Connecting school and home
Reading fever has well and truly hit Year Six. Have a look at what we’ve been reading and come and ask us about our books, we might have a perfect recommendation for you..
Some of us have so enjoyed the first book that we’ve immediately started the next in the series!
Some of us are reading the same book!
These two were recommended these books by their friends.
Some of us prefer to have the actual book, but some of us prefer to read on a kindle. What do you prefer?
This week we elected our School Councillors, congratulations to our newest members of the School Council team:
Year Four :
Year Five:
Charlotte and Reiss
Year Six:
Henrietta and Sam
We look forward to hearing about all of their wonderful ideas throughout the year, so remember to look out for what the House Captains have been up to in the coming weeks!
Good Afternoon all,
This week in Year Six has been a roller coaster -with everything from House Captain presentations to one-eyed giants. I know that the children and House Teachers (including myself,) very much enjoyed hearing the presentations of all the House Captain candidates. The children presented to their houses confidently and responsibly, taking into account all of the personality traits that are needed to be a successful House Captain. These character traits were evident in all who went forward for the role, but only two captains can have the leading role in each house. So, our House Captains for 2019-2020 are:
Cecil: Faris and Ollie
Churchill: Helena and Shiann
Spencer: Kalvin and Talia
Wilberforce: Tarran and Timo
Congratulations!
Once House Captains have been allocated, many other important school roles can be assigned. These are essential jobs in order to achieve the excellent running of our school. Our Year Six school roles for the term are:
Stars and Charmers Computer leads: Adriaan and Joel
Stars and Charmers Display leads: Liz and Olva
Blog Team: Milia and Katya
School Botanist: Joel
House Merit Lead: Lily-Grace
Tech Team: Jai, Abbeer, Cammy and Reece
Art Monitors: Calvin and Liz
Paddy’s Assistant: Sarah
During our English lessons, we have been reading about Odysseus’s visit to Polyphemus’s cave. After being repulsed but certainly intrigued by the story, we wrote our own scripts portraying the narrative.
Here are some of our scripts (let us know what you think):
Odysseus and The Cyclops Helena
Despite the rain, we still had an excellent PE lesson with Paddy in the hall. Well done to Spencer House who won the indoor games this week!
The Year Six Curriculum Map for Autumn is ready and can now be found here.
I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and are well rested and ready for next week, which will undoubtedly be another busy one!
Miss M and Year Six 🙂
As we approach the end of September, Year Five have been keeping themselves very busy. This Thursday we warmly welcomed Wimbledon High students into our class. They were here to help lead some science experiments all about our Space Topic.
“They were really friendly, I enjoyed working with them.” Rocco
“We did an experiment where we span a ball around our heads on a rope. This was to investigate how planets orbit. We found that the closer the ball is on the rope, the quicker it orbits. So, the closer a planet is to something, the quicker its orbit.” Harry and Liana
The Topic Overview for Autumn term can be found here.
Next week, we have our second Sport Leaders course, but more about that next week! I hope you all have a restful and enjoyable weekend.
Miss Dyer and Year Five 🙂
Saturday 21st September 2019
Did you know that the name Matthew means a gift from God?
We celebrated St Matthews Day early with an extra afternoon playtime on the field. It was so lovely to see all the children playing together on this special day for our school.
Hello All,
It is been so wonderful having you back in my class again Year 6. Although there are lots of similarities to the class I said goodbye to in July 2015, I am pleased to report that a lot of growing up has happened since then and every day I am more and more impressed with your wisdom, kindness and friendship. It has also been great getting to know those of you who have joined since I taught in Year One, so thank you for welcoming me. You have tackled the first three weeks of term like pros. Being at the top of the school comes with a lot of responsibility and so many of you are rising to the challenge. One challenge that many of you faced this week, was the interviews for Head Boy and Head Girl. For those of you who applied, your letters of application were very well thought through and Mr Quinn and Mrs Sullivan have informed me that all of you came across excellently in the interview. I have no doubt that it was a very tricky decision. However, the role can only go to two children, so I say a huge congratulations to Henrietta and Sam, I know that you both will take on this important role with humbleness, integrity and enthusiasm.
Our Fantastic Head Boy and Head Girl Candidates
But the week has not simply been filled with deciding important roles, earlier in the week we published our Lonely Planet guides to the Greek landscape. These are now being proudly displayed on the wall and I am becoming increasingly tempted to book my next holiday. Here are a few of the guides that were created (thank you to Mrs Carroll for the super display):
Year 6 has also been rocking out this week with our new music topic: Classic Rock. We have been listening to a range of rock classics but our main focus has been learning how to sing ‘Living on a Prayer’ by Jon Bon Jovi. I know that Year 5 are also learning this song, so year 6 get practising because just before half-term we need to win the ‘Phase 2 Rock Out.’ Here is the link to the song below, so you can bring out those air guitars at home!
Anyway I best get off, the Rugby World Cup starts today and I want to watch the opening ceremony! Have a great weekend and see you on Monday!
Miss M 🙂
I know that it can be impossible to know where to start when it comes to choosing a reading book, but last year I discovered the lists of ‘100 books for Y3/4 and Y5/6.’ These are lists of recommended books created by the brilliant Ashley Booth and adapted by the wonderful Mrs P .
The lists are full of great texts: classic novels, books which came out when I was at school and which I devoured, and some debuts by brilliant authors currently publishing amazing books for children each year. Lots of the books are the first in a series so pupils can get hooked on a certain character or setting and read sequel after sequel. There are a few books which overlap between lists and some non-fiction or poetry books included. It’s important that children can read books appropriate to them, so the lists are called Red (Y3/4) and Blue (Y5/6) rather than named by year group.
It’s also important pupils know that this is not a challenge – 100 books in Y5/6 would be 1 book a week. Very few pupils (and teachers) would manage this. Instead, we have stressed that these lists have great recommendations for books to read.
To enhance pupils’ engagement with the 100 books lists, Year 6 children are members of a weekly book club. This is an opportunity for them to join in and discuss the books on and off the list. This means we have the whole of Year 6, as well as the teachers, communicating about books and reading. There is a real reading buzz in the Year 6 classroom: we take selfies with our latest books, discuss each other’s books as well as give reviews and recommendations (with no spoilers!). Book club is something that we are hoping to role out across the whole of Phase 2 in the coming months, but even if you’re not part of a book club, I hope we can keep the reading momentum going throughout the year and encourage more children to find a book they love.
Please note that the books in red text are the books we read in class, so careful not double up and read them at home too!
I hope this is useful and I look forward to hearing about the books you are enjoying! If you are particularly enjoying one of the books on the list, why don’t you comment below so that other people could read it too?
Miss M 🙂
Year Four have settled in well to their new class and we have been busy, here is some of the learning we have been up to:
Place value
LO: Can I explore Roman Numerals up to 100?
LO: Can I round to the nearest 10?
LO: Can I round to the nearest 100?
LO: Can I count in 1,000?
LO: Can I understand that 4-digit numbers are made up of 1,000s, 100s, 10s and 1s?
LO: Can I partition numbers into 1,000s, 100s, 10s and 1s?
LO: Can I estimate, figure out and place numbers on a number line to 10,000?
LO: Can I find 1,000 more or less than a given number?
LO: Can I compare 4-digit numbers?
LO: Can I place numbers in ascending and descending order?
ENGLISH
Character descriptions
Haiku poems
Have a great weekend!
Miss Radi and Year Four 🙂
Happy Friday!
This is a picture of us working hard in our new classroom.
Year 5 have had a fantastic start to the new school year. Some of the highlights so far have been –
“Learning about Earth and Space, especially creating our own solar system.”
“Having PE twice a week is great!”
“One of my favourite parts so far has been learning the poem about The Iron Man.”
“I love Roman Numerals.”
And overall the general consensus of Year 5 so far is:
“We are looking forward to more fun activities in the future.”
This is a picture of us orbiting the sun in the solar system we created.
Our Rugby World Cup display is up, every child has picked a team from the pools and the competition is on! (Go SA!)
Hope you all have a great weekend, and enjoy the rugby.
Miss Dyer and Year 5 🙂
Welcome to our brand new Phase 2 blog! We plan to use the blog to keep you up-to-date with all the exciting learning that takes place every week at St Matthews. The blog will also be a space for posting school reminders, as well as links to sites we may all find useful, so please do check in regularly! We sometimes will post as individual classes and other times as a phase group, we hope you will find it valuable and look forward to your encouraging comments.
Please note, I do not own any of the images included on our blog, apart from the photos of our classroom and children.
What a great start to the year it has been. It has put such a smile on my face to see all of you bustle through the doors with such enthusiasm, excited to start the new school year.
I managed to capture some of your smiling faces this week as you came into school. Can you spot yourself? It is so wonderful when the teachers receive a bright, cheery morning welcome from you all, it puts a smile on our faces too!
Assemblies have looked at ‘fresh starts’ and I know that many of you are thinking about how you can be the very best version of yourself this new school year. For some of you that ‘fresh start’ might be being a role-model for children in the younger years, or perhaps you have decided to nail your timestables this year! It is sometimes difficult to start something new or face a challenge but Joshua 1:9 reminds us:
‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.’
Whatever you have decided as your challenge to face, I look forward to hearing about your journey to fulfilling that goal as the year goes on.
Thanks for reading and I hope you are as excited as I am for this new opportunity to bring school and home together through the Phase 2 blog!
Miss M : )