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 school newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Jazzi and Dillan

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.  
• Play around with torches, mirrors and reflection at home - can we use a mirror to see around the corner? Which clothes and materials reflect light best in the dark? How many different sources of light can you find around the house?
• There are loads of great documentary series that explore rainforest habitats and are well worth a watch - Planet Earth, Green Planet and Tropic of Capricorn are all available on BBC iplayer at the moment, with some great episodes on the Amazon and other rainforest environments around the world. 
  

Our latest news:

• We were delighted (and a little bit amazed) by the massive turn-out for our Stay and Spell event earlier this term. Mrs Draper and Mrs Thomas shared lots of ideas for supporting us in learning our spellings at home in fun and interactive ways, and lots of us have been putting these into practice in the weeks since, helping to improve our spelling knowledge. A big thank you to all of the parents and carers who attended.
  
 

 
• In March, we travelled into London, firstly to the Sealife Centre where we saw a huge range of species ranging from sea horses to sharks! Then, we walked across Westminster Bridge, viewing the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, before heading to the National Gallery, where we immersed ourselves in the incredible collection of priceless artwork.
 

 
• We loved tacking part in a busy Science Week, including our planetarium session, sensory trails, Knex construction and our Egg Drop challenge
  
 

 
• Year 5/6 leapt at the chance to take part in the Young Voices project this year., singing at famous venues as part of a massive choir. Having learnt a collection of (pretty tricky) songs, they headed into London to take part in a huge performance at the O2 at the end of January. You can find out more about their adventure here. 
 

 
• We organised a Girls Football Festival for International Women’s Day, with every girl in Years 5 and 6 taking part. It was fantastic to see so much enthusiasm and enjoyment on display as we charged around the field!
  
 

We have been learning about... 

English - In English, we’ve explored a variety of texts, and most recently, Wisp: A Story of Hope, where the children experimented with different sentence structures, effective vocabulary and abstract nouns. Check out two great examples below: 

A hazel glow shimmered across the inky, night sky. Dark rays of moonlight morphed into bright golden beams, which danced all around. People’s arms waved in majestic union. The heartbeat of a song echoed through the glowing camp, the fence was out of view – and so was sadness. Idris smiled softly. Golden Wisps orbited their owners, pulsing bright to the beat of the music. Hope filled the night air, but not just hope. 

A promise. A promise of a dream. 

The people felt hopeful. They felt love. They felt free… 

by Dillan 

Many days came, and many nights passed. Idris was eager to find his Wisp, yet none were to be seen. Well not for Idris anyway. Rememberings flew, twirled and danced in the inky sky, while Idris tasted the pull of the moonlight. Together they watched the pulsing Wisp release a thousand memories from years ago. Glistening upon the sky, the Moon brightened, leaving everyone in wonder. Together they felt love. Together they felt at peace. Yet, best of all, Idris felt hope. 

by Elyse

Maths - Across all 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 SATs in May.

This term's topics

English - We will be using a Circus theme to inspire our writing across a variety of genres and forms. We will begin by exploring characterisation and setting descriptions, developing the techniques that we use to create cohesion and exploring new vocabulary. After that, we will shift our focus to discussion and newspaper reports, revising the key features of these non-fiction texts and developing our use of conjunctions and adverbials to link ideas. Across all of these genres, we will be striving to improve the way we edit and redraft our writing, aiming to produce top-quality final pieces that we’re all proud of. Finally, we will continue to develop our grammar knowledge, revising all of the rules and terminology we have covered so Year 6 are ready for their SATs in May. 

Maths - Year 6 will be working hard to revisit and revise the key maths knowledge we have worked on over the last year, so that we are as prepared as possible for our SATs in May. We will continue to practice our arithmetic skills every day (particularly those tricky fraction, percentage and division calculations), and will be working to apply what we know to new problem solving situations, often involving money and measures. We will be brushing-up on our understanding of time, angles and co-ordinates, and will have opportunities to suggest key areas that we would like to revise in our last few lessons before our tests. Then, once all that is out of the way, we have some fun work on nets and pie charts to look forward to.

Science - Our next science unit will see us exploring light. We will explore how we see things, how light travels and the reasons why we can’t see around corners. We will investigate shadows in more detail, planning and carrying out our own experiments to discover what factors affect the size of a shadow. Finally we will learn about refraction, and the way that this makes rainbows, lenses and prisms possible.

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.