This week in Year 3

We have had another full week of learning in Year 3, which the children are taking in their stride. We are very excited to have the opportunity to invite you into School next Friday morning between 0800 and 0900 and we are really looking forward to welcoming you into the Year 3 classrooms and sharing our favourite pieces of work with you. 

English

We continued our unit on poetry by looking at Roger McGough’s The Sound Collector. We wanted to write our own Beechwood version of this, so to start with, we walked around the School, carefully noting the sounds we heard and the onomatopoeia words to describe them. 

We visited Mrs Cussans in her office and spent some time chatting to her and appreciating the smaller noises, such as the clunking of the hole punch and the murmurs and other distant sounds from the Great Hall. It was lovely to get to know Mrs Cussans a little better and the children really enjoyed the opportunity. 

We were also very excited to be able to go to the Science Lab, where Mr Darcy had gathered lots of sounds for us to gather. There were whooshes and pops, booms and bangs, and lots of gasps of delight from the children. Lots of these featured in our poems!   

Science

We have been learning about magnets in maths this week, sorting magnetic and non-magnetic materials and investigating the strength of each of the magnets. Despite understanding the science of magnets, there is still an evident joy and lots of laughter  that comes when the children watch magnetic force in action. Once we gathered the data, comparing the magnets, we drew our own bar charts to display the information. 

From the Year 3 Team

This week in Year 4

Year 4 have been having fun learning all about mythical creatures in English since the start of term. The children used their imaginations to create their own mythical creatures.

They learnt that mythical creatures were hybrids of two or more animals. There were many different combinations including a dog and a horse, a scorpion, lion and a monkey and a
lion, tiger and a panther. The children even created names for their creatures such as ‘King of Darkness’, ‘Eliminator’ and ‘Red Darkness’. They then used their creations and
imaginations to write a non chronological report all about their own mythical creatures.

We hope you enjoy looking at the photos of our creations and written work!

The Year 4 Team

This week in Year 5

We have been delighted by the calm and focused approach of the Year 5 pupils towards their first set of exams earlier this week. Although they are relatively low stake tests, by approaching them in a more formal way and by calling them ‘exams’, we hope that the pupils have proved to themselves that they can master nerves and settle to a task under timed conditions and ‘show what they know’.

As senior school admission exams come into sharper focus in the future, the pupils will be able to draw on the knowledge that they have taken exams before and have started to develop some effective revision and exam techniques.

Alongside the exams, it seems all the more appropriate that our PSHE topic has been that of wellbeing and mental health. As always, the maturity of the discussion and the respectful way in which the pupils listen to each other’s views has impressed us as they have explored ways to look after their mental wellbeing as well as their physical health.

In last week’s PSHE session, we discussed what ‘wellbeing’ means and how we can look after our physical and mental wellbeing. Year 5 were fantastic at understanding how sleeping, eating well and moving are all incredibly important in helping to keep our minds and bodies healthy. This week, they began to discuss how feelings and emotions are affected at changing, challenging or difficult times. We had some really interesting discussions around: what can affect mental wellbeing, how emotions change over time, how to support mental wellbeing at challenging times, and why it is important to have a personal network to support you. As always, the children were extraordinarily mature in their approach to all the activities and discussions.

As this half term’s focus in PSHE is on physical and mental wellbeing, we will be reminding all of Year 5 that talking about feelings can help you stay in good mental health and help you to deal with times when you feel troubled. It isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s part of taking charge of your wellbeing and doing what you can to stay healthy.

A super busy week deserves to end with some fun and our thanks go to the BPSPA for organising our Middle Department disco today. The pupils always look forward to it enormously and it is very special to see them enjoy a sparkly end to a cold and dark January week.

We wish you all a very restful weekend,

Saving Neverland by Abi Elphinstone

Martha Pennyworth carries the world on her shoulders; her mother is missing, her father busy and she feels she needs to grow up quickly to protect her brother, Scuff, after the ‘Terrible Day’. She and her family have come to live at 14 Darlington Road, previously inhabited by the Darling family, and soon find gold dust and a bedroom window that is impossible to shut. It’s not long before the pair are embedded in Neverland, helping Peter Pan save the resident fairytale creatures from Captain Hook’s ice curse.

Packed full of courage and adventure, Elphinstone’s reimagining of the classic ‘Peter Pan’ is daring and delightful. She manages to modernise the secret world without jeopardising its magic.

Head’s Commendations

Congratulations to this week’s recipients of Mrs Cussans’ Commendations: