February 2022

Hi everyone - welcome back to Gloucester Class’ blog!

The days are getting longer, and with three successful class-worship performances under our belts, our class are as upbeat as ever. Please read on to discover what we have been covering this month.

English

In English, we are focussing on non-fiction explanation texts. This ties in nicely with our current science unit (see below), so we have taken the life-cycle of plants as our content focus. By studying models and examples, we have learnt the key features and conventions of non-fiction explanation texts. Soon, we will have a chance to incorporate everything we’ve learnt, by planning and writing our own non-fiction explanations.

Maths

Over in maths, we have returned to our study of area, this time looking at non-rectilinear shapes. We have also begun honing our estimation and approximation skills, and using these skills to aid our converting between metric and imperial nits of measurement. Along the way, we have revisited our four key operations, and handled whole and decimal numbers.

History

In history, we have started looking at the impact and legacy that the Ancient Greeks have had on the world. So far, we have considered the ways in which they shaped democracy (with the caveat that this was only extended to particular groups in its infancy), and have now begun tracing its impact on art and architecture.

Science

In Science, we have begun looking at animals and their habitats, beginning this unit with a close focus on reproduction in plants. We used real flowers and seed-pods to embellish our study of scientific diagrams, and recreated life-cycle diagrams of our own. This has laid a firm foundation for our future investigations into the differences between the life cycles of different organisms.

Music

Gloucester class have also had the chance to practice playing as part of an ensemble. Building on our fantastic successes with the Boomwhackers, we have set our sights on rhythm and percussion, learning how to drum, clap and improvise over a 4:4 beat. We have also considered how we might record music in writing, developing our own listening-maps as a first foray into notation.
 

French

In French, we have used our language detective skills to analyse and interpret a non-fiction article written entirely in French! Of course, we couldn’t understand everything, but many of us were surprised to learn just how much we could understand. As we went on to discover, this is due to the work of cognates and near-cognates, words which are identical or near-identical across two languages.

RE

In RE, we have started a new unit on salvation, looking at how Jesus’ last days and the Easter story fit within Christians’ conception of life and faith. So far, we have considered the place of the Easter story within the ‘big story’ of the Bible, and have studied a number of artworks depicting each stage of the story. These were selected from a wide range of nations, a range which provided scope for important discussions about global communities united by shared ideas, and the ways in which Bible stories might mean different things to different people.

Guided Reading

In guided reading, we have delved deeper into the mythological world(s) of ‘Who Let the Gods Out?’, focusing on our central reading comprehension skills (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval, Summary), and asking each other questions about the text. We are learning to agree and disagree with each other respectfully, and are building upon this invaluable skill by holding regular discussions around the text.