Summer's Here!

Wow! What a hot and busy second half of the summer term we have had in Owl Class with so many exciting activities happening.

Our English lessons this term have been inspired by three fantastic texts: Tuesday by David Wiesner, Weslandia by Paul Fleischman and The Dark by Lemony Snicket. The children explored the mysterious, wordless world of Tuesday and used it to write their own imaginative narrative of events, changing the frogs to other animals. They then stepped into the shadows with The Dark, thinking carefully about the conversations they might have if they were brave enough to speak to the dark itself. Finally, after reading Weslandia, the class designed their own unique ‘Weslandias’, creating detailed worlds filled with inventive plants, foods and customs.

In Maths, we have been developing a wide range of time‑related skills, including reading Roman numerals to 12 and telling the time to the nearest five minutes and then to the exact minute. We learnt to read digital clocks, use am and pm correctly and explored larger units of time, including years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds.

We finished our Maths learning on statistics, where we learnt how to make tally charts, create and interpret tables, draw and understand block diagrams, pictograms and bar charts, and finally collect and represent our own data.

This term in art, we have immersed ourselves in the exciting world of colour, developing their painting techniques and artistic understanding. The children recorded their ideas, experiments and reflections in their sketchbooks. We began by exploring the work of four influential artists—Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Claude Monet and Jackson Pollock—focusing on the unique ways each artist used colour to create mood, movement and expression. The children discussed similarities and differences between the artists' styles and considered how colour can communicate feelings and ideas.

As part of their learning, the children investigated a wide range of painting techniques, experimenting with thick and thin paint, splattering, dribbling, wet and dry application, and using both traditional brushes and natural alternatives such as cotton wool, rosemary, straws and sponges to create a variety of textures and effects. They discovered how different tools and methods can dramatically change the appearance of a painting. Building on these practical experiences, the children developed their understanding of colour theory by creating accurate colour wheels, carefully mixing primary colours to produce secondary colours. They then explored how to create tints and shades by gradually adding white and black, producing tone charts that demonstrated subtle changes in colour and value. Drawing upon all of these newly acquired skills, each child planned and created an original painting inspired by a subject of their own choosing.

In swimming we have worked on a range of skills, increasing our water confidence and stroke techniques. We have had a real focus on water safety, learning to back-float and use the doggy paddle stroke if needed. We have also built up our front-crawl and back-stroke techniques, progressing from body position to legs, to arms and eventually breathing proficiency.

We also took part in lots of sporting events this term, including visiting Millfield school to take part in a special Commonwealth Games event with other local schools. Throughout the day, the children had the opportunity to experience a wide range of sporting activities, including football, table tennis and even a modern laser pentathlon, showing great enthusiasm, teamwork and determination. It was wonderful to see them trying new challenges, supporting one another and representing our school so positively. Every child received a medal for taking part and got to meet athletes who have represented the UK in the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics!

Along with sports day, we even managed to squeeze in some country dancing sessions in our PE lessons and performed these at the village fete!

Our computing lessons focussed on how sequences of commands work by exploring how every programme has a clear starting point and a predictable outcome. We used this understanding to write our own codes and create programmes based on our own ideas, using SCRATCH to make these come to life!