Welcome to the SUMMER Term

Welcome to Mr Amesbury’s class page where you can find out more about what is happening in school and any current information.

I am available before or after school if you ever have any questions or need to talk.

For home learning tasks for Monday 12th July & Tuesday 13th July please see the files section at the bottom of the page.

Learning Powers and Mental Health

Our learning Power this half term will continue to be 'Be Curious', where the children will learn all about how asking the right types of questions can help us to gain lots of new knowledge. The school continues to be focused on mental health and wellbeing where every child will be given a weekly opportunity to express themselves and learn about how to build coping strategies for a range of emotions. This half term we will focus on gratitude and how leading an active lifestyle can help us to maintain a healthy mind.

This Term's Topic

Our topic this Summer term is ‘The Shang Dynasty’ where we will learn about this ancient Chinese civilisation.

In Literacy, we will look at a wonderful picture book called ‘The Journey’ by Aaron Becker. This wordless book will allow the children to create their own story based on using their inference skills. 

In Reading in the first half term, we will look at poetry for the first couple of weeks and then we will move onto look at two amazing people- Rosa Parks and Greta Thunberg. In a slight change to our usual reading lists,  I have attached a reading lists by tube map and by reading roads. For the tube map list, you can pick a type of book you like and the stations along that line will all list similar books. The reading roads are by reading genre and start with KS1 appropriate books all the way to KS3 books from that genre so that you can move along the road of a genre you enjoy.

Science

Our Science topic of Magnets will allow us to really apply our scientific knowledge to some interesting practical investigations!

Reading

With reading being such an important part of every child's learning, we are really encouraging all pupils to read as much as possible out of school as well as during the school day. As mentioned previously, we have now introduced a reading list which we will upload every half term with books that are related to our current topic so that children can immerse themselves in the theme.

All children will be able to choose a book from our class library to be kept in school so they can read at opportunities during the day-which will ideally be every day! The children can also take out a book from the school library once a week on a Thursday. They are able to take this book home but it can only be returned on a Thursday. 

 In the juniors, we will introduce a class book as part of guided reading sessions where the children will have the opportunity to widen their vocabulary and deepen their understanding, as well as having independent reading time. Our Class Novel is 'The Morning I Met a Whale' by Michael Morpurgo and we will look at non fiction linked to our Science topics.

We will be reviewing our class rules to ensure we have a happy and safe class this year and will share them here soon.

Homework

Homework will begin being set  during the Summer term. We will set it on a Thursday and it will be due in on a Monday.  In addition, the half term's spellings will be sent out at the beginning of the half term. We strongly advise children to go on Times Tables Rockstars as regularly as possible, at least once a week.

Reading

With reading being such an important part of every child's learning, we are really encouraging all pupils to read as much as possible out of school as well as during the school day. As mentioned previously, we have now introduced a reading list which we will upload every half term with books that are related to our current topic so that children can immerse themselves in the theme.

All children will be able to choose a book from our class library to be kept in school so they can read at opportunities during the day-which will ideally be every day! 

 In the juniors, we will introduce a class book as part of guided reading sessions where the children will have the opportunity to widen their vocabulary and deepen their understanding, as well as having independent reading time.

We are currently trying to put into place a way of children bringing books home from the library and will update you as soon as that process is set up. 

PE

Children will now be able to bring a PE bag into school containing their PE kit and trainers. This will come in on a Monday and return home on a Friday. They will need to come to school in their normal uniform on PE days. From Monday 19th April, our class will have PE on a Tuesday and a Wednesday. The children will have Athletics lessons on a Tuesday and Cricket lessons on a Thursday. Both lessons will be outside, weather permitting. Our normal PE kit guidelines still apply and the PE kit sent in should follow these guidelines. Please make sure hair is tied back and earrings are covered with tape or taken out on PE days.

Class News

We will update this section about all the great things that are happening in our class and acknowledge any individual superstars!

Useful websites

We are currently following the EF Pro professional cyclist, Lachlan Morton, who is riding the alternative Tour de France as a challenge to get to Paris before the finish of the event and in the process help raise money for the Charity World Bicycle Project who provide bicycles for children in Africa to save them from having to walk to school.