Aspiring Acers and Excellent Elms

Aspiring Acers

Teacher: Mrs Twist

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Zareba

Excellent Elms

Teacher: Miss Wiggins

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Brown

Our classrooms are well organised to promote the children’s independence and to ensure the best from all of our children. Both classrooms have working walls for English and Maths to aid the children with their work. We also celebrate children’s fantastic work by displaying it around our classrooms.

Aspiring Acers’ School Councillor

Harper

Every class has at least one school councilor to help share their classes’ views and make changes across the school.

Excellent Elms’ School Councillor

Jimi

Aspiring Acers’ Dojo Masters:

Elsie and Gabriella

Every class has at least 2 Dojo masters. They are role models of excellent behaviour, always showing the FIRSY values of Fascinated, Independent, Respectful, Sociable and You can do it!

Excellent Elms’ Dojo Masters:

Gerard and Mariam

Click on the tabs below to find out more information about each topic. Throughout the year we will also add pictures of memorable experiences and hooks!

Mighty Metals

In this topic, we will look closely at evidence related to two important British historical figures (Richard III and Elizabeth I) and decide whether or not they were a hero or a villain. Within Science lessons we will be learning about electricity and then using the skills that we have learnt to design and make our own torch during our DT lessons. During PSHE we will be learning about relationships and within RE lessons we will learn about what it is like to be a Hindu.

We visited Derby museum. We enjoyed meeting a real Roman, exploring the Roman artefacts and taking part in a Roman role play.

During this half term the children will be learning all about the Romans and their invasion of Britain. Children will also be learning about Prayer in different religions, understanding that we are all different during PSHE lessons and we will be learning how to make Facaccia in Design and Technology lessons.

Focus text: Midas and the Golden Touch

Midas is a very greedy King and one day when he is granted any wish he wants, he decides that he wants to be able to turn anything that he touches in gold. At first he thinks this is amazing, he turns stones in to gold, tables and chairs, but soon he realises that it’s not quite as good as it first seemed. As he sits down for dinner his food and water are turned into gold, he daren’t even hug his children for fear that he may turn them into gold too. After a while he grows thin and so begs Dionysus to free him of the curse of his own greed. Once the God has freed him you would have thought he would have learnt his lesson but he once again shows his true colours when he argues with a god, who then punishes him with a pair of donkey ears.

Hook

As we are writing a Wishing Tale we started our learning by watching a video called ‘The Wishgranter’. After watching it we thought about things that we would wish for if we had 3 wishes.

 

Experiences

This half term, children will be learning more about the City of Derby. In History, they will investigate the past by studying significant buildings –  the Silk Mill and Derby Cathedral. Geography will focus on map skills. In Art we will explore graffiti and the works of Banksy and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Focus text: The Caravan

In this warning tale, Mitch learns the dangers of playing outside during a storm.

Hook

We discussed and explained all the reasons for playing outside.

Here are some of our ideas:

Experiences

We will be doing a tour of Derby city centre, looking at significant places, buildings and monuments.

We will be taking a tour of Derby City centre, looking at significant places, buildings and monuments.

This half term we will be learning all about sound. In Science we will be learning how sounds are made and how we hear them. In Geography we will focus on noise pollution and we will take a walk around the local area to check the levels of noise pollution. In Design and Technology we will be learning about Alexander Bell and making our own musical instrument.

Focus text: ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough

We will be reading and discussing this fantastic poem about sounds. We will be improving our descriptive writing and creating our own poems.

Hook

For our hook, we will be listening to sounds from a setting. We will describing the sounds for our cold write.

Experiences

We will be taking a walk around the local area to check on the levels of noise pollution.

This half term we are learning about change in Britain from the Stone Age to Iron age during our history lessons, within science lessons we are learning about light and what it is. In our art lessons we will be using charcoal pencils and paint and during computing sessions we will be collecting information using data loggers.

Focus Text

Focus text: Matale comes to supper

Coming soon!

In Predator, we are going to be looking at animals including humans, looking at their food chains. We will also conduct fieldwork study in Geography, looking at human and physical features. In addition, we will study the Amazon, Amalfi Coast and the Peak District. In art, we will look closely at the work of Albrecht Durer and produce our own art work inspired by his. 

Fred, Con, Lila and little Max’s plane is on the way to Manaus when it falls out of the sky. Now, lost in the Amazon rainforest, they must figure out the basics of survival: water, shelter, food. Do they wait for rescue, or find a way to rescue themselves?

We watched ‘Adrift’…

Click the link and see what you think!

https://www.literacyshed.com/adrift.html

How important is dialogue in our writing?

We will visit Padley Gorge and look at human and physical features.

Reading and Talk for Writing

Mrs Twist and Miss Wiggins will be reading to us everyday. Our books for this half term are:

The Selfish giant by Oscar Wild

The Lying Carptet by David Lucas

 

 

Fiction

We will be reading ‘The Lost Thing’ by Shaun Tan and ‘Ben and the Stolen Diamond’ and using this to understand the structure and language of a finding tale. We will build towards writing our own finding tale by focusing on characterisation. We will look at how authors describe characters to help us improve our writing.

 

Non-Fiction

We will be studying discussion texts, looking at how to present a balanced argument. Our model text is ‘ Is TV good for children?’ Then we will write our own discussion text looking at whether Richard III or Elizabeth I are a hero or villain.

 

Our Experiences and Opportunities

We do lots of exciting things throughout the year, this may be part of our topic or additional experiences.

Memorable Experience

 

October 16th/18th – Visit to Richard III exhibition and experience

See here for details: https://kriii.com/

Parental Engagement

We will be holding a ‘Meet the Teacher’ session on Wednesday 20th September at 3pm

Careers Related Learning

Details coming soon

 

Music

We are really lucky to have specialist music teachers who will be teaching violin to all Year 4 children every Monday for the whole year.

Year 3s will be learning the glockenspiel this half term.

PE for Excellent Elms is Tuesday

PE for Aspiring Acers is Thursday

The children will change for PE in school so please ensure they have their kit ready. They can leave this in school if you like.

Home learning will be sent out every Friday and will need to be returned by Wednesday the following week. Your child is able to complete it at lunchtimes in school if that is needed, just speak to their class teacher.

Useful Links for Learning

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Contact Us

Firs Primary School
Raven Street
Derby
DE22 3WA
Telephone: 01332 346230
Fax: 01332 200782
admin@firsprimary.derby.sch.uk

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