Today we hosted our very first whole-school workshare. Thank you to parents and carers for coming along and helping to celebrate all of our pupils’ amazing learning so far! We will be hosting a work-share towards the end of each half-term. We will keep everyone updated with future dates in our monthly school newsletter.
Today in school we have had a curriculum day in honour of Norfolk Black History Month. Across the school, children have been learning about influential Black people; Chadwick Boseman, Kadeena Cox, Ashley Banjo, Oti Mabuse, Mo Farah and John Boyega. They have looked into their achievements and contributions and why they have inspired people across the world with their work and their amazing approaches to life.
We were also treated to sessions of African dancing and drumming with the PanAfro Band. It was a joy to see everyone moving and enjoying themselves and experiencing this wonderful style of music and dance.
Throughout our school year, we are committed to celebrating diversity across our curriculum and in all of our learning and so this is just an opportunity to extend the already wonderfully diverse curriculum we have here at Queens Hill.
Y5 had a great day celebrating Black History Month. We learnt about the Windrush Generation and what it was like for people at this time, who travelled over to the UK. We read our class reader ‘Windrush Child’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, which the children have been enjoying already this half term. We researched and learnt about the Caribbean carnival, Notting Hill. We got to design and make our own carnival masks and we were lucky enough to go and model these for our Year 2 buddies class, Les Grenouilles. If that wasn’t enough we were lucky to take part in an African Dance workshop and watch them perform at the end of the day.
Mr. Clarke, along with the rest of the Year 5 team have been challenging the pupils to see how many European countries they can name as part of their current geography topic.
Why not have a go at home, using this free online quiz from Lizard Point!
This half term Y5 have been learning about humanists and what they believe. We were able to explore humanist beliefs in the classroom and had open discussion on how these beliefs may differ from our own. We were also lucky to welcome a visitor into school from the ‘Understanding Humanism Society’. Children were able to ask questions of our visitor in order to deepen their understanding of what it means to be a humanist. They were set the task afterwards to design what they believe a Humanist building might look like. Their imaginations went wild and they created some amazing looking buildings that incorporated humanist values.
In Y5 we have been identifying emotions and discussing how we can manage them. We made ‘Thunderstorm Bottles’ by filling a bottle with water and adding in a range of craft materials and paint. We can then use these whenever we feel angry or anxious about something by shaking the bottle. The swirling water and added craft items represent an angry storm, demonstrating how our anger can stir up inside of us. After a few minutes, we think of something that we like doing to help us feel calm. Finally, putting our bottles down and watch the angry storm calm down as we ourselves calm down.
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.
The Rotakids have been out in the local community completing a litter pick. The children were shocked with how much rubbish they found but are happy knowing that they have made a positive impact on their local community.
Y5 had an amazing time on their 2022 residential at Eaton Vale. They took part in lots of sport and adventurous activities and were able to enjoy being outside and running around. The children faced their fears head on with the heights of the trapeze and the confined space of the cave bus. Luckily the sun shone on the last two days so when it came time to jump into the river we were able to dry off in the sun. The food prepared was delicious and we even got to celebrate with a bbq on the last night.
