Term 3 

Jubilee University and Duke Awards

As part of our Jubilee University topic, Fire Safety, French Hares gained essential knowledge and skills to help them stay safe around fire. The children learned that a fire needs heat, fuel, and oxygen to burn. They also discussed which types of clothing are unsafe to wear near fire, understanding that loose fabrics can be particularly dangerous.

To put their learning into context, the children investigated where fires can be safely built and where they pose a risk. Under the guidance of Mr Manning, a qualified Forest School leader, they had the wonderful opportunity to build a small, controlled campfire in a firepit in the enclosed sports area. A highlight of the week was toasting a marshmallow, while reinforcing key safety rules, including the importance of never creating a fire without an adult present.

In addition to practical fire safety skills, the children also learned how to call the emergency services using both a home phone and a mobile, ensuring they know what to do in an emergency situation.

The children showed great enthusiasm and responsibility throughout the week, gaining valuable knowledge that will help keep them safe at home and in outdoor settings.

English

To follow-up our Fire Safety unit, we then wrote a thank-you letter to Mr Manning. We first discussed the purpose of letter writing and its role in strengthening relationships with others. We learned how to set out our letter; with the address and date at the top right, then a greeting on the left. This is followed by clear sentences to say thank you and give more details about what had been enjoyed and learned. We then finished with a repetition of our thanks, a closing line and our signature.

The letters were then written up neatly along with a decorative border and photos of their work were sent to Mr Manning. The end result was very impressive! Well done, French Hares!

Topic

This term our topic has been ‘Magnificent Monarchs’. In French Hares, we have begun to learn about the impact of the monarchy on British History, starting as far back as AD 871 with the first King of the English, Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror in 1066, before moving on to learning about the feudal system and four other significant monarchs.

So far, we have learned about how some periods in history are named after the royal house of the reigning monarch, and have placed our six significant sovereigns onto a timeline of royal houses.

We have learned about some royal residences in the United Kingdom, including Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral, Caernarfon Castle and Hillsborough Castle. Our current Talk for Writing unit has a focus on Buckingham Palace.

We have learned that the power of the monarch has fluctuated over time; some monarchs have had absolute power whereas others have given some or most of their power to an elected government.

Computing

In Computing we have completed our Digital Photography unit.

In this unit we learned to recognise that different devices can be used to capture photographs. We gained experience capturing, editing, and improving photos.

We started by looking at devices that can take photos, then had a go at taking photos using an iPad.

We discussed the responsible use of digital photography, and how to make smart choices when using it. Remember to always ask permission before taking someone’s photo, and delete it if they don’t like the photo you have taken.

We used the filters and Mark-up tools on the iPads to edit our photos and discussed how software can be used to manipulate photos. It was not always easy to decide whether photos were real or manipulated!

The first one is manipulated – the other two are real!

Term 2

French Hares have really enjoyed their ‘Movers and Shakers’ topic and have learned a great deal about a range of significant people and why they are significant.

Topic

In our History learning, we studied some significant explorers such as Vasco de Gama and Roald Amundsen, and discussed how exploration has changed over time. We have particularly enjoyed learning about a local significant person, gentleman explorer Julius Brenchley. Recently, we have learned about some famous activists such as Martin Luther King Jr, Emmeline Pankhurst and Malala Yousafzai. The two ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ Advent calendars have been extremely valuable in supporting our learning in this topic and the children have often requested these books at story time.  

The topic culminated in our Experience Day, where we came dressed as a significant person, and made our own Little People Big Dreams book covers.

English

We started the term writing a persuasive poster to help us learn the four sentence types; statement, command, question and exclamation. The original model text was about Emmeline Pankhurst and her campaign for votes for women. We then adapted this to write about Rosa Parks and the campaign for equal rights for all.

Our current English topic is writing a journey story about Julius Brenchley, using adjectives to describe. The model text is based on true stories of Julius’ travels. We will then create our own journey stories, with new adventures for Julius.

Maths

In Maths, we have been working on developing a secure understanding of addition and subtraction with a range of two-digit numbers.

We have continued to work on the stem sentence, “In an addition number sentence, the whole sits next to the equals sign.”

We use a ‘putting together’ action to help us remember that when we add two parts together, the whole will increase (unless one part is zero).

For subtraction we have used a ‘taking away/taking apart’ action, with the words “In a subtraction number sentence, the whole sits before the minus sign”.

These stem sentences are particularly useful when working out how to solve questions like 17 – ? = 9; we can colour code the parts in red and whole in green to help us work out what number could be missing.

We have also continued to build our maths fluency by counting in twos, threes, fives and tens and ensuring we can speedily recall number bonds to ten.

Science

We finished off our ‘Habitats’ topic and started our new ‘Human Survival’ topic. We have looked at the human life cycle and some of the processes that occur during our lives, such as birth, growth and reproduction.

P.E.

In outdoor P.E. we have been working on ball skills for football; dribbling, passing and receiving. We have learned which part of the foot we should use for each of these skills, and played many games to help us develop the skills further.

Term 1 2025-26 

Topic

This term, our topic focus has been ‘Movers and Shakers’; learning about historically significant people who have had a major impact on the world.

We have learned about Rosa Parks, Mary Anning, Mahatma Gandhi, Emmeline Pankhurst, Joseph Lister and Neil Armstrong, using timelines and other historical sources to find out more. We are really enjoying reading the Little People Big Dreams books and have read over 25 of different ones so far!

We used Dawson’s Model of Significance, which gives five statements to help us decide who was the most significant person and who had the biggest impact on the world. These statements are:

1. They made big changes in their lifetime
2. They made lots of people’s lives better or worse
3. They changed the way people think
4. Their ideas are still used today
5. They were a good or bad role model

English

In English, we have been studying biographies. A biography is a written history of a person’s life.

First, we learned a biography of Mahatma Gandhi and how he inspired people to protest peacefully. We used story maps and actions to support our sequencing and recall of this information. Maggie Magpie reminds us daily, “If you can say it, you can write it!”

We then innovated on this to write a biography of another famous activist; Rosa Parks. We remembered to write in the past tense, in chronological order, underline titles and subheadings and include important events in each part of her life, with dates.

We have now begun a new unit; learning to write a persuasive poster using all four sentence types; command, statement, question, exclamation. Our model text is about Votes for Women, linked to our learning about Suffragettes.

Science

In Science, we have been investigating habitats. A habitat is a place where living things such as plants and animals live and includes some non-living things like rocks and water. The habitat provides all the things that the living things need to survive such as shelter, space, food and water.

We tried to identify different plants and animals by studying their features and using spotter guides.

We learned how some animals are herbivores, some are carnivores and some are omnivores. We also discussed how living things depend on one another for food and made food chains. All food chains start with a producer; a plant. Producers make their own energy using the sun.

Art

We have very much enjoyed colour mixing this term, learning how primary colours can be mixed in different quantities to produce a range of hues.

We then applied this knowledge to help us make our fundraising Christmas cards by painting trees in hues of green that we had mixed ourselves.

We thought carefully about how to apply the paint to show the texture of the branches.

When the paint had dried we added decorations using colouring pencils.

DT

In DT we have been learning how to read a recipe. We learned how to cut safely with a knife and revisited how to use a peeler to create an Apple Crisp.

Term 6 2024-25 

English:

In English this term we have been writing diary entries. First, we read and drew a story map of our model text, a diary entry from a girl called Daisy, who was a Victorian school girl. After we had identified and picked out the features of diary entries, we began to write our own.

Our first diary entry was written from the viewpoint of a child at a modern school. We described some of the things that we might do and see at school such as sitting on the carpet, going out for break time or using the interactive whiteboard.

We then recalled what we had seen as well as our knowledge of what schools were like in Victorian times to write our own diary entry from that point of view. We wrote of experiences such as writing on slate boards with chalk, being shouted at by a teacher or being punished by the dunces cap or the cane.

Maths:

In Maths, we have started to learn to tell the time with analogue clocks. We started learning about how we measure time in general such as the days of the week and the months of the year. We then learnt about o’clock times. This is when the long minute hand is pointing to the 12 on the clock face. We practised making different o’ clock times on mini clocks.

We then learnt half-past times. This is when the long minute hand is pointing to 6 and the short hour hand is half way between two numbers. We had a go at listening to a half past time and recreating it on our mini clocks.

History:

In History we have been learning about what schools were like in Victorian times. We have been recalling everything we have found out to write our answer to the enquiry question, “What was school like in the past and what is school like now?”. To answer this, we first wrote down what we have learnt about Victorian schools. We learnt that the teachers were very strict and had different punishments for the children including the cane and the dunce’s hat. Children in Victorian times had a two-hour lunch break so that they could go home and have lunch, but they didn’t have a playground, until Samuel Wilderspin came along. We then wrote about what school was like now and what we did at school, such as writing on paper with pencils and sitting in groups at tables on plastic chairs. Finally, we wrote about what school we would prefer to go to. The majority of us voted that we would like to keep things as they are!

PE:

Our topic in PE this term has been rackets, bats and balls. During this topic, we have explored and developed our control of different bats and rackets. These have included: cricket bats, tennis rackets and hockey sticks. We used lots of different sized balls and guided them around courses and the playground. We found that it was easier to use large balls and longer sticks. We later used our new skills to play games such as Kwik cricket and hockey.