Shark Class
2022-2023

Shark Class is comprised of 23 pupils in Year 4,5 and 6, who love a challenge and take pride in the work that they produce.

The children work hard in all aspects of their learning and persevere to achieve their goals both for themselves and their classmates, whilst embracing our school's christian values. As the oldest children in the school, shark Class are given a wide range of additional responsibilities across all areas of school life and are proud of their leadership skills, setting an example for others to follow.

Teaching of Year 4,5 and 6 is shared between Mrs Saunders (Monday and Tuesday) and Miss Jackson (Wednesday- Friday). Shark Class are also supported by our SEND TA's, Miss Shaw and Mrs Alexander. Miss Shaw is also our school reading intervention leader, and carries out this role across each afternoon in school.


All children in Shark Class take ownership of their termly English and Maths targets and are working with great care to attain these. We use our displays in the classroom to showcase the fantastic work completed by the children and to build, set and review targets over the year.  This year, we have themed our target display around growth, and find that this helps the children to focus and actively participate in progressing towards meeting their targets. 

Shark Class Team are very proud of all pupils and know that everyone will work hard to achieve their full potential across the academic year.

 

Class Newsletters

Autumn 22-23 Shark Class Newsletter

Spring 22-23 Shark Class Newsletter

Curriculum Maps

In Shark Class, most of our children are free to select their own choice of reading book. Our class library has a wide range of books available for the chilren to read and enjoy. Children in Shark Class are expected to read every night for about 20-30 mins and we ask that this is recorded it in their reading records by either children or a supporting adult. We encourage families to use children's reading time to discuss the texts and ask appropriate questions to further develop their comprehension skills.



Reading can take place independently, although additionally, reading aloud is a highly valuable learning experience.  Records are checked every week and children receive Dojo points upon completion of this homework task. We enjoy using our class reading area to really engross ourselves in our books! Within our reading area we have a Shark class book review scrapbook where we have begun recording our thoughts about personal reads and class books. We have enjoyed discussing some interesting themes and thought provoking questions that arise from the books we read.

Shark Class also take part in a weekly Guided Reading session in class. this gives the children chance to develop their comprehension skills through discussion books with adults and peers and allows teaching staff to ensure that all pupils in the class have the opportunity to read to a member of the Shark Class team. Texts are chosen for their usitability to the level that the children are currently reading at and are also themed around our class topic. 

Throughout school we also have an extensive reading intervention programme as part of our school's participation in a local reading project, that is co-ordinated by our school reading lead, Mrs Saunders with interventions delivered by Miss Shaw. All children across school, including children in Shark Class are supported to develop their phonic knowledge, fluency and comprehension where required.



 

Spelling:

This year we have adopted a new spelling scheme in Shark class which will enhance the existing provision. Spellings set follow a weekly spelling rule, which is drawn from those outlined in the National Curriculum. These are differentiated by year group, with a weekly spelling test taking place on Mondays.

Any child who needs support or development can access a mixed or reduced list. We also offer further support through interventions to allow children to receive further assistance where required. We take advantage of the flexibility offered in a mixed range setting to allow children to access the support needed, allowing children to develop mastery with older year groups where relevant and also to provide extended access to Phonics sessions, where required.

Shark Class spellings can be found in their individual spelling books, every child has their own folder which should be brought into school on a Monday ready for testing. New spellings are stuck into books and sent home on a Wednesday. Spellings are also uploaded to our Class story page on Class Dojo. We  visually display our weekly spellings on the class windows in chalk pens so children can regularly use and see these spellings across the week.

Spellings should be continued to be practised at home throughout the week to ensure children are continually developing their skills and in turn are embedding this knowledge throughout their written work.
 

English & Maths Homework:

All children in Shark Class are set a weekly homework activity in English and Maths This is sent home on a Wednesday and should be returned by the following Monday. The activity's focus will always be an area of learing that has been learnt at school during in the week to ensure consolidation of learning and allows us to make time for interventions at the end of every half term, where needed to ensure learning and progression. Each half term a challenge is set for homework instead of a specialised subject piece and children are asked to revisit each spelling and maths area that has been covered that half term.

CGP Books:

CGP books are used throughout the week to support class activities for mental maths, punctuation, spelling and grammar. Children will be set a weekly task to help develop their skills around National Assessment papers. The questioning techniques the CGP books use enable the children to practise the skills and knowledge that they have learnt in class. Year 6 use targeted question books to help develop their knowledge of SATs style questions and the ability to decode langauge to help assist with modelling answers.

My Happy Mind:

My Happy Mind is a new wellbeing and brain programme that began in Spring term 2022, the children learn to manage their feelings, emotions and brain development in the form of whole class sessions on a Monday morning before learning begins. Journalling forms a part of this and the children enjoy learnoing breathing techniques.
 

Wellbeing Wednesday's:

Proud Wall:

 

Take a look at what we have been up to....

Autumn/Spring Term

English

In Shark Class, we have enjoyed using Talk for Writing to uplevel our writing and have took time to look at the skills involved in the process. We have produced some fantastic pieces of writing, starting with a 'Cold Task' to show how much we already know, developing our toolkit, before having a go at a 'Hot Task' using everything we have learnt. We have looked at adding a range of writing techniques and vocabularly to our work including: adverbs, adjectives, fronted adverbials, similies and onomatopoeia to make our writing even more exciting to read! So far this academic year we have focused on suspense, warning, settings and instructions. We have created some fantastic pieces of writing and the techniques we are learning overspill into our topic writing. We are very proud of our beautiful writing displays for English and our Topic focus.

World Book Day

 

Maths

In Maths we use the Hamilton scheme for planning and enjoy using the resources from this scheme, alongside a mix of mastery maths from White Rose and Classroom Secrets. We take the learning statements from each year group to ensure every child is covering Maths relevant to their year group, this helps tp secure diffrentiation by year group.. We have a a whole class focus but then branch off into year groups to complete diffrentiated tasks. Our focus' in Maths so far this academic year has been Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, Place Value, Time and Timetables and Decimals and Fractions. We have become really confident with these topic areas. We have focused on quick recall of answers as well as word problems and reasoning.We also enjoy practical maths where at all possible, using the natural environment to create opportunities to learn outdoors.

Every Thursday morning, we complete our Times Table Rock Stars Grid. We challenge ourselves each week to beat our previous scores.

Every Friday morning, we complete our Big Maths Beat That! These are quick recall Maths questions where we also try to beat our scores and move through the levels!

          

 

Topic

In Autumn term, our topic was Incredible India. We enjoyed looking at the Geography linked to India. We located it on a map, looked at surrounding countries and continents and also looked at the mountain range the Himalayas. We also learnt about and researched famous landmarks including the Taj Mahal. We even managed to create some fantastic art work to display in our sketch books and our classroom corridor! We also managed to design and build our very own Taj Mahal models! We were excited to hold a whole school theme day in Autumn Term 2 based on India; check back for some more information and pictures from this!

In the Spring term, our topic is Rainforests, we are currently exploring the canopy in the rainforest and have enjoyed building our own mini rainforest in a plastic bottle. We have looked at the animals that live in the rainforest and have created habitat factfiles.

                    
                                                                                                                      

Science

Science coverage in Shark Class this year:

Computing

This term,our focus is Internet Safety. We are celebrating Internet Safety Day on February 7th. We have previously explored word processing through tables, fonts and editing. Our Computer skills are varied and this is a skill, that if at all possible, we can practise at home. 

R.E
coming soon ....


P.E

Swimming