Welcome to the home page for the first half of the Spring Term 2023. We are learning about a history-based topic called ‘A Child’s War’ this term. It is all about World War 2 and the impact the events had on children.
Please see the topic web below for details about the areas of learning we will be covering this half term. We have some exciting enrichment activities including an evacuation experience day; a trip to a local Italian school and some visitors will be coming in to talk to us about the War.
Week ending – Friday 10th February 2023
We had another very busy of learning this week! In addition to their normal learning, the children have been completing assessments as part of our school assessment week. We were really proud of each child for aiming to do their very best. We also had a visit from the ladies from the FOBS Team who helped us to make some beautiful 3D Valentine’s Day cards on Thursday.
During our topic lessons this week, we started to learn about how some of the children in Europe were affected by World War 2. We researched and read extracts of diaries about the UK Government initiative known as Kindertransport.
Kindertransport (which means children’s transport) was set up by the UK Government in response to the increasing number of attacks from the Nazis against Jewish people in Europe. Approximately, 10,000 children were bought to safety in the UK. Many choosing to remain in the UK after the war had ended as they had lost their families in the Holocaust.
We started to make comparisons between the evacuation of the British children to the countryside and the evacuation of the Jewish children on Kindertransport. We all agreed it must have been incredibly scary for the Jewish children to travel to a new country where they didn’t speak the language and were uncertain when or if they would see their families again.
Science was lots of fun this week as we investigated the effects of the force water resistance. After learning about the effects of water resistance, we worked in small groups to make a boat using junk modelling materials with design features to combat the effects of water resistance.
Once the children had completed their designs, we went outside and tested how long it took for the boats to travel the length of a water tank (in seconds). We repeated the test twice and then calculated the average time taken.
As part of our RE topic – What matters most to Humanists and Christians? – we found out all about Humanism and the five common features of the Humanist approach to life.
We visited JFC again this week for our PE lesson. It was great to be able to practise our netball/basketball skills in the large gym.
The highlight of the week had to be the ‘Break the rules day’ on Friday.
Week ending – Friday 3rd February 2023
We had a fantastic start to the week! Key Stage 2 went on an exciting school trip to visit our friends at the Fratelli Maristi School. We have had a long standing friendship with the school for many years and have worked with them on joint projects. Unfortunately, due to the restrictions of recent years, we haven’t been able to visit until now. It was a pleasure to take our students out of school and see them behaving impeccably and representing our school so well.
We left school first thing in the morning and after a short bus ride, we arrived at the school. Our first impressions of the school were that it was very big; the school educates children from 6 to 18 years. Once we were off the bus, we went into the school where we were welcomed by the Principal and Director. We then met the pupils we would be working with. We completed our first activity which was to take part in welcome conversations with the students, sharing information such as our names, age and hobbies. The students, who have five hours of English per week, speak very good English. It was fantastic to see the students from BFS having a go at speaking Italian.
We then went outside onto the large tennis courts to play some music-themed games followed by a tasty snack of pizzetta in the lunch hall.
Our final activity was to work in groups of Italian/English students to produce a poster all about one of the 20 regions in Italy. The children had to research information about the different regions and write it in both English and Italian. We then came back together as a bigger group and shared our posters.
It was such a fun and enjoyable day. We really looking forward to welcoming some of the students back to BFS in March.
The group
Playing music games outside
Having a snack
Working in groups to produce our posters
Presenting our posters
Week ending – Friday 27th January 2023
Lamborghini have been working hard on fractions this week, focusing on equivalent fractions which they have been representing in different visual ways including shapes, bar models and number lines. They have used their knowledge of factors to help them recognise equivalent fractions and year 6 have been simplifying fractions. They have built upon this and have been converting improper fractions into mixed numbers.
In science, the class had fun exploring the force of gravity. Having learned about Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery, they explored the difference between mass and weight and used Newton meters to measure the mass and weight of various different objects in the classroom, noticing the relationship between the two measurements.
In English and Guided Reading we have continued studying the book “Letters from the Lighthouse” which tells the story of brother and sister Olive and Cliff who were evacuated from London to a coastal village. This has supported their WW2 topic work about the evacuation of children out of cities while also introducing the “Careless Talk Cost Lives” message – the siblings are trying to solve a mystery which we think may involve secret codes. The children wrote their own eye witness accounts of Luftwaffe aircraft flying over the village and crashing just beyond the lighthouse.
In PE, we have been learning some Scottish Country Dancing which linked nicely with Burn’s Night this week and may even have been the kind of activity that evacuees may have done at school.
Week ending – Friday 20th January 2023
Anyone visiting Lamborghini class had thought that they had stepped back into time on Tuesday. We all dressed up in World War 2 era clothes to have an evacuation experience day in school.
Not only did the children dress up, but they each bought along some special items that they would have wanted to pack in their suitcases should they have been evacuated. We spent the first part of the morning sharing each other’s special items and understanding why the children felt they were special. There were lots of things including a toothbrushes, teddies, books and photographs.
We were very lucky as some of the children were able to bring in replica items from World War 2 for us to have a look at. This included ration books and the letter sent to families about evacuation. At school, we also had some replica evacuation suitcases that we could explore. We looked at, and tried on the gas masks children were issued in the war. They were quite heavy and it felt difficult to breathe inside of it.
At playtime, we went out and played some of the games children would play during World War 2 included hopscotch, marbles and yo yos. It was also very exciting at lunchtime because some of the parents had packed a lunch containing the food items that would only have been available during the war; some lucky children had a boiled egg and even a flask of tea!
Back in class, we made a name label and looked at maps to discover the locations where the children were evacuated from and to in the United Kingdom.
Although the day was lots of fun, we reflected on the fact that for all children and their parents, it must have been a very emotional and stressful time to be separated from their families; not knowing when or if they would see each other again. We also reflected on the fact that although evacuation happened many years ago during the war, children around the world today are having to be evacuated or move in very similar circumstances because of war or environmental factors.
It was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking day. Thank you to all the families for your support in helping the children to prepare for it.
Week ending – Friday 13th January 2023
In English, we are reading a linked text called ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll. We started reading the text and discussing our initial thoughts and feelings about the characters we met in the first few chapters, and the early events in the plot.
We discovered that one of the main characters is missing following a bomb that was dropped in the opening chapters. We collected evidence about the missing character, both literal and inferred, and used this to write a formal missing person’s report. The children used lots of detail and maintained the formality in their writing.
In maths, we completed our assessments from the end of the Autumn term and recapped multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. We will be starting a new unit on fractions next week.
Our PE lessons are going to be exciting this Spring Term as we have the opportunity to complete one of our lessons at the base. It will be fantastic to be able to be able to use the large indoor gym to complete the lessons we have been unable to do with our limited space.
Week ending – Friday 6th January 2023
Happy New Year! It was wonderful to welcome the children back into school following a wonderful Christmas break. Once we had caught up with other about the holidays, we had a wonderful discussion about prospect of a new year ahead of us and traditionally this is a time to make new goals or resolutions for the year ahead. This linked in beautifully with our new PSHE topic which is called Dreams and Goals.
2023 will be a time of change and excitement for many of the children in the class with some of them moving onto new postings back in the UK and also finishing primary school and making the moving into secondary school. We discussed the mixed feelings we all experience at times of change.
The children set some goals for the year ahead; something that they wanted to achieve in school and out of school. It will be exciting to see and hear about the small steps they make towards achieving these goals.
Our topic learning for the term ahead is a history topic based on World War 2. It was fantastic to hear the facts and snippets of information the children already know about it. There was lots of interest in the topic already which was really encouraging to hear. We started our learning on this topic by sharing the information we already know about the topic and learning the meaning of some of the key vocabulary including evacuation, persecution and alliance.
With Mrs Wortley, on Thursdays and Fridays, the children will be learning how to use Microsoft Word and its associated features to word process their documents. They will also be writing diaries set in World War using the texts Anne Frank’s Diary and My Secret Diary by Flossie Albright as a reference. In Design and Technology lessons, the children will be learning about the Make do and Mend initiative during World War 2 and will be making items using their sewing skills!