W/E 5th July 2019 

French
In French we have been looking ahead to the next great French sporting event – Le Tour de France, which begins in Brussels on Saturday.  The pupils have been excited about past cycling feats on the various Tours, including spectacular crashes, and have learned the history of the Tour, how it was started in 1903 by a journalist who was a keen cyclist, as well as the meaning of the different coloured jerseys, “maillots”, including why the “maillot jaune” for the leader is yellow.
Any pupils lucky enough to be holidaying in France this Summer have been asked to keep a note, even a simple diary, of where they go and what captures their interest and to jot down new words and phrases they learn.
Latin
Because of the nature of this stage of the school year, it has been the non-linguistic season largely in the Classics Department. Year 7 has looked at Rome’s struggle with Hannibal – had he won might we be studying Carthaginian? Year 6 has looked at Spartacus and how slavery was the lifeblood of the Empire. Years 5 and 4 have been looking at mythology and how much of it was actually rooted in truth, particularly Jason and his world in the Bronze age. As the historian Michael Wood said, “Troy was a myth until the archaeologists dug it up”!
Science 

Year 3 test their ‘paper-copters’ in Science

Great fun was had by the Year 3 children last Friday in Science. Having learnt about seed dispersal, they made paper ‘helicopters’ to represent seeds dispersed by the wind, and used these in a fair test to find out if the weight of a ‘seed’ made any difference to the length of time they stayed airborne.  Dropping them from the fire escape onto the terrace proved very exciting, and predictions were proved – lighter ‘paper-copters’ stayed up longer!

 

Maths

Mrs Collins would like to thank you for all the kind words and lovely presents she has received this week. I can honestly say that in the 37 years I have been teaching I have always enjoyed my job and I have loved teaching at Vinehall School.
The youngsters here are amongst the most polite, kind and thoughtful I have ever taught, so thank you very much for letting me take a small part in their lives.
My very best wishes to you all,
Caroline Collins
English
Year 5 studied the poem ‘Timothy Winters’ and explored, in more depth, the skills of analysis! They created their own interpretation of Timothy Winters out of play-dough and pieces of material and cardboard with reference to the text. They had to share opinions on whether or not they felt sorry for him as a character based on their knowledge of historical context (based on a real person after the second world war.)

W/E 28th June 2019 

Geography 

The pupils in all year groups have been swatting up on their location knowledge by using a variety of on-line quizzes. For a bit of Geography fun at home try – Geoguesser.

History

Historical Bridgepong!!

I had to teach some of my final lessons in History this week, so I introduced 7CB to a game of ‘Bridgepong’, where they had to compete to bounce the ping pong ball into the opposition’s cups. If successful, they had to answer a history question and correct answers led to prizes! This was a great way to finish off the year and showed just how much knowledge these learners have. Well done to all of Year 7 for their hard work this year – it’s been a real pleasure teaching you!

Miss Bridges

Learning Journey

Continuing with our topic on The Stone Age, Year 3 learnt about Stonehenge, making mini models with plasticine and collaborating well (mostly!) with their partner. They also enjoyed making handprints with black paint on the ‘cave wall’ … as Arthur G was the last name picked out of a pot, he chose RED for his print!

Science

Year 4 Dentist Visit

Faris’s mummy Sela, who is a dentist, was planning to visit Year 4 today, but sadly she has been poorly and couldn’t speak (not very helpful when you want to talk about keeping your teeth clean to 20 children!)

However, she did bring me all the resources I needed including a fabulous PowerPoint so that I could pass the information needed to Year 4.

All the children used a disclosing tablet to see where they were missing when brushing their teeth.  Some very scary purple mouths – see the pictures!  They have all gone home with a teeth cleaning kit and of course gleaming teeth.

Thank you very much Sela.

Louise Barrett

Maths

Year 4 have been working on co-ordinates in maths this week.  They were quite good as they have used co-ordinates in their Learning Journey lessons when working on maps!

RS

Year 3 have been thinking about the beliefs of Christians, especially at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. They thought of words to describe the emotions that different groups of people might have had at that time and then showed their dramatic prowess as they acted out how Jesus, his friends, disciples and family and, finally, his enemies may have expressed these feelings.

As part of their RS lessons, Year 5 have been learning about the Hindu festival ‘Diwali’. Today they created their own beautiful Rangoli patterns, using coloured chalk and coloured rice, outside the classrooms in the junior block.  Mrs E was impressed by their imagination and the way they collaborated so well together in this sunny activity. Lakshmi would certainly feel welcome at Diwali here!

EAL Trip

For our final EAL trip of the academic year we went strawberry picking at Maynard’s Fruit Farm. Thankfully, having had torrential rain in the previous days, the sun decided to shine. With our punnets full we headed off to Mrs Payne’s house to have a walk, followed by masses of fun on the zip wire, giant swing and nets! To finish, in true British style, we had tea with sandwiches and scones with cream and deliciously, sweet and freshly-picked strawberries.

STEM

Year 5 visited the Bing Bang Fair at Ardingly Showground – Click here for more