Sport at Allerton Grange High School
Last week, Year 4 walked to Allerton Grange High School for a sports session. We were all impressed with the organisation demonstrated by the older students. Year 4 were engaged right from the start thanks to the motivating energy from the leaders. It was great to see the high school students interacting with all the children and offering support to those who lack confidence in sport.
Thank you, Allerton Grange!
New kit awarded from Premier League Primary Stars
Following our application to the Premier League Primary Stars Kit and Equipment Scheme, we’ve heard our bid has been successful!
As a result, we’ll receive a new kit for school later in the year. This will be of great use for the football team and for other competitions.
School Council, when they meet for the first time on Wednesday, will be discussing the possible team colours. The final choice will be made democratically: each school councillor will vote for their favourite.
Which would you choose?
Allerton Grange sports leaders
Over the year, Year 2-Year 6 will visit Allerton Grange to take part in PE sessions organised by their sports leaders.
There are many benefits of these sessions:
- Allerton Grange sports leaders have the opportunity to practise and develop their skills with a class
- the sessions support our positive relationship with Allerton Grange
- our pupils visit a local high school
- the children get to enjoy a PE session in a different environment and see positive role models (the leaders)
- the sessions give a positive image to physical activity
- pupils reinforce their road safety knowledge as they walk to Allerton Grange
Topic – Did wealth matter?
LO: RIC
To link reading to our current topic (Time Travel – Transport), the children in Year 4 were asked: “Did wealth affect the way people travelled?”
One of the history age related requirements for Year 4 is that, children recognise that the lives of wealthy people were very different from those of poor people.
With this in mind, the class were given a RIC reading starter as a fifteen minute activity at the beginning of our topic lesson. You have probably heard your child talking about RIC reading activities. These sessions are fairly short and the children have just three questions to answer all with a different focus. This is done independently and, when complete, we discuss the responses to the questions. Purple pens are used to mark, correct, edit and improve answers.
This was our topic themed RIC this week.
Retrieve (fact finding)
What can you see, that is the same, in all three pictures?
Interpret / Inference
Would you need to be rich to stay in these rooms? Explain
Choice (language, structure, presentation, thinking about the choices made by the author/director/artist)
What do you think the illustrator is trying to do by showing these images?
R I can see beds, doors, mirrors, walls and pillows.
I Yes. They look like bedrooms from old Victorian houses. The third one looks like it would cost a lot of money.
One bedroom looks posh because it has a sofa in. The top room looks very small. I’m not sure if that is a sink or a toilet? Rich people wouldn’t have a toilet next to a bed. Two of the rooms look comfortable because they are bigger.
C I think the pictures show what Victorian bedrooms looked like. Maybe how much houses cost and how big they were? They are all different sizes and only rich people had a sofa in their bedroom. To show that if you had a lot of money you could have a bigger house.
After this activity, we discussed the class system in Victorian times and the impact wealth had on peoples’ lives. I questioned the children more about the images.
“Where do you think they were taken?
What have they got to do with transport?
Are they all in the same place?”
There were some superb responses and the children were intrigued to find out more. With a few clues, I informed the class that the rooms were all cabins on the Titanic! This then created lots more discussion about the famous disaster. Next, we will look at a cross section of the ship and where each type of cabin was situated. Did this affect survival rates?
October active travel prize winners
We’ve awarded the final voucher prizes for our October active travel prize draw.
Well done to Isla, Year 2, and Jasraj, Year 4, who won the week 4 and overall October month prizes for travelling to school in an active way.
The Living Streets’ WOW interactive travel tracker allows children to record, in class, their daily journey to school and children will continue to be awarded themed badges at the end of every month for travelling actively.
An active journey includes:
- walking
- scooting
- biking
- park and stride
We want to reduce the number of cars outside school so if you do have to travel by car, we recommend parking away from the school gate maybe at our preferred park and stride location, Marks & Spencer.
As always, keep safe while travelling.
School Council 2018-2019
Meet our newly elected school councillors, chosen democratically by their class.
Their first meeting will be held next week. On the agenda is to discuss bullying (as part of anti-bullying week), Takeover Day and to consider what they might want to spend their library and class reward budgets on.
All children are encouraged to make suggestions to their school councillors (by posting their suggestion slip in each class’ Living and Learning box) for ideas/concerns to be discussed.
Creative Character Descriptions
Year 4 have been writing some character descriptions. After reading some examples, the class thought about the type of vocabulary that creates a good descriptions.
Here are a few ideas we experimented with:
Use adjectives to describe the physical details of a character.
His scaly, wrinkled nose sniffed the air.
Nouns to fit the personality of the character.
Clothes, particularly need to match the personality of the character.
scruffy, torn trousers
The way a character moves gives much away about their personality or feelings.
Shoulders hunched, feet dragging he shuffled towards the darkened windows of home.
Then, the children thought about including prepositions. These can be used for the following:
To show the position of something.
Her bag was under the chair.
The dog crawled between us and lay down at our feet.
His flat was over the shop.
To note the time when something happens.
They arrived on Sunday.
The class starts at 9 a.m.
To the way in which something is done.
We went by train.
They stared at each other without speaking.
Some prepositions are made up of more than one word, for example:
They moved here because of the baby.
We sat next to each other.
The hotel is perched on top of a cliff.
With all this in mine, the children wrote some impressive sentences. We based our descriptions on a legendary hero, Beowulf. Using this famous warrior as our focus, proved to be a great link to our current topic.
Lots of the children searched for ambitious and appropriate words to use in their writing. There are some superb examples below.
A brown, leather belt was draped around his strong waist. Phoebe
The fierce, Anglo Saxon warrior came upon the hideous creature.
The gem encrusted, silver sword lay in his hand.
Noah
A mighty, fearless warrior sailed across the choppy seas. Liam
The revolting, three headed beast flew over the seven seas.
He held his powerful, dangerous dagger in the palm of his hand.
The fearsome warrior hides his silver sword behind his back.
Sakina
The brave hearted warrior trawled through the seas as if he was immortal.
Felix
The ugly, hunched backed monster lurked in the shadows.
Daisy
His bright, yellow, blood shot eyes gleam wickedly in the light of the moon.
Jemima
Anti-bullying week – odd socks day
Next week is Anti-bullying Week. This year’s theme is ‘Choose Respect’ and we will be joining in with Odd Socks Day on Monday 12 November.
This day is to raise awareness of our differences, individuality and personal choice. There is no need for any payment – your child should simply wear odd socks and join in the fun!
Thank you for your support.
Living and learning – Identity
Our Living and Learning theme this half-term is Identity. Pupils will learn about what makes themselves and others special, valuing the similarities and differences between themselves and others and what is meant by community. This will be taught through our Living and Learning sessions and also a focused week – Anti-bullying week (12 November).
Also this half term, our new school charity will be chosen. Every year, we nominate a new charity to support. This year, we have been supporting MakeAWish. We decide this on the basis of a Talk Time homework, and then school councillors make the final decision.
Our Living and Learning long term plan details the learning for each year group across the year and you can keep up to date with our weekly Living and Learning statements on the parent noticeboard in the playground and also on the school calendar. We will begin and end this half term with a focus on manners.
I apologise when I need to.
I say please and thank you.
Archemedes and the Vicious Vikings
The next stop on our travels through time has been the Viking Ages. Year 4 have looked closely at the boats used by these fearsome warriors.
“The boats needed to be strong to carry so many men,” stated Sami.
“Why did they come across the seas?” enquired Jessica.
Following some research the children found out some very interesting facts about the boats.
Though Viking boats came in many shapes and sizes, the most iconic and effective Viking vessel was undoubtedly the long ship. Long, narrow and flat, long ships were fast, durable and capable of navigating both choppy seas and shallow rivers. They were also light enough to be carried over land.
Then, came the question, “How do boats float?”
We discussed that boats, canoes, ships, kayaks, and rafts all have one thing in common- they are used for transport on seas and rivers, because they float.
It’s easy to figure out that if they are made out of wood they will float, because wood floats in water. However, when you see a huge cargo ship or a cruise-liner that looks like a floating building on the water, you can’t help but wonder why this massive chunk of metal doesn’t sink.
Due to the curiosity of the children wanting to find out more about floating, our lesson took a slight scientific diversion.
Using just a bowl of water, some weighing scales and Blu Tac, I gave the children a question.
“If two objects have the same mass, will they both float?”
The class used some prior knowledge and were able to make great scientific predictions.
“No, they will both sink because the objects are the same weight.”
“It depends on the shape of the object”.
“I think the air in the object will make a difference.”
“I predict that one will float. If the objects are different shapes then it depends how much water will be pushed away.” An excellent prediction from Harris!
“The heavier it is the more it will sink.”
“I remember learning about a man called Archimedes who sat in a bath and shouted Eureka! I think that was something about floating.”
This interesting fact then left the children inquisitive to know more about the man taking a bath.! Together, we found out about this great mathematician and why he became famous just for sitting in the bath!
The Archimedes’ Principle
A long time ago in ancient Greece, a mathematician named Archimedes was taking a bath. When he got in, a certain amount of water got displaced and overflowed over the rim of the tub. Why?
Archimedes figured out that if the weight of the object being placed in the water is less that the weight of the water displaced, the object will float. This is known as buoyancy or the Archimedes’ Principle.
Following this new piece of scientific information it was time to get back to our experiment.
“If two objects have the same mass, will they both float?”
The solid ball of Blu Tac sank straight to the bottom. The Blu Tac shaped like a boat floated.
“Why?” I questioned the children.
“It is because the weight of the Blu Tac has been spread out across a bigger area.” stated Felix.
“The boat isn’t heavy enough to push the water out of the way.” said Albie.
I was so impressed with the questions asked by the children and by how inquisitive they were. Despite not starting off as a Science lesson, it was important to follow the children’s curiosities and this led them to further investigations, improved understanding and deepening scientific enquiry skills.
Well done Year 4!
