MrJennings

In this last full-week of term we have been working hard to make sure that we have the chance to complete our units of work. We have finished our history topic about ancient Greece by using a range of sources of information to find out about the theatre in that civilisation before discussing how this has influenced the arts today.

In geography, we completed our unit about tourism in the Lake District by thinking of solutions to some of the problems caused by the effects of large number of people visiting (in their cars and then walking) particularly beautiful places. We drew our ideas and made notes about them.

We have all finished our automata in D&T. These have been decorated and tested and most of us have completed our reflections and evaluations. All the automata have been photographed and filmed and almost everyone has started to make a presentation about their automaton.

We have also spent some time on our Record of Achievement folders.

We have continued our fiction work in English, completing our Grandpa Chatterji activities by watching a television adaptation and comparing this with the book. We have read the start of The Wind in the Willows and compared this with an animated film adaptation. We have thought about how the film-makers communicate the ideas presented in the book using settings (backdrops, scenery and props). action, music, lighting and dialogue. We have also written a poem about the river based on Kenneth Grahame's descriptive passage. Our maths has focussed on coordinates, reflection and translation and we have also done some more work on reading and using timetables.

We have continued our English activities based on the Grandpa Chatterji novel this week, reflecting on the development of the character of Grandpa Leicester (by contrasting the way he is presented at the beginning and later in the story) and by improving the story episodes that we had drafted.

We started another unit of our Geography topic about the Lake District, thinking about tourism in the area. So far, we have thought about the impact of large numbers of tourists on a popular viewpoint in the National Park.

We have also done another set of maths and reading tests this week. These are based on the objectives/scheme of work for the new National Curriculum and should give us baselines which may help us judge progress during the next school year.

We had our summer Music Concert on Thursday when a large number of pupils gave very creditable performances, with children performing in various groups and our Year 6 musicians having the chance to play a solo.