Over the past two weeks P7a have been extending their knowledge into Third Level algebra. This has included solving equations with negative numbers and fractions and solving inequations with inequality signs. We have even been beginning to expand double brackets and carry out the inverse of this by factorising expressions.We have also been trying some codebreaker strategies that were used during WWII to intercept messages and crack codes.
Today we looked at frequency analysis, an example of mono-alphabetic ciphers, where each letter in the alphabet is replaced by another. We demonstrated resilience and perseverance to decipher a message from 1943 about merchant ships. Sophie, Erin and Nicci were the first to do so! Well done girls!
Nicci’s working
Erin’s working
Our Codebreaker task
Literacy and English
We have been continuing to read Goodnight Mr. Tom, with a particular focus this week on characterisation. This included an analysis of the ways in which two main characters, Mr. Tom and William, have evolved throughout the story so far. We have noted that William has become less anxious which has improved his level of happiness and had a positive impact on his learning. We gave supporting evidence from the text to argue this. Secondly, Mr. Tom has become more sociable and developed more of a nurturing side. Again we were able to give examples of where this was noticeable.
In writing we have been creating balanced arguments that introduced the topic before weighing up advantages and disadvantages of child evacuation during WWII. We wrote conclusions that offered our personal viewpoint on the topic with reasons for our particular stance.
Joann’s balanced argument
Zara’s balanced argument
Learning Across the Curriculum
Other learning and achievements this week include:
Basketball team qualified for the West Lothian Primary Basketball League play-offs. One of their games ended in a 16-0 victory!
The school footballers were unbeaten in the latest league meeting and bounced back from 1-0 to win on 3 separate occasions.
P7 attended our SPS Careers Fayre and impressed visitors with their knowledge of subject areas and questioning.
We attended a Farm to Fork careers event at SRUC Oatridge where we found out about a number of different career opportunities in the food, farming and agricultural sectors.
Our first rugby session took place with Linlithgow Rugby Club and we are excited for our end of year festival in June.
The netball teams remain 1st and 4th in the league after their latest round of fixtures.
We have been further exploring concepts of Shape, Position and Movement this week in Numeracy and Mathematics, with a particular focus on both symmetry and 3D shape. At the beginning of the week, we took some time to consolidate our existing knowledge of symmetry by identifying both single and multiple lines of symmetry across different axes. We understand that ‘perfect symmetry’ is only achieved if both sides (or quadrants) are mirrored or reflected to create two sides that are exactly the same. After doing so, we created our own symmetrical designs across both a horizontal and vertical axis. Alongside this, Pythagoras group were working on using angles of elevation and depression to create scaled drawings. The conversion from the scales provided was tricky and we were surprised at just how precise we had to be when measuring both angles and lengths. To end the week, we were presented with a 3D shape design challenge. Mr. Logan asked us to design a new kitchen and produce a scaled version of this using the nets of 3D shapes. The appliances, storage and additional features had to match his exact specifications. We did an excellent job for him and you can see some pictures of these below!
E, N, J and S responded creatively to the design brief
F, S and Z preparing appliances for their 3D kitchen
Boys are happy with their kitchen design
Kitchen design challenge
Literacy and English
We’ve continued reading Goodnight Mr. Tom this week and used this context when learning about adverbials and modal verbs. These can be used to assess the likelihood of something happening and allowed us to rate the probability of our predictions transpiring within the text. An example of this would be; Willie’s Mother probablywon’t bother to write him many letters. Probably is an adverbial and won’t is a modal verb. This is something we’ve probably always used within our own writing, however, we weren’t actually aware of what this sort of ‘likely language’ is referred to as.
In writing this week, we created explanation texts to convey information to a reader and explain a process. We all drew detailed, annotated diagrams of a ‘teacher pleasing’ machine that would make the lives of Mr. Logan and Mrs. Matos easier. Following on from this, we used visual organisers to plan for our writing with a clear structure before giving a detailed, step-by-step account of what our design actually does. Coffee on draught and a feature that marks all of our work instantly? Mr. Logan is sold, where can he purchase one?!
Mr. Logan has been particularly impressed with the quality of questions posed to our visitors in class and the higher order discussions which have been taking place around our shared reading of Goodnight Mr. Tom. We have worked hard throughout the year to articulate our ideas and contributions clearly and involve ourselves more actively in class questioning and discussions.
Health and Wellbeing
Both our footballers and netball team were in action this week with league meetings taking place against other cluster schools.
On Monday, the netball teams played in their first competitive fixtures of the year and were a pleasure to watch. Springfield 1 sit top of the league currently after winning every game, and Springfield 2 lie in joint 3rd place after showing real grit, determination and team spirit. Well done to all concerned, it was an absolute joy to see you all excelling in these games and proudly representing the school! Your training and hard work has paid off; thank you to Mrs. Matos and Miss Harrison for leading this.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the football teams also performed well in our second league meeting of the year. We have a mix of boys and girls from both P6 and P7 playing and there was a significant improvement in their play from 4 weeks ago. Mr. Logan was impressed with the fluid, passing football, creative flair and willingness to win in every match against some strong opponents. Again, well done to all of you and thank you for being such assets to our school.
Learning Across the Curriculum
We’re beginning to get excited for P7 school camp at Ford Castle and heard more at this week’s information evening. More information is available on their website (https://www.ford-castle.co.uk/) if anyone would like to see more of what we’ll be getting up to! Here’s the link for anyone who missed the presentation:
In Social Studies this week we had Mrs. Manlove, Paul’s Mum, in to speak to us about some members of their family who survived The Holocaust and the ways in which these Jewish people were persecuted because of their race. It was a fascinating yet horrifying insight into how people were treated by both Germans and the British during this era.
As part of our Skills for Learning, Life and Work programme this week we have been visited by Mrs. Guest (a dietitian), Mrs. Burgess (a Secondary Teacher at Linlithgow Academy), Professor Manlove and Sofiat (University of Glasgow – Computer Sciences and Maths) and John MacCartney (GE Power). Thank you to all of you for agreeing to visit us!
Mrs. Manlove speaking to us about three stories from WWII
Shelters WWII
Shelters WWII
Shelters WWII
Sofiat, a PhD student from University of Glasgow
Professor Manlove from Computer Sciences and Maths at University of Glasgow
Mrs. Guest, a dietitian
Mr. MacCartney from GE Power
Coming Up…
1.4.19 – After school football training from 3.15-4.15pm outdoors
2.4.19 – P7a pupils (x4) to St Michael’s Day Care Centre
3.4.19 – Linlithgow Academy blazer fitting (optional purchase) at 10.45am
3.4.19 – P7a park visit as House Treat for all reaching 1,000 Springs
3.4.19 – Parents Evening from 4.30-7.30pm
4.4.19 – Parents Evening from 3.30-6.30pm
5.4.19 – End of term 3, Easter Holidays begin
One week to go… Keep up the great work P7a, I’m incredibly proud of you all!
This week we have been extending our knowledge of capacity and volume. We started by establishing the difference between the two concepts and found that capacity is the maximum something can hold where as the volume is the amount of space that a substance or object occupies. We can now confidently compare and order different volumes of liquid using millilitres (ml), centilitres (cl and litres (l) and can successfully convert between these units of measure. We found that there are 10ml per 1cl, 1,000ml per 1l and 100cl per 1l. Having developed this knowledge we then applied our skills to play some estimate, check and record games against a partner. We chose measuring cylinders depending on the volume of liquid required and noticed that our estimates became increasingly accurate we the game progressed. Finally, to round-off our learning for the week we made ‘mocktails’ using recipes and instructions provided. In order to do so successfully, we used measuring cylinders with 1ml scales, ensured they were flat to the table and recorded the liquid line, rather than the bubbles or froth. Have a look at us in action…
Z, G and J checking their total volume of ‘Orange Fizz’
JM and JB making a ‘Blue Wave’
S and L measuring ingredients for a ‘Berry Blitz’
Literacy and English
Now that we have began learning about World War II, all of our Literacy and English work in class is based around our shared text, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’ by John Boyne. Last week we made predictions and assumptions about the plot and storyline, and continued this week with a focus on characterisation and profiling. We discussed each character in detail, including their relationships with others, behaviours, personality traits and developing roles within the story. During our discussions, we used inference to analyse each character at a deeper level and provided evidence or quotes from the text to support any statements we made about them. By skimming and scanning the text, we were able to find some context clues that clarified our thinking and highlighted some key themes. These included; persecution of others, discrimination, racism, naivety, innocence of youth, conflict, relationships and moral justice.
In writing this week, we analysed the story from Bruno’s perspective and considered the impact that moving to Out-With has had on his happiness. We wrote informal letters using the features of an email to one of his three best friends (Karl, Daniel or Martin) or his Grandmother in Berlin. Within these pieces of writing we were able to structure our work appropriately using an email format, build detail through the description of Bruno’s surroundings, apply our skills developed last week to write in the ‘first person’ and share his feelings and emotions to create reader empathy.
With Mrs. Gordon, we continued our learning in French this week by presenting our own ‘la météo’ forecasts to discuss the weather.
Health and Wellbeing
It was Safer Internet Day 2019 this week, and we have been continuing to learn about the ways in which we can stay safe online and use the internet responsibly. Our focus this week was on passwords and security to protect online accounts and data. We understand what a strong password is having looked at examples of weak ones and predicted the passwords people may choose based on some basic details about them. A strong password must contain symbols, upper case letters, lower case letters and numbers. A lot of us admitted that we may have to go home and increase the security of our social media accounts.
In P.E, we have continued with our block of dodgeball. Now that we understand the rules and roles of players within a team, we have been improving our throwing technique and playing variations of the end game to apply the skills we have developed. P7 have really enjoyed this so far, and we may well need to extend the initial 6 week block!
Maintaining possession
Spatial awareness, movement and positioning
Social Studies
This week we have been creating a World War II timeline and learning about the uses of propaganda. For our timeline, we researched key events that took place during the 6 years and a day of World War II with the aim of placing them in a chronological sequence on our wall. We heard Neville Chamberlain’s radio broadcast declaring war on Germany after Hitler refused to withdraw troops from Poland and the events which took place as a result of this. After being introduced to the definition of propaganda and discussing the themes and messages behind some examples of it, we started creating our own examples. These are looking fantastic and we will share them with you once completed. You can see our blacked-out World War II living room below with some interesting objects and artifacts from this era.
Our blacked out WWII living room with games, paperwork, news articles and artifacts
Our display beginning to come together with leader sketches and timeline skeleton
Coming Up…
11.2.19 – Skills for Learning, Life and Work programme begins
11.2.19 – After school football for P6 and P7 outdoors from 3.15-4.15pm
14.2.19 – Rotary Quiz for selected pupils
25.1.19 – Academy staff to visit P7 re. S1 transition
26.2.19 – Football league meeting (1) at Xcite from 4-6pm
5.3.19 – Scottish Opera workshop for P6 and P7 pupils
13.3.19 – Scottish Opera performance of 1719 for parents, carers and families at 2.30pm
14.3.19 – Parental Information Evening at Linlithgow Academy re. S1 transition
26.3.19 – Football league meeting (2) at Xcite from 4-6pm
27.3.19 – Ford Castle P7 camp information evening in school hall at 6pm
3.4.19 & 4.4.19 – Parents Evenings
4.4.19 – Skills for Learning, Life and Work programme ends
This week we have continued to consolidate our learning of the four operations by using written methodology for long division. The children have been using two standard written methods for this, showing their working at all times to evidencing their thinking and strategies used. Following on from this, Mrs. Doran introduced us to the order of operations on Thursday using the BODMAS acronym (brackets, of, divide, multiply, add, subtract) where we were able to apply our previous learning to solve problems.
Literacy and English
The atmosphere was tense in class on Wednesday as we came to the end of our class novel, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’. We were both shocked and saddened by the way in which the story concluded, and strongly agreed that no other human being should ever be discriminated against for their race, religion or skin colour. At Springfield, we try to promote our core value of respect and celebrate the diverse world that we live in. In grammar last week, we consolidated our learning of using a thesaurus to find synonyms and up-level pieces of written text. Most groups have come to the end of their group novel and have now selected a text of their choice to study between now and the end of term. The children can read this at their own pace, and will be posing literal, inferential and evaluative questions based on these using our Yammer discussion groups. Please ensure they take some time at home to read this each week, with the target being to complete it by the end of term. Class talks start next week, and I am greatly looking forward to the children’s presentations on an aspect of World War II.
World War II
I am hugely impressed with the level of creativity shown in making P7b’s Anderson and Morrison shelters over the last three weeks for homework. These are now proudly displayed in our classroom for everyone to see, showcasing the children’s hard work to present such wonderful, and realistic models. Please have a look at them in the photos below, I’m sure you’ll agree that they’re fantastic! We also extended our knowledge of rationing this week; taking brief notes in our own words as we watched some archive footage from the Imperial War Museum and organised this information to identify key points for a ‘Rationing Fact File’.
Health and Wellbeing
Our taster sessions for rugby and golf continued this week as we further develop our skills in both activities. We have two more weeks of golf lessons to follow and one week of rugby. Thank you to our coaches Ross and Dougie from Linlithgow Rugby Club, and Jane and Stewart from the SG Foundation for providing this opportunity. In P.E, we carried out our fitness circuits and have been enjoying playing rounders now that the better weather has arrived. Here’s hoping for some more fun in the sun next week. On Thursday we heard from Aileen who visited us from Stramash to deliver a presentation about our residential visit to Oban in a couple of weeks. We can’t wait to go now! Finally, a huge well done to both our footballers and cheerleaders who represented the school magnificently today at the George Allan tournament at Linlithgow Rose’s ground. What a talented group of children we have in P7b, you fill me with pride boys and girls.
Established the difference between a pattern (shapes) and a sequence (numbers)
Explained and used rules to extend well known number sequences including square numbers, triangular numbers and Fibonacci sequences
Applied knowledge of multiples, factors and square numbers to generate and continue number sequences
Challenged peers to solve our own pattern and sequence problems
Literacy
Completed our personal projects on an aspect of WWII and received our feedback
Beginning to summarise our personal projects ahead of our class talks
Carried out research on the blitz in Scotland and how this affected those in Glasgow and the surrounding areas
Used the Literacy Box for comprehension challenges and consolidated our learning of grammatical rules and punctuation
Began reading and exploring the themes within our new WWII related class novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
See examples of our propaganda below
WWII
Created a display around our classroom door using our propaganda posters
Produced blitz artwork using watercolour paints and silhouettes of British and German aircraft
See examples of our artwork below
Health and Wellbeing
Continued improving our physical fitness as part of a fitness and track athletics block in P.E
Completed a fitness circuit with various activities and exercises
Recorded and tracked our progress using score sheets at each of the 8 stations
Football team trained in preparation for this year’s George Allan tournament on Sunday 20th May, 7-a-side games with a formation/shaping focus
Netball girls participated in their final league meeting of the year, finishing 3rd in the cluster league standings
MF and LC successfully led our Cheerleading after school club for their younger peers ahead of their showcase event
Skills for Learning, Life and Work
We welcomed Mr. Vereker into class to speak about his job in rope access
Mr. Matheson also visited us to speak about his job as Software Writer
Putting together our list of professionals and local businesses ahead of our P7 Careers Fayre on 1st May at 6pm
Lion King
Final preparations and rehearsals taking place for our Lion King performances at Linlithgow Academy next Tuesday and Wednesday evenings
All tickets now sold out for the Tuesday evening and a very limited number remaining for Wednesday
See photos below of us rehearsing below
Next Week
Monday 23rd April – After school football training outdoors at 3.15pm
Tuesday 24th April – Full day dress rehearsal at Linlithgow Academy and Lion King performance at 7.30pm
Wednesday 25th April – Lion King performance at 7.30pm
Thursday 26th April – Mr. Boiling visiting for WWII at Sea presentation, rugby taster sessions to begin, sports leaders to assist at Minikickers football for P1 at 3.15pm
Consolidating our use of written methods for all four functions
Carrying out WWII written addition problems involving money
Ensuring we always show our working in response to questions
Tackling multi-step problems and sharing our strategies
Literacy and English
Writing our STEM letters to be sent off alongside our annotated inventions
Researching for our personal projects and beginning to collate these
Continuing with our group novel studies and tackling inferential and evaluative questions
Health and Wellbeing
Further developing our skills in football with additional BMT skills introduced
Celebrating achievements of CMcK and our gymnasts
Attending our S1 information evening at Linlithgow Academy ahead of our transition
Reflecting on our learning and progress during term 3 ahead of parents evening
Skills for Learning Life and Work
Visits from S6 World of Work ambassadors electrical engineer, Procurator Fiscal, Merchant Navy and project manager
Thank you to everyone who attended parents evening. I’m delighted with each and every member of P7b and the progress they are all making. Let’s make it a final term to remember!
We demonstrated our learning and applied our knowledge of decimals in a topic assessment this week. All of us have been working incredibly hard to develop our understanding of decimals which has been a tricky topic. Thankfully, our positive attitude towards our learning and growth mindsets have enabled us to get to grips with various new concepts and we impressed Mr. Logan with our scores. After Easter we will be moving on to information and data handling where we shall be collecting, displaying using ICT, interpreting and analysing data in various forms including pie charts, bar graphs and line graphs.
Literacy
Our escape plans have been completed and Julia was chosen as our winner. Her plan was intricately thought out and carefully prepared, so therefore, she received the Easter egg prize. Well done Julia and the rest of the class, what detailed and instructive pieces of writing you produced. We have also submitted our final entries to the West Lothian Young Writer of the Year competition and we will cross our fingers that one of this year’s winners will be from P7b.
IDL
West Lothian Council’s Museum Service visited us this week to display and discuss some local WWII artefacts. We found this to be incredibly interesting and informative, and enjoyed being given the opportunity to handle and look closely at these items. Joe was chosen as our Air Raid Warden and had the pleasure of wearing a metal helmet throughout the hour long session. We hope your neck isn’t too sore! Some personal projects have been completed and handed in, and Mr. Logan is now looking forward to marking these over the Easter holidays. Having had a brief look at them already, he is impressed with the level of research and detail that has been put into these. You should be proud of these P7b, such an incredibly talented group of pupils.
Friday
P7 showed what responsible citizens they are as they accompanied their P1 Buddies to St. Michael’s Church for our Easter Service today. We enjoyed hearing from Sheryl and Stuart at church and celebrating the end of the school term with some songs and confidently delivered readings. Well done from Mr. Logan and P7b to the pupils from P4, P5 and P6 who were brave enough to speak in front of such a large audience. Thank you also to our parents and carers who joined us for the Easter Service, it was great to see you.
First week back
Camp medical forms to be sent home
STEM buggies to be judged by Mrs. Burgess and Mr. Woodhouse on Thursday 20th April
Golf EE2 letters home to those participating
Rugby taster sessions
Have a lovely Easter everyone, thanks for your continued support with all things P7b!
We continued with our work on decimals this week in numeracy, dividing them by 10, 100 and 1,000 and applying our prior knowledge of place value to assist us with this. Having established that when dividing, our decimal point moves to the left and when multiplying to the right, we moved on to sequence and order decimal fractions with up to 5 places after the decimal point. We were also able to multiply and divide decimals using a calculator before rounding to the nearest whole number which aided us with some work on estimation and approximation. Next week, we will be looking at percentages and real-life contexts where these may be used.
Literacy
Our literacy work this week started with the study of a shared text on The Tudor period. This period of British history is a particular interest of some pupils and we took the opportunity to discuss and annotate a passage written by Lady Marsden. In this, she reflected on Mary Queen of Scots’ execution and the array of emotions that coincided with this. We were able to effectively find examples of where she was sympathetic towards Mary, and in contrast, where she was openly critical of Queen Elizabeth I. Additionally, we identified, discussed and annotated figurative language and instances of emotive language within Lady Marsden’s recount of events. Our writing lesson this week was inspired by The Great Escape and we have been creating instructional texts detailing a plan for an escape from the prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag Luft III. Our ideas were incredibly creative and the level of detail certainly left nothing to chance. I think it’s safe to say, P7b would have managed to elude the German guards!
IDL
As of last week, we have been continuing to put together our personal projects and are making excellent progress with these. Mr. Logan cannot wait to read these; a huge amount of hard work is being put in to meet both the criteria and deadline. Both P7 classes were very lucky to have two visitors in class this week to discuss different aspects of WWII. Firstly, Mrs. Gordon’s Aunt visited us to speak about primary and secondary sources of information from WWII, highlighting the difference between the two and sharing some local stories. We also welcomed in Mr. Boiling (Andrew’s Dad) who is a college lecturer in Glasgow. He delivered a presentation on The War at Sea during WWII. P7b enjoyed hearing about the naval warfare between the two sides, and how Germany’s most powerful warship, the Bismarck, was eventually sunk in an act of vengeance ordered by Winston Churchill.
Friday
We did our best to give Mr. Logan the fright of his life as he stepped out the door this morning with our crazy and wacky hairstyles in aid of Red Nose Day and Comic Relief. As a class we brought in just over £28 and donated in addition to this through our purchases at the bake sale organised by the Pupil Council. A huge thank you to them for organising this, along with Mrs. Gordon. We celebrated another successful week in P7b, winning the Peg Challenge for the second week running and also the Class of the Week trophy. This was as a result of them moving round the school sensibly and quietly, and for sharing such a depth of knowledge relating to WWII. P7’s quality of higher order questioning was particularly impressive, and caught the attention of both our visitors to class. They demonstrated their inferential and evaluative thinking when presented with a wealth of information. Well done P7b, I am incredibly proud of you, demonstrating again what an asset and credit you are to our school. With the weather being so nice, we finished up our day with Golden Time outside. Mr. Logan’s football team missed out on victory in a well contested 5-5 draw. To be continued next week…
Next Week
Camp EE2 forms to be sent home on Monday and returned by Friday 31st March at the latest
Friendly football fixture versus Linlithgow Bridge P.S on Monday at 4:15pm
Bunny Bingo on Tuesday evening
Easter Parade and songs on Thursday
WWII artifacts in P7 on Thursday afternoon 1-2pm
Easter Assembly on Friday morning at St. Michael’s, P7 to accompany P1 buddies
Thanks again for taking the time to read our class blog, we hope you all have a lovely weekend. One week to go!
