Blog by Jo Hurley

Upper School are coming towards the end of their topic about Evolution and Inheritance this half term. We have learnt about adaptations, variation, inherited traits, survival of the fittest and this week we thought about how animals adapt over time to fit into their environments. 
The children…

For the last couple of weeks, the Upper School children have been researching, planning and producing a non-chronological report about Easter celebrations in different countries such as Mexico, Spain and Germany. They had to think carefully about how they set out their writing as the objective was…

This morning, Upper School braved the bracing wind to complete a maths competition that I set up around the school field. There were 29 maths challenges hidden all over the grounds and they worked in pairs to find them and try and answer the questions correctly before they could go and try a…

After a very busy and intense morning completing SATs papers, the Upper School children enjoyed going outside in the grounds of school to find the types of materials birds might use to make their nests. They found wool, straw, sticks, grass, moss and leaves to add to their clay bases and recreate…

Upper School finished their Tennis skills topic today with some tennis matches. This meant they could show off the skills they had learnt! They demonstrated forehand and backhand shots, tactics to beat their partner and accuracy with their own shot placement. All the children agreed that they had…

As part of our topic on evolution and inheritance, the class found out about Darwin’s theories about adaptation. We discussed why the same animals look different in differing environments. The two main ideas they came up with were because of climate and because of predation. 
We studied this…

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…