Curriculum News – Toftwood Infant and Junior School Federation

Year 2 – Stop Animation Movies in English

As part of their English learning this term the children created their own comics. They thought of their characters, and designed puppets and props to make their stories come to life. They then recorded – using tablets – stop animations. The children were able to see an example of a stop animation and how Aardman Animations created films such as ‘Wallace and Gromit’ ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Early Man’.

Take a look at some photos of the children making their animations, as well as a few completed movies!

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History Day 11th September 2024

The Federation of Toftwood Infant and Junior School participated in a History Day on Wednesday 11^th September. Key stage one children began the day with an assembly about the history of our school. They found out that the school began in what is now Toftwood Social Club. The children were interested to hear about what school was like by listening to extracts from the school log books which dated back as far as 1876. They did a great job at identify staff in archived photographs and were interested to see how the school had changed. One child also recalled that he and his mum were taught by the same teacher!

Year one children had lots of fun learning about our school history. They discussed why children were absent from school and took part in a drill. They looked at an article from the log book regarding some missing keys, then participated in an orienteering activity in the school grounds to find the pictures of the keys with initials on, to discover the culprit.

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Year two children focused on school in the past. They looked at items found in classrooms and participated in Victorian style lessons. Activities included writing lines for English, reciting times tables, and a drill. They also participated in a playtime with hoops, skipping ropes and hopscotch.

Here are some quotes from year two children: “The teachers were very strict” Beau. “They had to write with chalk” Harrison. “The boys had to pick up leaves” Hermione.

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History Day

One of the threads that run through our Federation History Curriculum is “Sources” so we started the day with an assembly where the children were shown old school artefacts and they had to guess what they were. They found out about log books and how that the information that they used to day came from the original log book which was like a diary of events.

Year 3 really enjoyed the journey back in time to Victorian schooling!

The children practised using cursive handwriting to form letters of the alphabet. There was much hilarity and mirth at some of the letters, particularly – f, s, g, with the children insisting they could not find them on the board!

Once the year group had honed their skills with the alphabet, some of them copied a well-used Victorian school phrase:

Good, better, best,
Never let it rest,
Til your good is better,
And your better, best.

They also wrote their names using their best handwriting.

The children learnt all about corporal punishment – the Dunce’s hat and the cane. We learnt how everyone had to be right handed and how left handed children were taught to write with their other hand.

We explored the local area and looked at how it had changed over time – using maps of the local area. The children were fascinated to learn that Toftwood Social Club was the original local school.

We also took part in a Physical Training session. It was very different to our normal PE sessions and the children thought it was enjoyable – though they are pleased we have our PE lessons, not Victorian ones, twice a week!

In Year 4, we learnt all about the history of our school. We started off by looking at what our school used to look like. We compared the similarities and differences between what our school looks like now and then. Additionally, we looked at different occupations available for people in 1873 and did some research based on a chosen occupation. In the afternoon, we looked at the PE exercises (Drill) that the children used to do. The children enjoyed being the teachers and giving different commands to the class. We finished the day by playing some Victorian playground games.

In Year 5 we presented our work on a double page spread to show all the information we had learnt throughout the day. We were also able to handle the artefacts carefully. We used our inference skills to interpret facts from the data ie

“March 15^th 1876 Sent to Mrs Land to obtain the ages of her children as I discovered that though in their school previously to my undertaking charge, their ages had not been entered in the Admission Register. Mrs Land in reply said, “she could not recollect nearer than the month, “ being unable to state the exact days on which they completed their 12^th 10^th and 7^th years respectively.”

“April 25^th1876 Sent again for ages of children, which I had previously failed to procure. Their mother had promised to obtain them from the parish register.” We can infer that they might not have had calendars or celebrate birthdays on the exact day.

“July 10^th1877 Chain and padlock put on the pumps to prevent the waste of water.” We can infer that they had no inside taps.

Next we looked at extracts from the Parish records 1873 and we were amazed at the variety of occupations that were in Dereham at the time eg. Hawker, Umbrella Maker, Glove Maker, Horse Dealer and Tailer etc.

The children were also amused and shocked when looking at the punishments that were given and for offences such as singing on their way out of school. We also tried some of the Drill exercises.

Year 6 had a fantastic history day. They really enjoyed learning about the history of our school and local area. We explored physical activity drills, punishments, occupations and illnesses. They then completed a double page spread with all of the information they had learned.

Federation School Council – Summer 2024

The summer term has been a busy one for the School Council. In June we supported FOTS with their pre-loved book sale for the family picnic. Once all the books had been donated, the children carefully sorted them one by one to make it easier for pricing. We also created some posters for the table. During the picnic some of the junior school council helped to sell the books on the stall. They enjoyed helping their friends choose new books to take home. The sale was a great success and raised lots of money for the school!

Towards the end of term, the children have been working hard to create a ‘Welcome Booklet’ for pupils that move to our school from another. This was an idea that evolved in meeting after our Federation ‘Day of Welcome’ event. The school council discussed how it may feel to join a new school especially part way through the year. The pupils spoke to two children who had experience of this and asked what may have helped them.

The school council worked together over 4 meetings to create a booklet for each school that will be handed to new pupils either before they start or on their first day. The booklet contains a welcome from the school council, photographs of important rooms in the school, photos of some of the staff members they will meet in the first few days, quotes from the school council and a colouring sheet or federation word search for the children to complete. The school council worked so hard on this and we look forward to handing some of these out in September.

Music Summer 2

Reception

Reception children have been listening to sounds heard in a rainforest and guessing jungle animal sounds, as part of their topic in summer 2. They joined in with the song “Down in the jungle”. During independent learning time, some children also created their own musical instruments using props in the water tray.

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Year 1

In music this half term, the children have continued to learn to find the beat and pulse. They have enjoyed moving their bodies to the music and have learned new songs. The children especially enjoyed singing along to ‘Alice the Camel’ and ‘Ten Green Bottles’. They were able to use percussion instruments to play along to the beat of the music.

Year 2

This half term in music, year 2 haven been learning about music that is linked to the theme ‘our big concert.’ The children listened to a wide range of musical styles, including funk, hip-hop and calypso, which they listened and responded to, commenting on what they liked and what they didn’t like. The children also learnt the songs ‘the sunshine song’, ‘four white horses’ and ‘down by the bay’. They enjoyed singing these songs and playing the glockenspiel to the pieces of music.

KS2 MFL Summer 2024

This term, the children in Year 3 have had the opportunity to revisit and consolidate the Spanish topics they have learned this year. It is great to see how much more confident they are to hold simple conversations with one another and how their pronunciation has improved.

Year 4 have been learning how to talk about their pets in Spanish this term.

They have learned various vocabulary for the different animals they might have at home

Perro, Gato, Ratón, Hámster, Conejo, Conejillo de Indias, Pez, Pájaro and Tortuga (can you guess what any mean?) and looked carefully at how words change when talking about more than one of each.

In Year 5, children have been planning a trip to a Spanish speaking country. They have researched the different places where Spanish is spoken as the primary language, and the different cultures of these. They have thought of useful phrases to have as a visitor and learned to discuss different nationalities.

The children in Year 6 have consolidated their knowledge of one of our autumn term units – ‘en mi pueblo’ (in my town). They produced a knowledge organiser to display the key phrases and vocabulary learnt. The children enjoyed decorating their knowledge organisers once they had recorded the key information.

KS2 Music Summer 2024

In Music, children have continued to increase their ukulele skills. We’ve now reached the trickiest part where they have to quickly move several fingers in a single beat to change chords in a song. We are really impressed with the perseverance that all children are showing and Mr Hardy is hoping some of them will be joining his Ukulele Club next year.

Year 4 have had a new unit of work in Music for the Summer Term exploring rhythm with Body Percussion, Junk and Bucket Drumming. Children learned how to make different rhythmic patterns using cups, explored the range of percussive sounds made with the body (clicking, clapping, tapping, stamping, chest pats etc) to produce different grooves and then moved on to bucket drumming. Children have learned to read rhythm notation and the difference time signatures make. Children played different rhythms in 3 parts with changing dynamics. Really great fun!

In Year 5 we asked, ‘How Does Music Connect Us with the Environment?’. This Social Question evolved as the children moved through the scheme, encouraging them to be responsible and kind citizens of the world using carefully chosen songs. Children then created their own fun and confident performances.

This term Year 6 have been working on adding musical accompaniments to familiar songs using glockenspiels and recorders. The children learnt to play simple tunes to play along to the song “A La Bamba”. They also learnt to sing the song in Spanish.

The second half of the term was spent learning songs to our end of year performance “I’m a celebrity, Get me out of here!”.The children learnt to sing a variety of songs from mock pop and rock, and raps, to a French style accordion accompanied ballad. Some children sang in small groups and we even had some soloists.

In addition, each class in Years 3, 4 and 5 has been practicing performing a song for our annual Toftovision Song Contest – I think this might be the most competitive year so far!

Students who have been having lessons with RockSteady put on a brilliant end of term concert and Ukulele Club ended the year with a fantastic performance of Stick Season and 500 miles in the Leavers Assembly.

It was a real joy for Ukulele Club to play for Millie (who was here doing work experience) but was a dedicated member of the club when she was at Toftwood!

Summer 2

This term in Year 2 we have wrote a recount of our visit from ‘Mini Monsters’. We focused on the features of a recount, making sure we wrote in the past tense, used time adverbials, wrote in the first person and in chronological order.

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We also looked at the Little People Big Dreams book about Sir David Attenborough and talked about what a biography and an autobiography is. We did lots of research about Sir David Attenborough, making notes about his childhood, family, education, work at the BBC, David as a naturalist and his expeditions. We then put our notes into full sentences and wrote up our biographies. We also decided to make two-page spreads about Sir David and present our facts in an eye catching way.

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Year 1 Summer 2

This half term in year 1 we have been focusing on the traditional tale of ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’. We linked this to the animation of ‘Le Petit Cordonnier’ which did not have dialogue.

The children looked carefully at the language the traditional tale used and the punctuation to support emphasis. Each day the children developed ideas for the next part of the story and then used this work to create a written story for Le Petit Cordonnier. They really enjoyed learning about inverted commas, ellipsis and writing words in bold to stand out.

The children wrote amazing stories and enjoyed sharing them in their classes!

Reception – Summer 2

The children in Reception have been working hard to put into practise all the things they have learnt this year. They have been busy reading to themselves in their independent learning time, writing signs for the different areas in provision, making tickets for shows and labelling maps that they have made.

They have also been practising their story writing skills and becoming much more independent, needing less help from an adult each time they write! Their topic has been ‘Around the World’ and the children have enjoyed writing about animals and habitats that they have been learning about.

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