Week ending 21/10

On Monday we enjoyed a mini volleyball session at Thomas Keble where we were taught by GCSE PE sports leaders. We all had a good time and hope to go back again in future.
We were joined by the Y4 for the afternoons this week. They helped us with a science investigation. We wanted to find out which was the warmest place in school using ice! On Monday we planned what we needed and how we were going to do it and on Wednesday we got busy! We were working in groups and each group chose where we tested so we ended up with the warmest places being the staffroom and Mrs David's office. We are going to repeat the investigation between these places another time.
It was great to have the older children to work with us as we had to plan what to do and how to do it ourselves.
On Tuesday we had a go at Zumba which was good fun and very energetic. That took most of our dance lesson so we only had time for a quick game of the action maker afterwards which of course we all enjoyed although we were quite tired by the end of it!
We made use of the year fours to do some French with us. We had conversations where we introduced ourselves and said how we were feeling. We are getting good at this now!
In literacy we were very busy this week. We wrote some brilliant non-fiction posters about dinosaurs, some of which are displayed in the classroom. The idea is that they will all be put into a book after we take the display down. We have really enjoyed finding out about dinosaurs.
Also this week we wrote our 'writing journey' stories which were inspired by dinosaurs. These stories  will be available to see at our book look on the 7th November.
Well done to Elliott for being this weeks worker of the week and to Molly R for being awarded our spelling trophy for October.

Week ending 7/10/11

Measuring fun!!!

We measured a huge rectangle in the playground. The length was 6m and the width was 3.5m.

No they were not making a hat they were measuring heads!

We measured lots of different books.

This week the children have been busy learning and rehearsing their harvest poems. Their homework is to learn more words as they will be taking part in a year group poem and then a group/paired or individual poem also.

In numeracy we have had lots of fun learning about measurement. There were lots of practical opportunities to practise measuring so we should all be experts now!

In literacy we were very excited to begin a new block of work on dinosaurs. We will be creating non-fiction posters which answer our own questions about dinosaurs. Thank you to those people who sent in books for us to use. We will be continuing with this project until after half term so would be glad to keep them for a little while.

In ICT we are busy typing up our modern versions of traditional stories. We will get some on the website soon. They are definitely worth a read!!

In French we have been working hard at learning greetings and have moved on to 'Ca va?' and responding to say how we are feeling.

We enoyed exploring ice in science this week. We looked at a number of different sized lumps of ice and watched what happened over the day. We will be carrying out investigations with ice soon.

Well done to Oliver Hunt for being pupil of the week last week and this week to Sydney.

For your information, if you go to www.feedmyinbox.com you can enter our blog details and receive an automatic message when we update it. We do try and do so every week but this isn't always possible so it may save you some time?

Week ending 23/9/11

One of the highlights of our week has to have been the police visit on Wednesday. They came to talk to us about keeping safe and in particular 'stranger danger'. PC Forrester showed us some of his equipment and we got to try on his jacket which was great fun, even Mrs Marks and Mrs Sibley had a go! They told us what to do if ever we needed to call the police and said how important it is for us to know our own addresses and phone numbers.

Also this week we ventured down to the green to look at trees. We were hoping to go further but it was miserable weather. We are going to be focusing on trees for our harvest celebration so look out for some tree poems soon!

In French this week we have been working on greetings and are getting far more confident at counting to 10. We have been playing lots of games to help us learn.

In dance we have been making warm up dances to some lively music. We will be teaching our dances to eachother over the term.

In science this week we have been finding out about how materials change and we had a practical lesson on Wednesday where we got to test lots of materials. A favourite was definitely the play dough!

There is a good programme on the internet which the children were shown which they will get chance to go on in school but lots were keen to have the address, so if you google bbc science clips characteristics of materials that should take you to it. It is quite a tricky programme but as we progress through our topic we will understand it better!

Well done to Otto this week for being worker of the week. He is a good listener and good at getting on with his work.

Also well done to Josh Morgan for getting the spelling trophy for September for making good progress with his spellings.

Sunday 18th September 2011

Class 2's focus this week has been on making a start with our Victorian topic work. The children have worked hard on creating Victorian timelines and finding out more about Queen Victoria. Did you know that she has been the longest reigning British monarch and was on the throne for 63 years!! Ask your children what else they know about her!!

This weeks homework was to linked to our topic by finding out more about your Victorian ancestors! Thankyou to those who have brought in photos of their ancestors, we would welcome any more to copy and add to our display.

Congratulations to Kim who is our Pupil of the Week. She has been particularly helpful around the class and assisted the year 2 children feel very welcome to Class 2. Thank you Kim!



A quick reminder that swimming begins this Thursday. The children will end the day at the usual time providing that we don't get too held up at the Cowcombe Hill roadworks.

First week back

We have only been back a week but I am sure everyone would agree it seems like much longer already! We started the week with no tears - well done everyone!!! Welcome to our eight new year twos who have settled in very well.
On Monday we had a busy but relaxed day. We wrote about our holidays, decorated hot air balloons for our porch with things we like and bright colours and we set up our class rules which are;
* We are nice to each other.
* We look after school property and each others.
* We don't talk when someone else is.
* We work hard and we don't waste time.
* We move around safely.
These are displayed in our classroom and will be reviewed regularly. Everyone signed them to say they agree to follow them.
Also this week we have started some French. Our aim is that everyone will be able to count to ten fluently soon! Some children can do this already and will be going further and helping others as well as having a go at some French maths. Speaking of maths, we had lots of fun on Friday doing maths with sweets. We discovered it was very hard to estimate the number of sweets in a pack and explored lots of ways of counting.
We ended the week with some well earned golden time, see pictures below.
Next week (on Tuesday) we will be having class elections to elect two class reps from each year group to be on the school council. On Monday the children will have chance to speak to the class about why they would make a good class rep (if they want to)...
Thanks to everyone who attended the parent's meeting on Wednesday. Hopefully you found it useful. The majority of information was on our newsletter for those who couldn't make it. One thing to note was that the lucky child who gets Patch (our class dog) will also be bringing our class hand towels home on a Friday to be washed! We hope this is acceptable to everyone.
Well done to Joshua Wilson for being awarded our first star pupil of the week! Although, everyone has been working very hard and has made a positive start to the year which is brilliant.


Sweet maths...




Golden time

The girls enjoy our new 'writing table'.

Last few weeks of term!

Apologies for not writing a blog for a while. There was a technical problem and also things have been manic! This blog will hopefully provide an update on our last few weeks of term.
We said goodbye to Miss Redfearn on the 28th of June. She has now completed her training and will be starting work at a school in Bristol in September. We celebrated her leaving with a party. Thank you to everyone for your contributions of party food after a last minute request. We ended up having quite a feast! We really enjoyed having Miss Redfearn work with us and she planned lots of exciting things for us to do. We made cress heads on the last day which were amazing and another highlight was our maths trail around the village. We also made a French fruit salad (with instructions being given in French) and had a poetry cafe where we got to read out some star poems which we had written.
On the 4th of July we had a visit from a dog warden as part of a campaign called 'Check B4 U pet' aimed at preventing incidents of biting from dogs. We designed posters with a key message from this which was to stand like a tree if approached by an unfamiliar dog. 5 of the best entries were sent to Ebley Mill. Joshua R, Finn, Sophie, Alfie and Emily were the ones chosen, well done to them! Another key message was to ask the owner of a dog before going to stroke it.
We have been really busy working on our school production. Our cow and Ishmaelite dances were fantastic and a very entertaining part of the production. Some of us weren't terribly happy about being cows, especially fat ones but there is no doubt that we all did a brilliant job!!!
We finished our R.E work on Judaism by tasting some of the ingredients from the Seder meal eaten by the Jews at the festival of Passover. The matzvah bread was the most popular and Oliver and Joshie made some 'charoset' which was interesting (nuts, cooking apples, fruit juice and cinnamon).
So much has happened it is impossible to write about it all. I think it is safe to say we have all had an enjoyable end of term! The Y3/4 will change classes next year and we hope they have lots of happy memories of class two. We wish them well. Have a very happy holiday everyone!
P.S The Y2 have been set a homework - diary challenge. This is meant to be a bit of fun and there will be prizes in September for effort, presentation and punctuation. A special book was issued for this task so please look out for it if you haven't seen it already!

Maths Trail

There were two highlights this week with Dads in school on Thursday morning and our maths trail around the village on Tuesday afternoon. Luckily the sun shone for us on Tuesday and we went off in small groups measuring, code cracking, adding and multiplying (and lots more) to find our way around the village and back to school.
Huge thanks to Miss Redfearn for organising this. Fun was had by all and it was a brilliant opportunity to work on our maths skills. Thanks also to all the parents who came with us. We couldn't have done it without your support.
Also this week we had a go at making our own Torah scrolls in R.E. Although we had a good try at writing in Hebrew we concluded it was very tricky! We also had a go using a quill which was interesting...
Next week we are going to be starting our D.T topic on vehicles and packaging so we need to remember lots of boxes and tights for our science!!!

Our Synagogue and PYO Farm Trip

We had an amazing time picking strawberries and the sun came out for us too! Thank you very much to the ESA for paying for the yummy strawberries, luckily they were a favourite with everyone.
Farmer Max...


Read some extracts from our recounts about the Synagogue below.

On Tuesday we went to Cheltenham Synagogue. First we had to separate into boys and girls and we went in through different doors to different sides of the room! Next a man called Michael talked to us about the Torahs, then he opened the Ark (pictured above) and showed us the Torahs, they were very beautiful. By Rosie

First we went on the coach. When we were there we saw a man who showed us the Ark, it was fun. He told us about the Synagogue and we saw a very small scroll. He told us lots of information and the seats were a bit uncomfortable. By Thomas

There were prayers on the wall. I also found the Ark where they keep the scrolls. Boys and girls went in separate doors. By Joshua W

At the Synagogue there was a man and a lady. The man was called Michael and the lady was called Miriam. At a service if there was not enough room the men would sit on both sides and the ladies would sit upstairs. Michael showed us the ark and he had to pull the curtain. Miriam said all about what Jews do at home. She told us about Jewish festivals. Michael had a kippah and a prayer shawl. We all looked at and touched some Jewish artefacts. In the Ark there were Torah scrolls and they were handwritten! By Joshua R

Week beginning 9/5

As usual we have had yet another busy week. We have had a mixed reaction to our SATs but they are done now and the information from them will be useful to the teachers to support future learning.
As well as carrying out lots of tasks in maths and literacy we have had an exciting visit to see what is growing at our local allotment. Luckily the sun shone for us. We caught up with some of class one working on their patch which was nice and encountered a few scarecrows too! See the pictures above for some of the things we found.
In French this week we had conversations with each other which went very well, Miss Redfearn is a French specialist so is passing on some useful tips!
In PSHCE we started to learn about head lice and we are hoping to produce information leaflets over the next month. We were all fascinated by this subject and some of us have a better knowledge than others!
In R.E we began our topic on Judaism and have identified all the things we would like to learn. It's a good job we are off to visit a synagogue soon as that will answer many of our questions and seeing things in real life is much better than reading about them. We look forward to a more normal week next week!!!
HELP REQUEST: We are in need of (old) tights to make some cress heads in science. If anyone has any to spare please send them in. Thanks

Last Week of Term

Despite it being the end of term we have had an incredibly busy week. We have spent a great deal of time writing Viking sagas which are amazing but some of us were still writing them up on Friday!!! Some of us typed them up but others wrote them into a special book. They are incredibly exciting stories and we hope to read some to class 3 after Easter and some will go on our class page of the website soon.
Also this week we had a go at making a device using a circuit (pictures above). We began this on Monday and needed Wednesday to continue with it, in fact we actually voted to continue working on this rather than make Easter cards! Luckily we were able to make Easter cards on Friday!!! There were some fantastic devices made and lots of us actually want a bit more time so we may have another session after Easter to give everyone the chance to finish off! Olivia and Joshua W made a super lighthouse. Oliver and Joshua R made a very impressive game which buzzed if you got the answer wrong and lit up if it was correct and Emily and Holly made a warning mat!
On Tuesday this week Mrs Ayling took us for P.E and we worked on a wake and shake dance which was good fun.
Miss Redfearn spent four days with us this week and will be in full time after Easter until the end of June.
Also this week we did a brilliant assembly to end our history topic. Next term we start to find out about our local area!
Have a very Happy Easter everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week beginning 14/3/11

On Tuesday this week we said goodbye to Miss Gobey our student who had been coming in two days a week since September. She has promised she will come back and visit and kindly handed out some sweets at the end of the day plus there are still more for another day!
We have decided to work on the theme of circles in dance this half term and are using some Indian music. We are really getting into this and have found lots of ways of making circles with our bodies. Next weeks lesson takes inspiration from a dream catcher so if anyone has one they wouldn't mind sending in for us to see that would be much appreciated!
On Wednesday afternoon we had fun making our own circuits and seeing what what we could find out... See the photos above. The Y4 got to go and be part of the audience for class 3 at the village hall so they missed this exciting lesson but there will be plenty of opportunities for them to catch up as we will be doing lots more exploring of circuits, it's great fun!
In literacy we have been writing reports on bicycles. On Monday we had a go in pairs at an oral report which was brilliant. We have some budding news reporters amongst us.

Spaghetti Week

We wanted to know how much spaghetti we could eat in a minute!


We have had an exciting start to the half term with a focus on spaghetti. Before half term we compiled an enormous list of questions we wanted to ask about spaghetti. We started this week with a day in class 3 to enable us to use the computers for our research. We worked in pairs to answer some of the questions. There were some we couldn't answer and some which we weren't sure of, for example do wolves really eat spaghetti with avocado???
On Tuesday we actually made spaghetti and we had the chance to eat it for lunch but only 11 of us did. Most of us at least tried it! In the afternoon we went to the village hall and measured how long it was in spaghetti and then played a spaghetti game!
On Wednesday we investigated how many pieces of spaghetti there were in a pack and how much would fit in various containers. We then had a fantastic time making sculptures. We started with clay or a box/container and added spaghetti! We created some very interesting pieces...Finn's eagle was particularly impressive.
On Thursday and Friday we finished things off and then presented all the information we had learnt during the week.
Also this week we met Miss Redfearn, a PGCE student who will be working with us this term and next.

Wk beginning 7/2/11 in C2

Writing our songs and we got to perform them too...
Our trip!



We have had a really fun week with Sing up day on Wednesday and then our trip to the Roman Baths and our Roman feast. The week started quite normally although we did have Mrs Green for maths on Tuesday which made a nice change!
Sing up day on Wednesday was fantastic! We started off learning a whole school song in assembly and then back in class we learnt a class song called Viking Rock. It was amazing and everyone liked it. We had to spend quite a long time practising it though as it was quite tricky! We also found time to write our own songs for different times of the day. Read a couple of them below! We are going to put them all in a book and sing them during the day...
Break Time by Immy and Rosie
Time for break
Time for break
Time to pack away
And have a nice play.
Put your coats on and go outside.
That's how we have our break.

Lunch Time by Jim and Alec
Lunch time, lunch time
Yes, it's lunch time
Food and drink
Apple and banana, yes banana.
Lunch time, it's lunch time.

On Thursday we went to the Roman Baths and had a super day. The weather wasn't brilliant but we were under cover most of the time so it didn't matter! There was so much to see and do. We got to dress up as Romans, have a go writling on a wax tablet with a stylus (Roman pen) and
look at real Roman artefacts. It was a really enjoyable day and we learnt so much.