Spring 2017
Our second Learning Challenge of the year will focus on the Anglo-Saxons. This activity is linked to our local area (having one of the oldest Saxon churches, in Britain, in the village). We will remind ourselves of the terms ‘settlement’ and ‘invasion’ and discuss the names and places created by this civilisation. Religion will play an integral part of our topic and the children will be given the chance to understand the mystery surrounding Sutton Hoo and its Pagan links. We will also look at the story of Beowulf and focus on the myth/ legend.
Food Technology – 
A group of Year 5 children took part in a Food Technology session at Bishop Barrington. When they arrived they were shown into a massive classroom with cookers and fridges. They were please to find out that they would be making pasta salad. Whilst the pasta was cooking they got to work chopping up the salad and grating the cheese. The onions were tricky for some!
The morning was a lot of fun with the children learning how to cook a healthy meal safely.
Autumn 2016
Our first Learning Challenge of the year is to find out who were the Mayans and what have we learnt from them? We will be giving the children opportunities to discuss and predict our ideas from images linked to our topic. We will look for evidence of advanced technology and focus on pyramids and what we can learn from them. The children will also get the chance to make and taste some Mayan drinking chocolate.
Our Science topic will get the children thinking about ‘What is our place in the universe?’ We will look at Earth and Space and how Earth is relative to the Sun. We will also discuss the Earth’s rotation. This topic will be linked to Art and Design where the children will produce paintings using techniques similar to Hundertwasser and paint objects in space.
Chocolate Enterprise – Sarah McAllister came in to work with us on an enterprise activity. We were involved in designing our own chocolate product, brand it and then marketing it. The children had a lovely time being “knee deep in chocolate” as Indiana put it. As well as developing enterprise skills, the day also related to their Learning Challenge work on The Mayans.
Autumn Art – Today we were visited by a professional artist called Suzanne Williams. She showed us examples of other well-known artist’s work, as well as her own master pieces. She explained that our topic for the session was autumn. This was part of our Bishop Auckland Cluster of Schools who were all working together on an Autumn Event.
After being handed some vivid oil pastels we began to explore all the different textures. We started with creating sketches, using different sides and colour then used our imagination to create brilliantly bright patterns. Once the patterns were done we worked as a class to produce a 3D willow structure. The afternoon was a fun for all and we were really inspired to by Mrs Williams. Our class are extremely happy with the artwork we produced.
Bootcamp – Every week year 5 children are treat with a bootcamp session. These session are ran by a man called Andy but we call him ‘Sir’. We have do tasks such as obstacle courses, tug of war, sit ups, press ups and other physical activities. It is a military style session and we a treat just like a soldier. Although it is challenging we also find it fun. We always come away covered in mud and with a smile on our faces.
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An Orrery – In our science lesson we have been learning about space and how planets orbit the moon so we cut out and made an orrery using coloured paper. An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates the positions and motions of the planets and moons. When we made ours we were able to see more clearly how they worked. This was a fun practical lesson which gave us a lot of information about the positioning of planets and moons.
Lifestyle debate – In our English lesson we have been reading a book called ‘George’s secret key to the universe’. Which is about a boy who had neighbours with the smartest computer in the world. George has no technology in his house at all.
We were split into groups and given a chance to debate about different lifestyles and compare the life of George to that of his neighbours. This also helped us to understand that we will most likely live different lifestyles to those around us.
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