Curriculum News – Page 2 – Toftwood Infant and Junior School Federation

Spring 1 Music 2024

Music in Reception

In maths, the children have been learning patterns, such as word patterns or making up their own body percussion patterns such as clap, stomp, clap stomp.

During Receptions topic this term, ‘People who help us’ the children went on a bus trip so we taught them the song, “The Wheels on the Bus” and they had the opportunity to sing it on an actual bus and perform to the bus driver!

Music in Year 1

During this half term, year 1 have celebrated a wide range of musical styles. The children have listened, sung, composed and performed both familiar songs like the lullaby, Hush Little Baby and new songs like learning the Days of the Week. They have once again enjoyed playing the chime bars, as well as discovering high and low notes in some of the songs they have learnt the lyrics to and performed.

Music in Year 2

This half term the children in Year 2 have been exploring many different music styles that link to community. They have listened and appraised different genres of music such as swing and classical. They have learnt different songs and performed these in class. One of their favourites was ‘The Music Man’. They have worked on listening and responding whilst learning these songs and performed these in groups. They also have been listening to music from the rainforest and drawing what we thought we could hear, the children used some of the instruments to imitate what they could hear.

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Computing Summer Term 2024

Reception

The children in Reception have been busy exploring BeeBots in the summer term and learning how to programme them to move them along a road or map. They have also been mark making with them and seeing if they could create different lines, shapes and letters!

They have also been visiting the computing suite and learning how to use a mouse by playing games which involve practising how to click.

“If the eyes are red it means it’s dead. We need to put it on charge.” Jack

“I made all those circles. If you press that one (the right arrow) lots of times then press go, it goes round and round.” Jonah

Year 1

This term, the children in Year 1 have been creating their own eBooks. They drew their characters and typed out their story. Then they added animations, sounds and a background. Finally, the children have shared their stories with their friends. The children have also been looking at what technology is and how they can use it. We have also discussed how the children can stay safe online and why they need to keep their personal information private.

Year 2

In Summer 1 the children have been focusing on the information technology unit of taking photos. They have thought about whether to capture an image in portrait, or landscape, whether the subject is in focus and centred, and what lighting makes the best photo! $P:\Photos for Evidence\Computing\23-24\Year 2\Summer 1\L1-2\RP2\IMG_5867.JPG$

In In Summer 2 they have furthered their typing knowledge and have used laptops to write sentences about the Toftwood Tate. They wrote what their favourite piece of art was and the children did an excellent job of increasing their literacy on this digital device.

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History Summer Term 2024

Reception

In the summer term, Reception children visited Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse for a fairy tale event. Part of the day involved helping the ugly sister and Cinderella with jobs around the house and gardens. Jobs included pumping water from the well to water the plants, washing clothes using the wash board and washing dolly, and milking the pretend cow. During the tractor ride, the children saw the Suffolk punch horses. This sparked a conversation about working horses and their role before tractors were used. “Those are big horses, they pulled wagons a long time ago,” said Erin.

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Year one

The topic ‘Step back in time’ is studied in the second half of the summer term. Work includes making comparisons between our school and Victorian schools. Children also visit Holkham Hall (see year group, year one tab for write up).

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Geography Summer Term 2024

Reception

During the first half of the summer term, reception children created a class story maps for The Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk. They also had the opportunity to create their own story maps.

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The children have also created models of real places, both locally and further away.

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As part of the topic ‘Around the World’, Reception children have been learning about maps and plans. They began the topic by looking at a plan of our school, then created a whole class plan of the classroom. They used google maps to find our school and familiar places in the local community, then explored further afield. One child decided to search for the North Pole as they believed they might find Santa’s house. During independent learning time, some children chose to create their own maps and choose route and map related activities. The children develop their sense of place and knowledge of jungles, oceans, deserts, grasslands and tundra over the half term.

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Year 1

Year one children learnt about Norfolk and their local area. They looked at a map of Norfolk and had a great discussion of places they had visited and where they would like to go. The children were given riddles and had to work out places that could be located on a map. The children had an in depth conversation about the physical features of these places and if they had visited them before.

Year one children also created maps of Holkham Hall, following on from their visit.

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Year 2

Year two studied the topic “Art around the world” in spring 2 and the first half of the summer term. They studied a variety of countries, including Africa, Australasia, South and North America.

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Computing Spring 2024

Year 3

In Computing, Year 3 have continued to consolidate their prior knowledge of Scratch and how it is used, and further developing this. This has involved adding more than one character to their game and including a variety of motions, operated by a number of keys on the laptop rather than by just a click as practised in Spring 1, in order to have more than one character at once. The children have greatly enjoyed their learning in Scratch, and have learned a range of skills which will benefit them as they move into their next year group.

Year 4

This term in year 4 we have been learning how to edit pictures and understand the term copyright. They have using an online software called Pixlr.com. The children have been writing Myth and Legend stories in English and have designed front covers for their stories by using their newly learnt picture editing skills. They have really enjoyed learning how to layer pictures on top of each other and learning how to use filters to change the mood of their picture.

Year 5

This term, Year 5 have been focusing on coding as well as using data bases. When coding, we used Scratch to make a questionnaire. The children worked with their partners to use condition and selection. When using databases, the children were able to filter data numerically, as well as alphabetically, and to search databases using specific criteria about mini beasts and dinosaurs. The children were able to explain that computer databases were much easier to sort as opposed to paper data bases.

Year 6

Year 6 have been working on Spreadsheets this term. We used MS Excel to input data, write formulas and duplicate the formula across to fill in cells. We have also used the data and formulas to complete different input and outputs from this, including finding the sum and average of given details.

We also explored online profiles and online relationships, discussing what was safe to share, why people might share online and the feelings that might be resultant of sharing for different purposes.

Author Visit with DR Mandy Hartley on 11th June 2024

Dr Mandy Hartley came to talk to the juniors about her writing journey. She brought with her, her latest book which was hot off the press 2 days ago. This was exciting because it is a new series of books for the children to enjoy.

We learnt that they are based on her own children, Anabelle and Harry and the funny things they get up to. We thought about if we could identify with the personalities of the characters in the text.

Mandy told us that she did not like writing at school as she felt she wasn’t good enough; she then showed the children an enormous book she had written for her PHD. We were all very impressed. From this, she learnt how her scientific report writing and her sentences had to be clear and accurate. Next, she told us how she had worked with DNA through her careers – using it to solve crimes- and then used these experiences to write her books. We talked about how DNA is like a set of instructions inside to make us who we are- and how her books all used her knowledge of DNA to solve mysteries.

Mandy told us she wanted to write books to inspire children in writing, reading and science. She liked being able to reach children all around the world through her books. Sometimes she has ideas when walking the dog, or as she is falling asleep and she is always keen to write them down in a notebook, before she forgets them. She likes to make maps to visualise the settings of her stories. We learnt that it is important to use our senses when writing stories, to create an image in the reader’s mind.

A folding light box wowed the children and Mandy said that’s the reaction we want people to have when they open our book.

The children really enjoyed the talk. They gave lots of ideas when they were helping Dr Hartley write part of her next chapter and asked a range of interesting questions about being an author.

Battle of the Bookworms

On Monday 20^th of May some children from years 5 and 6 participated in Battle of the Bookworms at Northgate High School. We sent two teams: Toftwood 1 which had Macey from GB6, Abigail GG6, William EW5, and Heather KH6 ; the other team from our school was Toftwood 2. This team had Ellie KH6, Orson GB6, Lily GB6 and Reeva RL5. There were also teams from 4 other schools.

The Battle of the Bookworms is a reading competition. There were 5 categories, each with 6 questions. We won a point for each questions we got correct, and the team with the most points at the end won. The teams from our school did amazingly well – Toftwood 2 came 3^rd place and toftwood 1 came 1^st place! The winners of the competition will get their school name engraved on the trophy.

“I love reading, so this was so much fun to participate in” Abigail GG6.

D-Day Celebrations

Toftwood Federation held assemblies to commemorate D-Day. Key stage one children found out about the history surrounding D-Day and the background of the second world war. They discussed the term ‘allies’. Children were particularly interested to find out about the landing on the beach in Normandy. Here are some quotes from year two children. Mia – “I think it was interesting that it started with an invasion on Poland because my family is from Poland.” Arthur – “I thought it was interesting that they came onto the beaches by parachute.” At lunchtime, the kitchen staff prepared aeroplane shaped biscuits for the children to enjoy.

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Geography Junior Summer 2024

This half-term in Geography, Year 3 have started their unit on Volcanoes. We have learned about the many different types of volcanoes (including composite, shield and dome volcanoes) and how they can be active, dormant or extinct depending on their likelihood and recency of eruption. The children have been applying their knowledge by completing tasks such as identifying the parts of a volcano and even locating where famous volcanoes in the world are. It has certainly been a unit where the children have been very enthusiastic! The children have also enjoyed linking our Geography work with our Summer unit Guided Reading text, ‘When Disaster Strikes: Extreme Volcanoes’, and look forward to continuing to learn about volcanoes next half-term.

In Year 4, we have been focusing on map-work skills. We have learned about the equator, lines of latitude, longitude and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. We have also looked at how the climate varies when you live within the tropics and the children even produced a weather report for a location in the tropics! We have also been learning to read four- and six-figure grid references and also to label the same features on an aerial photograph as on a map.

Year 5 started out by studying the history of the Norfolk Broads and we were interested and surprised to find out that they were actually man–made in the Medieval times by people cutting out peat for fuel. They then filled with water when sea levels rose and became navigable waterways where wherries would transport goods. The children also learnt about eutrophication and the positive and negative impacts of tourism and ways to resolve problems. They understand how man contributed to the making of the Broads and how man was now adding to its destruction. The children were keen to learn rich vocabulary associated with this topic.

Year 1 – Summer 1

This half term the children have been learning about both fiction and non-fiction texts. As part of their continuing topic of ‘Our Planet and Beyond’, the children wrote their own non-fiction booklet. The children learnt about the layout of different non-fiction texts, and what they should include. Their final pieces contained a front cover and a contents page as well as information about planets, the moon and Earth. They really enjoyed sharing their own non-fiction books with children in Year 2.

The children also enjoyed writing a letter to either Mel Clarke, a Paralympian who competed in London 2012 Olympics and won a silver medal in archery, or Sophie McKinna, who has been in the Tokyo Olympic games and will be going to Paris to compete this year in shotput.

They have recapped their letter knowledge to write their own letters including the address, formal language and adding question marks after a question. We are hoping that we shall receive a reply and cannot wait to see the Olympics start this year!