Tag Archives: Curricular areas

Mrs Henderson and I have been given the chance to take part in an Improving Writing Course run by CYPIC – The Children’s and Young People Improvement Collaborative. We gathered views on writing from the class at the start of the project and used a piece of written work to help us assess where our writers need most support initially. We aim to write three times a week and our focus just now is on improving our understanding and use of punctuation. The class write for just a short 15-20 minute slot before having time to edit and improve their work. The pupils also help each other in this process too. 😊 Their writing jotters are filling up fast with a variety of writing topics across the curriculum! Most recently, we have linked our writing to work going on throughout the class and school. Some examples are…

Write your top tips to cope with bullying during Anti-bullying Week
How do you use AI in your daily life?
Describe the ‘den’ in our class novel
Persuade Santa to put you back on the good list OR employ you as his elf for this Christmas season OR keep his beard…don’t shave it off!

We contine to share the success of the class with the pupils and they are keen to see the progress they are making. We hope to reach our target set in the new year before moving on to the next element of ‘Tools for Writing’ to be improved.

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Platinum Jubilee

June 4, 2022 Mrs Smith Leave a comment

This week P4/5/6 have been finding out about the history of our school and they have been looking at all the amazing artefacts that have been kept following the Queen’s visit to our school in 1969, when she opened it. Some pupils were surprised to hear that there were once 5 small village schools in the South Mainland and that these schools were all closed to make the school that we have today….although it’s grown over the years too!

We invited Mary Andreas in to talk to us and prepared questions to ask her about her memories of the Bigton school and how she felt about moving to a much bigger school, out with her community. She also recalled how the children and teachers prepared for the Queen’s visit and talked to us about her feelings on the day. We looked at photographs and enjoyed spotting some relations.

Our discussions this week ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, have definitely sparked an interest in the pupils to go home and ask their older family members about their experiences of school. Well done everyone!

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The outside brick work of the original school was kept when the new office area extension was built. The commemorative plaque that the Queen unveiled is still displayed and we still have the curtain she used to unveil it!

Here you can see the bunting that was used to decorate the school. There is a photo of the Queen with the plaque and two signed photos of the Queen and Prince Philip that were gifted to the school. We have also enjoyed looking at the photo of all the pupils who started at the new school!

This piece of writing explains some of the history of our school and how it quickly grew in the coming years. It also gives a little more information about the Queen’s visit.

Any former pupil will remember the excitement of the annual magazine coming home! This one is from 1971 and we found pieces of writing by lots of our relations. Leah’s Grandad and Uncles had lots of entries!

When the school was up and running, there was another official ceremony in November and this programme details what the new school looked like at the time.

The school was opened officially on Wednesday 12th November, 1969. The hall was full of pupils, parents, photographers and members of the Zetland Education Committee.

These photos are an amazing reminder of the past.

A big thank you to Mary for giving us her time and sharing her memories. Thanks also to Carolyn Smith for sharing her recollections of the day too.

Maths – Exploring 2D Shapes

March 12, 2022 Mrs Smith Leave a comment

In P4/5/6 this week, we have signed up to the Shetland Sumdog Competition so we made a start at climbing up the leader board on Friday. We are hoping to build on our success in the National Competition last time so it would be wonderful if the pupils could log in at home too and play along. It runs until Thursday 17th. Good luck!

These past few weeks, the class have been learning about 2D Shapes. We have found out about polygons, regular and irregular 2D Shapes, parallel and perpendicular lines, how to find the number of diagonals a many sided shape has and naming quadrilaterals.

All of this helped lead up to this week’s Maths lesson where pairs of children were given either a description of a 2D shape or a specific shape for them to describe using the correct Mathematical terms. They had to use different materials to make them as accurately as they could. I was really impressed with the team work shown and their ability to keep working when shapes did not quite come together and when clues had to be puzzled out. (Sorry for out of focus photos!)

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The pupils were given a choice of materials to make their shapes.

Kirsty and Andrew worked so well together that they whizzed through their clues!

Eilidh and Innes used a lot of tape to secure their shapes.

Always great to see a busy class, just getting on with a task!

Straws were used to make some shapes and we found we could make the more basic shapes easily, by bending and fitting the ends inside.

Kate happy at her work, writing her description.

An organised and clever way to display shapes made.

Our Day

December 4, 2021 Mrs Smith Leave a comment

Friday 3rd December…

Our class is beginning is get ready for Christmas. Each morning, we open the light bulb advent calendar we made and we also learn a new “sign” each day when we open a door on our Signalong calendar. We are taking part in the reverse advent calendar again this year and want to thank you all for your kind donations to the Shetland Food Bank too.

We started our day with a reading session. Lots of quizzes were taken with some great scores being recorded! We’ve had a new delivery of books from the Sandwick School Library so lots of pupils had a look through them and chose stories that they think they will enjoy. We have some very keen readers in P4/5/6.

We are working hard on handwriting in the class. Some pupils worked alone on joined sentences while others copied my examples from the board. Getting to grips with joining can be tricky but all pupils worked hard and did not give up! It was great to see their confidence grow in just one short session.

Maths time was spent exploring 3D shapes and their nets. We built up various shapes using construction, then folded it flat so that we could see how we needed to draw our own nets on squared paper. There was a lot of learning in this activity! It didn’t always work out but we spoke about how we’d improve on what we did next time!

After lunch we looked at two Christmas cards and spoke about the different themes that appear on them. The class have been asked to look out for this over the coming weeks at home. Do the cards link to the Christian faith and festival of Christmas or are they more winter themed with images of Santa, snowmen, robins and things we associate with this time of year?

Then we started to think about creating a Christmas card to take home. We painted the background ready to start decorating next week.

We took advantage of the calm day to go outside for a longer Class PE session while Ruben and Ryan grabbed the chance to rehearse their guitar pieces for our Christmas Play in peace and quiet. Two of our violin players also celebrated success in their individual lessons. See the photos below!

Have a lovely weekend all!

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Innes is hoping to find a treat in his advent bulb!

We used nets to create our 3D light bulbs.

Last week we explored 3D shapes using tooth picks to create the edges and play doh to hold it together. It made it easy to count vertices.

It was tricky to get the shapes to stand up. We needed patience and sometimes, a friend to help hold our structures up!

Rachel was pleased with her triangular prism. We’ve talked a lot this week about the difference between pyramids and prisms.

It’s good to work alongside friends on your Maths!

More complicated 3D shapes were easily made using the Geomags.

Our recent measuring topic came in handy as we had to draw lines of the right size, using the squared paper as a guide. We had to work accurately.

Ruben quickly realised he needed to use a protractor to measure the angles so he could draw his net accurately.

Gluing the tabs and sticking them down was tricky!

Eilidh’s construction cube and her completed net.

These two budding musicians have now moved on to playing first finger! They are very proud of themselves.

Look for the different types of Christmas cards coming into your homes over the next few weeks.

Last day of term!

October 8, 2021 Mrs Smith 2 Comments

We have had a super last day of term! Here’s what P4/5/6 have been kept busy with!

First thing, we all did a Double Doodle Soft Start activity. Double Doodling is a great way to be creative, relax and stay in the present moment, only concentrating on where you want to guide your two pens. You draw with a pen in each hand and use them simultaneously. What one pen draws, the other mirrors. This activity is a fantastic way to engage both sides of the brain so is particularly useful before written or reading tasks. Why not watch the clip in the link and try this at home too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNzVn0BF9Ow

Once our brains were active, we continued to write our National Poetry Day poems. We are still typing these up but hope to share them with you soon. Here are some starting lines to whet your appetite!

If music had the power to heal the world I would … play the piano and the piano should give the world hope. (Scott)

If music had the power to heal the world I would play every note, sing every song.
Think of the words to nature’s tune. (Georgia)

Every time a note is struck on an acoustic guitar,
A bit of litter is replaced with sand, so fine and smooth. (Ruben)

We were in for a musical treat after break when Joy came to do drumming with us. We even managed a dance outside as we moved and drummed to a Swahili song.

The afternoon saw us reflecting on what we’d enjoyed about Term 1 and what we need to keep working on next term.

Then we got the oil pastels out and created a moonlit sky background ready for a Halloween picture first week back.

It’s been a pleasure spending this term with you all! Have a wonderful holiday!

Everyone drumming together! It’s been a long time!

Robbie keeps the beat with the dun dun drums.

Quick Scott, say your name and think of an action!

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Thursday 16th September – Our Day

September 16, 2021 Mrs Smith 1 Comment

What have we done today? It’s been a busy day with lots going on!

First the class went to see Mrs Inkster for their Music class. They have been working on, “Wonderland Tea Party Rhythms.” This has involved them using different phrases to help them clap out the rhythms. Then they saw how these rhythms looked in musical notation.

Grammar was waiting for them on their return! Different groups were looking at different aspects of grammar… speech marks, homophones using dictionary work and proper adjectives.

We took advantage of the nice weather to go outside to measure larger areas in metres and centimetres. We found keeping count of the whole metres the hardest part when measuring the length of the multi court! Tomorrow, we will try using the trundle wheel some more and we’ll look at the different ways these measurements can be recorded.

The afternoon saw us quietly reading…always a relaxing, enjoyable time! Then we wrote out our, “Diamond 9 Skills for Teamwork,”ideas. We worked on these last week, deciding in small groups, which skills we thought were most important when working together. See the photos below.

Lastly, some pupils went through to Mrs Inkster to let her hear their voices ahead of choir starting up again. She was very impressed!

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Freya and Kate made a good team, helping each other to measure accurately.

Innes and Andrew shared out all the jobs equally.

Leah counted how many metres it was back to the class using the trundle wheel.

Rachel, Lily, Eilidh, Archie and Jessica’s ideas.

Andrew, Peter, Inara, Jessie and Robbie’s ideas.

Freya, Kate, Georgia, Scott and Scarlett’s ideas.

Olga, Amanda, Ruben, Leah and Ryan’s ideas.

Joyful Jerusalema

June 24, 2021 Mrs Smith 1 Comment

We are very happy to share with you our P5/6 dance that we created in our class PE time. It’s got a joyful, summertime feel to it…perfect for the start of our holidays. Enjoy… and happy holidays when they come!

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https://video.link/w/RuR2c

Maths with Mrs Douglas

May 15, 2021 Mrs Smith Leave a comment

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been building on our understanding of angles – naming them, recognising them, measuring and drawing and using our knowledge to help us work out missing angles. Some pupils wrote out instructions for their peers to use to help them draw angles of different sizes. They then took on the role of teacher, supporting their classmates as they worked and offering advice when needed. The lesson was enjoyed by all and it was clear to see that some pupils had gained in confidence after working in this way. I think we have some future teachers in the class!

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Last Day Of Term

March 27, 2021 Mrs Smith Leave a comment

What a busy two weeks we’ve had … but it’s been great! The planned activities have really helped the children settle and reconnect. Today, we finally were able to present our learning about life cycles. We started this piece of work during our biodiversity topic and were due to share our work when we started term 3. Sadly, this had to wait! The children worked in groups or individually, to research the life cycle of a living thing. They then had to display this information in an eye catching way. They worked very hard on this project, with great team work and cooperation. Although it was started a long time ago, I know they’d be keen for you to see their work! Happy Easter and we look forward to seeing you all again in the new term!