Brize Norton Primary School

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SYNOPSIS FOR AUTUMN TERM 2006

CLASS 1 Mrs Hookham/ Mrs Ridgeway 

Numeracy

Foundation Stage children will develop their knowledge and understanding of number, which includes counting, sorting, matching, patterns, shape and measure. 

Year 1 children will develop their knowledge and understanding of number, addition and subtraction, measurement, shape and time; including days of the week, months of the year and seasons.

Literacy

Foundation Stage children will be building on their knowledge and understanding of Literacy. Literacy is divided into three main sections, Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing skills. The children will be encouraged to use role-play to develop these areas of Literacy. The children will have the opportunity to experience fiction and non-fiction books, to make predictions and retell stories and to discuss stories. The children will experience writing for different purposes in order to develop their sentence structure and letter formation. 

Year 1 children will have the opportunity to experience fiction and non-fiction texts, poetry and recounts. The children will have the opportunity to read individually and within a group. The children will be encouraged to express their opinions and become involved in discussions to develop and improve their listening and communication skills. 

A list of High Frequency words will be sent home with your child. These are words that they need to learn to read and spell over the year.

Science

In the first half term, the children will be developing their understanding of living things in the topic 'Ourselves'. The children will learn to name external body parts, the five senses and understand the similarities and differences between humans and animals. In the second half of the term, the children will learn about light and dark. The children will learn about light sources.

Art

The children will create a self-portrait to communicate ideas about themselves. They will experience a range of drawing materials and techniques and learn how to mix and use colour in a painting.

ICT

The children will learn to use the mouse to control the pointer and move and place objects with accuracy, to understand that their decisions can produce different outcomes and to develop knowledge of the keyboard.

R.E.

The children will learn about the Jewish faith and the festival of Sukkot. They will learn about the Christian celebration of Harvest Festival and will develop a knowledge and understanding of the Bible. 

P.E.

In physical education, the children will learn to explore movement and respond imaginatively, to move confidently and safely in their own and general space, using changes in speed, level and direction. Children will have the opportunity to compose and perform dance individually and in groups. In gymnastics, the children will learn and develop different ways of travelling and gain experience in using space safely, taking account of others. The children will be going swimming every Tuesday afternoon. Please ensure that your child has their swimming kit, including a swimming hat.

Music

We will be working on the topic ?Feel the Pulse? where the children will learn to identify the beat and rhythms in different pieces and begin to create accompaniments for a song. They will also be preparing songs with percussion accompaniments for the Harvest Festival and the Christmas Nativity.

Geography

The children will be working on the topic 'Around our School'. The children will have the opportunity to explore the school, to use a simple map, and to look closely at the buildings and environment around the school.

PSHE

The children will be discussing and developing their understanding of behaviour, the choices that they make, and how this affects others. They will also have the opportunity to devise rules and develop an understanding of the need for rules.

Homework

Year 1 

Spellings will be given out on a Monday and will consist of your child's words to learn as well as an activity to support this. This work can be handed in any time up until the Friday of the quiz. A Literacy based/topical homework will be sent home with your child on Friday and is expected to be handed in on the following Monday.

CLASS 2 Mrs Rae

Welcome back! I hope that you have all had a good, relaxing break over the summer holidays.

Maths

In Maths this term, Class 2 will be introduced to a number of different topics. These will range from investigating properties of numbers, recognizing mental strategies for addition and subtraction using money in 'real life' problems - to estimating, comparing and measuring lengths using centimetres and meters and looking at properties of shapes. Year 2 will be learning their 2, 5 and 10 times tables by heart as well as number bonds to 20? as will become evident in upcoming homework. This will also be of benefit to Year 1.

Literacy

In Literacy, Year 2 will be covering a range of topics. The children will be learning about how stories are written and the importance of language, structure and theme. They will also recap on how to organize, write and follow instructions. Year 1 children will have the opportunity to experience fiction and non-fiction texts, poetry and recounts. The children will have the opportunity to read individually and within a group. The children will be encouraged to express their opinions and become involved in discussions to develop and improve their listening and communication skills. Year 1 and Year 2 children will bring home a list of separate spellings on Monday that they need to learn for Friday's quiz. Your support and encouragement in this area will promote your child's confidence so that they may progress towards being effective spellers. As well as the Look-Cover-Write-Check approach to learning to spell words, try to encourage your child in 'real' writing tasks such as shopping lists and notes to friends. In handwriting, both year groups will be practising the correct formation of basic joins. A list of High Frequency words will be sent home with your child. These are words that they need to learn to read and spell over the year.

Science

Our Science topics this term will be Materials and Electricity. In the 1st half of the term, the children will learn to recognise a range of materials and their characteristics. They will then move on to discover that materials often change when they are heated or cooled. In the 2nd half of the term, the children will find out where electricity comes from as well as learning how to construct a simple circuit.

French 

The Year 1's and 2's will be taught separately, but we shall be following a similar framework. The children will be introduced to the world of Petit Pont, which is an interactive program. They will meet a family that will guide them through learning about France and their culture. Along the way, the children will discover how to greet and introduce themselves to others. Following on from this, we will learn about the town of Petit Pont which naturally guides us into naming places in town and learning how to ask and say where we live. The program is a fun and stimulating introduction to French with a host of practical activities for the children to practise their new language and pronunciation. If you wish to support your child's learning at home, you may download free notes and ideas from the following website: www.petitpont.com

Geography

The 1st half of the term will be taken up with Geography, in which the children will learn about their locality and how they have connections with other places in the world. They will learn to appreciate that our food comes from all over the world, and they will begin to identify places on a map. The children will also have the opportunity to follow the antics of Daisy the Duck - finding out where she has been and learning a little about the culture of the country that she has visited.

History

In the 2nd half of the term, we will be studying History in which the children will learn the reasons behind Remembrance Day and its importance in society. A visit to our local war memorial will be incorporated into this topic.

ICT

ICT will play an important role in all areas of the curriculum. All of the children will have access to the maths computers in the classroom at various times during the week. The children will also learn to carefully follow instructions, and then use this knowledge to write instructions and program them into the Roamer. We will also be using computers to create pictures using various techniques to explore the effect that they can have.

PE

We will be focusing on spatial awareness and ball skills in PE, in which the children will practise sending, retrieving and travelling with balls of different sizes. Over the weeks, the children will learn to incorporate these skills into simple games. We will also be doing some dance this term, with the children exploring movement and responding imaginatively to a range of stimuli. RE In RE this term we will look at aspects of the 3 religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We will obviously be looking at the importance of sharing during Harvest time, but we will also have the opportunity to look at other special times such as Ramadan and Id. The children will have the chance to look at and discuss special places and forms of expression, connected with all 3 religions.

PSHE

We will be discussing feelings and special people in PSHE this term. The children will learn to recognize their feelings and what affect their behaviour may have on other people. Design and Technology In the 1st half of the term we will be learning about different types of puppet, how they are made and their function. The children will have the opportunity the practise basic sewing techniques before using these skills to design and make a puppet for a purpose.

Art and Design 

In the 2nd half of the term the children will be using a variety of media to explore an important event in their lives. They will have the opportunity to use photography and collage, as well as learning to use a viewfinder for sketches.

Music 

We will be working on the topic ?Feel the Pulse? where the children will learn to identify the beat and rhythms in different pieces and begin to create accompaniments for a song. They will also be preparing songs with percussion accompaniments for the Harvest Festival and the Christmas Nativity.

Homework

Year 1 

Spellings will be given out on a Monday and will consist of your child?s words to learn as well as an activity to support this. This work can be handed in any time up until the Friday of the quiz. A Literacy based/topical homework will be sent home with your child on Friday and is expected to be handed in on the following Monday.

Year 2 

Homework will be given out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and is there to support the work that your child has been doing in class. Spellings will be given out on a Monday and will consist of your child's words to learn as well as an activity to support this. This work can be handed in any time up until the Friday of the quiz. Maths homework will be given out on Wednesdays and will usually consolidate the work the work that we have been doing in class during the week. This work is due to be handed in on Friday of the same week. A Literacy based/topical homework will be sent home with your child on Friday and is expected to be handed in on the following Monday.

CLASS 3 Miss Kerr/ Mrs Udall

Literacy

Initially the children will be revising their knowledge of fact and fiction texts; they will be considering the differences between them and deciding what makes a good example of each one. We will go on to look at newspapers and magazines, exploring the features and looking at the text in some detail. The children will be writing their own reports to include the features they have studied, and also the knowledge they have gained about the Victorians.

In the fiction strand of Literacy, we will be exploring setting, dialogue and character through reading a range of stories with familiar settings. Children will write short descriptions and character portraits, leading up to an extended story on a theme of their choice. In addition, we will investigate the different voices in stories by using dramatized readings and spend time analyzing and writing shape poems.

Numeracy

In practical maths we will begin the term by looking at 2D shape. The children will classify and describe the shapes according to their properties, including symmetry. Y4 children will also look at types of triangles. We will move on to measuring and comparing Lengths, beginning to use decimal notation, Y4s will also measure Area and Perimeter. Everybody will be looking at Fractions, as well as organizing and interpreting Data in pictograms. Work on Time will include using analogue and 24hr clocks, and estimating using minutes and seconds.

In number the children will reinforce and deepen their understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We will work on mental calculation strategies, as well as formal and informal methods of recording. The children will also work on place value, number sequences and word problems and will be taught to investigate mathematical puzzles by adopting a systematic approach.

Science

In the first half of the term, we will be exploring circuits and conductors. The children will create simple circuits and design and carry out an experiment to investigate materials which conduct electricity. We will also look at switches and investigate the effects of opening and closing switches in a series circuit. In the second half of the term, our unit of work will be 'Moving and Growing'. Through this unit the children will learn about how the skeleton is related to movement and support in humans and what happens to the skeleton and muscles as they move. They will also compare human bones and skeletons with those of other animals.

History

Our topic this term will be 'The Victorians'. We will study the lives of Victorian children in particular, looking at how they were treated and the steps taken to improve their lives, we will make comparisons between the lives of the rich and the poor. We will also look at schooling and factory life. We will make a visit to a museum in Oxford where the children will look at exhibits and also take part in a Victorian wash day, allowing them to gain some 'real' experience of what life would have been like.

Art

In Art the children will be designing and making a chair. To start the design process, we will look closely at patterns and furniture created by the Victorian artist, William Morris. Our visit to his house, Kelmscot Manor, will enable us to see these first hand. The pattern work will also be linked to the symmetry lessons in Maths.

DT

The children will be using their knowledge of electricity and circuits to design and make their own battery powered lights. They will find out about Victorian inventions as part of this project.

ICT 

Our unit of work this term will be 'Writing for Different Audiences', which encompasses editing, using fonts and effects, spell checking and replacing text. The children will have the opportunity to use these skills to produce word-processed versions of Literacy and RE work. We will also investigate the way in which newspapers and other printed media appeal to their target audiences.

RE

The children will be learning about Hinduism with a particular focus on the Hindu festival of Divali. They will explore how Hindus worship, both at home and in the temple and will learn about the customs associated with Divali, the Hindu festival of light. Children will have the opportunity to empathize with Hindu practices, by making their own Divali cards and rangoli patterns.

French

The children will continue to deepen and extend their competency and understanding of French oracy, literacy and culture through conversation, role-play, stories and songs. Topics to be introduced include school and the family.

Music 

The class will be working on the topic ?Animal Magic?. They will be listening to ?Peter and the Wolf? and identifying how music can be used descriptively. Combining narration, movement and sound they will be able to recognise and describe a chosen animal. The children will also be learning songs and suitable accompaniments for Harvest and Christmas.

PSHE

Initially we will be thinking about rules and why they are needed in different situations. We will move on to looking at ways of asking for help and we will start to think about stereotypes and how to challenge them. Healthy lifestyles nd making informed choices will form the backbone of our PSHCE sessions

PE

In outdoor P.E. we will be improving our throwing and catching skills, using passing, receiving and dribbling skills and participating in team 'invasion' games. In Dance we will be exploring and creating characters to link in with the Divali work in RE. In gym we will be experimenting with body shapes and balances. The children will use travel actions to create sequences and improve their ability to select appropriate movements.

CLASS 4 Miss Whatley

LITERACY 

Fiction: 

This term we will be using lots of drama work to engage with a range of texts that will include poetry and narrative as well as a Shakespearean play. In our writing, we will be paying particular attention to the accurate use of punctuation and direct speech. Non-Fiction: This term we will be studying non-chronological report, autobiographical and instruction writing which will be linked to our topic work in History. 

Spellings: 

Spellings will be taught each week through investigation of a spelling rule. The emphasis will be on learning to apply an understanding of rules to improve the accuracy of spelling therefore there will not be a list of spelling words to learn each week. However, there will be a piece of homework each week which will support the work in class. The children will be tested on their knowledge and understanding of the rules at regular intervals. 

Handwriting: 

Presentation of work continues to be a school focus. An emphasis will be placed not only on neat, joined handwriting but on developing fluency and speed. Reading: Reading will be taught through the literacy lesson and during group guided reading sessions. In addition, children are expected to read for at least twenty minutes and complete their reading record every night.

MATHEMATICS

We will continue to develop our mental strategies and our use of the four operations to solve problems in a range of contexts. We will also be studying fractions, decimals, percentages, properties of shapes, measures, graphs and number sequences.

SCIENCE 

This term we will be looking at the properties of gases and using practical experiments to investigate reversible and irreversible changes. We will also be learning about animal and plant life cycles.

ICT 

We will be using the internet to search large databases and to interpret information, and we will create a multi-media presentation. In addition, with the use of the laptops and the new digital cameras, digital video camera and data loggers we look forward to using and developing our ICT skills in all areas of the curriculum.

HISTORY

We will be learning about what it would have been like to live during World War II.

ART AND DESIGN

All artwork for this term will be broadly based around 'faces', incorporating drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, textiles and ICT. We will link our own work to ideas and methods used by various artists.

DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

During the second half of the term, we will compare and evaluate the properties of a variety of biscuits and we will learn how to make our own. We will evaluate each others work and suggest modifications.

FRENCH

The children will continue to deepen and extend their competency and understanding of French oracy, literacy and culture through conversation, role-play, stories and songs. Topics to be introduced include school and the family.

MUSIC 

This term the class will be learning abut harmony in music. They will be singing rounds and accompanying themselves with ostinati/drones. They will practise and rehearse together and aim to produce a quality performance. Also they will be preparing for the Harvest Festival and Christmas Pantomime.

PE

This term we will be swimming every Tuesday afternoon. In addition, during the first half of the term we will be using Netball as a focus for improving skills in invasion games. During the second half of the term we will be improving our performance skills in Gymnastics.

RE

During this term we will discuss the ?Harvest situations? in different countries, explore the Jewish festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and consider the themes surrounding worship and community.

PSHE

This term we will be looking at how we take care of our safety, including keeping our bodies healthy. We will explore issues such as coping with illness, disability and bullying. We will also be looking at how we make decisions and how those decisions affect the lives of those around us including those in the wider community.

HOMEWORK

Monday: French Tuesday: Maths Wednesday: Spellings/Literacy Thursday: Learning tables and where appropriate, spellings Friday:-Science

This homework is on top of the expected 20 minutes reading which children should do daily. There may also be guided reading tasks which the children will have one week to complete. All written homework is expected to be handed in two days after the homework is set. `