Drake Primary School and Little Pirates Child Care

2022-23

In Kahlo class this week, we have had a student come and join us from Thetford Academy Sixth Form. He is a dancer in London when not at school, so henshowed us his moves and then taught us a dance routine. Thank you!

Transition week: Tereshkova class have been learning lots about their new class name Kahlo and have been creating some brilliant double page spreads all about her, her life and her work

Yesterday, 2 staff members from the Mental Health Support Trust came to Year 5 to do an interactive talk on emotions. The children were amazed that there is 34,000 different emotions and were given an emotion wheel to describe how they are feeling. They wrote some ‘I’ statements to explain their feelings to others in a calm and powerful way.

Yesterday, 29th June 2023, Year 5 had the pleasure to visit The Thetford Academy to watch the students produce an engaging performance of The Little Mermaid. With excellent staging, lighting and performing, the children watched in amazement how Ursula made Arial give up her voice in a bid to become a human for a few days. The tale resonated themes of forgiveness, empathy and believing in your inner power of standing up and standing out for what you believe is right. Joy, sadness, shock, fear and excitement were just a few emotions the wonderful high school dancers and performers evoked within us. What a great experience for the children!

On Friday, 16th June we celebrated our Day of Welcome. The day started with having a Zoom call with The Waiting Place author Dina Nayeri. She told us about her journey, coming from Iran, travelling to France and then ending up in America. We learned that refugees are people who have been forced to leave their country to flee danger and who cannot return or be returned to their homeland. There are many reasons that someone might need to find safety in another country including: war or conflict, persecution or because of their nationality, race, sexuality, religion or because they belong to a certain group. The day was followed by us writing how we would a refugee feel welcome and creating a whole school TREE OF WELCOME. In the afternoon we welcomed Reception children to Year 5, shared a picnic in Sophia's garden and finished the day in the new Reception classes. The children in Year 5 loved looking after, reading to and getting to know the Reception

Some of the children, in Tereshkova class today, have been writing their own clarinet pieces. They have practiced these songs and the music teacher performed Henry’s, Toby’s and Summer’s piece to the rest of the group.

We have started to practice, ready for our Royal Opera House collaboration opera piece, being performed in the summer term. We also had a live Zoom workshop working on dramatic singing techniques.

This Thursday, Tereshkova class had their class assembly based upon sustainability. The children spoke about the issues of sustaining our world for themselves as the next generation, the animals who are already extinct or endangered through the mistreatment of our world, and the passion of the King to protect our world, linking closely to our value of respect. The children shared their knowledge about animals that have already become extinct and some measures, even we can take in Thetford, to support the preservation of many more. The children shared a song encouraging the need to act now.

Cambridge Museums Trip

Kings Coronation 2023

In science this week, the children have been exploring plants and learning about how plants reproduce. We dissected a plant and looked at the different parts of a flower, what they are called and how they are using in the pollination and fertilisation process

In the last week of spring term, some of the children brought their bikes into school so we could explore how gears worked. The children looked at how cogs can be turned and how gears can affect the speed and stability of the bike. The children came to the conclusion that a lower gear should be used for going up hill because it uses the smallest ring on the front and the larger ring on the back meaning peddling will have the least amount of resistance

SUMMER TERM

What an amazing two days the Year 5 classes experienced with Scientists, writers and artists this week! From looking at fingernails under the digital microscopes to growing our own bacteria, from silly poems to great child poets, from origami, observational drawing to creating a moving mechanism ant, to name but a few activities on the day. Come and journey with us through these hands-on experience days.

Today, the children became fantasy map creators. They made fantasy maps based upon our class text ‘The Girl of Ink and Stars’ applying their geographical knowledge of coordinates, compass directions and symbols.

In science this week, the children explored the concept of water resistance. They combined their Y4 electronics knowledge to create wind power, in order to test boat shapes and the level of water resistance being created.

Author visit for World Book Day

Percentages, Fractions and Decimals

Forest schools this term

Disaster struck in Y5 this week. A monster came in the night destroying the classrooms leaving footprints and splatters of blood behind. The children predicted what they thought may have happened.

This week in science, we have been learning about phases of the moon. The children used Oreo’s to recreate the 8 phases of the moon that we see throughout the year. The final result was very effective.

Values Day - Love & Courage Poetry

The children really enjoyed their first session of tennis this week. They played a improvised tennis game using a bib as the net. The challenge was to make the game harder and harder to complete successfully.

The children learned about day and night and how shadows change during the day. They conducted an enquiry using torches, globes and Lego.

Forest Schools (Tereshkova): Today, using square lashing to tie them together, two children used sticks to create this stick grid. It was strong enough to carry another person without breaking

Today the children were able to join a live Q&A session with Helen Sharman. Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC is a British chemist and cosmonaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in May 1991. The children made notes about the questions schools had asked from all around the world. We learnt lots from Helen Sharman including food in space, favourite things to do in space and even how to go to the toilet.

Ione Parkin. In class this week, we have been exploring the artist we are going to be using as our inspiration for a planetary surface, multi media piece. The children did some research about who she is, the type of art she creates and how her pieces are made. Some children recreated her pieces of art, using a range of mediums.

Forest schools Tereshkova session 2

Curie class - FOUND POEMS

Curie Class - Values Day - Aspirations

Tag Rugby today! Some great action shots taken, weaving between opponents and changing direction to make space.

Well done Dylan, the first child in Tereshkova class to read 10 books recorded on our reading record display!

This week in maths, we have been exploring the concept of perimeter and area. We used a website (http://toytheater.com/area-perimeter-explorer/) to help the children understand the difference between area and perimeter. We then measured the classroom and made models using multi link to represent this

In PSHE this week, we started to explore relationship webs and how we are connected to the people around us. We passed string around to connect us to our peers based on specific details about ourselves e.g. parents/carers, number of dogs or favourite things to do

Tereshkova forest schools (Session 1)

The children have really enjoyed exploring our new computing unit about databases. The children have been learning about what a database is and it’s key features. The children have explored databases about animals and countries this week and ordered the databases to answer some key questions. One child’s feedback was ‘This lesson was great- I hope we do another lesson like this soon’ ~Dylan (Tereshkova class)

Tereshkova and Curie enjoyed exploring maps. We spoke about the symbols on the map and how to use a key to understand what the symbols mean. We spoke about the area that the map showed and the local places they could find.

Tereshkova class self portraits. The children worked so hard on these and they have turned out brilliantly!!

Christmas card calendars to take home and share

Investigating Permeable, Non-permeable and Absorbency. Permeable materials or membranes permit water-vapor to pass through above an agreed upon threshold value, encouraging circulation. Likewise, non-permeable materials or membranes do not allow water-vapor and air to pass through below an agreed upon threshold.

Rust Investigation - An Observation Over Time

Autumn Term

100% Attendance. Well done!

Vegetable soups

Design and Technology

The children have started designing and planning their seasonal soup. We are going to be making soup next week. Here are the children trying different fruits and vegetables to see which they would like to put in their soup design.