Blog by Jo Hurley

This half term, Upper School are learning Tennis skills and today the focus was on the backhand. The children demonstrated this skill through partner work and competitive rallies. 
 

After studying the birds’ nests last week and producing charcoal and chalk drawings which focused on gaining depth with shading, the Upper School children used the new watercolour palettes to try and recreate paintings of the nests.
First we explored the way we could paint with watercolours and…

This half term, we will be observing birds’ nests and, using a range of media, will draw, paint and then create our own nests using clay or textiles. 
Today the class looked closely at the different nests that I brought in. We decided which birds they might have belonged to by looking…

After handing out our Easter biscuits that we hand made this morning, the children of Upper School put on a performance of the songs we have learnt over the last term. 
The first piece was You’ve Got a Friend by Carol King and as well as singing it brilliantly, the children performed an…

This morning, the children all took part in making Easter biscuits using a gluten free and low sugar recipe that we came up with to fit nicely with our, ‘Eat Like a Champ’ Science topic. 
The children measured out their own ingredients using their maths skills and mixed, rolled and cut out their…

This afternoon, Upper School children did a tasting activity to investigate different types of biscuits. 
They analysed the amount of fat, sugar and salt in each type of biscuit and then made judgments about the taste, healthiness and presentation. 
It was really interesting to look at the…

Today the children learnt about the sugar, fat and salt content in the foods we like to eat. 
We investigated food packaging and compared the grams per 100g. The children were quite surprised at the amount of fat in certain foods such as breakfast bars and the amount of sugar in sauces like…

Upper School are learning about healthy eating and healthy lifestyles this term in Science. Today we learnt about the differing amounts of kilojoules (calories) in our food. We found that fruit and vegetables had the least amount of KJs and carbohydrates/protein had the most. 
We learnt about…

We are coming towards the end of our Highway Man  dance topic in PE and this week and the children in Upper School have been working in much bigger groups this time to produce a section of dance called a canon. 
One group worked on becoming the character, Bess, one group was the highway man and…

During our special day, Upper School children paraded in their brilliant book costumes for the rest of school and watched the BBC Live Lesson which featured the author, Frank Cottrell-Boyce who we know from reading The Forgotten Coat. The children also spent time in Middle and Lower School with a…

Upper School have begun a set of dance lessons with the theme of ‘The Highway Man’ by Alfred Noyes. They have studied the poem and watched animated versions of it to inspire the dances that they come up with. Today the children used four elements of dance - different ways of travelling, turns,…

Today the Upper School finished their Joan Miro project by completing their Miro style sculptures. We think they look great and show very similar ideas and colours to the original Miro Sculptures. (If you get the chance to go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, some of his sculptures are displayed…