Welcome to our Junior class.
Meet the team.
Mrs Stevenson Mrs Taylor Mrs Brice
(Teacher) (HLTA) (TA)
In the Junior class, we have Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6. We work on a four year rolling curriculum.
Our PE days are Monday and Thursday. Music is also on Thursday. Children will need to bring in their instruments. Children should also take their reading books home and record what they read each night. They will be given weekly spellings to learn for our spelling test on Friday.
2024 - 2025
Summer 1.
The first week back has been a super one! The children have enjoyed reading all about Europe and the countries within it, in preparation for creating a 'flip fact' poster in English. We have now finished learning about the water cycle and the children created comic strips about Walter the water droplet to explain the process. The weather was glorious on Thursday for our PE lesson. We have started striking and fielding to play cricket and rounders style games. Brilliant effort from everyone this week!
Spring 2.
Week beginning 31st March.
This half term has flown by - partly because we've been so busy! Now assessments are complete, most of this week has been given to finishing the children's DT project. They designed and made a model shaduf after our history lessons linked to ancient Egypt. They were fantastic! We also tested them and evaluated their success. Earlier in the week, we took part in a 'create and make' zoom with the Royal Opera and Ballet. The children made trees for the set of Alice in Wonderland. Well done everyone! Super hard work this half term - you all deserve a rest.
Week beginning 24th March.
It has been assessment week this week so the Juniors have been working hard to show all the learning they have done this term. Aside from that, afternoons have been saved for enrichment! They have enjoyed two outdoor PE lessons. They have also worked in groups and designed a shaduf that they will make next week (watch this space!) We had a zoom meeting with different professionals who all worked in aviation. The children got to ask questions to find out more about their jobs and they were completely inspired!
Week beginning 17th March.
It has been lovely to have some spring sunshine this week! The children enjoyed our PE lessons outside and on Thursday they were challenged to make a 'hula hut'. Some groups even managed to make a double hula hut! There was great teamwork and communication going on. We wento church on Tuesday to learn more about the Eucharist Service from Reverend Nick. The children broke bread and learned about what the service symbolises for Christians. In DT, we have been making pyramid structures and although it was fiddly, the children were successful in the end!
Week beginning 10th March.
What a super week we have had in the Junior classroom. The children have collected the results of the science experiment and have concluded the best conditions for mould to grow. Some of our children represented our school in a swimming gala on Tuesday night. They showed great teamwork and support for one another. The children have been producing some amazing writing in English; we have started writing Gulliver's Travels but the children have added in their own island settings. Their descriptions were great! Reverend Nick has been into school this week to teach us about the Eucharist and how it links to the Last Supper. There were some fantastic questions asked by the children.
Week beginning 3rd March.
This week has been action packed! The children have been role playing the opening to Gulliver's Travels and imagining they'd been washed up on a desert island and tied up by tiny people! Then they hot seated the characters. In science, we have seen some good (but slightly gross!) results in our investigation into the best conditions for mould to grow. On World Book Day, the children brought a book to swap. There were some great choices and everyone went away happy! We also started our DT project for this half term. The children were challenged to make a pyramid structure from art straws. Some did manage to start a structure however they will be learning structural techniques next week.
Aspirations Day!
This week we also held an aspirations day and the children came to school dressed as what they would like to be when they grow up. We also invited 6 professionals into school to share their jobs to inspire the children and they allowed them to ask interesting questions. It was a fantastic day. Stuart Reid (a children's author) also came into school and share his books with the children and promote literacy across school. He was super funny and got the children involved in acting out some of the chapters of his books. Great fun was had by all!
Week beginning 24th February.
Check out our amazing art work this week! We painted our interpretation of the journey of a river onto fabric. Then the children added stitch details to add some texture to their final piece. They look amazing. In science, we have been observing the results of investigating the best conditions to grow mould on bread. Towards the end of the week we started to see some mould! We will share these with you next week.
Spring 1.
Week beginning 10th February.
The final week of the half term has arrived. This week, the children have planned and set up a science experiment to test conditions for mould to grow. Hopefully, we will have some interesting results to show you when we get back to school after the holidays. Our artwork has developed this week and we have explored textile painting to create a piece linked to our topic of rivers. Finally, the children took their history learning outside at playtime. They were so excited to show me their own irrigation system they had made to collect water for the mud kitchen! I was so impressed.
Week beginning 3rd February.
This week has been all about our children's mental health. The theme for this year's children's mental health week is 'know yourself, grow yourself' so we spent lots of time doing things that make us feel better. The Year 5's and 6's spent Thursday and Friday on their bikes. They took part in Go Velo's Bikeability levels and learned how to safely ride a bike on the road. Meanwhile, Year 3 and 4 got creative and practised their paint colour mixing skills. Their sketchbooks look amazing!
Week beginning 27th January.
What fabulous week of learning we have had. We concluded our learning about ancient Egypt and the children have created some fantastic display work about the pyramids and gods and goddesses. We have also finished reading Macbeth in preparation to write some arguments for a debate in the next couple of weeks. The Year 3s have been working hard to learn new times tables - they used arrays, their 4 times table and multi-link to play a game to learn their 8s.
Week beginning 20th January.
We have been exploring the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth this week. The children had to think about their personalities and complete a 'role on the wall'. They have enjoyed continuing the story. We have started learning about ancient Egypt society in history. In RE, our new unit of learning is linked to the book of Exodus and the children retold the story of Moses using freeze frames. Can you guess which parts they have chosen?
Week beginning 13th January.
It was so lovely to get back to a full and busy week in school after the disruption of the snow. We have started reading Macbeth in English. The children re-enacted the scene where the witches cook up a spell before they meet Macbeth. We have also started gymnastics in PE and the children were creating balances.
Week beginning 6th January.
A very cold start to the new year. We enjoyed the snow while we had it though!
Autumn 2.
Week beginning 16th December.
The final week of the term has brought plenty of fun and festive activities! The children have designed and created their Christmas scenes in design technology. Everyone was successful in making their LED light up! We also invited parents and guardians into school on Tuesday to help us make our Christmas cards. They all looked great. The rest of the week has been spent looking ahead to the Christmas holidays and the start of a new year. Well done everyone! Let's hope 2025 brings us lots of happiness and success.
Week beginning 9th December.
This week has been all about persuasion. Following the persuasive posters to encourage people to stop polluting rivers, the children wrote a letter to the council to persuade them to be more mindful when building new developments near to rivers. They then wrote a letter by themselves to encourage healthy eating as part of our school council's mission to persuade parents to pack healthier lunches. We are all very much looking forward to the Christmas rush and fun next week!
Week beginning 2nd December.
It has been assessment week this week. The children have worked so hard to complete them so now Christmas has arrived in the Junior classroom! They have been creating kindness stockings for our Christmas display. Our geography topic of rivers continues and the children are creating persuasive posters to stop pollution. We have been choreographing superhero dance routines in PE- they came up with some amazing moves! After school, some Year 5 and 6 children represented St. Mary's at UV Benchball and they won! Super team work! We have also started reading 'how Winston went home for Christmas' which is like an advent calendar book that we read each day. They are enjoying the story.
Week beginning 25th November.
In the last week of November, we have started our geography topic about rivers! The children have been learning about the journey of a river and the different reasons why they are so important. We have started looking ahead to the Christmas period and in preparation, the Juniors led our Christingle service. Some of the grown ups came in to support the children in making their Christingles. Then we went into the hall to light them and the children sang hymns and said prayers to celebrate and welcome the start of advent.
Week beginning 18th November.
The children have had great fun writing their own fables this week. They chose their own animal characters to include and there were some great ideas for an original plot. We have concluded our science learning about living things in our local area this week. The children decided upon four different areas of the local environment to plant yoghurt pot traps to collect invertebrates and for us to sit and observe any other wildlife. We then created classification charts based on the data we collected. On Thursday, we joined Bishop Philip as he launched 'the year of prayer'. Our worships will follow the themes that have been set and it looks set to be interesting.
Week beginning 11th November.
We have had great fun in the Juniors this week. We have been writing a fable about a cheetah and a snail together in English. The children have also been using the Bible to read the story of the nativity and compare the different versions in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. The highlight of the week was our Outdoor Adventure Activity day. We had a beautiful day spent outside playing games, solving puzzles and following trails. In the morning we were treated to a hot vimto! In the afternoon, the children worked in teams in orienteering. Then they toasted marshmallows around a pit fire. What a super day!
Week beginning 28th October and 4th November.
We have such a busy start to the new half term - hence the double post! Our new units of learning are proving popular and the children are asking great questions, they are enthusiastic and producing some super work. We are reading fables in English in preparation for writing our own. They have been role playing some of the key events and performing these to each other. Our science unit is focused on grouping living things. The children played 'guess who'- they had photos stuck to their back and asked questions to work out what living things they were. We had a craft morning with parents in school which the children loved.
We have had some great success at after school sporting events! The UV Dodgeballers were great. Our football team was also amazing - they won 2 of their games. 10 children entered the Young Writers competition and they all received certificates to congratulate them on becoming published poets!
Autumn 1.
Week beginning 10th October.
We have had a great last week of the first half term. The children created their Greek Theatre Masks from clay. They had fun guessing the expressions on each mask. We have been continuing to play invasion games in PE and the children had a game of Hi 5 Netball to finish the unit of learning. On Tuesday morning, we joined a Great Big Live Assembly to celebrate black heroes as part of Black History Month. Our RE learning about harvest around the world produced an amazing display. The children have now started learning about David who was chosen to be a king by God. Everyone is definitely ready for a well-deserved rest now!
Week beginning 7th October.
We have had plenty of visitors to St. Mary’s this week. Imran came to teach us about the 5 pillars of Islam and about the festival of Eid. The children tried on traditional dress for Muslims and got a chance to try dates, which are the food that Muslims break their fast with. Roughlee Primary and their staff also came to join us and we had a go at recreating some Islamic Art. In the afternoon, we all went to church for our Harvest service which was wonderful.
Week beginning 30th September
Our learning has taken us to Ancient Greece this week! The children have loved being historians learning about the different time periods. They had to place key events in order. They wrote letters about what they found when visiting the city-states of Athens and Sparta. They learned that citizens of Athens loved to watch plays and have designed some comedy and tragedy masks to sculpt from clay next week. We can’t wait to show you!
