Welcome to The Cove

New this year is...The Cove. This space used to be our school library but now we have developed the opportunity for reading in our learning zones in KS1 and KS2, plus our reading areas in the classrooms. Therefore, we have created a space where small groups of children, with Mrs Sewell, will be working, supporting the teaching and learning.  Then, in the afternoons Mrs Sewell gets to teach the Year 4s for the foundation subjects - PSHE, History, Geography, Art, DT, RE etc.

A picture paints a thousand words.

Check out some of the learning...

To celebrate the Queen's jubilee, the children in Year 4 discussed what this event meant, watched some of the Queen's coronation and created poster to share and celebrate facts about our Queen. The children then had individual crowns to paint, decorate and take home with them.

Here is a selection of some of the work the Year 4s have completed this half term on their history topic of the Ancient Egyptians where we have looked at: the importance of the River Nile, how the Egyptians wrote, the discovery of Tutankhamun, researching topics such as food and drink, clothing, religion etc and the process of mummification.

On the 18th June, we see St. Mary's join in with Fleetwood Carnival, after 2 years of it not being on, and we can't wait. Some of the Year 4 children kindly helped out, contributing to some of the preparations.

As part of our lesson in PSHE on 'Valuing Difference', we discussed how we have similarities and differences with those we share our world with. Differences including culture, religion, who we live with and abilities. After we compared different types of children: name, age, pets, religion, hobbies and favourite subject, we watched a clip from BGT from a Golden Buzzer act called Born to Perform and then shared similarities and differences between the children with disabilities in this group and ourselves. We finished our lesson with defining the term respect, linked it to our work on valuing people's differences and how we can show respect.

During this half term, Year 4 having been learning about Ancient Egypt. We have learnt about the importance the River Nile had on the Egyptians, Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, the Egyptian alphabet and researched specific areas of their life using books and the internet to help us learn about religion, their homes, food and drink, clothing, jewellery etc.

Yoana had a little gathering with Year 4 to say goodbye as she moves back to Bulgaria. After 4 years of being at St. Mary's, Yoana is leaving so we enjoyed some music, juice and cake together. We wish her lots of luck as her and her family move to Bulgaria and she will start school there too for the first time.

Year 4 were invited back to Emmanuel Church for an Easter workshop. The children had a great time recapping the Easter story, working in a  team to protect an egg from a fall, discuss the meaning of Good Friday and the resurrection, as well as making their own Easter garden with a tomb out of biscuits. The children thoroughly enjoyed getting to it eat it afterwards!

A great St. Mary's tradition is back - our Easter Egg raffle. The children could buy tickets to enter the raffle and win an egg of their choice. All the money raised will be going towards helping the Ukrainian families in needed.

To finish the Spring Term, Years 3, 4 and 5 visited the Grand Theatre to watch Gangsta Granny; we had a great time!

During Lent, Year 4 gave up dojo points and took on the Jelly Bean Prayer. Each colour in the prayer represented an action from Jesus so we linked this with our work ethic and behaviours in school - listening, being respectful, helping others with their work, showing improvement, having their name mentioned positively by another adult or peers. The children had their own jar to fill from Mrs Sewell's. As a well done, the children received their own pack of M&Ms with the Easter M&M prayer (we use another M&M prayer sometimes in our worship). 

On Wednesday 30th March, we created our own Stations of the Cross in the hall to help us retell the events of Jesus' death on Good Friday. The children had the opportunity to respond, pray and reflect. 

The children discussed their character in today’s final healthy Heads’ session. At first, we began with what character means and what are good and negative characteristics. The children drew themselves and wrote 6 positive characteristics they have. Outside, the children played different games where if they were out, they had to say something positive about themselves and if they got someone out, they had to say something positive about the person they caught out.

As part of Year 4s work on animation, we looked at the work of Nick Park who created Wallace and Gromit using stop motion. The children used their skills on the onion skinning tool, sound and background to create their own stop motion animation.

The class worked on teamwork, what it means and what makes a good team mate. In the classroom, they were set a task to get into height order in silence using other methods of communication (they managed this with ease) and then to get into age order (they found slightly more difficult to communicate). Outside they played a game of space invaders, where 1 person in the middle of the group (space ship) was the commander, they had to manoeuvre the group around the playground to find a dodge ball that they then used to eliminate commanders in the other teams. When their commander was eliminated, they had to make their way back to the space station (area of the playground) and change commanders. The game rules were then changed up so the eliminated commander had to join the other team. The team with the most people at the end won.

We have begun our animation unit this week! We began by discussing animations, where we see it, the skills needed and how it can be on paper and using computing software. The children first of all used some 'post its' to create their own mini flip book with a 'moving' object and then used 2Animate to create an animation of a changing face.

As part of our work on Holy Week, we studied the events of Holy Thursday - Last Supper, Garden of Gethsemane and Peter's denials. The children rewrote the story in their own words from what they understood and remembered in detail.

The session began with discussing what honesty is. The children worked together to discuss a scenario of someone being dishonest and how it makes another person feels. The class discussed that it’s not just about telling lies but its how we behave in situations. Outside, the children played a game where they had to be honest in following the rules and be honest if the ball went through their legs.

The children worked together to use a Bible, following a Bible reference, in our RE lesson to find evidence from specific stories that Jesus is truly human, but that he is also truly God.

We had our last session with Henry today (9.3.22), the children had the opportunity to use Henry's pinhole camera and work in his studio to develop the photographs they were in using a dark room and chemicals. The children had to stay still for 4 minutes, each time to help the photo be clear - this was tricky!

The session began with a class discussion about respect – how it shown, how it makes us feel. The children wrote down a list of people who have shown them respect. The children then took their respect into a game of dodgeball where they needed to work as a team. The demonstrated respect to each other and protected each other from being hit.

Year 4 loved dressing up for World Book Day. We got to have our WBD parade back after two years; the children got to go up on stage and show the rest of the school their costume.

In our third session with Henry we discussed the weather, how it was predicted in the past and how it is now. We researched the weather for the afternoon and then walked to The Mount to use digital cameras to take pictures of the surrounding area, which demonstrated the weather.

In our second session with Henry, we recapped on how an old-fashioned camera would take and develop a photo. We then visited The Mount and collected leaves from different plants that will be printed on to fabric to make our own class flag for The Mount. When we got back we talked about the importance of flags and how they can help and keep people at sea safe. We looked at the maritime signal flags and created our own name with the flags to represent each letter.

On Wednesday 2^nd March, as a school, we went to church and participated in Ash Wednesday Mass to celebrate the start of the season of Lent. We all received Ashes on our forehead and celebrated Mass together. We reflected on how we make a Lenten promise and prayed to God to help us in the next 40 days as we prepare for Easter.

The children discussed resilience – How can we show resilience? Can you give any examples of when you have been resilience? Outside, the children ran outside the lines on the outside edge of the playground and the coaches would catch the children out by tagging them, freezing on the spot and other children couldn’t over take so to had to find another way to avoid the coaches. This made the children think – do I give up and allow myself to be caught or can I find another way and keep going?

Today, we had a visit from Rob, from Healthy Heads. We discussed one of the British Values - Rule of Law. We shared what it meant, the job of a judge and why we have rules. We reflected on rules we have in school and what would happen if these didn't exist. As a class, we played a game where rules were given but one rule was missing, the children had to watch carefully to see if they could guess the missing rule. We thought about how it made us feel not knowing all the rules and the impact it had on the other rules having one missing.

The children in Year 4 had the opportunity to visit Emmanuel Church to participate in activities linked with Lent - what is it, how we prepare and why its important. The children played games flipping pancakes, learnt the history of Shrove Tuesday, ate some pancakes with a topping of their choice and wrote their own Lenten Promise.

We have completed another two computing lessons on spreadsheets by looking at different features on a spreadsheet with a timer, random generator and strolling option so we could then complete the maths game. We then moved onto entering data into a table; we then used the bar chart option and it was put onto a line graph. We then edited the title and x and y axis labels to match the data presented.

Year 4 have begun their work on spreadsheets by discussing when they are used and why. We recapped on how to copy, cut and paste and how this can be used on a spreadsheets. As a class, we used a spreadsheet on spelling scores and learnt how to format cells to percentages and use Formula Wizard to calculate the answer.

What a great, creative, fun afternoon we had! Linking to our Science day, the children joined a creative building workshop all filled with Lego - 10,000 pieces of Lego! The children had to make their own building that would need light, then build the surrounding areas, then join their building together and create roads for their buildings to be on. The children then connected their house, with the bulb, to a battery to light it up as it sat 'on the street' they'd created with their peers.

To raise the children's awareness of Children's Mental Health week this week, Year 4 discussed what does mental health means and how it is different to having mental health problems, we thought about how people's mental health isn't always negative but if/when it is what activities we can do help: take a bath, go for a walk, speak out, colouring, cooking and many more were suggested. We also watched the Place2Be charity's assembly online and completed one of the activities they suggested. The children drew a hot air balloon picture where they wrote down the names of people that 'life them up' and support them to grow and develop emotionally.

In our first of four sessions, with Henry an artist photographer. During our first session today, we discussed the history of The Mount, how the eye can see and how this impacted on the invention of the first camera. The children made their own ‘camera’ to see how the pinhole at the back showed the image inside upside down.

To mark British Science Week, the children were treated to an assembly with a difference today. The theme was ‘Explosive Food’ and it really did help the children to see food in a new light. The children learnt about the incredible amount of energy contained in the food that goes in their mouth and the show was packed with exciting chemistry and physics demonstrations to illustrate this. It was a thrilling and informative watch. There’ll be plenty more Science based activities happening throughout the week across school so watch this space for more details.

As part of our work on famous building we studied the Taj Mahal. Its history, purpose and design. The children completed their own symmetrical drawing step by step using tracing paper.

Hristiana, Ruby and Yoana led worship on their chosen theme 'Good News'. The girls gathered everyone with the song 'Where is the Love?', lit the candle and made the sign of the cross. They told the story of the fishermen being called to be disciples, they asked the children to share good news they have and finished with saying a prayer.

Mrs Sewell's Year 6 Maths group finished their work on area and perimeter of shapes by solving and matching questions to their answers to create and complete the puzzle.

Well done to Jessica who was the first person in Year 4 to plan and deliver her own worship session. She chose her theme of 'Peace and Nature' and chose the Creation Story and focused on forgiveness after the actions of Adam and Eve. The children had to reflect on what they'd ask God to forgive them for and why they want God's forgiveness. Jessica wrote her own prayer and chose someone to read it. 

We began our lesson discussing different ways countries can be identified - government, royal family, flag, language and currency. We had a selection of flags and names of countries; we matched the flag to its country. Next, we used ipads to research missing facts about European countries.

On Thursday 27th January, 18 children from Year 4-6 participated in a sponsored walk to raise money for Isabelle, a local girl who needs to go to America for Cancer treatment. The children completed a 3 mile walk on the promenade in Fleetwood, with a stop off at the Beach Park before heading back to school. We are looking forward to seeing how much we have raised.

In one of our Maths lessons this week, we solved a tri-jigsaw, converting numbers into Roman Numerals and vice versa, even numbers over 1000! The children worked really well together following the patterns we'd discussed.

The children have tested their brains! Using a drawing by Picasso, turned upside down, the children had to draw what they could see. The left-hand side of our brain finds it difficult to recognise what the image is and makes us want to turn the drawing around the right way. If they were to copy it right way up, the children would not observe every detail and would rely on what they know. This way they can focus on the lines and shapes. At the end, they could reveal the picture, the right way around and turn theirs to see the results. This exercise made them concentrate on what they could actually see.

Check out some of the children's artwork, including the original to compare them too. 

Here is some art work from Year 4 on our topic about 'Famous Buildings'. The children drew aspects of St. Paul's Cathedral after learning about Sir Christopher Wren and his career as an architect. 

As we continued our Geography work learning about Europe, we used an atlas with our partner to identify and locate the countries in Europe.

Our Art topic for this half term is to study famous buildings. We began by looking and comparing different pictures of famous buildings across the world. The children discussed them and put them in order of the favourite to least favourite.

Although we haven't had a Carol Service, each year group prepared a carol to sing to their parents - today (Wednesday 15th December) was our turn. Year 4 sang 'We Three Kings' and then had some fun with the snow (machine)! 

As we continued with our work on Sonia Delaunay, we learnt about how she expanded her artwork into the fashion industry. She opened her own shop in Madrid 'Casa Sonia', which sold shoes, dresses, swimwear and so much more, which she had created. Using her design cards, the children created their own outfits of a male and female using style of geometric shapes and bold colours.

It was our KS2 Christmas lunch today. The food was delicious and the ambience was merry and bright. Many thanks to the kitchen team, it was a fantastic occasion.  

Year 4 learnt about the Holy Trinity being three persons in one - God. We discussed how this can the difficult to fully understand but the children worked hard as we researched and discussed different images of the Holy Trinity. They then moved onto creating their own representation of it to show their understanding.

The children have thoroughly enjoyed developing their coding skills creating their own stories, using if statements and a game too. Year 4 were great at supporting and helping each other with their coding skills.

In our PSHE lessons, we have been looking at our relationships with others and this we discussed how we need to respect other people's feelings, how we can use their body language and facial expressions to read how they might feel but mostly importantly what we can do if we see someone demonstrating they feel shy, angry or upset. Here our some of the children in their freeze frame to show a feeling and the other children had to guess what it was.

Sonia wanted the observer’s eye to constantly move from the painting to the poem, and create a feeling of speed and disorientation that would be like being on a train journey. She illustrated a Russian poet's poem about a journey on a train. Year 4 created their own artwork to complement a poem on the theme of poem by Robert Louis Stephenson. 

In response to our RE work this half term, on the Christmas story and the trust in Mary and Joseph, Molly took it upon herself to respond by writing about Christmas. At the end of it,  she also shared the true meaning of Christmas and wrote her own prayer to reflect this. She read it to the class and they gave her a round of applause - very well deserved! 

Sonia loved to experiment with colourful shapes and light to create a sense of rhythm and movement in her work. She would use like to create brighter effect or a darker one by thinking about where she placed primary colours next to secondary colours. 

Fleetwood Town gifted Year 4 children a football shirt each and free ticket to the Morecambe v Fleetwood match on Saturday 20th November. The children were very grateful and excited about their gift and the opportunity to watch Fleetwood Town.

Year 4 engaged with anti-bullying week brilliantly! They wore odd socks on Monday, bought rulers and wrist bands so money could go to the charities and we had an afternoon discussing key questions - what is bullying?, why do people bully? how can I be an upstander, not a bystander? We watched the BGT clip of a school choir performing a song they had written about bullying not being welcome in their school. In addition, we looked at the theme for this year being 'one kind word' and we made chatterboxes for the children to play with their friends to encourage kindness.

This half term Year 4 are learning about the artist Sonia Delaunay. We spent our first lesson looking at her early life (when she was born, her family, where she studied) and the work she produced early in her career, around the age of 20. We discussed their features, compared them to work of artists she admired and the children gave their opinions on the colours, brushstrokes used, as well as words to describe the piece they had chosen.

We began our lesson looking at the definitions of a vertebrate and invertebrate and organised a set of images into these two groups. Next, we challenged our partner to complete a Venn diagram based on the category we chose. For example: predators, flowering plants, mammals, tetrapod and many more. Our partner had to check we were correct, before we swapped roles.

To complete our work the digestive system, where we learnt about our types of teeth, their function and how to look after them. We had a dentist and a dental nurse from My Dentist, across the road from school, come in and talk to Year 4 about dental hygiene, their job, the equipment they use and the importance of knowing how much sugar is in food/drinks we eat. At the age a Year 4 child is at, they should have no more than 6 cubes of a sugar a day. In a can of coke there are 9, in a tablespoon of tomato ketchup there are 4 and in a Yazoo milkshake 27!

Yummy! A lovely afternoon tasting the Autumn Harvest Stew each group created. They tasted their own, as well as another group's, so they could offer an opinion for the evaluation they completed. The children were able to go home with the leftovers to share with their family.

In preparation for our stew that each group had designed, the children peeled and chopped the vegetables they needed, ready for the slow cooker. We discussed the importance of hygiene and safety.

Here are some examples of work the children have produced this half term as we've learnt about the Digestive System, The Great Plague, The Bible, and creating our own Autumn Harvest Stew.

As part of our work on Black History Month, the children created their own positive pebble, which included one positive word about how the Black community handled racism and being discriminated against. The children came up with words: forgiveness, strength, courage, hope and many more. On the back of the pebble, the children wrote Black History Month 2021 and are going to place their pebble somewhere in Fleetwood for another person to find. The children hope the word will bring a smile to that person's face and learn about BHM.

Year 4, have been tasting Harvest vegetables in preparation for making their own Autumn harvest Stew, which they have planned in their groups. As part of our discussion, we talked about what people in the 1600s typically ate because we've been study the Great Plague and in Science, we've learnt about our digestive system and our teeth and the importance of healthy eating.

Some of the children from Garrido Class worked with Mrs Sewell in The Cove this week, as they moved onto learning more about subtraction this week - what it means, how to use resources and what strategies to help them. The children used Base 10 resources and/or whiteboards for number lines to solve subtraction calculations in order to complete a subtraction puzzle.

Year 4 planned and completed an investigation to see how well they brush their teeth. We used disclosing tablets to see the plaque that was on their teeth so they could see quite clearly the areas they need to concentrate on, so they can improve their oral hygiene and protect their teeth.

Some of the children from Garrido Class have been working with greater than and less than, using symbols to compare thousands numbers. The children used base 10 to create their own numbers and compare them with their partner and explain why. 

In 'The Cove', we have a prayer wall. In worship, the children often like to share and ask for us to remember a member of their family who has passed away. We listened to a song called Heaven and shared the Ascension story to remind ourselves of Jesus being back at the right hand side of his father. Year 4, then had the opportunity to add a ribbon on the prayer wall to represent a prayer they shared with God about someone they've lost. 

Year 4 are really enjoying their History topic about The Great Plague - so far we have compared London from then and now, looking at how it's changed and why. Today, we discussed the symptoms of the Plague and what happened to a victim. Molly, Olivia and Violet shared information they knew about the nursery rhyme 'Ring a Ring a Roses' and we discovered what they lyrics meant.

To begin our work on coding, we recapped on the vocabulary linked with Coding and being able to match the vocabulary to their matching definition.  Individually, we explored the different backgrounds and objects available in Free Code Gibbon. When we had created a scene, we planned what will happen on a storyboard planner or interactive whiteboard.  Use 2Code to implement your plan and create your computer program.

This half term, Mrs Sewell is supporting the teaching and learning in Year 3/4 (Garrido Class) with Mr Gregory. The children this week have been learning what a synonym and how to use a thesaurus to find alternative synonyms.

The Year 4 children began their topic on The Bible in R.E by looking at different Bibles, discussing what they remembered about the Bible. Mrs Sewell was very impressed with what they could remember of our work in Year 3 and then we moved onto using Bible references, to find specific messages, promises or stories. 

This year, Pope Francis declared that it would be The Year of St. Joseph, where we would learn about the simple, yet holy life he led as the father, on Earth, to Jesus. The children studied paintings of Joseph, in which often, he was working and Jesus would be by his side. The children discussed what they could see, symbols that were used and how the people might be feeling at that moment. After this, the children responded by drawing their own picture of Joseph and Jesus together.

Year 4, to start of the year, have logged themselves onto Purple Mash, which is resource we follow to teach our computer scheme. The children had an explore reminding themselves of how to use the website, practice some of their computing skills and check out some of the resources to help them with other areas of the curriculum - art, maths, reading and so much more.

The theme for The Cove was already establish with art work that was painted about 8 years ago by Naomi Lynch, when the library and intervention room was created. Mrs Sewell has built on that theme and she has developed a small reading corner, had new display boards added, created a worship area and have new tables and chairs of a slightly different style to traditional classroom tables.