UKS2 – Newsletter – 02.02.24

This week was an exceptionally wet one for UKS2, especially in Forest School but, like the determined bunch they are, pupils in Years 5 and 6 were not going to let the rain dampen their enthusiasm!

On offer this week in Forest School were a range of activities all focused around our setting. Pupils could choose from tasks which all revolved around maintenance, improving or looking after our natural environment within the school grounds. Inside the poly tunnel, children could choose to wither plant new tree saplings into pots or use bow saws to cut up some fallen wood from the recent storms for our wood stores. Outside, children cleared the new goat enclosure of self-seeded blackthorn, weeded an area of the kitchen garden where the grass was beginning to take over and topped up the strawberry bed so that it is ready to be planted up once a little drier. A group also took on litter picking around the school grounds and were shocked by the variety and quantity of rubbish they collected from the field and Forest School area. Finally, the wildflower area was cleared of blackthorn, scraped over, grass removed then covered by tarps to suppress the growth of the grass before being planted up in April with lots of native wildflowers.

In maths, Miss Barnicoat’s class have been learning how to add and subtract fractions. They went outside and used different resources to create various fractions, and then worked them out using their prior knowledge. Miss Boyd’s group have also been learning fractions. We have been recapping how to compare, order and convert improper fractions into mixed number fractions, and vice versa.

In English, we have started our new book, The Shaman’s Apprentice: A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest, continuing with our South America topic. Year 5’s have been focusing on informal and formal language of writing and speech, and year 6’s have been focusing on using _____. We have been building up to our descriptive write which we will complete next week.

In science this week, we looked at fossils! We observed some real life fossils, before looking through and understanding various fossil records of different living things. We studied the similarities and differences between the fossil records of a hawk/ eagle or a horse, comparing them with the modern day animal based on the structure of their bones, teeth and various other features.

We looked at comparing the four main indigenous groups in South America in history this week, looking at how they are similar and how they differ.