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St Mary's Catholic Primary School

Working Together for the Good of Each Other

Osprey Class

Welcome to Osprey (Yr 4/5) Class Page

A picture paints a thousand words - check out our learning!

Thinking of Others in our Community

Children in Osprey class have been using their artistic talents to make cards for the elderly residents of Alexandra Court Care Home. They have been thinking of others who are currently feeling somewhat isolated from their friends and relations.

Healthy Minds and Bodies at St. Mary's

The children remaining in school today took part in a fantastic, fun morning of PE activities. You can see from our fabulous photos, the Wake Up and Shake Up and Yoga activities that formed part of this unusual Friday morning at St. Mary's.

Science Week

Our Science Week activities began with a visit from Dr Sarah Powell, of Lancaster University. She spoke to us about Sports and Exercise Science and the University's work with athletes. She explained how science and technology can assist the athletes with their performance. The children learnt about famous athletes who had benefited from the work carried out by the university. On a performance note, the children took part in a standing jump challenge which was measured by computer apparatus used at Lancaster. Our winner was Harry - who knew he could jump so high!

Y-M-C-A - it's not just a popular song!

The next activity we participated in was at the YMCA. Osprey joined in with the exercise and fun of a Hit-Step class. Take a look at our photographs to see some of the activities we took part in.

Fairy Tale Engineering - Three Billy Goats Gruff

Today the children were presented with a STEM challenge, which incorporated elements of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. They listened to the traditional story of Three Billy Goats Gruff, then thought about how they could build a bridge sturdy enough to hold the goats. Consideration was given to the materials available, the weight it needed to hold and the structure of the bridge itself. They researched the different kinds of bridge available; beam, arch, trussed, cantilever and suspension bridges were some of the varied styles. When the bridges were complete, their strength was tested by adding multilink cubes to see which could hold the most weight. Our strongest bridge was an arch bridge, which held 96 cubes! Well done Team Turkey!

Saving the Planet

Today, our Science topic was to investigate climate change and the use of renewable energy. The children learnt about how human actions are affecting the viability of the planet Earth. They learnt about the disadvantages of fossil fuels and the pollution they create and the effects of deforestation and overfarming, before thinking about the more eco-friendly alternatives. To raise awareness of what we can do to protect our planet they have made their own colourful posters.

Lego Workshop - A Mission to Mars

Osprey Class had a visit from Stephen of Lego Builders and participated in a Lego Workshop. After fashioning a rocket launch pad and a space colony building they also looked at Mars rovers, using electric circuits. As you can definitely see from the pictures, all the children had a fantastic afternoon thinking about construction, engineering and science - all with LEGO.

Digging into the past

The class have been learning about paleontology - the scientific study of dinosaurs. After learning about the different eras that the dinosaurs existed and how they adapted to each set of challenging circumstances, the children used a sand tray and searched for dinosaur remains. They then had to assemble a skeleton and assess what type of dinosaur they had found; carnivore, omnivore or herbivore.

What are we thankful for? - Emmanuel Church visit

Osprey Class had the opportunity to visit Emmanuel Church for a morning of reflection. With volunteers from the church, the children explored the meaning of being grateful and how we can show we are thankful for the things and people in our lives. The children created thankful flowers and a thank you card for someone they appreciate.

MFL French - The Planets and the Solar System

In French (and in Topic), the children have been learning about the solar system and space. The photos show some of the work that they have been producing. Our 'models' show 'le Soleil', 'la Lune' and 'la Terre' and how they exist in relation to one another. Do you know which is which?

Who inpsires me?

This half term, in R.E, we have been talking about the word 'inspirational' - what this means and who is an inspiration and why. We began with Jesus, then discussed someone close to them and why. As a class we have studied Fr Damien De Verser and St. Jospehine Bahkita. In additon, the children worked with parents at home to chose someone of faith, who is well-known because of their actions, for example: Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa.

Above are some examples: Lukas wrote about Pope Francis, Gracie wrote about Martin Luther King and Zyien wrote about our parish priest Fr Michael Murphy. There was work has been added to our display with other work completed on these inspirational people.

How do we use a protractor?

Starting the new year on a new topic - angles! We have discussed turns and linked this with compass directions, fractions and degrees, as well as identifying different types of angles because of their properties. We have now started to skill up on positioning and measuring angles with a protractor.

How can we help in Jesus' mission?

As part of Osprey's work on inspirational people, we have discussed Jesus being an inspiration and what he did to prove that fact. We learnt about the life of Fr Damien who was inspiration and showed his dedication to being a true follower of Jesus. On our cross in class, we thought about difficulties people face and around the outside ways of how we can help towards Jesus' mission.

Art with Mrs Kowalska

This half term the children are continuing their art work with Mrs Kowalska, focusing on using the different types of pencils and patterns they can created having a small pattern and disguising it wih their own continuation and the drawing they created. Mrs Kowlaska also showed the children items she has had made from their art work last half term and how we will, in the future, have an event where parents will be able to buy an item and have their child's art work on a cushion, mug, coaster, t-shirt, pen pot etc.

Creation - child-led worship

Annabelle, Harry, Maxi and Francis led our first worship planned and organised by the children. They chose the theme of 'creation' and used the Creation story to be the Word of God listened to. Before this, they gathered the children on the carpet, chose someone to light the candle and had the song 'All things bright and beautiful' playing as they got their pocket crosses and prepared to participate in worship. The children focused on endangered animals within their worship, after reading from the Bible. They asked the children what they can do to show respect and love to God's creatures.

Fleetwood Library Visit - feedback

Visitor feedback form - library

During Autumn 2, Osprey class visited the library every Friday, for 6 weeks. The children learnt more about how the library works, what facilities they have on offer and made use of taking books out. The staff willingly gave us some feedback on their involvement with our class and highly complimented the children on their behaviour and appearance.

Christmas Party

Christmas Party Time - we had a great time celebrating a busy term and Christmas with our class party consisting of party games, party food and presents.

Reverse Advent Calendar - donating to the food bank

Nathan and Holly represented Osprey Class with the heads and deputies from Year 6 to donate the food to St. Edmund's food bank, that we had collect during advent as part of our reverse advent calendar.

Horrible Christmas - Theatre Trip

On Tuesday 17th December all of KS2 (78 pupils) went by tram to the Opera House in Blackpool to watch Horrible Christmas. We all had a great time and were part of many schools that morning watching the performance, inspired by Horrible Histories.

Carol Service 2019

On Monday 16th December, we held our annual Carol Service at church for parents and friends of St. Mary's to share the Christmas story and Carols. It was lovely to see church so full and get everyone in the Christmas spirit.

Our Posada Journey

These are some of the children during Advent that enjoyed taking the posada box at home and providing the figurines and Mary and Joseph a home for their night, whilst on their journey to Bethlehem. The children have spent time reflecting with their families at home, lighting a candle and saying an Advent prayer, before returning the posada box to school for the next family.

Street Child - Book Reviews

To complete our work this half term on the story 'Street Child', the children wrote a book review for Amazon.co.uk, expressing a summary of the story, their favourite part/character and their rating for the book. Above, is a selection of some of the reviews written by the children.

The Coat - a charitable act

Here are examples of the children's work completed on writing a newspaper article to retell the thoughtful story of a charitable act of kindness conducted by a young boy to another boy, who was homeless. This linked with our work on the book Street Child in English, which is about a child who finds himself homeless and alone. Furthermore, it links with our RE as we discussed actions we can do during Advent and the true meaning of Christmas.

A Shepherd's Perspective - retelling the story

As we have been learning about the key people in the story of Jesus' birth and how they showed trust in God, the children read about the story of the shepherds' experience of the angels coming to tell them the good news. The children then retold the events from their point of view.

Advent - preparing for the coming

Starting Advent has involved us making our own Advent promise, which we added to the Christmas tree in the hall, having worship together as a class by opening a religious advent calendar and receiving a prayer cross each to keep. The pocket cross is to keep with them or in school and use during prayers to remind them of the relationship between themselves and Christ and the sacrifice he made for us.

Multiples, Factors and Primes - Maths Challenge

As part of our work on multiples, factors and primes one group of the Year 5 children completed a challenge by accurately placing given numbers into the correct square so it match two statements, for example a multiple of 5 that is also a multiple of 3 or a factor of 126 that is also a square number. The children used fantastic mathematical language to explain their reasoning as they solved the puzzle accurately.

STEM day at Fleetwood High

Four of our Year 5 children attended a STEM event at Fleetwood High School today. Our task was to build a bridge that was both sturdy enough to hold a 1KG truck and tall enough to allow a boat to pass underneath. The wood had to be cut to size by the children, using a hack saw, and the holes drilled independently. The children worked tremendously hard to build a bridge that more than met all the requirements. Well done team Blue Bridge! Four of our Year 5 children attended a STEM event at Fleetwood High School today. Our task was to build a bridge that was both sturdy enough to hold a 1KG truck and tall enough to allow a boat to pass underneath. The wood had to be cut to size by the children, using a hack saw, and the holes drilled independently. The children worked tremendously hard to build a bridge that more than met all the requirements. Well done team Blue Bridge!

Red Wednesday 2019

As a school, on Wednesday 20th November, we have supported Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) by ssupporting their Red Wednesday campaign #RedWednesday. The children were allowed to wear an item of red clothing in additon to their uniform. Each class had their own red candle and had a special worship. As a class, we went to church for our class mass and at the end each child had their own red tealight to light and say their own prayer for those who have been killed because of their faith.

Observational Drawing

Building on skills learnt in previous lessons for example using different gradients of pencil and a view finder, the children produced their own observational drawing using a variety of painting as a stimulus.

Using our vocabulary resources

The children have been working hard on using the resources in school to help them with their vocabualry and ideas for writing in their English lessons. We have discussed how important it is to find alternative synonyms to engage the reader with their written work, as well as choosing appropriate openers and conjunctions. The children have access to word wheels, a thesaurus, conjunction maps and fronted adverbial ideas.

Anti-Bullying Week

The hat not hate campaign this year is about people making and wearing their own hat to support the cause. The handmade hat is a symbol of the 'craftivist' movement to get rid of bullying. Mrs Thomas, our parent governor and welfare assistant made 173 small 'hat not hate' hats to be pinned to the children's uniforms and staff's clothing as a symbol of solidarity against bullying. As part of Anti-Bullying Week, Osprey Class have got a secret angel. The children picked out a name from a box and they must watch over that person this week by doing small little things to make the person feel good, help them or be there for them if needed. At the end of the week, the children will guess who their secret angel has been.

We Will Remember Them - Remembrance Day 11.11.19

Today, 11th November, as a school we stood and had a two minute silence, in our classes, to show our respects for the fallen soldiers in the war, wearing our poppies as a symbol of unity in remembering the courage and sacrifice people made during the war. As part of our class worship, we discussed that in November, we remember those who served our country and lost their lives, but also people in our lives that are sadly no longer with us. The children shared someone in their family who is no longer with us today; we prayed together thanking God for them, the memories they have left us and for the gift of life.

Freeze Frames - Street Child

This half term we are reading Street Child by Berlie Doherty. As part of chapter two, we meet the character The Stick Man (Mr Spink), who evicted a family from the room they rent. The children got into groups and created a freeze frame of that moment and how they imagined it. The had to think about their body language, facial expressions and one adjective to describe how that character felt at that moment.

Library Visit

This half term, Osprey class will be visiting Fleetwood Library every Friday; a great free resource we have in our town. The children had their library cards and used the service independently and learnt about the lancashire reading challenge that they can be part of.

Halloween Science Day

To begin the second part of Autumn Term and as it's the week that celebrates Halloween, Osprey Class has a full day of experiments linked to Halloween. At first, we discussed shadows, how they are formed and the relationship between the distance of the light source to the object and how this affects the shadow. We did an investigation to test our predictions and find an answer to the question. This was followed by testing whether a pumpkin with sink or float in water and why. We finished with looking at chemical reactions with liquids and popping candy, alka seltzer and baking soda and whether it could make our 'pumpkin' balloon pop.

Multi-Cultural Week - our finished masks and t-shirts

Our masks and t-shirts are now dry! It's been a great week researching, reading multi-cultural books, listening to visitors, tasting food and getting creative.

Multi-Cultural Week - Speech writing

Take a look at our speeches! Here are a few examples for Osprey class, writing a speech to answer the question: why is it important to learn about other cultures? The children prepared for their speech at home at first, we then discussed them and shared videos of iconic speeches that have been made in our world's history, discussing the passion, persuasion and impact the speaker has. We looked at key features of a speech: quotes, statistics and rhetorical questions.

Multi-Cultural Week - tasting different foods

As part of our week, we finished it by trying some foods from China, Mexico, India and England. With spring rolls, samosas, nachos and fish and chips, we discussed where foods came from and for most of the children they tried something they'd never had before.

Multi-Cultural Week - Visit from Stefan's Dad

Plamen Antonov, Stefan's dad, came in to talk to the children with Stefan about the Bulgarian culture, his experiences and shared pictures of their traditions. The children had the opportunity to ask any questions they had too.

Multi-Cultural Disco

During multi-cultural week, we had a disco and the children came dressed as a country or in the national costume of the country.

Multi-Cultural Week - Tie dying t-shirts

As part of our theme this week, the children took it in turns to work as a group to tie-dye a white t-shirt with Mrs Thomas. The t-shirts have gone to be washed and will dry over half term. We can't wait to see them...

Multi-Cultural week - The Day of the Dead Masks

Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico, in particular the Central and South regions. It is acknowledged internationally in many other cultures. The multi-day holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and help support their spiritual journey. In recognition of this we have begun to make our own masks, we designed them first on paper, then sketched them out in pencil, ready for painting...

Multi-Cultural Week - Mufaro's beautiful daughter's - an african tale

We read the story Mufuro's beautiful daughter's, which is an african tale about two sisters who want to marry the king in the city. The daughters are very different - one kind and selfless, the other rude and selfish. We linked the story to Cinderella as the main character didn't have very much but was an honest, kind person who won the king's heart in the end because of her actions. The tale is based in Zimbabwe, therefore we discussed their culture, clothing, when it was built and their flag and what each part represents.

Multi-Cultural Week - Dance

As part of multi-cultural week, we had a dance teacher come into school and teach the children a dance - we did some samba to music from High School Musical. In class, before we participated, we discussed the importance that dance has in many cultures with rituals, celebrations and festivals as a way express themselves.

Multi-Cultural Week - Ancient Egyptians

To begin our special week celebrating and learning about the mulit-cultural world we live in, Osprey class concentrated on the Ancient Egyptains. Claire Ollitt came from Liverpool University, who is an Egyptologist, to share her experiences and knowledge on Tutankhamun's tomb and who and when it was discovered. Later on in the day, we discussed what we'd learnt and learnt about other traditions the Ancient Egyptains had, which in some parts are still part of their culture today.

Our Autobiographies by Annabelle, Tyler, TJ and Francis

Here are three examples from Annabelle, Tyler, TJ and Francis of their autobiography about their life so far. Having read 'Boy - Tale of Childhood', which is Roald Dahl sharing stories about his childhood, we wrote out own thinking about our childhood and education so far, as well as what we want for our future.

Boy - Tales of Childhood display

Writing as Roald Dahl

As part of our work on Roald Dahl, the children wrote a letter in role, as him, to his mother about the true events that occurred whilst he attended a boarding school called St. Peter's in 1925.

Harvest Mass

On the 9th October, Osprey joined the rest of the school, with our whole school's harvest donation at church to celebrate Harvest Mass. The food collection was presented on the altar as a gift and taken to the food bank to help support fmailies in our community in need afterwards.

Dictionary Matters - MFL

The children today, in French, used a bilingual dictionary to decode sentences in French, into English about our local area.

Move and Learn - food groups

Continuing our work with Caroline from Fleetwood Town, on our Move and Learn project, the children had to arrange the food into the right category on the food plate.

Young Writers' Competition

Well done to these children for successfully have their writing chosen to be published in a book! They entered the Young Writer's competition with Mrs Davids last academic year and these children's work will appear in the book alongside other children who have been chosen from other schools.

Maths - ordering positive and negative numbers

This week in Maths, we have been learning about positive and negative numbers, being able to complete sequences, compare numbers using < and >, as well as handle negative numbers in context with temperature and money. The children had to order the numbers, written by their peers, either in ascending or descending order.

Atlas Work - locating and identifying cities

This half term, Osprey Class are studying the United Kingdom. We have been concentrating on our map reading skills, using the atlases to identify and locate the countries which make up the UK and their capital, counties and cities.

Move and Learn - Fleetwood Town

In our Move and Learn P.E session with Caroline from Fleetwood Town, we discussed three keys words which are important in specific sports: flexibility, stamina and strength and which sports required these. We took our our theory outside and tested these skills and what we could do to improve them.

Class Mass - Wednesday 18th September

This week, Year 4/5 went to church to celebrate Mass. This was the first time some of the children were expected to read. Tyler, Gracie, Annabelle, Maisie, Oliver, Francis and Alex all did a superb job with having the courage to read in front of the rest of their class and the congregation. The read really well and the class followed mass on the mass cards and joined in with all the responses.

Library Time

It was our week to go to the library and get set up with our cards and to choose our first book. The enjoyed learning about the facilities that Fleetwood Library have to offer with lego club, using the computers, ordering books online as well as getting ebooks. Next half term, Osprey Class will attend the library every Friday afternoon.

Using our class Prayer Wall

In Osprey Class, we have our own prayer wall as part of our worship area. The children are welcome to add a ribbon to represent a prayer at a time they wish but in particular during our prayer and liturgy time. We have STOP and pray theme - S is for sorry, T is for thanksgiving, O is for others and P is for peace. They choose the ribbon to match their prayer and add it to our wall whilst having reflection time with God.

The 'Birdman' came to visit

On Monday 9th September, the 'Birdman' came to visit the school to show us some his birds of prey. KS2 had an assembly where he shard information about the birds and their job as a predator. The birds flew around the hall and returned when called. Some children even took the opportunity to have their picture taken with one of the birds. This was a great visit and even more important with each class being named after birds of prey this year.

Nelson Mandela - Art Project

To begin our year together, Osprey Class discussed the qualities we will show this year so we can be a team and everyone can be happy. One of the qualities we discuss was acceptance. Accepting each other for who they are, accepting responsibility for our own learning and accepting our gifts from God and use them to help others. Nelson Mandela was all about acceptance - he fought to be accepted and to be treated as an equal along with his fellow black community. We looked at the artist Chuck Close and how he created large pieces of artwork using different colours, we did this to create the face of the iconic Nelson Mandela.

Our Classroom

Osprey Classroom, ready to welcome the children in Year 4/5 back to school and for the start of the new year. It is going to be a great one!