Year 6 have had a brilliant start to their reading and writing unit on Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian. It tells the story of a young boy, William Beech, who is evacuated to the countryside to the care of an elderly recluse, Mister Tom, in the wake of WW2.
In Reading Masters, children have started to develop their retrieval and inference skills through answering a range of question types as well as understanding new and complex vocabulary. We discussed the word ‘colloquial’ in relation to the portrayal of accents throughout the book.
Exploring character thoughts and emotions through drama and role play, children have embraced the text fully and made excellent links to our History unit too. Children will be writing diary entries from the perspective of the central character over the coming weeks – we look forward to seeing the work they produce!
As part of our Reading Masters lessons this half term Y5 texts will focus on Black history. We will read and unpick the poems: The British (serves 60 million) by Benjamin Zephaniah and Mother to Son by Langston Hughes. Windrush Child will be used as our half termly class reader as well as being part of our Reading Masters lessons. Through this heart-stopping adventure, Benjamin Zephaniah shows us what it was like to be a child of the Windrush generation. Our non-fiction selection is Black and British: an illustrated history by David Olusoga. This book takes us on a stunning visual journey through 1800 years of Black British History.
We look forward, as a year group, to explore the stories that have bought us all together in this country.
We have had such an amazing week getting to know our new classes. Our afternoons have been jammed packed with creativity and all the children have blown us away by demonstrating just how artistic they are. They have created their very own beautiful crown sun catchers and included an image related to climate change ready for our new geography topic. They have also drawn their self portrait and then recreated it in the style of artist Frank Auerbach.
We’ve been
school dogs for six years now and in that time we’ve seen and heard some
things!
We’ve heard
most things whilst sat in The Boss’ office – the parents who see school as a
“them and us” and who take no responsibility or ownership for their child’s
learning to those who microparent their children and every type of parenting in
between. Being a parent these days is difficult
– in some ways technology has helped (there’s an app for just about
everything) but it also means the little people have a very scary world at
their fingertips and don’t actually know if the 10 year old they are supposedly
chatting to is real or someone attempting to groom them.
For us,
that’s why our camping trips with the children are so important. The little
people get a break from technology and they learn to make dens, climb trees,
roll around in mud and experience good old fashioned childhood fun. When The
Boss became head teacher of Queen’s Hills “way back when” (she was appointed in
2007 and started in April 2008) she knew she wanted the little people to have a
good, rounded education with opportunities for The Arts, Sports and Outdoor
Learning. Little did she know back then how hard that journey would be. Balancing
the aims against the budget is always tricky and many of the activities that
have taken place over the years wouldn’t have been able to happen without the
huge generosity of staff and supporters in both time and resources.
So, what
have we learnt in that time? Schools are so much more than places of education.
Obviously teaching the little people how to read, write and do maths is
absolutely crucial but they are also learning how to interact with others, how
to share and show empathy, to become resilient and to understand that there is
a big world out there for them to explore.
She’s had
to battle over the years: against Ofsted (who can only take account of
published data – the irony of being graded
“requires improvement” in June and being in the press for the “most
improved school in Norfolk” months later in October was not lost on her and
yes, she did email the lead inspector to tell them that the predictions she had
given them that they were not able to take into account were absolutely the
results the children achieved), she insisted the school hall was expanded when
additional classrooms were added, she badgered politicians and council members
when she didn’t feel the Queen’s Hills community was getting the support it
needed.
She’s cried
when parents have come to her with diagnoses of terminal illnesses, when her
female staff have told her they’ve miscarried or when a member of the team is going
through a personal crisis, when she can’t get children the support they need to
thrive (whether that’s additional support for the family or a placement in specialist
provision) and she’s cried when she’s just been so frustrated with the
“system”. We’ve seen first-hand when she has been shouted at and threatened and
almost hit on more than one occasion by various parents over the years.
But we’ve
also seen tears of joy with marriages, babies and graduations. We’ve seen a
community come together in a pandemic, we’ve seen families grateful for the
additional support (emotional and financial) that has been secured and we’ve
seen our big little people cry with the relief of getting the results we knew,
but they doubted, they were capable of.
We have
seen non-verbal children gain confidence and whisper our names, we’ve been
prodded and poked and laid on when little people have needed us to help them
regulate, we’ve had them return to see us and tell us how well they have got on
in their new setting. We’ve wagged our tails when they’ve shown us their best
work and we’ve curled up with them when they’ve needed a bit of love.
According
to the dictionary, a school is a place where children are
educated. We disagree. A school is a building which houses a community of
teachers, support staff and children who together aim to develop a passion for
learning. A community where adults care about developing the whole child.
We are going to
miss working with the little people so much and we are excited that we have
more four legged friends in training. We think every school should have a dog. The
Boss says you two legged folk should learn from us: we are always pleased to
see you, every day is a fresh start and full of adventure, we want to make you
happy and proud of us and so we give any task our absolute best effort. We also know when you are having a bad day
(that’s when we go out of our way to be extra attentive to you); we are full of
energy when we need to be but at other times we’re just happy to chill.
Children will
always be children – they will have good and bad days, fallouts and
celebrations. We know how hard the staff are working to do the best they can to
support the little people, giving up their own time to go that extra mile. They
won’t always get it right, because they are human and also because sometimes
the parents’ expectations of what “the school” can do is not entirely
realistic. But they will always put the little people first – because that’s
what they do. Whatever is going on in their personal life. And we know that
because we’ve seen that first-hand too.
Be kind to each
other and keep helping the little people to develop their passion for learning
and life.
With the waggiest
of tails and the fondest of memories,
Congratulations to the Year 5 and 6 writers who are now officially published authors! A group of our UKS2 children participated in a project in collaboration with The Southbank Centre, in London, to write a chapter of a novel called ‘Mayhem At The Museum!’ alongside author Alexandra Sheppard, illustrator Allen Fatimaharan and children from other schools in the county. The story included interesting characters including those from Greek Mythology! Today their achievements were celebrated at the Norwich regional performance at St Andrews Hall. Children all received a copy of the finished book and quickly found their names in the list of contributors! As well as this, they were able to ask both Alex and Allen questions and had an illustrating masterclass! We even have a school signed copy which will take pride of place in our main entrance area. A huge well done to all for your efforts – lots of grit and determination was shown throughout the writing process!
Year 6 had a very informative talk from two local police officers. The officers talked about their role in the community, how they can be contacted in both emergency and non-emergency circumstances and different legal consequences for certain actions. The children listened wonderfully and demonstrated our school rules throughout the session.
