Welcome to Falcon class! Our teacher is Mrs Draper, who has been at Bedwell ever since she started teaching. She is really good at art and English, and she says her favourite things are meeting with friends and walking her dog, Cody. She doesn’t like unkindness very much, and is scared of being late!

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest class newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Aleena and Alfie 

Home learning ideas:

• All of the maths we’re doing this term is dependent on quick recall of tables facts, so it would be brilliant if you could work on this. Focus on one table at a time and try: 
  • Making-up rhymes to help remember number facts (“4 x 6 is 24, bears growl and lions roar!”) 
  • Looking for numbers in that table in the world around you - on doors, car number plates, in phone numbers or when you’re out shopping. 
  • Writing-out tables with finger paints, chalk or water-on-tarmac, or make them from playdoh. 
  • Chanting, singing, whispering... Say tables out loud together whenever you have the chance.
• Each week we are set spellings to learn. Click here for guidance on strategies you can use to support your child in learning these at home.  
• The Young Person’s Trust for the Environment site - ypte.org.uk - is packed with easy to grasp information on rainforests and the animals that are found in these regions. 
• There are lots of opportunities to investigate electricity at home - which items in our house use electricity? What do they use it for? What makes them safe to use - make sure your children understand how dangerous mains power can be. There are lessons to support our topic on the Oak Academy site, which you can find here.
  

Our latest news:

• This half term started with a bang, when Steve the Juggler came to Bedwell to kick-off our Big Top topic. He wowed the whole school with his tricks and jokes, before focussing on teaching Eagles and Falcons a host of circus skills. We all attended two workshops, learning how to walk on stilts, spin plates, spin toothbrushes and finally juggle. At the end of the day, we invited parents and carers to come and see us perform our new found talents!
 

 
• We thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this year's Science Week, which included animal workshops with Teaching Talons, lots of practical activities, a Knex Challenge and our annual Egg Drop competition.
  
 

 
• In the lead up to Easter, we visited our local church, to find out more about why Christians celebrate this special time of the year. We were split into four groups and throughout the morning, we talked about how Jesus was betrayed by Judas, was hung from the cross and was then resurrected. All of the adults were really impressed by both our behaviour and the way we were able to talk knowledgeably about the Easter Journey.
  
 

 
• A group of our most talented writers visited Moss Bury School to meet the author Tamsyn Murray and participated in an inspirational workshop to build on their great writing skills. They had a fantastic day and were talking about her books throughout the week that followed!
  
 

We have been learning about... 

Maths - Across all three of our maths sets, a big focus this term was on measures. We completed lots of practical challenges to develop the ability to read scales precisely and measure mass, capacity and length. This also helped us to build an understanding of what 1kg or 1 litre ‘looks like’, so we can make sensible estimates and spot when answers just can’t be right. Those of us in Year 6 have also taken part in weekly Booster sessions, building our understanding and confidence, ready for our national SATs tests.

History - Throughout the term, we have been learning about the Battle of Britain, discovering why this key moment is considered a 'turning point' in British history, as well as finding out what it was like to grow up during World War 2. 

Science - We have learned all about evolution and how different animals have adapted to their environments. Horses, elephants, humans – you name it – we’ve looked at how small changes over millions of years has enabled different species to survive. We have also found out about Charles Darwin and the impact his discoveries have had on our lives today.

This term's topics

English - We will be continuing with our work around Kensuke’s Kingdom, a fantastic book that tells the story of a young boy who gets stranded on a desert island in the Pacific. We will be using the story as a stimulus for lots of different types of writing, including diary entries, biographies, letters, newspaper articles and discussions. We will be thinking carefully about the way in which the characters of Michael (the boy) and Kensuke (the Japanese man who is the island’s only other inhabitant) are introduced, and will also compare this story with others by the same author. All of this writing will give us lots of opportunities to revise the grammar and punctuation that we’ve met this year and show-off our awesome writing skills!

Maths - In Mrs Draper’s maths group, we will be developing our understanding of algebra, using equations to represent and solve problems. We will also be applying our maths skills to Young Enterprise projects, calculating costs, profits and break-even points for products we design. In Mr Roberts’ set we will begin by focussing on statistics, using line graphs, pie charts and tables to represent data and answer questions. After that we will be exploring time, reading timetables (a really useful practical skill), as well as calculating with time. Finally, in Miss Smith’s maths class we will be focussing on shape, measure and problem solving.

Science - Our final topic of the year will see us investigating electricity. We will extend our understanding of conductors, insulators and batteries, and then learn to draw circuit diagrams using standard symbols. We will also be carrying out lots of practical work, developing our ability to draw conclusions from results and learning about the work of famous scientists like Faraday and Maxwell.

Humanities - We will be learning about rainforest environments this term, discovering what makes them special, where they are found and what it’s like to live there. We will plot rainforests on a variety of maps, linking their locations to the tropics, and will compare them with other environments we know about, such as deserts, mountains and local forests. We will also learn more about the different layers of the rainforest, comparing life on the forest floor with life in the treetop canopy.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.