report and I will be able to share this with you in the coming weeks.

Year 3 also welcomed some special visitors into school to introduce their new English unit which is linked to the story of The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark. The children were amazed to watch the owls fly across the hall and find out all about what they eat. They even had the chance to hold one of the owls. It was very exciting!

In Nursery this week, the children have been looking at the  story of the colour monster and how the different feelings associated with the colours help them to describe how they feel. The children have also been reading the story of Noah's Ark focusing on our key values of kindness and compassion.

Reception have enjoyed their first full week at school. They have been talking about what makes them special and the children have been looking in a mirror to describe themselves and painting self-portraits. Reception have also been listening for initial sounds and got creative decorating the initial sound for their name.

The children have been working hard with their new friends to make jigsaw puzzles and have been mark making and writing their names in the sparkly sand.

Reception enjoyed forest school on Thursday, exploring the new area and learning the forest school rules.

In Science this week, Year 1 have been looking at materials. The children have searched their classroom to find different objects and sorted them into the materials that they are made from.

In Year 2 this week, the children have continued to explore their place value unit in Maths. They really enjoyed using the base 10 and part whole model to partition numbers to 100 in different ways. In Science, the children began their new materials topic – they used their classifying and sorting skills to find and sort a range of different materials. In English, they have been learning about the story ‘The Secret of Black Rock’ and have used talk for writing actions to help us remember the key parts of the story.

Year 3 have had a great second week back in school. They have been extremely busy and have been completing lots of learning. In Maths, they have been reading, writing and recognising 3-digit numbers and partitioning these numbers into hundreds, ten and ones.

In English, the children have been looking at the story of ‘Owl Babies’. They have retold the story through drama and have been writing setting descriptions using a range of adjectives and prepositions. They have worked extremely hard with their writing this week!

As a special treat on Thursday, Year 3 had Wayne and Katrina from ‘Wise Owl’ in school to introduce them to a range of different owls and share lots of exciting facts. The children really enjoyed seeing the owls and had a great afternoon!

In Geography, they have continued to look at the continent of Europe and were able to locate and name a range of countries in Europe and label these on a map.

In Science, the children have been learning about light. They started their unit by looking at what dark is, so they made the classroom as dark as possible, and they found out that they needed light to be able to see. The children sorted light sources and non-light sources and had great fun doing this.

In RE, the children have been looking at the Christian Holy Book - the Bible. They have looked at the different parts of the Bible and were able to name different books. They have also enjoyed spending some time on their iPads and using the Pickatale app where they were able to read a range of different books.

Well done to our certificates winners this week!

The children have had another busy week in Year 4. In English, they have written diary entries in character as Rhodopis from ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’.  They have used lots of powerful vocabulary, fronted adverbials and comparative conjunctions in their writing.  In Maths, the children 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, Year 4 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 a Puja tray and looking at the symbolic meaning of each item on them. 

They have also started a couple of new things this week: swimming, Music and their Science topic.  The children really enjoyed swimming at Copley Baths, loved singing in Music and had fun beginning their new topic on ‘Animals including humans’.  They have begun to look at the digestive system in humans, learning about the various functions of the different parts of this system.  The children used drama and actions to help them remember the different parts.

The children have been super busy in Year 5 this week! They received their very first delivery box from the Wondrous Book Club. Children were eager to unwrap their new books and delve in. This half term the focus of the books is ‘family’ and all the children have made a good start on them already!

In English they used visual literacy skills to investigate and make inferences about their new class book ‘Weslandia’, the children were very excited to finally read the story.

The children have finished their amazing ‘Wonder’ self-portraits this week and they look very effective. Well done to Year 5 for a productive week.

They’ve had another busy week in Year 6! The children completed their self-portraits and have finally worked out why they were gifted buttons the other day! 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!

In Science, the children started their new Evolution and Inheritance unit of work this week – they began by learning about the process of fossilisation and creating their own posters to detail each stage. They’ve already established some big questions to ask during the unit and are looking forward to exploring more over the coming weeks.

Welcome back to school everyone and a warm welcome to any new pupils that have joined our Micklehurst family this September. We hope you have had a lovely summer and enjoyed the holidays.

The children have had a lovely first week in Nursery, making new friends, learning new routines, finding out about each other and exploring the classroom. They enjoyed dough disco which helps to improve their hand strength ready for writing.  It has been lots of fun squishing and squashing the dough to music. The children can’t wait to meet more new friends next week.

Reception have had a wonderful week exploring their new classroom and playing with their new friends. 

They have read ‘The Bumble Bear’ and used their cutting skills to create their own bumblebees. Their topic for this half term is ‘Marvellous Me’ and the children have enjoyed using modelling dough and loose parts to create faces.

Reception have enjoyed role playing in the home corner and in the small world area. It has been a lovely week getting to know the children as they settle in their new environment.

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 and playtime on the top pitch. Please see the photos above to see Year 1 completing a Maths task and exploring their classroom.

The children have had a wonderful start to Year 2 so far! They have enjoyed getting to know their new routines and have created their own self-portraits to decorate their classroom. In Maths, the children have begun their place value unit – they have blown Mrs Willcox away with their understanding of tens and ones and they have all enjoyed using different manipulatives to create two-digit numbers.

The children have had a great first week in Year 3! They have discussed their class charters and agreed their classroom rules. They have also discussed their dreams and aspirations for the year ahead and into the future.

In Maths, the children have been measuring different parts of their bodies, representing numbers to 100 and partitioning numbers to 100. In Geography, they have been looking at the world and have identified the world’s continents and oceans. They have also located Italy and Great Britain and found the Equator.

Year 3 have been voting in class for their Eco, Ethos, School and Sports council reps.

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 this week and also began reading their class English text ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’.  The children 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 and they have shown that they already know quite a lot about Hinduism because of their lessons in Year 2 and 3, so they will be delving deeper into this religion during this term.  Year 4 have also enjoyed their first dance lesson of the term, with the new dance coach Becky.  The session was great fun, but really hot!

The children have had a fantastic first week in Year 5. They have based some artwork around their Guided Reading novel, 'Wonder'. The children drew self-portraits in the same style as the book cover, used water colour paints to decorate, then they all thought of some positive words that described themselves and others to finish their portraits off.

In Maths they got stuck into Roman Numerals and Place Value. The children used the Place Value charts and counters to better visualise and understand numbers up to 1,000,000.

Children have enthusiastically chosen their first books of the year and have really enjoyed reading them in our reading area.

I think they are all excited to see where their learning takes them next week and throughout the rest of 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.

In English, the children were intrigued to find that they had each been left a button in their places and a mysterious message in the form of a postcard had arrived from ‘J’. The message set a task for the children to research the idyllic location of Tierra Del Fuego in South America and write a persuasive advert to encourage more tourists to visit. Whilst they’re still not entirely sure what the buttons symbolise, they’re hoping to discover more next week.

It has been a brilliant week in school. On Monday some of our Key Stage 2 children took part in the Mossley Olympics at Mossley Hollins High School. Unfortunately, due to the weather the event took place indoors, but the children still enjoyed their events and competing against the other Mossley Primary Schools. Our children showed great sportsmanship and teamwork and I am thrilled to inform you that Micklehurst All Saints team won the Mossley Olympics this year! Well done everyone!

We’ve also been proud of our Key Stage 2 children who have led music performances in school this week. On Monday, Years 5 and 6 performed for the whole school and parents and carers and on Tuesday it was the turn of Years 3 and 4. We were so proud to see the progress the children have made over the year and we were very impressed with the concentration they showed and the overall performances.

Year 1 and Year 2 have been to visit St George’s Church this week and have finished off their RE units looking at the key features of a church. Year 3 have enjoyed being Victorian children for two days this week and have learned firsthand what school was like during the Victorian period.

In Nursery this week, the children have been playing games and learning how to take turns. They have enjoyed their ice cream shop in the role play and playdough areas and have been completing and sharing their learning journeys to celebrate their time in Nursery.

Reception have been learning about different modes of transport this week. They made a class bar chart to show the different ways Reception travel to school - the children noticed that most of the class walked to school. The children then enjoyed drawing a picture of how they travel to school and have worked hard labelling different modes of transport in their phonics challenge area. They have been singing lots of different transport songs and watching videos of vehicles, boats and aeroplanes.

In Maths, Reception have been talking about simple maps and enjoyed drawing maps of their journeys to school. The children also created their own obstacle courses, gave them a go and then had a go at drawing a simple map of their obstacle course.

In Year 1 this week, the children have been to visit St George’s Church where they looked at the features of the church and shared what happened during a baby’s baptism. We were very lucky to have baby Lily baptised whilst we were there.

Then they made the most of the nice weather and enjoyed a play in Mossley park with their friends.

This week in Year 2, the children have enjoyed their visit to St George’s Church where they have been looking at the different features of the church and finding out the purpose of a number of artefacts. They have also been using Chrome Music Lab in Computing to make different notes, exploring different tempos and the effect this has on the music.  

WOW what another busy week we have had in Year 3. The children loved our school fair last Friday and really enjoyed the bouncy castle and having their faces painted. This week they have been completing their Design and Technology unit which has involved conducting some research into different types of breads and different sandwich fillings. The children then used this information to do some taste testing and were able to try a variety of different fillings and express their opinions on these. They then designed and made their own sandwich which was lots of fun! The children demonstrated brilliant skills buttering and assembling their sandwiches. The best part was they got to eat them so they were able to self and peer evaluate the sandwiches. The children had great fun trying some new and different foods that they hadn’t eaten before. 

This week has also been Year 3’s Victorian days in class. The children had two days where they went back in time to the year 1894. Luckily the Education Act was established so they were all able to attend school, act in role and experience how life for children during this time would have felt. They learned about Victorian schools, Queen Victoria, advantages and disadvantages of the railways and then shared their homework projects.

The last full week in Year 4 has been really fun and full of seriously exciting activities.  On Monday, some of the children got to compete in Mossley Olympics, while the remaining children went swimming.   Both activities were so much fun! Then, on Tuesday, the children performed a variety of songs and recorder pieces to the school and their parents.  All the children’s hard work paid off, as the performance was a real success. 

On Thursday, the class had a lady come into school from The Blue Cross, who talked to them about taking care of pets and how looking after pets can help us to feel calm and happy.  In between all of this, the children have also managed to do some end of year Reading and Maths assessments and have also begun a Design Technology project.  They are all designing night lights which use electrical circuits!  Super fun!

Year 5 are getting very excited about their upcoming trip to Stockport Air Raid Shelters and this week’s history focus has been all about Operation Pied Piper. The children carried out research using secondary sources to discover why children were evacuated during the war, where they were evacuated to and what life was like for evacuees. They were also given the opportunity to explore the contents of an evacuee’s suitcase and it was fascinating to find out what children packed for their journey. 

The children presented their findings in the form of a poem. They thought about how parents and children would have been feeling at the train station and put these thoughts together to produce some very emotional poetry!

Year 6 have been busy this week preparing for their Leavers Service next week and are looking forward to performing for parents, carers and family members. Today they have enjoyed their end of year celebration - they have been to Denton's Wellbeing centre to play Hyperbowl and then enjoyed some tasty pizza and cake on their return. 

It has been another exciting week in school. The children in Years 1, 2, 3 and 4 finally got to enjoy their Sports Day on Tuesday and it was lovely to see so many parents and carers cheering them on. Our Cheerleading Squad took part in the Tameside Cheer Fest on Tuesday afternoon and performed a fantastic routine. We were very proud of them!

Representatives from Global Grooves came into school on Thursday to deliver workshops with our Y5 and Y6 children in preparation for the Blue Dot festival next weekend. The children enjoyed drumming, dance and art workshops. 

In Nursery the children were keen to look at the photos of their trip to Cockfield Farm and talk about their day. They have told Miss Trelfa all about the animals they met and fed. They have also enjoyed Science Week and have been looking at objects and predicting which ones they thought would sink and which ones would float. They were very excited to see if their predictions were correct!

Reception have enjoyed Science week and have been learning all about different animals and how important they are. The children watched videos of baby animals and chose their favourite to draw. They then wrote an adjective sentence to describe their animal. The children enjoyed making their own hanging spiral animal decorations to take home to their families too.

The children conducted their own science investigation this week with a water tank and different objects. They explored which objects floated on top and which sank to the bottom and recorded it on their clipboards.

In Maths, the children have been creating their own patterns and enjoyed playing number games by throwing beanbags into different hoops.

In Year 1 the children really enjoyed their Sports Day this week and loved getting stickers for the races they took part in. They especially liked the parents race!

This week in Year 2, the children have been creating their rainforest inspired python headdresses ready for our very exciting carnival day. They can’t wait to wear them!

The children have had another busy week in Year 3. They were finally able to have their Sport’s Day and had great fun participating in a variety of different events and earning lots of stickers! This week they have been looking at 2D and 3D shapes in Maths, looking at their properties and drawing and making some of these shapes.

In Science, the children have been considering the question ‘where does our rubbish go?’ They have looked at how they can reduce, recycle and reuse and looked at ways in which they can do this. They have also looked at how their rubbish can be made into energy. They had a debate of the pros and cons of different ways of getting rid of their rubbish.

In RE, Year 3 have been finding out about the Jewish festival of Passover. They looked at the story behind the festival and then looked at the way it is celebrated in the home. In forest schools, they  really enjoyed making their own dens and developing their team work skills, communication and problem solving skills all in one afternoon!

Some of the children from Year 3 along with children from Year 4 & 5, took part in Tameside’s Cheerleading competition on Tuesday and really enjoyed participating in this event and showcasing the routine they been learning at after school club.

Year 4 have crammed lots into this week. They have had lots of fun during Science Week, learning about how water is cleaned, the water cycle and why it is important to save water.  They have carried out lots of fun experiments and even made their own water butts.  The children also had a rather exciting Sports Day this week, completed their swimming assessments and did as many of their normal lessons as possible!

Year 5 have proven themselves to be extremely keen scientists this week! They have thoroughly enjoyed Science Week and have become experts on renewable energy sources. It’s perhaps safe to say that their favourite activity involved mining using chocolate chip cookies to simulate how coal is sourced. They have also been building their science capital this week by researching different careers in science. They discovered what becoming a zookeeper entails, what marine biologists do and what’s involved in being a toxicologist amongst other things – the children were particularly keen to find out about the different salaries too!

In history this week, they have been delving deeper in to their World War 2 study by focusing on the Holocaust and Anne Frank. They used a range of texts and some primary and secondary sources to find out all they could about Anne’s diary and the impact it has had on the world. The children have thoroughly enjoyed presenting their findings in creative ways in their history book and they have produced some outstanding pieces of work.

They have also been preparing for the upcoming Blue Dot Festival this week – the children have created colourful headdresses for the parade, brushed up on their carnival dance skills and enjoyed a drumming masterclass. They can’t wait for the festival now!

Science Week in Year 6 has been a blast so far and the children are looking forward to continuing it next week with a practical activity. Their unit was based on sustainability and affordability which has stoked up some super relevant discussion points.

Also, on Thursday, Year 6 joined up with Year 5 and got into the carnival spirit with preparing resources, groovy dance moves and drumming for the Bluedot festival at Jodrell Bank. As they near the end of Year 6’s journey they have been chatting about their primary memories, ready to present them at our Leavers Assembly and have even dug up their time capsule, buried in 2022. We are still waiting for its contents to dry off before looking through!

It has been another exciting week and the children have enjoyed a lot of activities in school. Year 4 enjoyed an afternoon at Bridgewater Hall where they played with the Halle Orchestra. It was amazing!

This week, nine of our Year 4, 5 and 6 children took part in the Brownlee Foundation triathlon. They had a great time swimming, cycling and running. Well done to our athletes. On Tuesday, eight Year 3 children visited the Priory tennis club, where they had a great time participating in a range of tennis activities.

This week has been a busy one in Nursery and Reception. The children have had a fantastic time on their trip to Cockfields Farm!

This week has been ‘French Week’ in Reception and the children’s learning has been centred around France. They found France on a map and have been learning some French greetings. Reception have been creating their own French flags and writing some French words. The children were very excited to listen to some French versions of Frozen songs.

In RE, the children have been recognising that our world is very special and looking at beautiful videos of nature. The children have learnt that God made the world in seven days.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been exploring music during their computing lessons. They have listened to the famous composer Gustav Holst and created their own pictures based on his music. They then used Chrome Music Lab to create music with different pitches. They enjoyed sharing and appraising each other’s music.

On Friday, Year 3 had a special treat and welcomed two fluffy visitors into class. Mrs Bradley’s dogs came to visit for some well-deserved cuddles. Oscar and Treacle loved all the cuddles just as much as the class.

In Maths this week, the children have been looking at angles. They have been able to recognise and compare right angles, acute angles and obtuse angles.  In History, they found out about some inventions from the Victorian era and then ordered a timeline of inventions from this time. In English, they have written a description of Bob the space man, created their own character and made a plan for their own version of the story.

This week has been a busy one in Year 4, full of new and exciting experiences.  On Tuesday, the children sang their hearts out and tooted their recorders along with The Halle orchestra at The Bridgwater Hall.  It was a truly special, once in a lifetime experience! On Thursday, the children had a ‘Moving up Morning’ where they got to meet their new Year 5 class teacher, teaching assistant and class fish!  The fish in particular were a big hit!

It's been a very exciting week in Year 5 and the children have thoroughly enjoyed their transition morning – they definitely rose to the challenge of being the oldest in school and were especially thrilled to find themselves sitting on the benches in assembly! During the morning, the children wrote Kennings about themselves made up of verbs and nouns to describe their personalities. They’re looking forward to working out who is who when we look back at our Kennings in September.

They also enjoyed exploring their personalities on transition morning – they found out all about Mrs Flint, Miss Jarman and Mrs Radley and then created personality bookmarks that they can use in Year 6. Their final task of the morning was to write a letter to their future selves – they summarised their favourite moments in Year 5 and wrote about what they hope to achieve in their final year at primary school.

It has been another exciting week in school. On Tuesday, despite some showers, Nursery, Reception, Year 5 and Year 6 enjoyed their Sports Day activities and the rest of school took part in curling. Our Year 5 and 6 children have taken part in the Tameside Swimming Gala and competed brilliantly to take third place, missing second place by only 2 points. Well done!

Some of our Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 children have taken part in the Quad Kids athletic event at East Cheshire Harriers this week and thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the 400m, 600m, spring, vortex throw and the long jump. Both groups came 7^th, which is amazing!! I have received so much fantastic feedback about how well our children performed and the sportsmanship they demonstrated.

Reception have enjoyed their continued learning based on the book, ‘Sharing a Shell’ this week. The children worked had to write an adjective sentence to describe the shell they had designed.

In Maths, they have been learning about even and odd numbers and sorting the numicon into groups of even and odd. They then made ‘odd monsters’ ensuring they had an odd number of eyes, arms, legs, noses and mouths. 

The children have been creative this week, painting shells and printing their name using letter sponges and paint. The children were also introduced to watercolours and painted an under the sea scene.

In Year 1 the children wanted to share some more photographs from Sports Week as they enjoyed Thai Chi, Curling and Mini stations. The children have also been designing Carnival Trucks as part of their final DT project. Watch this space to see Evie and Tilly’s final model.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been baking Biscuit Bears as part of our English unit. They thought the biscuits tasted delicious and they were so excited that they got to eat two of them! In Science, they have been completing a planting investigation. This has involved planting seeds in different growing conditions. The children are looking forward to observing the changes that take place over time. In Computing, they have really enjoyed using ‘Chrome music lab’ to create different rhythms.

The children have had another great week in Year 3. In RE, they have been looking at the Hindu festival of Diwali. They have looked at the story behind the celebration and how people celebrate Diwali. They then created some of their own blessings for themselves, friends, family, the local community and the world. In Maths, they have been looking at durations and have been working out how long events take and looking at different units of measure.  

In English, the class have read their new story ‘Man on the Moon,’ written a diary entry in role as Bob the spaceman and created a description of space. The children have enjoyed their swimming lesson again this week, continued doing their daily mile, participated in a curling session and enjoyed their weekly dance session. They had a special treat on Monday when they had a taster lacrosse session, which they loved!

In History, Year 3 have started their new unit the ‘Victorians’ and they located this era of time on the timeline and looked at how life changed during this time. They also looked at inventions and some significant people during this period.

Year 4 have been up to lots this week.  In English, they have been writing in role as Bobbie from ‘The Railway Children’.  The children have had a lot of fun writing persuasive letters, including using flattery and emotive language in them.  They used teabags on plain paper to make paper look old as when they have finished their letters, they are going to write them up in neat on them. 

In Maths, they have been learning more about different angles.  The children have done lots of practical activities to help them understand angles better.  In History, they have learnt about the growth of the railways and in RE, they have learnt about the Jewish Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations.  The class were supposed to have their sports day on Tuesday, but unfortunately the rain meant that it couldn’t go ahead.  However, they did do some orienteering and singing instead which cheered us up a little!

Sports Day proved itself to be a big hit in Year 5 even if it did start to rain! The children raced their way to sporting success and thoroughly enjoyed each and every race. There was of course the traditional egg and spoon race that tested their core balance as well as the challenge of the hurdles and the sprint.

They’ve also been delving deeper in to their history topic this week by researching two key pivotal events in 1940: Operation Dynamo and The Battle of Britain. They used a range of secondary sources to discover how thousands of British soldiers were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk and discovered why the Battle of Britain became such a turning point in the conflict. In Guided Reading, the children have been enjoying Letters from the Lighthouse and this week it inspired them to look in to the life of Sir Nicholas Winton MBE who rescued hundreds of Jewish children during WW2 by creating the Kindertransport. His story was certainly a moving one and they’re so glad that he eventually gained recognition for his heroism during the war.

What a busy week it has been in school! It has been a fantastic Sports Week and the children have enjoyed a range of sports including dodgeball, cone it, Tai Chi, dance, athletics and activity stations. We are looking forward to Sports Day on Tuesday.

On Thursday we welcomed Christian Knight from Jodrell Bank to talk to the children in Years 5 and 6 about an exciting project they are going to be involved in - the Blue Dot Festival. Christian then explained some of the work that takes place at Jodrell Bank and some exciting experiements.

In Nursery this week, their learning focus has been all about ‘Cows.’ The children have learnt about milking and the process.  They have enjoyed having a go at milking, using plastic gloves as udders.  They have painted some amazing cow pictures, played farm games and enjoyed using the new ‘Farm Shop’.

The children have continued to enjoy Little Bikers this week with some of the children graduating to riding bikes with pedals.

This week, Reception have been continuing their learning on their text 'Sharing a Shell.' They have used collage technique to create their own shells using lots of different colours, patterns and materials. In circle time, they have been thinking about who is special to them and why. The children have used their Phase 3 phonics to write a sentence about who they would share their shell with.

The children have enjoyed all the Micklehurst Sports Week activities throughout this week and have been enjoying their little biker’s sessions, riding balance bikes round the playground.

In Maths, Reception have been learning about sharing into two equal groups. The children enjoyed having a teddy bears picnic and sharing the food equally between the two teddies.

During Sports Week, Year 1 have really enjoyed their mini athletics session with Gareth. They have enjoyed working together as a team and had lots of fun!

In Year 2 this week, the children have enjoyed participating in a variety of different sporting activities including, cone it, mini athletics and Tai chi. The children have also spent the week researching the European games. They thoroughly enjoyed using the IPads to research some of the more unusual sports that are taking place this year.  The children have shown fantastic sportsmanship and teamwork throughout the week.

WOW what a fantastic sports week the children have had in Year 3. They have been so busy doing lots of sports and being physically active. They are looking forward to counting up their minutes from the week and counting how many hours they have been physically active this week in school. The children have worked so hard during their daily mile each day to try and beat their previous scores and there were some children running two miles!

Year 3 started the week with an intra school dodgeball competition against Year 4! They had great fun in the sunshine playing and even winning a few matches! On Tuesday the rain stopped our Sports Day, however in class the children carried out some dance videos to keep active. On Wednesday, they started the day with a dance session where they did a variety of fitness dances. They then went straight out and did some more running and then finished the day with a rounders competition. They had great fun even when the rain came down! On Thursday, the children tried something new! Tai Chi! It was a fantastic session where they carried out a range of animal poses and really thought about their core strength. 

Amongst all this fantastic sport, Year 3 have been carrying out some research about the European Games. They have used this research to write a non-chronological report and have looked at the countries taking part in the European games, colouring in some of the flags.

This week in RE, Year 3 have been looking at the Christian festival of Easter. They have worked really hard remembering the main events of Holy Week and creating some work to show this. In Maths, they have been working really hard when looking at the months in a year and working out minutes and hours in weeks.

The children have been really active in Year 4 this week as it has been Sport’s Week.  They have done daily dancing, Smile for a Mile and loads of other fun PE activities.  As part of sports themed week, they have also enjoyed learning about The European Games which are being held in Krakow, Poland at the moment.

 In English the children have finally written their train themed poems, taking time to edit and improve them and write them up in their best handwriting.  In Science they made Solar Panel ovens, although they didn’t work very well as there wasn’t a lot of sun on the day that they tested them out.  Year 4 plan on testing them out again when the sun is out!  In history, the children have really enjoyed researching and learning about some of the earliest locomotives.

Year 5 have fully embraced Sports Week this week! In class, they have been researching the European Games – the children used their iPads to find out when and where the games are being hosted and which countries will be competing. They also discovered which sports will be being played at the games and who will be competing for Team GB. In order to present their findings in an interesting way, the children then used the Adobe Sparks Video app to create an animation all about the event.

They’ve also enjoyed getting active this week and taking part in lots of sporty activities. The children have completed multi-sports sessions and a dance workshop and have even had a go at Tai Chi! Our budding athletes have also enjoyed taking part in Smile for a Mile, which saw them complete fifteen laps around the top pitch each day!

Year 6 have had a particular busy week! This has included an inter-school dodgeball battle, swimming, dancing, smile for a mile, court battles, tai-chi, a debate, met the police, the fire service and learnt about drugs and staying safe, a science presentation from Jodrell Bank and attending a leavers service at Manchester Cathedral. They have barely come up for air! But it has been an thoroughly enjoyable time and everyone has maintained an extremely positive attitude to everything which has been thrown upon them. 

Welcome back after the half term! The children have enjoyed the holidays and have had a busy week in school. Year 4 have been busy learning their times tables facts in preparation for the Y4 Times Tables Check which they completed on Wednesday and our Year 1 children have been busy completing the Phonics Screening Check. The children have done really well and we are very proud of them.

Year 6 took part in the MCSP Maths Challenge on Wednesday. They got off to a fantastic start and were in the lead but classes from the other Mossley Primary Schools soon found their stride and the challenge soon heated up! Our Year 6’s managed to finish in fourth place. Well done!

Nursery have had a great first week back, finding out what they have all been up to in the holidays and beginning their new topic ‘Down on the Farm’. The children have enjoyed planting their new small world area outside and have played nicely with the new toys.

They have also had fun playing in the water in this hot weather.

This week, Reception’s learning has been focused on their new topic, ‘Under the Sea.’ The children have enjoyed reading their topic book ‘sharing a shell’ by Julia Donaldson and they have used different materials to design their own shells. 

The children have been learning about doubling in maths and have enjoyed creating double butterfly wings with paint and matching the double ladybirds together by counting their spots. 

In RE, the children have enjoyed recognising how special and beautiful our world is. They went on a nature walk around school and used their nature goggles to search for trees, flowers and butterflies!

The lovely weather has allowed Reception to spend lots of time in their outdoor environment this week and the children have enjoyed washing cars and trucks with different tools and soapy water, and have been staying cool with lots of water play.

This half term Year 1 are looking at the text 'Nat Fantastic' as part of their literacy work. On Monday they shared the story of Nat Fantastic then used role play to create ideas for the next problem that Nat was going to solve.  They had a great time and enjoyed presenting their ideas to each other!

In Year 2 this week, the children started their new History topic all about famous explorers. The children enjoyed being History detectives and they studied a variety of clues to work out why Christopher Columbus is a significant individual in History. In their computing lesson they listened and appraised a variety of music by the famous composer Gustav Holst. The children thought of different adjectives to describe the music and are looking forward to creating their own music throughout the rest of the unit using the iPads.

This week in Year 3, the children have had a great first week back at school. In Maths, they have been looking at time. They have been reading the time to 1 minute intervals both on digital clocks and analogue clocks. In English, the children have been designing their own spacesuit and completing some research on space. They then used this research to create a poster all about space.

In RE, they have been looking at celebrations. The children created a list of both religious and non- religious celebrations and discussed which are their favourite celebrations. They really enjoyed their swimming lesson this week as they were able to cool down in the swimming pool. In Guided Reading this week, the class went outside and read the next two chapters of their novel ready to answer some more VIPERS questions.

The children have also been making Father’s Day cards, so keep an eye out for your special card.

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, the children are using E. Nesbit’s famous novel ‘The Railway Children’ to inspire their writing in English.  This week, they 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.

They’ve had a busy start to the term in Year 5! The children have proven themselves to be quite the budding historians and have thoroughly enjoyed the launch of their new topic on World War Two. This week, they’ve journeyed all the way back to 1918 in order to establish the root causes of the conflict and of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. The children used a range of secondary sources to develop their understanding and then created a documentary using the Adobe Spark Video app to explain their findings.

In English, they’ve enjoyed exploring their brand new text this week: The Wolves in the Walls. They began by recalling all the knowledge they have about the roles wolves usually play in stories before opening the book and delving in to the eerie world of Neil Gaiman. The children are fully engrossed in the text so far and they can’t wait to find out what happens next.

It has been another exciting week in school as many of our children have celebrated their Top of the Tree reward and have taken part in a slime workshop or have painted a cup at Doodle Pots in Mossley. 

Some of our Year 1 and Year 2 children have been to Mossley Hollins to take part in the Mossley Carrbrook Schools Partnership Cone It competition. The children played nine games and showed great skill and determination. They came in 3rd position, and we are very proud of their efforts.

In Nursery this week, the children have been reading and enjoying the story of ‘The Very Quiet Cricket’ by Eric Carle. They have made crickets and enjoyed moving like minibeasts.

Inspired by Alan Titchmarsh, Reception have enjoyed designing their own gardens this week. First, they created large garden models using artificial grass and natural objects, before using their cutting skills to complete a small scale garden design. The children have been writing some super sentences using their phase 3 phonics this week and were very excited to be learning their first trigraph ‘igh’.

In Maths, they have been focusing on manipulating shapes. The children have worked hard to create some fantastic shape rockets.

During circle time, the children read the story ‘Ted the Tiger Tamer’ and enjoyed talking about their big feelings. Reception then had fun creating faces using natural objects such as sticks, flowers, logs and leaves to show different emotions they may feel.

On Tuesday as part of their Science unit, all about plants, Year 1 enjoyed working outside looking at and identifying different types of leaves and flowers. They also enjoyed seeing the changes in the Forest School area where Years 2, 5 and 6 have planted new trees. On Wednesday they enjoyed completing the ‘Implementation’ part of their Design and Technology unit and made the fruit salads that they had designed. 

On Thursday the children created a map of Mossley showing the physical features that are in their town. It was a whole class effort and they had a great time making it!

In Year 2 this week, the children have been enjoying their Art week. This has included taking a familiar object (stick) and using their imagination to think about what it might become. They have then used their sketchbooks to create designs and generate ideas. Following on from this the children have used a variety of materials, including wool to create ‘stick people’. The children loved making their stick people, although it was a little tricky at times!

This week in Maths, Year 3 have been adding and subtracting money and finding change. They have worked very hard with this and applied their knowledge of the column method to find the answers to these questions.

In Science, the children have completed their ‘plants’ end of term assessment. They then went outside and found seeds in the school’s gardens and did some observational drawings of these. In PE, they have enjoyed an orienteering lesson, their weekly swimming lesson and their ‘daily mile, it was a hot one running in the sun!

In Guided Reading, the children have continued to look at ‘The Butterfly Lion’ and found out some more about Bertie’s life in Africa. Some parts of the book were emotional, but the children discussed the different feelings this had created.

In RE, Year 3 have looked at Rosa Parks and what she was famous for. They looked at how she stood up for herself and her rights, then they acted out the scene on the bus. As a treat for working so hard this week, the children had some fun in the sun playing on the tyre park and being physically active.

The children have had a busy and creative week in Year 4.  They started the week writing a magical description.  Although they had a good chat about ideas, watched videos and looked at pictures to help them, when it came to the writing, they just did it completely independently, showcasing everything that they have learnt in English and SPAG lessons so far this year. 

The children also finished off their money maths and then they began the fun-ART WEEK!  They have spent a lot of time exploring and appreciating the still life art-work of traditional and contemporary artists, including Cezanne.  They have used paint and collage techniques to create their own Cezanne inspired still life pieces. They have had loads of fun and produced some really impressive pieces!

In science this week, Year 5 have continued their exploration of forces with a closer look at air resistance. The children investigated the effects of air resistance by carrying out a fair test to discover how the surface area of a parachute affects the time it takes for it to fall to the ground. They soon discovered that the larger the surface area, the more air resistance there was and the slower the parachute fell – they had a great time investigating and using their enquiry skills and the children are becoming even more adept at recording their results and pattern seeking.

Their English lessons this week have focussed on narrative writing and they have been busy innovating the story of ‘FArTHER’. The children have employed a wide range of techniques to bring the setting and the characters to life and they have used dialogue to convey character and advance the action. On Friday, our master storytellers were excited to share their work with the children in Year 1 and it was lovely to see their writing captivate the audience. 

Year 6 have been busy putting the finishing touches to a range of pieces of writing for their portfolios this week because these will be moderated after the holidays. They have enjoyed a netball session today, led by one of our past pupils Ellie, who has worked with the class as part of her end of year assessment at college.

What a busy week we have had in school! Year 2 have worked very hard with their SATs papers this week and we are very pleased with how they have tackled each assessment. On Monday, we welcomed David Mason, our resident poet, into school and each class enjoyed listening to and retelling some of his poems.

The children enjoyed Outdoor Learning Day on Thursday; Year 5 taking part in Bikeability whilst Nursery, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 6 enjoyed their first session of Forest School. Year 4 completed some of their English work outdoors and Year 3 enjoyed exploring the local area as part of their Geography work.

We have also celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week and each class completed their PSHE session with activities relating to anxiety which is the theme for the week.

In Nursery, the children started their week with a visit from David Mason who read them a poem about Bertie the Bee. The children have then been learning about pollination and acting out how the bees drink the nectar from flowers and then pollinate the flowers. They have also enjoyed tasting honey on their honey sandwiches.

This week, Reception have been learning about plants and growth. They learnt that plants need sun, soil and water to grow and they labelled the different parts of a flower. Reception love singing so they had lots of fun singing their ‘flowers’ song and drawing pictures of their favourite colourful flowers. The children also used their super cutting skills to create their own spring scene with their choice of flowers, trees, rainbows and spring animals.  Reception have also been learning about Steven Brown’s McGoo cows and used pastels to create their own colourful cows. Subtraction has been our Maths focus this week; the children have been using 10 frames, numicon and toys to understand the concept and some have written their own subtraction number sentences.

In Year 1 this week, the children have enjoyed working with David Mason to retell one of his poems about a crocodile. They then acted out and retold the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. They have had a great session and the class shared how much they had enjoyed it!

This week in Year 2, the children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the outdoors this week. On Wednesday, they went on a special mission to collect ‘Y’ shaped twigs and branches for out Art project next week. The children loved doing this and they managed to find lots of branches! On Thursday, as part of outdoor learning day, the children had their first introductory lesson to forest school. The children loved playing in the mud kitchen, planting trees, climbing in the trees and relaxing in the hammock and they can’t wait to hopefully have more forest school lessons in the future.   

WOW what a busy week Year 3 have had! In English, they started the week by listening to a range of poems by David Mason. In Maths, they have been looking at counting in tenths and finding tenths as decimals. In Science, the children have been looking at seed dispersal and looking at all the different ways seeds are dispersed. They then made their own spinners and watched how they were transported. In Geography, the children have been on a walk around the local area where they identified human and physical features. They also looked at the ages of different buildings and houses and marked these on a map. They also looked at compass direction where they drew different pictures of what they saw at north, south, east and west. The children also used their senses and described what they could hear, see, smell and taste at different points.

For our outdoor learning day, they carried out a forest school lesson, where they had great fun learning in the outdoors. They planted some trees, played in the mud kitchen, climbed trees and made dens.

In Computing, they looked at making their own animation and made their own flipbook. In RE, they looked at how Christians can make a difference in their community and looked at the different things Christians can do to help other people.

The children have been seriously busy again in Year 4.  In English, they have been writing a non-chronological report on broomsticks which included subordinate clauses.  In Science they made ice-cream and learnt about how salt speeds up the freezing process!  The children were also really lucky to have a poet, David Mason, come into class, to perform some of his amazing poetry.

Year 5 have had a very creative week this week and have thoroughly enjoyed embarking upon a new project in art all about typography and maps. The children studied the work of artist, Louise Fili, and looked at a number of beautifully designed maps, including the Wizarding World’s very own Marauder’s Map. They then explored how designers work with fonts and layout (typography) and how we can use the way words look to help us communicate ideas and emotions. We are now busily using everything we’ve learnt to design and create our own maps of the United Kingdom complete with 3D artwork – they’re already looking incredibly impressive.

We’ve also been completing our Bikeability course this week; the children were very excited on Wednesday and Thursday to bring their own bikes to school and receive expert tuition from our Bikeability Instructors. The sessions began on the school playground and then the children ventured on to the roads around school to learn how to ride safely – it was lovely to see their confidence grow over the course of the two days!

Year 6 had a lovely finish to SATs week last week when the children ventured up to top Mossley Park with treats and fun galore. The fun continued into this week with an outdoor adventure where the class had the chance to reminisce on their younger years by playing with mud kitchens, den building and digging for worms. Year 6 loved their forest school session on Thursday and have already asked to do it again! In class, The children are working hard on their writing, this week and have been concentrating on completing their biographies on a scientist linked to our science topic – electricity. And in Maths, they have been examining value for money. Using a project from the White Rose scheme, they have been looking at how to get more for your money in terms of day-to-day life and shopping. This will continue nicely onto an enterprising activity where children will set up a make-believe baking business.

What a busy week! Year 6 have worked really hard completing their SATs this week and they should be proud of how well they have tackled them. I hope they get the results they deserve, despite some papers being particularly tricky. Other classes have continued their learning about King Charles’ Coronation and there are some lovely photographs to share.

In Nursery this week, the children have continued celebrating the King's Coronation and have had a class tea party.

Reception have been learning about King Charles this week in light of his coronation. They watched a video of the crowning and wrote sentences about King Charles’ and Queen Camilla’s special day. The children loved making their own King and Queen crowns using sparkles and gems, and they painted some beautiful coronation crowns too. The children have also been talking about London, finding it on a map and colouring in the famous landmarks.

Their Maths focus has been writing number sentences and adding 1 more. They made a bus and bus stop using chairs and enjoyed role play by counting how many children were on the bus and how many were at the bus stop.

This week in Year 1, the children have been writing their Jack and the Beanstalk stories and in Maths they have started their new unit on multiplication.

In Year 2 this week, the children have been learning to tell the time to the quarter hour. They enjoyed setting the times on their own individual clocks and are looking forward to the challenge of telling the time to five minute intervals next week. In Computing they have continued their pictograms topic and have gathered data using a tally chart, created a digital pictogram and interpreted the data.

In Year 3 this week, the children have been working extremely hard with their arithmetic, reasoning and reading assessments. In Music they enjoyed playing their ukuleles and learning a range of notes.

In Science, they have been looking at the pollination process. The children have looked at the life cycle of a flower and were able to order the pollination process. In Spanish, they have been looking at the Eurovision song contest, giving their opinions of the songs and rating them using their numbers in Spanish.

In RE, Year 3 have been looking at Holy Communion and the stages of Holy Communion in a church. In Guided Reading, they have continued to answer a range of VIPERS questions about their book "The Butterfly Lion' and are very intrigued to find out if the boy leaves the compound.

Yet again, Year 4 have had a super busy week!  They finally finished their invisibility potion instructions and, continuing with their magic theme, have begun learning about and planning a non-chronological report on 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.  The class had lots of fun pretending that they were particles! 

In Geography, they have been further exploring the physical and human features of the UK and in RE they have been learning about Humanist beliefs.  They’ve done loads more, including music, PE, reading and Spanish!  I’m not sure how they’ve managed to fit it all in, but they have!

The Coronation theme continued in Year 5 this week as they reflected on a spectacular weekend. Inspired by Michael Morpurgo’s new book, The Boy Who Would Be King, the children have written letters in role as Charles on the morning of the coronation to his younger self, a schoolboy struggling with life at boarding school. They thought really carefully about what he would want to say to his childhood self and the letters are really heartfelt, full of helpful advice and also quite humorous in places.

They’ve been carrying out a rather fascinating science experiment this week too in order to discover how changing the length of the string on our pendulums affects the length of time that they swing for. They ensured their investigations were fair by changing only one variable and carrying out three tests at each stage; the children then made conclusions using their scientific knowledge of forces. At the end of their lesson, they loved trying out a new experiment too…Antigravity Maltesers (they enjoyed eating the Maltesers afterwards too!).

We hope you have enjoyed the Bank Holiday weekend! It has been another busy week in school.

In Nursery the children have continued their journey through Eric Carle stories about minibeasts, and this week they have been reading ‘The Very Busy Spider’.  The children have been rewriting their own story about the Spider’s Day.  They have thought of different animals and their sounds to go in the book. 

Friday started our Coronation celebrations; these will be continuing next week in Nursery.  The children enjoyed pretending to be King or Queen for the day, making crowns and a enjoying a fantastic whole school picnic.

This week, Reception enjoyed continuing their learning within their ‘In the Garden’ topic. They began the week by reading the story, ‘Mad About Minibeasts’ and sharing which minibeast is their favourite and why. The children then labelled some minibeast pictures and wrote some super sentences to describe them.

They have been focusing their learning on shapes this week and have been creating their own tangram animals using different sized rectangles, triangles and circles. 

The children were excited to see that their tuff tray bean seeds are growing tall and some of their sunflower seeds are beginning to sprout; they have been fantastic gardeners by ensuring the plants have enough soil, water and sunlight.

Although this week has been a short week in Year 1, the children have still managed to fit an awful lot in.  This week has been used as an assessment week, with the children undertaking tests in maths and reading. 

In Year 2 this week, the children have been busy learning about King Charles IIIs Coronation, making bunting for our big lunch and writing acrostic poems.

This week in Maths, Year 3 have been finding unit and non-unit fractions of numbers and have worked extremely hard with this.  In English, they have been writing their non-chronological report about their monsters that they designed.

In Science, the children have been looking at how water is transported around a flower and have set up an investigation to see how this happens.  In Art, they have been doing some drawings showing our natural world. In Spanish, they enjoyed learning how to say the different colours in Spanish. The children have been working very hard during handwriting sessions practising their letter formation and joining different letters. In Geography, they have been looking at the human and physical features of Mossley.

Although this week has been a short week in Year 4, the children have still managed to fit an awful lot in.  This week has been used as an assessment week, with the children undertaking tests in maths and reading.  The children all tried their very hardest and did amazingly well.  It hasn’t just been tests this week though. In English, the children worked incredibly hard on their invisibility potion instructions, using fronted adverbials, imperative verbs and adverbs as well as colons and semi-colons. 

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.  The most exciting part of the week has to be the King’s Coronation celebrations though.  Year 4 created some amazing bunting for this momentous day and generally had a ball being part of the celebrations.

This week, our Year 5s have proven that they’re quite the budding scientists by taking on a pendulum challenge. Firstly, they recalled all of their knowledge from last week about different forces before learning about the findings of Galileo Galilei. The children then made their own pendulums and discovered how they could be used to measure time.

They’ve also been busy preparing for the King’s Coronation; the children have been making bunting to help decorate our school in preparation for the Big Lunch on Friday. We’ve also been enjoying Michael Morpurgo’s new Fairy Tale inspired by King Charles: The Boy Who Would Be King. We loved the illustrations and the links to another King we’ve learnt about this year, King Alfred the Great.

This week in Year 6, the children enjoyed taking part in a performance of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at Mossley Hollins which was led by The Young Shakespeare Company. The class have also continued their science unit of work on electricity and have been using this week to get in some further practice for their SATs next week.

The children have had an exciting week in school. The School Council led assembly on Monday and launched our litter project, so the children have been busy designing posters to spread the message in our local community. Four children from our Ethos Council attended an Ethos Conference at St George’s CE Primary School in Hyde on Thursday and have come back bursting with ideas of how we can enhance some of our practice in school. Watch this space!

In Nursery this week, the children have been reading a new book by their author, Eric Carle. This week’s story has been ‘The Bad-Tempered Ladybird’ and the children have been counting the spots on each of the ladybird’s wings and counting the total number of spots.

This week, Reception have planted sunflower seeds and are looking forward to seeing them grow. They have talked about the different things plants need to grow and have been observing their bean seeds in the tuff tray- the children were very excited to see the roots and the stem beginning to grow in the soil.

Building on their class text, the children have used their text map to innovate ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ story. They found it funny choosing new foods for the caterpillar to eat, such as mint sauce and Easter eggs!

They have also been consolidating their understanding of numbers to 20 this week and have been playing a race to 20 game using counters, a dice and a number track. 

Year 1 have been busy this week. In Geography, the children have been exploring our school grounds looking for features to complete our ‘I spy’ and ‘I spot’ hunts. They have also looked at some of the schools other exciting features including the tyre park, adventure playground, MUGA and garden.

In English, the children have been creating the story map of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ready for orally rehearsing the story and writing their own version.

In Year 2 this week, the children have carried on their Geography unit and they were very excited to look at some artefacts all the way from Zambia. These had been brought in by Edgar and were from the 1970’s. They included fantastic wooden spears, bongo drums and a special tankard and plate made from copper.

In Computing, the children have been continuing their unit on pictograms. They enjoyed using the iPads to generate their own and then they answered questions about the data.

This week in Maths, Year 3 have been adding and subtracting fractions and finding fractions of amounts. They have worked very hard! In English, the children have written a letter and designed their own monster ready to write a non-chronological report about it next week.

In Science, they have planned their comparative investigation about the different factors that plants need in order to survive. In PE, they have enjoyed their swimming lessons and completing orienteering.

In Guided Reading, the children have enjoyed answering a variety of inference questions. In RE, they have been looking at the different activities that happen in the church during the week and linking these to passages from the Bible. In Geography, they have been locating the local area on a world map and a map of the UK.

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, they began writing instructions for ‘How to brew an invisibility potion’.  The children are writing their instructions using the Clicker app which has been great fun.  Perhaps the most fun thing this week though was our trip to Mossley library.  Lots of the children have become members and are really excited about being able to borrow books from the library.

Year 5 have been stretching their scientific minds this week by delving in to the world of FORCES. After recalling everything they already knew about forces, the children experimented with a variety of objects around the classroom – they eagerly pushed, pulled, stretched and dropped in order to identify the forces acting upon each item. They then researched Isaac Newton’s discoveries and used Force Meters to measure each force in Newtons.

In RE, the children have been asking the question: If God is everywhere, why go to a place of worship? This week, in order to investigate further, they discovered the differences and similarities between Baptist and Anglican Churches. By exploring each type of church, they were able to discuss some key beliefs and identify why places of worship are so special to people of different faiths.

Year 5 are also thoroughly enjoying taking part in Forest School this term – they’ve already explored our forest area, picked litter and climbed the trees and they can’t wait to see what’s in store for them over the coming weeks.