Over the course of the whole Spring Term, our topic in Willow class will be entitled ‘Mission X’ and the curriculum will include the following:

LITERACYOur Literacy lessons this half term will explore three different non-fiction texts. The children will combine their knowledge of the different non-fiction genres: persuasion, non-chronological reports and explanation writing in order to produce their own text about Earth and Space. The children will initially explore examples of persuasive writing both in text format and through short advert clips. At the end of this section of the unit, the children will create a short persuasive film. During daily grammar warm up sessions, they will begin to recognise and then use modal verbs. Following this, the children will review report writing, its features and in particular how paragraphs are linked through the use of conjunctions. Next we will look at an explanation text. The children will learn the text off-by-heart in order to help remember language and grammar patterns so that they can apply these to their own writing. Guided Reading sessions will be based around a selection of novels and the children will continue to use different types of writing in order to demonstrate their understanding of the book that they read.

NUMERACYAt the beginning of this term, the children will develop their knowledge and understanding of mental and written multiplication. They will then move on to solving multi-step problems that involve multiplication as well as applying other operations. Next, the children will build upon their knowledge of how to interpret negative numbers in order to calculate the difference in temperatures, including those that involve a positive and negative temperature. After this, the children will use fractions to count on and back in mixed number steps, they will read and write decimal numbers as fractions, and will identify, name and write equivalent fractions of a given fraction including tenths and hundredths. The children will then use, read and write standard units of length and mass, estimate capacity and convert between different units of metric measure (eg kilometre and metre; centimetre and metre; gram and kilogram; litre and millilitre).They will be expected to know all the conversions on the Spring 1 KIRF sheet by the end of the first half term.During Mental Maths sessions, the children will be practising multiplying and dividing numbers mentally drawing upon known facts, solving problems involving multiplication and division including using their knowledge of factors and multiples, squares and cubes. The children will continue to practise their tables to 12x12.

SCIENCE To begin this topic, the children will be discovering all about the Earth in Space and its relationship with the Sun and the Moon. We will learning

that the Sun, Moon and Earth are approximately spherical, then we will learn to describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the Sun in the solar system, to describe the movement of the Moon relative to the Earth, the Earth’s rotation to explain day and night, and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky. Throughout the topic, we will be following the progress of British astronaut Tim Peake through his online diaries. The children will then go on to explore the effects of life in space upon an astronaut: getting space fit, food etc.We will begin our topic with a series of experiments entitled: ‘Is There Anyone Out There?’ These experiments are based upon real space projects to find signs of life on Mars. The experiments will explore reversible changes such as evaporation and sieving,

GEOGRAPHYIn our topic on Earth and Space, the children will locate the main counties and cities of England. They will learn about the position and significance of longitude and latitude and the Greenwich Meridian. We will link time zones with the learning that the children will carry out during their science sessions and we will be studying the date and time zones across the World.

D.T.The children will develop their cookery skills by making simple pizzas using toppings of their choice. This element of their work will link with persuasive writing in Literacy. The children will design their pizza and its packaging by researching different packaging varieties. They will research different types of pizza and their ingredients. We will look at how some chefs make their pizzas. As an introduction to this work, the children will carry out some simple market research too (within school) to discover the likes/dislikes of the school community with regards to pizza. At the completion of the activity, the children will carry out an evaluative activity.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATIONOur focus this half term is: Jesus The Teacher. The children will discuss Jesus’ teaching content and method, read parables that are new to them as well as considering carefully the messages of the parables and how they impact on the lives of practising Christians.

COMPUTINGThis half-term, children will continue to develop their digital research skills through their topic work and Literacy. The children will use appropriate strategies for finding and evaluating information. They will select suitable text, sound and graphics from other sources to import into their own work in order to produce a short film clip.

MUSICThis half-term the children will continue learning the recorder. They will be learning new notes and developing their performance skills. I class we will focus upon improvisation and on composing simple melodies.

FRENCHFrench this term is based upon following a recipe in French to make chocolate truffles. The children will identify nouns and they will link spoken sentences to pictures in instructions. They will identify the importance of imperative verbs in recipes and the children will identify the verbs. After this, the children will use a bi-lingual dictionary in order to translate a recipe written in English into French.

PEGymnastics - In this unit, children will take part in ‘Acrobatic gymnastics’. This involves children creating and performing a pair sequence on the floor, mats and apparatus that includes three basic acrobatic balances and up to six other actions. The children will then develop their sequence on the floor and mats before adapting it to apparatus.

P.S.H.E.Our value for this half term is courage. The children will also continue work to reinforce that it is OK to tell if they are uncomfortable about something or somebody. We will discuss recognising and anticipating situations that make them feel frightened, worried or uncomfortable, that they know how and where to get help and that they understand how others might feel and know how to help.

Willow ClassHook:

We will be investigating ‘Martian soil’ in a series of experiments to discover whether there is ‘…anybody out

there?’

Celebration:

Willow ClassHook:

We will be investigating ‘Martian soil’ in a series of experiments to discover whether there is ‘…anybody out

there?’

Celebration: