MrJennings

We have concentrated on our science work today.

To begin with we reviewed the old test paper that we had a go at on Wednesday, looking at the questions that we found most difficult and thinking about the questions that we did get marks for but could still have given better (more scientific) answers. After that we did maths - spending more time practising calculations involving fractions and percentages.

This afternoon, after doing a little work about spelling - considering unstressed syllables in words to fit in with this week's spelling list - we did a science/art activity. This is called "picture from memory" in which we were given a little time to look at a quite complicated picture (today's showed photographs of foods from different food groups set out in something like a pie chart) and we had to work in groups to re-create the picture.

Our science revision programme has continued - focusing on life processes in plants, food chains, creating and using keys.

In maths, we have been working on fractions - converting between improper fractions and mixed numbers, ordering fractions (after converting them to a common denominator) and finding fractions of quantities.

We have been thinking about characters in stories in our English work. We thought about different aspects of a character - how someone speaks, the sort of thing they say, the way they react in different circumstances, etc. We then wrote a very short story based on a picture showing a scene outside a school gate.

The summer term has begun and we are in the last couple of weeks before the SATs tests so we mainly spending our time brushing up on what we already know and checking our understandings - especially in maths and science.

We have been practising our computation skills in maths - doing basic calculations, including word problems and ones involving decimals. In English we have been doing some short writing activities, making sure that we write good, interesting description and are able to write sentences in different ways (with different word orders). The science we are revising this week covers the "biology" aspects of the work. So far we have thought about the features of living things, life cycles and healthy diets.

In addition to this core work, we have done music - composing and performing two-part raps - as well as our Tuesday PE with the YMCA, French and handwriting.

Our main piece of work has been to continue our mini-topic about the planning proposal to build a mini-supermarket on our school field. We held a "planning meeting" at which different groups of us took the roles of different types of people likely to be affected by the plan. Some of us represented the supermarket owners and they proposed the plan, explaining the benefits of the new shop. Other represented local residents; old people who live in the nearby home; school children and teachers; owners and workers at the nearby Co-op and local teenagers who might expect to be able to get a job at a new shop.

After the debate, we wrote a "discussion text" together illustrating the arguments for and against the plan. The everyone wrote newspaper-style reports about the planning proposal.

We have been continuing our science revision, thinking about Earth in space, and in maths we did a past SATS calculator paper. We had our Friday English and maths groups (on Thursday!) and, to finish the term off, we watched the film of "Carries' War" which links with our history work.

We are now on our Easter holidays. School re-opens on 24th April.

We have been working on "number" in maths - thinking about the properties of odd and even numbers when they are added, subtracted and multiplied together. We have also been working on multiples of different numbers, including finding common multiples so that we can work out the lowest common multiple of two numbers.

For our geography and English work this week, we have started to think about a fictional planning proposal to build a mini-supermarket on our school field. We have estimated and measured lengths and distances (including the size of the site and the distance to the next nearest supermarket), thought about the groups of people likely to be affected by the plan and started to think about how some of these people would respond to the plan.

In science, we have continued revising the "physics" areas including light and forces.

This afternoon, we had our PE session with the YMCA, French and handwriting sessions.