Home Page

Oak Class

WE. ARE. DONE!

Congratulations Year 6. It's been an incredible 2 years with you all. I can't really put into words how much you mean to me and what a big part of my life you have been, but it's truly been a pleasure, through the thick and the thin. I'll never forget you, and I wish you all the best moving into Secondary School and beyond.

Mr Tull

12.7.19

This week has been one for the record books- the children have had a go at being teachers themselves! It's been great fun and they've managed to get some high quality work from their students. Behaviour management might need to be worked on a bit, but other than that, there are clearly some future teachers in the class.

Also this week we went to Play2Day for our end of year trip. Much fun was had, and some very sweaty children came back. They represented Manea really well, which was great to see.

8.7.19

Another week ticked off! The children were rather surprised/ horrified to discover that in English they will get the chance to be teachers themselves. They have spent this week preparing for the lesson, planning it etc, and I look forward to experiencing the teachers of the future next week!

It's also been production week, with two excellent performances on Friday. We are now gearing up also for leavers, and that will properly kick off next week- very exciting, and just a little bit crazy.

The end of year trip is next Wednesday, so please make sure you pay via parentpay :)

28.6.19

This week has seen us come to the end of our Theme Park extravaganza! The children have been working with huge numbers, and we clearly have some future businessmen in the class... one pair made over £50 million profit!

We have had an assessment writing week across the school this week, where we have written a setting description about a creepy image. As usual, the children have really shown off their vocab skills and produced some incredible pieces of writing!

Topic saw us finish off our work on light by focusing on shadows and creating models.

21.6.19

This week we have been continuing our theme park work... this time it was season 2! Children have learnt that the taxman is a mean, mean person, and that investing is certainly worth it- don't be greedy with your money!

This week in English we have written narratives about our superheroes. The goal has been to apply everything we know about vocabulary and sentence types to stories of a genre of our choosing.

We also had Sports Day this week, which was a load of fun!

14.6.19

This week has been full of activities! We have started running our own theme parks in maths. This has involved designing it, as well as costing it all out and working out the profit. They have been working with some very large numbers... some are better at business than others!

In English we have planned and begun to work on our comic strips. The children have done a fantastic job so far, and I can't wait to see the final product!

Science saw an experiment with light and water as they learnt about refraction. It was... messy.

8.6.19

Well here we go! Final ever half-term for the little delights of Oak class. Lots to pack in- Sports Day, Production AND leavers assembly... as well as some learning of course! We are doing a superhero topic, which sees us designing our superhero, the city they live in, the various characters and then of course putting them into a comic strip. The children have had some very imaginative ideas, and even got to build their city using lego!

10.5.19

We're done! The children did an amazing job this week, and all of us are so proud!

The children tackled the various exams with much enthusiasm, as you would expect. Some of the exams were harder than others, which is often the way, but throughout the week the children remained enthusiastic and came in for breakfast with a smile on their face.

We did lots of sport in the afternoon, making the most of the sunshine, and now just have a few days to get through until half term!

3.5.19

A very boring update this week! Only a 4 day week, and the focus has been on revising for SATs, which is of course next week. The children are in a fantastic place, seemingly quite calm, and they are really prepared.

No matter what happens, and how they do, we as staff are super proud of everything they have achieved so far this year and look forward to celebrating with them after the 4 days are up!

Hopefully the children have a fun weekend (no revision needed) and we will see them at 8.15 Monday morning with a big smile on their face!

19.4.19

Welcome back! And so here we are, the half term we have all been counting down to... the one with the SATs! Only 9 school days remain as we hit Friday until judgement day, and it's all action go. In maths we are now just recapping everything, as the children are very much equipped to deal with anything they encounter... we are just ironing out the silly mistakes now.

In English we have started a new story, The Watertower, which the children found both intriguing and highly frustrating, as there was no proper ending! We are using this to provoke thought and suspense, as well as develop our writing... and acting skills!

25.3.19

This week there has been but 1 focus... Mock SATs! We have tried all the different papers experienced the order in which they run. The children coped really well, and in some of the tests performed exceptionally well. We are now very much aware of the areas we need to focus on (sitting in silence being one of them) and it's time to knuckle down! Unfortunately, the teachers are now left with the worst part...

Marking!

18.3.19

The main focus of this week has been science week, and what fun we have had! It all begun on Monday, when we learnt how to make ice cream (with varying levels of success)

Later on in the week we turned to our attention to the idea of 'journeys'. We investigated how to improve paper aeroplanes, and how size and weight affects them, and then researched the Channel Tunnel and b

uilt our own board games related to it!

11.3.19

Mid way through the second half of the Easter term, and the children finally got to write their suspense stories...

And what a job they did! I genuinely don't think I've ever been so impressed with a class' piece of writing. Every single child should be proud of what they managed, and if they are able to sustain this over the rest of the year, it is very promising!

We recapped circles in maths. Children had a great time learning to use compasses, although some certainly found it rather tricky! We also focused down on pie charts, as the children have found that tricky recently.

We concluded our Electricity topic with a lot of freedom- the children were able to design their own experiments and write them up. Next week is science week, so we shall see if they have taken on board all the skills thats we have looked at over the past couple of weeks!

4.3.19

We have had the opportunity to start developing our suspense writing this week. The children have made a fantastic effort at this- they are using of our VVIRUS techniques and giving all the readers goosebumps!

We turned our attention to measurement this week in maths. We were converting and solving problems- these sorts of questions test lots of different skills, and the children did a great job of applying them.

This week we have also done some more work on conducting experiments involving electricity, and we took on Joe Wicks' HIIT training in P.E, to much hilarity!

25.2.19

The first week of Spring 2 has been and gone in the blink of an eye! We've begun our journey into the deepest and darkest parts of our minds with our start on scary stories. The children had to make predictions about our new story, based on various clues, and then create a journal storyboard entry on parchment to replicate our new missing person, Francis! This was after having created scary scenes using matchboxes. They are really keen on this topic, and I look forward to seeing the quality of writing next week!

Maths has been all about ratio and proportion. It's a difficult topic and the children have handled it really well. We also had a session on Electricity, our new topic. There were a few cobwebs in the children's brains, but they managed to soon clear them out and had a lot of fun experimenting with various pieces of equipment.

11.2.19

And with that, the first half term of 2019 is complete! It's certainly been an interesting experience getting to know the children again, and good progress has been made throughout. We now only have one full half term before SATs, but this week we finished with a variety of fun activities.

It was maths week, and year 5 and 6 challenged themselves to build a lander that could stop aliens from falling out when they landed on Earth. They needed to think about stabilisation and shock absorption, and the mathematical element of area played a big part in how they were slowing down their craft.Furthermore, we finished the week with our Inspiration Day! The theme was that we had landed on a planet and it was a race for survival! We had to build shelters, test them against wind and rain (!) and collect various resources. Afterwards, we created space themed games to entertain ourselves on our new planet! All the staff were really impressed with how the children worked.

4.2.19

With the countdown to half term ticking ever onward, this week the children had the opportunity to write their non-chronological reports about the Solar System. They researched and planned it before producing it, and it's been a pleasure to read such high quality work!

Maths has been a former secondary school favourite- Algebra! The subject matter is tricky, and yet the children have just flown with it. Be it solving equations or calculating formulas for linear sequences... they've managed it all! Can't remember the last time I was this proud of a class' achievements!

Our Space topic is nearly at an end, but we managed to fit in a team quiz which had the children design their questions. Much fun was had by all, and the children really showed off their knowledge. Next week, however, we are going out with one last hurrah!

28.1.19

After some great newspaper reports, we've now turned our gaze to another aspect of non- fiction writing, which is non-chronological reports. The children already have a good understanding of these, so it will be about them applying their skills, as well as the high quality language they are capable of.

In maths we looked at fractions and percentages, a usually very tricky subject. I have been really impressed with their ability to solve these problems, however. I even threw some old level 6 problems their way and they were able to do them... it's still only January!

On the other hand, my ears are still ringing from the music lessons this week. We tried to create our own soundtrack to the planets to various degrees of success, Mars being a popular choice!

21.1.19

Half way through the half term now (is that all?) and this week the children had the opportunity to write their newspaper reports. They were able to apply the various techniques we have looked at, and the level of detail the children included was impressive! In some cases, perhaps they added too much, however when they edited it the children were very good at editing their work accordingly.

Maths saw us tackle co-ordinates and translation this week. The children coped well with the various problems this presented, showing a good understanding of how to come up with solutions where there were no grids present.

Topic saw us look at the musical piece 'The Planets' and produce artwork inspired by the music of each planet. This will make a fantastic display in time, and I look forward to showing you the finished article!

14.1.19

The term is now into full swing, and the children have started to settle down and graft hard! In Maths we have been looking at BIDMAS, which the children have grasped really well, despite it being a complex mathematical topic. Their weekly Wednesday test was a huge success, with some children now able to score 40/40 on a proper SATS mental arithmetic paper!

We are progressing along nicely with our newspaper reports- we have learnt a variety of sentence types to use and been able to apply them to our writing. Next week we will actually get on to writing it, and I am very excited to see how they do!

We've focused on life nearer to home in Topic, learning about such things as the reason why we have seasons, as well as the phases of the moon. In fact, we even got to use (and eat) Oreos in order to develop lunar cycle maps!

7.1.19

Welcome back everyone! The new year has brought around a new, or perhaps old face, Mr Tull! Let the good times roll.

Our new topic is Space, and we have producing a variety of things to make our classroom into our very own piece of space. We have written poems and put them onto moons, we have used chalks to draw planets and even created our own nebula! The classroom is looking lovely, and the children are really enjoying the topic... they have certainly been very inquisitive with regards to all the information!

We have begun looking at the first moon landing in English, and will be writing newspaper reports about them. The children have really enjoyed it, and are now desperate to write their articles!

Maths have seen us recap place value and ease into everything again. It's been very impressive to see how much the children have retained and this is very encouraging!

Week beginning 10th December.

This week we have explored the art work of Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy has devoted his life to creating pieces of art inspired by the natural world. His artworks are created in a range of natural settings and are then left to the mercy of the elements.

This week we have produced sketches of some of his work.

Here we are at work:

Week beginning 3rd December

This week in Literacy we have continued our work on "biographies". We have researched the life of Roald Dahl and planned and written our own factsheets on this remarkable author.

Today we have unpicked the features of an "autobiography". We read a synopsis of the life of Anne Frank and attempted to select the significant movements in her life.

Here we are at work:

Week beginning 26th November 2018

This week the focus of our Literacy lessons has been "biography". We have read and analysed different biographies about the author Roald Dahl. To our surprise he was much more than an author. We began to research his life and work,

Here we are completing our research:

Our next step is to write our own biographies.

Week beginning 19th November

This week we have focussed upon narrative writing in Literacy.

We looked at a picture from the text "The Mysteries of Harris Burdeck". We discussed the picture and completed what we could see, what we thought about the picture and what we would like to ask the characters.

Here we are "freeze-framing" the scene and beginning to write the story:

Week beginning 12th November

This week we have been engaged in our "Challenging Stereotypes" project. We have been looking at stereotypes in various sports.

To launch our project we had to draw various sports participants - all of us drew female ballet dancers and male boxers!

We joined forces with Year four for "The Great Debate". Our debate question was: "Do you think that women should be paid the same as men in sports?"

This provoked a fast-paced and very lively debate.

Here we are presenting our views:

Week beginning 5th November

This week we have been focussing upon our independent writing skills. We have been writing a diary entry in role as Verity!

We have engaged in the complete writing process - plan, draft, revisit, edit and final copy. Today saw us peer assessing - we all agreed that we found this helpful.

Here we are at work:

Our Science topic for this term is "Materials". Today we gathered materials from the school grounds. We shall be looking at the properties of these materials.

Week beginning 29th October

This week we have thinking about Harvest and its importance and significance to modern day living. We all agreed that having plenty of food to eat is a privilege and that we should be grateful for all that we have.

We identified many the places in the world where having enough food just to survive is an everyday problem; we quickly realised just how fortunate we all are.

We have learnt about different harvest traditions around the world and were surprised about the many different ways this festival is celebrated.

We prepared a presentation for the school "Harvest Assembly".

Here we are rehearsing our performance:

Week beginning 15th October

We have enjoyed a range of activities in Oak Class this week

We have shared a "buddy reading" session with our friends in Beech Class. We were sponsored for our reading.

William said "I really enjoy this. It was great fun sharing books"

In Literacy we created "reader theatre" tableaux of "Mabel's Illness" - a big feature of our text "The Cat Mummy"

Here we are at work:

This week we visited Cromwell College and thoroughly enjoyed participating in their careers market place.

Week beginning 8th October 2018

We launched "5 a day Fitness" this week in Oak Class.

At some point in the day we spend five minutes following our exercise routine. We have to listen to the commentary and follow the moves.

Today it was "Spooky!" Here we are having a go:

We all agreed that it was much harder than it looked.

James said: "It was great fun, but much harder than I thought!"

Stella said: "I loved it, I hope we can do it again!"

Log on to find out tomorrow's challenge!

Week beginning 24th September 2018

Another busy week in Oak Class!

In Literacy this week we have been looking at instructional writing. To see how accurate our giving and receiving of a set of instructions was we each drew a picture and then gave instructions to a partner so they could reproduce the picture.

Take a look at how we got on:

In Mathematics we have looked at constructing circles using a pair of compasses and naming the different parts of a circle and their relationships.

Here we are at work:

Week beginning 17th September 2018

We have worked hard this week! In Maths we have focussed upon problem solving and sharing our different methods of calculation.

We have looked carefully at calculations using decimal notation and the four rules of number. We shared our thinking and methods of calculation. Explaining our thinking and methodology was challenging.

Here we are at work: