!Weekly update 14th January 2022

 Hello, we hope you have had a good week. We are back into full swing as if the Christmas holidays never really happened!

In English we have focused heavily on grammar, looking at active and passive voice, we have looked at using conjunctions and relative pronouns to create explanatory sentences and we have also been orally planning and presenting an explanation based on a previous science experiment. We were able to do this investigation again which added a bit more fun into our English Our spelling patterns have focused on the 'ough' letter string.In maths we have continued with fractions and have focused on addition and subtraction of them, but also using improper fractions and mixed numbers.  

This Thursday saw the start of our swimming lessons in Okehampton. This week's lesson focused on assessing the children to work out their swimming abilities to match them to an instructor and group. As of next week the children will be swimming in small groups of approximately 9 children and will use the end of the pool depending on their swimming ability. 

In other areas of the curriculum we began our history learning about Civil Rights in America. This will lead on nicely to remember Martin Luther King on Monday 17th January. We began looking at solids, liquids and gases in science and continued with our portraits inspired by Sandra Silberzweig in art. With Coach Edwards we played unihoc as a one off from gymnastics due to the hall being used for Flu immunisations. 

Homework
This week, we discussed the pros and cons of homework and whilst there were many good points raised against homework we also identified these important points for homework:
1. Being prepared for secondary school where homework will be set daily
2. Consolidating what you have learnt at school 
3. The opportunity to pursue your own interests and research
4. (and probably the most important) sharing learning with and spending quality time with parents/carers/grandparents etc at home.

The details of this term's homework can be found in Google Classroom including a list of the revision pages set in the SATS revision guides.  You will also find our science topic knowledge organiser for you to discuss with your children and ideas for a project on our History topic. These are the details:

Create a project based on our history topic of the Civil rights Movement in America in the 1950s and 60s:

• It could be a fact file or biography of one of the important people involved; this could be on paper or a slideshow.
• It could be a collage covering the important events.
• It could be a comic strip of one of the important events.
• It could be a newspaper article about the events.
• It could be a piece of art such as a portrait of one of the important people.
• Write your own "I have a dream speech" based on Dr Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech

Additionally, we have asked to see children's reading records twice a week as we are concerned that some children are not reading regularly at home. We will check reading diaries on a Monday and Thursday, although these should be at school every day anyway.  Homework folders and revision books need to be brought to school every Monday.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend. Thank you, stay well, stay safe and  take care.
Mrs Ware and Miss Ruby

---