Summer 2, Week 7 – 17/07/2025
Class 5 have worked so hard to finish their newspaper reports on the execution of Anne Boleyn – words can’t express how impressed we were with these, as the children included all the features of a newspaper report, including both direct and reported speech. These reports were packed full of rich description and showed super awareness of audience; they were gruesome and even funny at times reflecting the fact that executions were considered entertainment in Tudor Times. Talking of gruesome, the children enjoyed learning about Tudor crime and punishment and Tudor medicine in the last week of term, we also finished our Tudor houses and were delighted with the results. Well done class 5!
Summer 2, Week 5 – 04/07/2025
Year 5 have continued to be fully immersed in The Tudors, moving on from life in Henry VIII’s court to the reign of Elizabeth 1st, where they have been learning about the claimants to the throne and other challenges met by Elizabeth in her 45- year- reign. See details below! In art, many are at the painting stage of their Tudor Houses. In Maths we are studying measure and making the connection between multiplication and division while converting between units of measure. We are also tackling some tricky problem- solving questions involving Measure. Thank you Ellie, for helping us solve this one! On Tuesday, class 5 got to be top of the school briefly during move-up day. They met their new Year 6 teacher Mrs Stevenson and had a super day of fun, team- building exercises, as well as creating their own book reviews. Everyone is now very excited about next year, but we still have lots of learning to pack in before then.
Summer 2, Week 3 – 20/06/2025
Like the rest of the school, we were lucky enough to go to Warwick Castle last week, but for us it was especially relevant as we are studying the Tudors and had just finished learning about the Earl of Warwick’s part in the Wars of the Roses. We got to watch a reenactment of the main battles with actual jousting – it was so exciting. Then we were able to access The Kingmaker Exhibition which is all about Richard Neville AKA The Earl of Warwick. This is an underground burrow of rooms which interconnect, each one showing different aspects of medieval life like cooking, making armour and dressing. All include startlingly life-like waxwork figures in peasant dress, sumptuous robes and even armour. It was drenched in atmosphere and the children were memorised.
Back in school we have been learning about what life was like in the court of Henry VIII and why it could be a dangerous place to be! In Maths we are getting to grips with the tricky concept of decimals and the children have shown in their assessments this week that HAVE been listening.
In art we have been making our Tudor House Templates based on cuboid and triangular prism nets. We will use these to make the real nets for out actual models. It’s a complicated business making sure that when you put your net together, you don’t end up with windows where the roof should be, but we are getting there.
Summer 1, Week 3 – 9/05/2025
On Thursday this week, the children enjoyed the most wonderful trip to the Tudor House Sulgrave Manor. On arrival, they all got changed into Tudor costumes before going to the main house. We learned details about the coat of arms over the doorway and that the house had at one time belonged to ancestors of the American President, George Washington. We then went into the main hall where the family would have eaten and taken their leisure time. The children were fascinated to learn that the table or ‘board’ as it was called, could be flipped over to play games on and that this is the origin of the term board games. We also learned that children would not have had chairs when dining nor would anyone have had forks! Thresh was a straw mixed with lavender, and this was strewn on the floor to keep things smelling fresh. The raised step to keep the thresh in the room was called the threshold – another interesting piece of etymology.
We then learned a bit about what school would have been like for both rich and poor Tudor children and even got to have a go at writing our names with a quill and ink!
In the kitchen, the children got to perform a variety of chores, such as butter patting, sweeping, polishing the silver and using a wooden paddle to get the bread out of the oven. I think some parents may be surprised by the relish with which they approached these tasks! After a look at the bed chamber and learning some more interesting facts and etymology – Don’t let the bed bugs bite – nothing to do with fleas apparently – We had lunch and played in the beautiful garden. Afterwards, we learned how to play a variety of Tudor games and then it was time to go home. We all had a wonderful day packed full of new learning.
Summer 1, Week 1 – 25/04/2025
The children have come back to school enthusiastic and ready to learn as always. On the last week of the Spring term, they completed their wonderful persuasive leaflets, advertising Yellowstone Park. They loved flexing their design skills and showed a real understanding of audience. I was persuaded! We also had a lot of fun on Earth Day: we created earthquake proof buildings out of toothpicks, BBQ skewers, masking tape and Plasticine. Each group had exactly the same resources and they competed to make the tallest and most robust structure. We also made models of the Earth out of Plasticene, recreating the inner layers, ocean surface and the tricky formation of the continents. I was pretty impressed by how accurately crafted they were. In addition, the children finished their soft toys and again, I was amazed at the level of detail they achieved. We have now started our new topic : The Tudors and have been studying where they sit in British history and how they came to be in power.
Spring 2, Week 5 – 27/03/2025
The children are really enjoying learning about Yellowstone Park at the moment as we gather information for our persuasive leaflet. This also coincides with the climax of our novel Into the Volcano, where the protagonists are lost in Yellowstone in the middle of an earthquake!
In Maths, we have moved from perimeter to area and the children have been working on some tricky problems involving compound shapes. In geography, we’ve been investigating the physical and human geography of North America – looking at examples like Niagara Falls and The Panama Canal. This week, we enjoyed some practical activities in science, as the children planned and executed an experiment to see if the shape of a boat affects how much mass is can hold before sinking. The children planned their experiment, considering variables and hypothesised about what the results might be. After conducting their experiment, they recorded the results and presented the conclusions in a bar chart. In R.E. the children have been studying the part of the Easter story which takes place in The Garden of Gethsemane, creating some beautiful pictures for a display at church.
Spring 2, Week 3 – 14/03/2025
This week the children finished their fantastic adventure narratives based on escaping Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I was really blown away by how brilliantly the children remembered to include all the skills learned in the build up to this final piece of writing – in particular, how to use dialogue to reveal character and more the plot along – and they also incorporated many of their own wonderful details. In maths the children have been focused on assessments and these show that they are making superb progress – applying their learning in class successfully to a test situation. In science we have learned about Galileo and his theory that objects of different masses will hit the ground and the same time unless affected by air resistance due to their shape and surface area. The children were really taken with this, as all had thought that the heavier the object the faster it would fall.
In geography, we’ve been learning about time zones: how and why we map the world into different time zones and how some countries can have more than one time zone.
Spring 2, Week 1 – 28/02/2025
Class 5 had a very busy last week of term, finishing their wonderful Volcano Poems and producing the magnificent final piece of art in their Space Art – Futurism project. Which hopefully, you all have at home. For this, they created a texture plate which they then printed from. When their print was dry, they used previous sketches for inspiration and completed the finishing overdrawing onto their print. I hope you’ll agree the results were excellent. This week we have been studying various fictional accounts which describe the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the build-up to our Adventure Narrative based in these events. In Geography we have been learning about how we use longitude and latitude to map the Earth, and we have started out new topic of Forces in science – building on previous learning about friction.
Spring 1, Week 5 – 07/02/2025
We are now fully emerged in our topic of EARTH and have moved on from Earthquakes to Volcanoes. This week we have been finding out how volcanoes are formed and all their interior parts. We have been investigating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii during the Roman Period of history: studying a timeline of the event and discussing how it affected people at the time as well as how the uncovering of the artifacts years later gave us a great insight into Roman Life. This research will go on to inform our English work for the rest of the term, as we go on to write poems about volcanoes. In Science we’ve been studying the phases of the moon and why the moon appears to look different at various times throughout the month. In Art we have been exploring decision making in the creative process as we reproduce images of planets using a range of mark making techniques. The children are enjoying Hockey as they brave the cold weather to hone their passing and control skills.
Spring 1, Week 3 – 24/01/2025
Class 5 have made a super start to the Spring term and are already getting stuck into their new topic EARTH. We’ve been brushing up on our geography by recapping on continents and oceans and have been learning about tectonic plate movement and how this causes earthquakes. We’ve learned about how we measure earthquakes and we’ve been comparing the levels of destruction of various earthquakes around the world including the short and long-term effects on the local community. In science we have been learning about our Solar System: the order of the planets, how they move around the Sun and many interesting facts about each one. Yesterday, the children had their second swimming lesson at Spiceball leisure centre and are really excelling. We have all be so impressed with their skill and courage as they push themselves out of their comfort zone, striving to improve their skills and strokes and listening and acting on points for improvement. They have been a credit to Cropredy School!
