Gloucester's January Blog 2023

English

In English, we have begun studying The Journey by Francesca Sanna. This book tells the story of a family escaping tragedy, and through it we have begun discussing themes of migration, belonging and loss. We are writing creative responses to the book and partaking in deep, thoughtful discussions about the complex themes explored within it.

Maths

In maths, we have begun learning about statistics represented in tables and timetables. We have also introduced squared, cubed, and prime numbers into our learning, as well as beginning to round decimal numbers to particular decimal places. We have combined this with our previous learning on fractions and decimals to start understanding the links and connections between different topics.

Geography

In geography, we have learnt all about coastal erosion, bringing in our report writing skills and our own research projects as we learnt the causes and effects of coastal erosion.

Science

In Science, we have begun looking at forces and how these affect and dictate our lives. We began with an overview of forces, before scoping in to study gravity and air resistance in more detail. We have vivified our science lessons through the use different experimental methods, as well as our use of scientific (and not so scientific) equipment: to understand air-resistance, we tried running across the playground with different materials held out in front of us. We measured, recorded, and drew upon our results to reach scientific conclusions.

RE

In RE, we have been investigating the themes of freedom and justice through the story of Moses and the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. We have had some incredibly rich discussions about these big themes, and have developed our own notions of how freedom and justice should be realised in the world today. On Martin Luther King day, we were able to bring these ideas into our writings on big ideas.

Reading Skills

In guided reading we have started a new book! Week by week we are journeying through the weird and wonderful world of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland. Alongside immersing ourselves in this high-quality text, we are practising understanding and responding to various comprehension-style questions to prompt deeper thinking and conversation.