Class 11
Autumn Newsletter
Week ending 10/10/25
After some technical difficulties and using our resilience skills, we enjoyed a workshop provided by The National Archives in which we used primary sources (census records, photographs, newspaper articles) to discover more about the lives of black people in Victorian times. This helped answer our TSU question: How diverse was Victorian Britain?
Linked to this, we have also been thinking a lot about Black History Month and why it is important to rediscover the ‘hidden histories’ from the past. We have been excited to start preparing for our BHM Assembly, in which we will sing, perform poetry and tell you all about the people we have learned about. Please join us if you can!
We have written excellent balanced arguments answering the question: Should all children have the right to an education? We wrote as though were in the Victorian era and used a PEE (point, evidence, explanation) structure to present both sides of the argument before giving our own opinion.
In Science, we moved on to learning about water resistance and conducted an experiment to find out if the shape of an object affects the speed that it moves through water. We concluded that streamlined objects have less water resistance acting upon them and therefore move more quickly through water.
Finally, we wrote dialogue between two of the characters from Merlin and then created movements in our ballet lesson to tell the conversation through dance. Mrs Chandler was very impressed!
This weeks certificate winners are:
Most Dojos: Emmanuel, Elizabeth
Mathematician: Andrew
Writer: Oliver
Reader: Tahita
Handwriter: Daisy
Star of the Week: Lacey
Week Ending 3/10/25
In Science this week, we completed a comparative test to investigate the impact of air resistance on a parachute if we changed the canopy size. We concluded that the larger the canopy, the greater the air resistance and therefore the slower the parachute fell.
We have also been working hard in our ballet sessions with Northern Ballet, focusing on our movement and expression when storytelling.
This weeks certificate winners are:
Most Dojos: Emmanuel, Billy and Emilio
Mathematician: Sivh
Writer: Hanan
Reader: Mya
Handwriter: Jacob
Star of the Week: Emmanuel
Week Ending 26/9/25
One of this week’s highlights was our visit to the very exciting French Café as part of our European Day of Languages celebrations, where the children were able to try delicious French pastries. We also loved seeing some of our friends in traditional dress and discovered that we have many languages within our class!
We were also very lucky to have a visit from Matthew Bellwood to explore Victorian Leisure. We learned what Victorians did for fun which answered one of our TSU questions from the start of the year. We explored the differences between toys then and now, heard Victorian ghost stories and learned about Louis Le Prince, a Frenchman that lived in Leeds, who developed some of the world’s first moving pictures!
This weeks certificate winners are:
Most Dojos: Larin and Evelyn
Mathematician: Billy
Writer : Hanan
Reader: George
Handwriter: Sivh
Star of the Week: Harper
Week Ending 19/09/25
Merlin was the highlight of our week but we also did much more! We enjoyed reflecting on the ballet with Dagma from Northern Ballet and learning about sports and film stars who have a background in dance and how that helped them to succeed.
We have also learned about William Morris this week and how his designs brightened Victorian homes with colour and pattern. We explored the school gardens to seek inspiration from nature to use in our own artwork over the coming weeks.
Not to forget that we have written excellent playscripts of a scene from Oliver Twist, which include a setting, stage directions and dialogue.
This weeks certificate winners are:
Most Dojos: Billy and Maddie
Mathematician: Lewis
Writer : Lacey
Reader: Elizabeth
Handwriter: Hashim
Star of the Week: Mia
The Grand Theatre
Year 5 had a wonderful time visiting The Grand Theatre to see Northern Ballet's inspiring performance of Merlin. The children participated in a two-hour story workshop before the trip so that they could understand what was happening in the ballet and they were absolutely mesmerised by the music, props and incredibly talented dancers. The Year 5 team are very proud of the children's maturity and behaviour throughout the show and we can't wait to get stuck in to our own ballet lessons over the coming weeks!
Week Ending 12/09/25
What a brilliant second week we’ve had in Year 5. We’ve explored Victorian artefacts during our TSU launch lesson, acted out a scene from Oliver Twist, watched the start of Oliver! 1968) to make comparisons with the text and participated in a ballet introduction workshop to discover the story of Merlin which we will watch at The Grand next week by Northen Ballet.
This weeks certificate winners are:
Most Dojos: Emilio and Scarlett
Mathematician: Evelyn
Writer : Harry
Reader: Oli
Handwriter: Mya
Star of the Week: Lewis
Week Ending 05/09/25
We’ve had a brilliant week in Class 11, settling in and getting to know our routines in Year 5. We have started to read Oliver Twist which links to our TSU topic of The Victorians and we’ve thought about different choices we can make in PSHE.
Our Dojo winners this week are:
Kaya and Imogen
