MrJennings

At the beginning of the Spring Term, we have been working on a unit of work in English developing descriptive writing skills. We have based our writing on Ricky Ricky Gervais' Flanimals pictures. We have written "encyclopedia" type descriptions, written comparisons of similar "creatures" and have written descriptions in letter form. We have also written descriptions intended to be part of a story and thought about how these need to differ from "non-fiction" descriptions.

Our maths has covered a several areas broadly concerning "number" including developing understanding of place value of large numbers and of decimals to thousandths, negative numbers, strategies for solving addition and subtraction calculations mentally and equivalent fractions.

We have made good progress with our new major history topic covering the Saxons and including some local history. We started by thinking about the Saxon way of life, including the types of settlements typical of the early Saxons, the types of homes they inhabited and their farming methods. We also learned that land pressure encouraged Saxons to find new homelands and that many came to England in the centuries following the Roman withdrawal. Following a simulation exercise, we investigated an area of England given knowledge of the area's landscape features (including vegetation and topography) and geology (in terms of soil types) to choose a site for a new settlement using our understanding of the kinds of features that would be essential and at least desirable for Saxon peoples. We were then able to compare the choices we made with those that Saxon people made about 1400 years ago.