Summer 2

Welcome back! I hope you had a restful and lovely break and the children are ready to find out more about Fairtrade this half term!

Collective Worship

Year 4 has been leading the KS2 worship today where we talked about courage and how we can show bravery in our lives. We had our class prayer leaders leading the morning prayer, some of the Y4 children dressed the prayer table and we had readers who helped us with examples they shared. We talked about God’s word encouraging us and how we need to believe in ourselves when trying out new things. We said a prayer together and also spent some time reflecting on our choices. The children also had a go at singing and doing some actions for alongside the strong and courageous song!

As part of their learning about other major world religions, KS2 had an assembly and workshop delivered by Amina from Makkah mosque. In the KS2 assembly, the children learnt about Islam and thought about what a Muslim person looks like. We learnt that some Muslim women and men make the choice to wear head coverings, but that Muslims can have any colour of skin.

Amina shared some of her key beliefs and the children were surprised to find how many similarities there were between their own Catholic faith and the Muslim religion. We found out that Jesus Christ and Mary are key figures in Islamic teachings and Muslims also believe that God created the world.

The KS2 children enjoyed a true or false quiz about Islam. The contestants had to squirt each other with water if they guessed the answers wrong. Some of the questions were tricky and so a few children got a little bit wet!

RE – The Church

In RE the children will learn about how we belong to the Church. We will explore how our school helps us to be true followers of Jesus and learn about how our Church is a community of faith, love and hope. Our learning will include the different seasons in the Church’s year and a reflection on when we receive a sacrament, we receive God’s love. We will also learn about God’s call to individuals and their responses, as well as linking our learning to British Values on how it is important to respect public institutions and services.

English

Our class text will be ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. We will follow Charlie into the factory, and we will write imaginary recounts of what the characters encountered in the extraordinary factory.

Maths

At the start of this half term, we are developing our understanding of how to read, write and convert time. Following our work with time, we will learn more about statistics to be able to interpret and present data using appropriate graphical methods. We will learn how to compare and classify geometric shapes, how to compare and order different angles and how to identify lines of symmetry. We will also explore geometry where we will take a close look at describing positions as coordinates and plotting specified points on graphs.

Science

This half term we will be learning about the digestive system and food chains. We will carry out a fun experiment to show the different parts of the digestive system and their functions. We will observe over time how the shells of boiled eggs change depending on what liquid they are kept in and after recording our findings we will evaluate how well we designed our experiment. We will explore producers and consumers in food chains and create various food chains of our own.

Art

In Art, we will become artists as we consider and explore how to use lines and shapes in our sketching to create 3D effects. We will develop our ideas and plan our own sketches with inspiration in mind such as The Great Pyramids of Giza. We will be using tonal shading to create depth and we will consider light and shadow as we shade to create a 3D look.

Computing

This half term, we will be learning about databases. The children will use simple databases to record and present information. We will explore paper-based library catalogues and create index cards for our class library. As we practise using databases, we will also look at many online examples and work with databases stored on computers.

Geography

Our topic is linked to Geography this term. We will learn about where in the world Fairtrade products come from. We will find out where cocoa trees grow and why they grow there. The children will explore what happens to a cocoa pod once it is harvested and how it is turned into a chocolate product.

History

In History, we will explore the origins of the cocoa bean and find out how the cocoa bean came to Europe as well as looking at different people’s viewpoints.

MFL

This half term, as part of our French learning, we will learn about clothes and parts of the body. We will expand our vocabulary with new words by playing games and learning rhymes and songs. We will spend time reading French stories and using dictionaries to look up the meaning of unknown words.

Music

In Music, we will be creating an audio book based around a given theme. The children will be performing as part of a team and they will be composing and recording their own productions. We will be working on suggesting improvements to a group composition and singing together in tune will be also important to create our pieces of music.

PE

In PE, the children will be taking part in various outdoor games to work on their teamwork skills. They will improve their ability to control and retain possession of a ball as well as how to strike moving balls. They will explore the great outdoors by improving their understanding of maps and giving clear instructions.

PSHE

In PSHE we will explore the topic of careers, financial capability and economic wellbeing. We will explore the topics of borrowing money and earning money as we discuss the different ways we can pay for something. We will also learn about how people choose their job or might want to set up an enterprise and what makes a successful business.