As a year group, we used different ways to raise money for Water Aid as part of our last term topic on 'The Long Walk to Freedom'. We dressed up in African flag colours or as African animals and also had a bake sale where lots of people could buy the buns and cakes.

 

Project 1 - Local Heroes

Our first project is called ‘Local Heroes’. Within this topic we will be focussing on people in Bradford and nearby who are heroes and have made our world a better place. 

We will be using the book ‘The Night Gardener’ as our stimulus to writing. This is where someone tries to look after their environment to make their world a better place. 

 

 

 

Week 1

Project - history 

This week we have been focusing on our Local Hero – Margaret McMillan. She fought for free school meals so that children could have a hot meal at school. These are the facts that we learnt:

 

“She was born in New York and then moved to Scotland when she was 4 years old.” – Sam

She stood up for children who didn’t have the money for a school meal.” – Betsy

“It took 10 years for other people to agree with her.” – Harry

“Before Maragaret McMillan, children only got hard bread, a banana and a tiny bit of milk topped up with water for their school dinner.” – Penny

“She was a hero because she wanted everyone to have a hot meal, so it could be fair.” – Lola

"The first school that had free school meals was at Green Lane Primary, which is only 15 minutes away from us!" - Jude 

 

Week 2

Project - History

In our project this week we continued to discover the history of world changers and how some people have made a huge impact on our lives because of their influence in the past. 

We discovered that Marcus Rashford was not just an amazing footballer but that he also had a rough childhood and that has made him who he is today. We discussed how Marcus showed courage to fight for what he knew was right, but he was also spreading love to families who didn't have much.

 

"Marcus showed courage when writing a letter to the MP's to ask for free school meals to keep going even when some children were at home because of covid." - Jude  

"He spread joy when giving out the meals because some people might have been worried they wouldn't get anything and now they are happy that their children are fed." - Reba

"He showed people love when supporting free school meals and lots of courage as he did it so that other children didn't have to go through the same thing that he did when he didn't have food or where his mum couldn't eat because they couldn't afford it." - Arlo 

 

Religious Education

Within our RE we have introduced our new topic of belonging and what does it mean to belong. We shared our love and joy about what groups we belonged to. These included: brownies, family, football, dance, churches and many others. We discussed how some people belong to similar groups and some are very different and these make us ‘who we are’.

Project - ART

In our first lesson of art, we started by researching an artist from our local area as part of our local hero topic. We introduced David Hockney and his impact on Bradford. We then explored his art and the pieces he made. We decided we wanted our inspiration to be Garrowby Hill as it was in Yorkshire, which links with our local surrounding area. Next week we will be exploring his techniques and producing our own interpretation of Garrowby Hill. 

“David Hockney was part of the pop art movement because he thought other painters' work was boring, and he wanted to be brighter.” - Aria

"David Hockney is spreading love with his bright and wonderful paintings, and it makes people feel joyful when they see colour instead of the other paintings that didn't have much colour on." - Louis

 

Week 3

Religious Education

Continuing on with our new topic of belonging, we revisited the story of the lost sheep and conducted a class Godly play to represent this. We then discussed the meaning of this story and what things might mean to belong.

“Even though the sheep was lost, God kept him safe and helped him get back home.” – Stanley

“This could link to us. For example, if we feel lost and don’t know what to do, we know that God will always be with us and helping us to make the right decision.” – Lola

 

Project - ART

In our second lesson of art, we showed courage when practicing David's techniques as these were quite a challenge for some people. We then followed instructions and drew our outline in pencil. This formed a guide for our own Garrowby Hill.

“I showed courage by not giving up because it was very tricky when following the instructions because there were so many!” – Olivia

 

Our final lesson was creating our own masterpieces. We shared love and joy as we produced our painting, sharing our techniques and skills with each other.

Have a look at our fantastic artwork from our amazing class! The final touches of black pen on the outline made the painting pop.

 

Project 2 - Local Habitats

Our second project is called ‘Local Habitats’. Within this topic we will explore who lives in our local environment, including the mini-beasts all around us.

 

We will be using the book ‘Tidy’ as our stimulus for writing. This is where an animal tries to look after its environment to make its world a better place. This will then guide our project work across the curriculum where we will be exploring who lives in our environment and what our environment has to keep plants and animals alive.

 

Week 4

Project – Science

We started by exploring our amazing school grounds, which we are very lucky to have, to identify the home to lots of animals. We drew our own habitat map to share the features of the habitat and identify animals we saw and thought might live there. We discussed features of different habitats and decided this must be an urban habitat because it is surrounded by houses where people live.

"It is like a woodland habitat because there are lots of trees and fallen leaves, we have lots of open grass space too, which makes it more like a woodland habitat." - Ottilie

"It is an urban habitat because people live around it, and you can still have trees and bushes in an urban habitat."- Archie 

"Foxes, birds, squirrels and rats live in an urban habitat like our school playground." - Adam 

 

We then discussed that within any habitat there are smaller places for minibeasts to live and these are called microhabitats.

We explored our grounds again and became scientists to find and observe how many minibeasts and microhabitats we could spot. We drew the microhabitats and the minibeasts that were living in them.

Have a look at some of the minibeasts we saw.

As a class, we shared some features of microhabitats and why these may work for some minibeasts and not others.

“Soil is a microhabitat because minibeasts like worms and ants live in them. The soil can be damp or moist and that’s why worms like it to keep their skin slimy.” – Molly

“The ants are on the bark and the dry ground, maybe they prefer hard dry microhabitats.” - Maya

 

We then collected and recorded the data of how many minibeasts we saw in different microhabitats. We then discussed which was the most popular minibeast in each and which was the least seen minibeast and why this may have been.

“I didn’t see many worms, but that might be because they prefer damp or moist microhabitats, so they may be under the soil because the sun is drying out the ground.” – Penny