Hello,

I am Miss James, and I am super excited to be the class teacher of Beech Class this year. We also have two wonderful TA’s, Mrs Slade and Miss Camp who will both be there to support your learning. Whether you’re returning or joining us for the first time, our classroom is a place where everyone is valued, respected, and encouraged to grow-academically, socially and personally. We have a very busy year ahead of us and we hope that you are as excited as we are to get started!

There are some things that you will need to remember this year:

• PE kit: Although we only have PE twice a week, kit needs to be in everyday please, this can be left on their pegs. Please ensure that your PE kit is clearly named.
• As we know the weather in England is unpredictable, please ensure you child has a named jumper and coat in school every day.

• Reading: daily reading at home is strongly encouraged and progress with this will be celebrated in class through the 100 club. Please listen to your child read regularly and record this in the back of their orange Learning Destination (Homework book); please ensure their homework book is sent in every morning. I wonder who will be the first child in Beech class to reach the 100 club?

• Homework: Spellings and maths homework will be set on Monday each week and are due in on Friday. Please encourage and support your children to complete their homework and write sentences with their spelling words. The learning destination book can be used for any other home learning that your children wish to do. They will always be rewarded for this.

Roman Baths trip

Message from Miss Fisher:

This week, I was fortunate enough to go to the Roman Baths with Beech class. Wow, what a day we had! We travelled via train, which was a lovely change from a coach, and even better that we managed to get it free via Platform. Platform are a government funded charity, who are able to offer complimentary travel alongside rail safety education. Sophie and Emily, who came into school to teach Beech class about rail safety last week and who accompanied our train travel to Bath, are both qualified teachers and were amazed by the children’s maturity and manners. The children were able to explain the importance of the yellow line on the platform and how to enter and exit a train safely.

When at the Roman baths, the children enjoyed:

• Dressing up like a Roman in togas and tunics.
• Digging for artefacts like an archaeologist.
• Creating mosaics that you would see in a Roman villa.
• Chatting to a Roman citizen and learning about how far he had travelled to visit the baths and worship the Goddess Minerva Sulis.

It was an amazing, memorable day – thankyou Beech class for inviting me along.

The Romans

In Beech class this term we are learning all about the Romans. Over the October half term, the children worked hard doing some pre learning research where they created their own double page spreads with some fantastic facts and beautiful drawings. We have also been creating our topic front covers where we have drawn a famous amphitheatre that was built during the ancient Roman times called the Colosseum. After we created the intricate outline, we used a black fine liner and water colour paint to add some detail. We think they look amazing! We are really looking forward to learning all about the Romans and visiting the Roman Baths in January!

Term 1 DT project

During term 1, Beech class have been working incredibly hard on designing and making cam toys. Our learning in DT this term has been linked to our guided reading text ‘Song of the Dolphin Boy’ by Elizabeth Laird where problems with sea pollution arise. We have been deepening our learning by looking at how plastic pollution effects our environment and in particular marine life. During our DT lessons, we looked at mechanisms, what they were and how they worked. We then combined all our learning to make some fabulous cam toys that represented sea life living in a polluted ocean.

Two children in Beech class felt inspired created their own dioramas of a scene from our guided reading text.