Middle Department News

This week in Year 3

English  

 

We are continuing to study poetry this week and have been learning about onomatopoeia. We looked at the Roger McGough poem, The Sound Collector, and then created our own versions of it, considering the rich and varied sounds that would be stolen if the collector came to Beechwood. It was a wonderful use of onomatopoeia and the children had a lot of fun with it.  

 

Science:  Home Learning 

This week, we have been learning about the three main types of natural rocks. We learnt how they are formed and which of them may contain fossils. To consolidate this learning, we will be setting a home learning project, which is always one of the most exciting:  Chocolate Rocks. The children will be ‘making their own Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic rocks out of different types of grated chocolate, with the added bonus of being able to eat them at the end! We will be creating a display of the pictures they send in and the children will have two weeks to complete the work.  

 

Maths 

We have been focusing on our times tables this week and have spent some time using the iPads and a fantastic website, timestables.co.uk, which has lots of great games to help make our recall of the number facts even faster. We will put a link in the google classroom, so that you can continue the fun at home.  

REMINDERS

Beechwood Park Award Books 

Year 3 pupils will be working on their Beechwood Park Award books next week.  Please ensure your child brings in any photos, certificates or any other relevant evidence for any entries they wish to include.   

Forest School 

Forest School sessions will continue to take place on Friday mornings this term. Pupils should wear School Games kit for the session. Pupils should arrive at school in their Games kit and remain in it for the rest of the day. We will remind your child to bring their Games kit home on a Thursday but would appreciate you giving them an extra reminder. We would recommend either short/skort and skins or tracksuit bottoms plus Games top and tracksuit top or hoody. 

Additional layers will undoubtedly be necessary especially at this end of the term. These do not have to be BPS kit but must be brought to school in a bag and only worn for the FS session. 

Gloves and a hat are essential!  Don’t forget to send appropriate footwear (wellies, hiking boots, old trainers) and two pairs of socks can be useful to help with cold feet! 

Session Dates: 

• 30: 28 January 
• 3I: 4February 
• 3M 11 February 

 Further dates to be announced later in the term. 

Have a lovely weekend!

The Year 3 Team

---

This week in Year 4

In Class This Week

 

It has been another full-on week in Year 4 as we began our new unit of work in English.

This week, the children have begun working hard on perfecting their comprehension answers by looking at a variety of texts ranging from watching short movies, to cartoon strips and encyclopaedia extracts.

 

 

We are now in the final half-term of our Anglo-Saxon topic and our attention has turned towards researching everyday life of an Anglo-Saxon. We hope to then create an interactive Google Slides based upon our research which may also include video recordings and sound clips. Watch this space! 

 This week in Science, our journey around the body stopped off at the heart as we took a look at the journey of blood around the body. We introduced a bit of role play as some children took on the task of being blood and describing their journey around the body as they visited the heart, lungs and various other parts of the body. 

Aylmerton Trip 

Thank you to all those parents who came to our ‘Zoom’ information meeting about the Year 4 residential trip to the Aylmerton Field Study Centre. For those of you who were unable to attend, you should have received a copy of the information that was given out at this meeting along with a Parental Consent form and Administration of  Medication form. If you have not yet received them, copies can be found in your child’s Google Classroom along with the Google Slides that was shown as well. If you have any questions regarding the residential trip, please feel free to contact your child’s class teacher. Please could we ask that all the forms, (Parental Consent Form, Medical & Dietary) are returned to school no later than Friday 4th February. 

 

Reminders: 

Forest School sessions will continue to take place on Friday mornings this term.  

Pupils should wear School Games kit for the session. Pupils should arrive at school in their Games kit and remain in it for the rest of the day. We will remind your child to bring their Games kit home on a Thursday but would appreciate you giving them an extra reminder.  

We would recommend either short/skort and skins or tracksuit bottoms plus Games top and tracksuit top or hoody. 

Additional layers will undoubtedly be necessary during this current cold spell we are experiencing.  These do not have to be BPS kit but must be brought to school in a bag and only worn for the FS session. Gloves and a hat are essential! 

Don’t forget to send appropriate footwear (wellies, hiking boots, old trainers) and two pairs of socks can be useful to help with cold feet! 

Next week, 4K will be having their first Forest School session of the term. A reminder will be posted in the Google Classroom the day before. 

Forest School Session Dates this Term  

Week 3 – Fri 28th January: 4K 

Week 4 – Fri 4th February: 4L 

Week 5 – Fri 11th February: 4H 

 

Wow Wall and The Beechwood Park Award

As a reminder,  if your child does anything worthy of a mention outside of School, please let us know so that we can celebrate it by placing it on our Wow Wall and in their Beechwood Park Award books.

We are aiming to cover our ‘Wow Wall’ completely with something from every child by the end of the year. We’re nearly there but there are still a few empty spaces waiting to be filled!

Thank you!

The Year 4 Team.

 

---

This Week in Year 5

Well done to all of Year 5 pupils for taking the January assessments in their stride this week. We have been very encouraged by the calm way in which they have completed their tests, persevering with trickier questions, showing working where necessary and reading questions carefully. We know that all of the pupils have learnt a lot about good test technique which they can put to use in the future. In addition to the tests at the start of the week, there have been plenty of other learning opportunities to keep us all busy.

In Science, two of the Year 5 classes have been enjoying investigating pitch as part of their work on SOUND. The pupils’ understanding of the frequency of vibrations in relation to the size of the vibrating object is illustrated brilliantly by the ‘boom whackers’! Who would have thought that those unprepossessing  tubes of plastic could create a rather tuneful orchestra?

Click here to listen to Mrs Balfour conducting her class as they play Happy Birthday!

This scientific topic ties in beautifully with the guitar-building project in DT where pupils are considering how to produce a resonant sound and how to place the guitar strings. We cannot wait to see the finished instruments.

In PSHEE and Future Skills lessons, we have been treated to some truly excellent TED talks by our Year 5 pupils. With topics as diverse as Imagination, the Refugee Crisis,Women in Leadership and Litter Picking, there really is something for everybody. The quality of research and delivery has impressed us all and we hope to be able to share some of these talks with you later in the term.

Last Week in English

Well done to 5C English for some wonderfully chocolate-y descriptions  – funnily enough, this was a VERY popular exercise….

 

 

The Year 5 Team

Co-Curricular Clubs

Lego Club

It has been lovely to see lots of Year 3 and 4 pupils attending Lego Club this term, making some wonderful creations!  Have a look below:

Creative Writing Club

Mrs Ali set the creative writers a challenge this week of writing a story in just six words.  Well done everyone on some fantastically imaginative attempts – it is amazing how much you can say in so few words.

• They all ran, but he stayed – Alex R
• An underwater world, shark terrorizes fish – Alex R
• He, she, it, all the same – Sai S
• Long days, hurried evenings, unimaginable dreams – Georgie H
• “Mistakes”, she said. A wonderful thing. – Jasmine E
• Do you believer?  No?  You should – Jasmine E
• Follow dreams, follow your fantastic heart – Holly C
• He died. She killed him.  Regret. – anon
• Mary dared, Ava did, big problem – Ella-Rose A-K

---

From the Art Room

In the first two weeks of term, Year 3 and 4 have been learning about cropping and zooming using a paper viewfinder.

Year 3 are studying Japanese art, and in particular, the artist Hokusai.  Meanwhile in Year 4, pupils were set the challenge of analysing and responding to the work of Jackson Pollock.

Year 5 had fun experimenting with string and wooden blocks to make repeat pattern prints.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a week in the Art Room without time with Bruce.

See our photos of the week below:

 

 

---

From the Library

The Silver Arrow, by Lev Grossman

Kate and Tom have never even met their Uncle Herbet until he turns up on Kate’s birthday with an amazing present – a steam locomotive called The Silver Arrow. That night the children climb on board as the train whisks them away to a magical station where their passengers stand ready to board. From the porcupine to the pangolin, each one is rare and wonderful. Together with the magical talking train, it falls upon Kate and Tom to return each of the endangered animals to their natural habitat. There’s so much that Kate and Tom learn, not just about driving steam trains but about our world, its animals, and humans too. It all makes for the journey of a lifetime, with a subtle environmental message.

 

Head’s Commendations