Week 6

It is Holy week, and Class 5 have taken on the responsibility of planning and presenting the 'Station of the Cross' worship to the rest of the school. Each of the stations focused on a specific event of Jesus' last day, beginning with His condemnation. The stations were used as a mini-pilgrimage as each class listened to a member of Year 6 read. We then all reflected upon what have been said, before moving from station to station.

Week 5

This week, we have been hard at work creating our final drafts of our mystery/suspense stories.

We have been focusing on including suspense techniques, such as varying sentence lengths, foreshadowing and manipulating clauses. We have really enjoyed this topic and have loved looking at how authors such as James Dashner have successfully used the techniques in their own stories!

Week 4

During our school trip, we learnt all about the industrial revolution, with a focus on learning how the inventions changed the lives of the people of Europe. Our learning included:

• That science played a central role in shaping industrial advances.
• How steam can power a steam engine, and in turn generate energy to power factories.
• How linear motion can be turned into rotary motion.
• How the scientific theory of centrifugal force was used to improve steam engines.
• The role of Manchester, Liverpool Road in the Industrial Revolution.

Week 3

After two snow days at the end of last week, we have been back to working hard this week in Class 5! This week, we have begun to focus on writing mystery stories. 
We have analysed how authors such as James Dashner, Piers Torday and Nancy Butts have successfully built suspense and used a range of figurative language in their own stories. We decomposed extracts of their texts and answered inferential questions about them, before taking what we have learnt from them and applying them to our own writing.

In topic, we have researched the Victorian workhouses and focused on how they helped poor people, but also teared families apart.

Week 2

This week, author Angela Cousins has been into our class to host a writing workshop with us. In this, she told us all about the struggles she encountered in her long journey to getting her first book published, and inspired us to chase our writing dreams!

She worked on editing with us, giving us tips on how to draft and up-level our structure, vocabulary and punctuation.  She also taught us about foreshadowing, which will be a very important feature in our mystery stories!

Class 5 have been busy getting stuck into our topic, Revolution. 

We have been using iPads, books and computers to research the Pre-Raphaelite art movement, then create our own art in the same style.

The Pre-Raphaelites were a secret society of young artists (and one writer), founded in London in 1848. They were opposed to the Royal Academy’s promotion of Renaissance master, Raphael.

Week 1

This afternoon, we had our parent topic session, in which we made our own peg doll characters and puppet theater. This is part of our Victorian topic, in which we have been learning about the different classes and the toys that they had.