Eagles in action!
AUTUMN TERM
Welcome back to the ‘Eagles in Action’ page.
Here’s what we have been up to recently!
Week Commencing 20th January
It’s been a very busy and exciting start to the Spring Term!
Eagles have been on top-form and we are working our socks off but having fun on the way. We had some visitors from Ofsted last week and it went really well. Everyone from Eagles interacted with the inspectors in some way and they were really impressed with our work, behaviour and enthusiasm. This had a lot to do with our excellent report.
This week we have been doing a few mid-year assessments. We had a short maths test and did a quick comprehension exercise. Mr Stowers was extremely pleased with how we have done which augurs really well for high school!!
Our new form Fridays are beginning to take shape and it is lovely to have Mrs Scott teaching us. We have been doing a lot of exciting computing work including coding using Scatch. This week we have been programming using variables.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS from the Eagles Class!!
Week Commencing 16th December
SCIENCE INVESTIGATION – as part of our unit on sound we are carrying out an investigation into how human hearing ranges change with age. We have a sheet to complete in our homework folders. It would be really useful to assess as wider a range of ages as possible, so great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, cousins, siblings, family friends etc. could all be tested. We will need the link below and we must not forget to take at least two readings and work out the average.
It was the last week of term and time for festive fun (in between lots of hard work!!)
On Monday we decorated our Christmas cakes. Lots of parents, carers and other family members came in to help and the results were brilliant.
Tuesday saw us making our Christingles and then taking to Yelverton Church for our traditional Christingle service.
In music this week, we completed our unit on composition. This has involved composing music, writing lyrics and then performing our finished songs. It was a great success and Mr Copper was really pleased with the outcomes
Wednesday meant it was Christmas Party time. Mrs Lloyd organised a really fun morning of games and dancing!
On Thursday we headed to Yelverton Church again to sing some carols for parents, family and villagers. We walked down with the Robin’s Class to help keep them safe. Everyone seemed to enjoy our singing and we were brilliantly behaved for the entire event.
We then enjoyed our Christmas Lunch which was great fun. As ever, our behaviour was impeccable!
Our topic on Strangers would not be complete without a bit of Shakespeare! On Thursday we watched an animated version of Macbeth and found out about our greatest playwright
Week Commencing 9th December
The Eagles continue to work hard and do plenty of exciting learning.
On Monday, together with the rest of the school, we watched the Key Stage 1 nativity production entitled ‘Christmas With the Aliens’. It was excellent and we were all impressed how clearly and confidently all our younger school-mates spoke and performed!
Some of us had a trip to County Hall to perform at ‘The Chair’s Christmas Carol Service’. This was quite an exclusive event with only us and one other school performing. Mrs Welch was extremely proud of the performance; behaviour and manners were excellent, as ever
This week we won the Alpington Raffle! We are given raffle tickets for nice behaviour, acts of kindness, good work etc and then Mrs Welch draws a ticket and whoever wins is given a treat of their choosing. We elected to watch a film at lunchtime which we did on Thursday and Friday
We have been putting the finishing touches to our DT project which was to design, make and evaluate Tudor themed Christmas decorations. We are going to sell our finished products and the proceeds will go to ‘Médecins Sans Frontières’
Week Commencing 2nd December
It has been another excellent week in Eagles.
On Monday we went with the rest of Key Stage 2 to the Forum to perform the Christmas songs and carols we have been learning. It was great to see so many of our parents and relations there to support us
We then went on a Tudor exploration of Norwich. We used the Cummingham map from 1558 to navigate our way from the Forum to Bishop’s Bridge via various Norwich landmarks. This gave us the opportunity to use our map reading skills, identify Tudor buildings and to appreciate how Norwich has changed since Tudor times and how it has stayed the same. It was interesting to see some of the places which were important during Kett’s rebellion and we also noted the influence on the architecture of Norwich from the Strangers who migrated here at this time
On Thursday we were back in Norwich at Strangers’ Hall where we took part in various activities to consolidate our understanding of Tudor history. We learnt about Tudor home life, dancing, social etiquette and weaving. In the afternoon we focussed on Kett’s Rebellion and thought about the events from the different perspectives of various members of Tudor society. It was a great way to end our topic of ‘Strangers’ and was an excellent way to demonstrate how much we have learnt. Our engagement and behaviour was exceptional and was remarked upon by the Strangers’ Hall staff’
Week Commencing 25th November
We are working our socks off in Eagles!! Our topic work has been focussed on maps of Norwich and we have identified Tudor landmarks on a number of maps with different scales and orientations. We are going to use our understanding in a practical way next week by trying to navigate our way around Norwich using a Tudor Map
This week we held an opening afternoon for parents, carers and relatives. It was lovely to show off all our work to them and it was great to see so many people were able to make it.
Friday was ‘You Choose Day’. This idea originated with the Alpington Parliament who decided that we should have the opportunity to decide our own curriculum. We spent a lot of time discussing and organising what we wanted to do. In the end we organised a host of different activities: computing with Mrs Welch, Miss Larter had construction in her room, Mrs Chisholm organised a film club, Mrs Fisher did dance in the hall, there was creative writing with Mr Stowers, Miss Godbold was gardening with a group, Mr Colbeck and Mr Colbeck did PE on the field, Mrs Eland had puppets in her class, Mr Cooper took music in Eagles and Mrs Green organised some art in the Swallows.
It was a brilliant day and everyone enjoyed themselves. We definitely want to organise another one. Mr Stowers said he was particularly pleased to see lots of the Eagles helping the younger children during the different activities without being prompted by an adult – Edith, Knox, Oscar, Franklin, Emily and Rosalie deserve a special mention.
Week Commencing 18th November
The half-term is whizzing by and despite working really hard we still have lots to fit in! Mr Stowers is starting to panic!
This week was the Cluster Swimming Gala in which many of us took part. Mrs Fisher took us to Hobart pool where everyone performed brilliantly with lots of individual race wins. We managed to come second overall which was a great result. As ever, our attitude and behaviour were exemplary – Mrs Fisher said how proud she was of us!
On Thursdays, we have Celebration Assembly where we celebrate everything we have achieved during the week. Normally we: nominate other pupils we think have done something noteworthy, then the class teachers mention people they think have done well in the past week. Everyone mentioned gets a sticker with the Alpington value which best matches their achievement. We then celebrate birthdays and then anyone who has something else to celebrate explains to Mrs Welch what they have done – it might be getting a belt in karate or getting a new pet! We often sing and always end with a prayer.
On Fridays, Mr Cooper and Mrs George-Broom come in to give us individual music lessons. We get the chance to show off our skills at various points during the year including ‘Class Proms’ and the Summer Concert.
In science we are studying the human life-cycle. This ties in nicely with our RSE topics of Keeping Safe and Growing and Changing. This week we mapped out, in some detail, our life-cycle. We will soon be looking at the changes associated with puberty.
Week Commencing 11th November
This Monday was Remembrance Day. Mrs Welch took a special assembly in the hall during which we watched the events at the Cenotaph and observed the two minutes silence at 11 o’clock. Our behaviour, along with the rest of the school, was impeccable
Our DT project this half-term is to design, make and evaluate a Tudor inspired Christmas decoration using different methods to join 2D fabrics to make a 3D product. We are lucky to have Ms Godbold to teach us; this week she has been teaching us different sorts of stitch we can use. When they are finished we intend to sell our decorations for charity.
Each week we all have a mental maths target which we practise and are then tested on every Friday. As we are Year 6s some of these targets are quite tricky! A few of us are working on decimal, fraction and percentage equivalents. You can see an example test below. Have a go – you have 3 minutes!
Week Commencing 4th November
We are back with loads of energy and enthusiasm for the next half-term!! The Eagles need to be congratulated for their brilliant start to the year, their hard work and excellent behaviour.
This week we have been finishing off our unit of work on Kett’s Rebellion. We have been thinking about the different opinions people may have had about the rebellion at the time. To help us with this Edith played the role of the Earl of Warwick and Knox a labourer named William and the class had the opportunity to question them and find out how they felt about the rebellion. We will use this work to help us write letters from Warwick and William expressing their opinions
We have also begun our unit on how Norwich has changed since Tudor times. This has involved looking at buildings in Norwich and deciding whether they were there in Tudor times, estimating when they were built and identifying their position on a map. We have also been working on 6-digit grid references.
Week Commencing 21st October
It’s the last week in Eagles this half-term and it has been a very productive one!
We have continued to work on our Strangers topic and managed to finish our newspaper reports on Kett’s Rebellion. They look really good! We had some mini assessments on our maths work and spellings. We need to mention Charlotte for her incredible spellings score and Felix for his maths work!! The whole class have shown fantastic progress across the curriculum and should all be commended.
On Friday mornings we all take part in Key Stage 2 choir. We are lucky to have Mrs Cork back from maternity leave to lead us. We are preparing songs for Christmas and will be performing at the Forum in Norwich on 2nd December!
This week there was another Alpington Parliament where we discussed formats and ideas for a ‘You Choose Day’. Knox presented the Eagles’ proposal brilliantly and we are now thinking a little bit more about the different activities we would like to do!
Our first Alpington Parliament idea is now coming to fruition and some of us have been involved in the design and painting of the Buddy Stop
On Tuesday Mr Cooper organised our Eagles Prom where we had the opportunity to demonstrate our music skills to the class. Virtually everyone took part and we videoed all the performances which we hope to show at our next class open day.
Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and we all have at least two guided reading sessions every week, some groups having three or four or even five. We always have a class book on the go. At the moment it is Shadow by Michael Morpurgo. We also find time to read outside these sessions and make use of our reading corner in ‘The Nest’ where we can read whilst relaxing on the sofa and bean bags.
Week Commencing 14th October
Another busy week in Eagles!
As part of Black History Month we took part in a webinar celebrating the achievements of people of colour. We followed this up with looking at important figures in black history beginning with Dr Martin Luther King, Rishi Sunak and Diane Abbot. We will continue to highlight other important figures as the month progresses.
On Wednesday morning we went to Hobart High School to take part in Codebreakers’ where we used our maths and reasoning skills to crack different codes. We all really enjoyed it and were all successful with some help from the year 10s.
On Thursday we took part in a webinar from Norfolk police about Hate Crimes. We looked at different crimes and what characterises a ‘Hate Crime’. We learnt about what the different Protected Characteristics are and then had to decide from different scenarios whether they constituted hate crimes, or not. It was really informative and built on work we had done in year 5.
Week Commencing 7th October
We have had another brilliant week in Eagles!
On Monday we went to Yelverton Church to celebrate Harvest Festival. We accompanied the reception children and helped them to complete the various harvest activities. It was a lovely experience, and all the Eagles behaved beautifully and really took care of our younger schoolmates.
On Wednesday morning we went to Langley School to take part in the annual cross-country event. Everyone performed brilliantly, especially Evie who ran away with girls’ race.
We also had a special visitor in school to announce the forthcoming visit of Elizabeth I. Well done Erica on some superb horsewomanship and excellent announcing skills!
On Thursday we had an amazing experience in the Wonder Dome where we were given a chronology of our planet from red hot rock to the present day and a black hole experience. It was mind-boggling!
As part of our work on Strangers we have been considering what the push and pull factors were for the Strangers coming to Norwich in the sixteenth century and how this compares with modern migrants and refugees and the characters in our class book Shadow by Michael Morpurgo.
