Willow Class
2022 - 2023
Summer Term
SPRING TERM
Autumn term
Useful Information
Flat Stan First Aid
This morning, the class enjoyed participating in the Flat Stan First Aid course. We learned all about first aid basics from choking, nose bleeds, burns and basic CPR. We learned about the acronym DR. ABC to help with when doing first aid: Danger, Responsive, Airways, Breathing, Circulation.
Islam - Salah
In Religious Education, we have been learning about Islam this half term. We looked at the Five Pillars of Islam and specifically looked at the second pillar, Salah. We learned about how and when a Muslim prays and then created our own prayer mat and re-enacted different positions of prayer and what it symbolises.
The children began the lesson by practising using charcoal to make different marks and textures, before moving on to start their self portraits.
Using Crumbles in our physical computing lessons.
The children were practising their skipping to help with co-ordination either individual or in groups of 3, with some moving on to double Dutch skipping.
Science, Air Resistance - Part 2
This week we tested our parachutes. We discovered that having a circular solid, thick material with string length around 20cm made the best parachute. Well done, Willow Class.
Science - Air Resistance
This week in Science we looked at what gravity is and the research of Isaac Newton and Galileo. To help us learn more about the effects of air resistance, we began building parachutes being sure to only change one variable each time. We look forward to testing our parachutes next week as we try to find what makes for the best parachute.
Self portraits in Art
Computing
Our first topic is Coding using Crumbles. The children familiarised themselves with the device and the programming environment, before creating a simple circuit and connecting it to a sparkle. Next week, we’ll begin to write our own program making the sparkle flash various colours, using code blocks.
PE
This half term, our focus is fitness. The children will take part in a range of fitness challenges, learning different components of fitness including speed, stamina, strength, coordination, balance and agility.
Today, we worked on our stamina and speed.
Willow and Larch got their first glimpse of the songs and moves we need to learn for our ‘Young Voices’ performance at The O2 arena.
Willow enjoyed their first music lesson with Mr Whiteman, practising listening to the pulse and learning about their new instrument the flute.
Measuring Force
This week in Science, we looked at the meaning of force and the different types of force (gravity, friction, air and water resistance). We also used Newton meters to measure classroom items to find out its mass (g) and its weight (N).
The Scientific Method
Welcome back to school! This afternoon we learned about the scientific method and then performed our own little experiment using paper aeroplanes. We had fun designing and testing our aeroplanes. Congratulations to Charlotte, Hayden, Ivy and Charlie E on designing a good paper aeroplane.
2021- 2022
Useful Information
Summer term
Marshmallow Buildings
Dress rehearsal Magpie Manor
Magpie Manor dress rehearsal
Dress rehearsal of Magpie Manor
Music concert
Music concert
Achievement assembly
The children were presented with two achievement certificates. The first for their wonderful acting, singing and back stage work during our ‘Magpie Manor’ show. The second was for their enthusiasm, great attitude and lovely behaviour on our residential trip to Manor Lakes.
We celebrated Arthur’s birthday and Lottie achieving her brown belt in karate.
After all the classes completed their sports day events this week, the winning house was announced. In reverse order:
4th Red house
3rd Orange house
2nd Purple house
1st Blue house
Sports Day
Science
In science we looked at the life cycle of a flowering plant and the different ways that plants reproduce. We had an up-close look at some flowers to locate their different parts.
Norfolk Lakes residential 2022
Achievement assembly
Holly and Abi was awarded the certificates for working hard, having a good attitude and being kind!
We celebrated Harry’s birthday. The children looked amazing in their yellow whilst raising money for Cystic Fibrosis.
Year 5 & 6 thoroughly enjoyed watching a performance of ‘The Lies We Tell’, part of the ‘Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Doorstop Theatre festival’.
Dodgeball tournament
This is our year 5/6 Book Club on Wednesday lunchtimes. We have a mutual love of reading, a joy of discovering different books and we like to relax with likeminded friends.
Willow class enjoyed putting their skills and knowledge to the test in playing games of netball.
Making origami lotus flowers in RE.
Green screen
The children enjoyed another afternoon with Nick Templeton from Suffolk Computing Hub. They learnt to create videos, using picture on picture, video on picture and video on video.
Creating our own videos
The children loved visiting the ‘Tranquillity Garden’ for the first time and enjoyed having quiet reading time whilst listening to nature.
Achievement assembly
The certificate was awarded to two boys for their fantastic persuasive speech. Sophia celebrated her birthday. Mrs Sledge presented the PTA bunting competition class winners, with Harry receiving the prize for Willow class. A special mention was given to Olly for his entry, who also received a small prize.
Willow Class had a great introduction to CoSpaces with Nick Templeton from Suffolk Computing Hub. There was much excitement using the VR headsets to explore the virtual environments which the children had created.
The children are very excited to start reading our new class book ‘The boy in the tower’.
Rehearsing for our end of year concert 🎶
Check out Ickworth Park’s art gallery of The Queen along with the amazing bunting made by Willow and Larch. For more photos, please check out the recent events tab.
Our beautiful butterflies have been released.
Netball
George and Sophia led the warm up and cool down this session, demonstrating each stretch and saying which muscles we were using.
The focus was shooting, using effective techniques and practising accuracy.
Boy at the back of the class
The children are thoroughly enjoying reading this book as part of our English work. It is about how one ordinary nine year old child and three classmates are full of empathy for Ahmet, a boy that comes to their school as a refugee from Syria.
This week, the class was given the task of writing a speech to persuade people to help refugees and allow them into the UK.In groups, they drafted, edited, typed and learnt their speech, ready to deliver to the class. Please have a read, they are very powerful and moving.
Foot Golf
Congratulations to the eight year 5 and 6s that represented the school at KES in a Foot Golf competition. They were fantastic and came 2nd out of 6 schools.
Our Butterflies Have Arrived
We arrived to school today to find that our butterflies have emerged from their chrysalis. We have provided some flowers, nectar (sugar water) and fruit for food until we release them later in the week. We have enjoyed watching them the last four weeks and observing their transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. It have been a great support of our ‘Life Cycles’ unit in science to witness the metamorphosis process firsthand.
Achievement assembly
Our class certificate was presented to Harry, for his super neat joined handwriting. Lottie and Abi received a thank you letter from GeeWizz, for raising an amazing £73.70. Holly and Zia represented the school in an archery tournament, along with 2 girls from Larch class. Overall, they came 2nd. Well done girls 👏
Soft archery
Four girls took part in a soft archery event at King Edwards. They started with being taught how to play and ended with a competition. The girls did exceptionally well and finished second place. Well done Zia, Holly, Isabelle and Freya.
Foot golf
Platinum Jubilee - Queen's Portrait
As a school, each child making their own portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. This afternoon we sketched, drew, coloured and painted our portrait. Check out some of our portraits below:
Achievement assembly
This week, we celebrated a huge achievement. The whole class was awarded their Bikeability certificates. The class award was given to Eva, for her wonderful writing in the style of Rauf. ⭐️
Game Creator in Computing
In our new topic, the children will be designing and creating their own 3D computer game. This week, we looked at what made a good game and what features a game should have. They began by playing and evaluating various age appropriate games, to enable them to decide on their own success criteria for their games.
Next week, we’ll be starting to design and create the background for the games.
Watch out for some amazing ideas and games 🕹💻
Year 4 and 5 have the privilege of Mr Parsons and Mr Cook, choir masters from St Edmundsbury Cathedral, visiting the school for the next several weeks to lead singing lessons. The children had a great first session. Look out for performance soon.
Our first song with Mr Parsons and Mr Cook
Willow and Larch enjoyed the afternoon together playing netball and taking parts of the warm up session.
Achievement assesmbly
A class certificate was awarded to the whole class for their fantastic behaviour and effort in Bikeability this week. Isla was also presented with a certificate for her super effort and achievements in Bikeability. We celebrated Antonio's birthday. Holly spoke about how she had earnt 2 swimming badges, 50m and 100m. Well done everyone 
Databases in Computing
Over two lessons, the children designed and created a database, which had to include a minimum of 6 records and 5 fields within each record.Each child chose a topic of interest. Computers and iPads were used to screen shot images and research information. All the information and photos were entered into a database.Once the database was finished, they had to write 5 simple and complex questions for other children to answer.
The class had the opportunity to evaluate others work and answer the question using the relevant sort and search tools. Great work Willow Class 👏
