Then and Now

This term we are led by our local history focus on place, time and significant people before looking at the United Kingdom and its surrounding seas view next term. We will explore the use of historical language and experience through an amazing trip to the Didcot Railway Museum, how our railway system has changed over the past few decades, including learning about the influence that Isambard Brunel Kingdom has had on our current lives. Then we will consider the impact of the River Thames on our lives whilst celebrating local events and people, linking to Olympics of past and present.

In English, we will enjoy the tales of Mr Toad as portrayed in ‘The Wind of the Willows’ by Kenneth Graeme, linked to our River Thames topic, before moving on to ‘The Night Train’ by Matilda Woods and Penny Neville-Lee, full of real and mythical creatures to inspire our writing.

In science, we our working on the topic of plants, identifying local examples, learning about life cycles and investigating what a plant needs to survive and to continue to grow healthily.

Art merges our local and plant themes, using Georgie O’Keeffe as our inspiration to capture local and traditionally British flowers whilst exploring the use of colour and tone.

We will be inviting parents in to class at the end of term for a parent exhibition of our work, including our paintings. We can't wait to see you!

Please see the class topic web and knowledge organiser below for more detail on what we will be learning this term.

Art inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe

This term the children learnt all about Georgia O’Keeffe, an American artist known for her amazing abstract versions of the subject of her paintings. They looked closely at her work, practised their own skills and then did their own versions, using traditional English and local flowers as their subject.

Didcot trip

Gazelle Class had a great time at the Didcot Railway Museum, learning about why railways and steam trains were introduced, and of course the famous architect and engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was responsible for making the ideas a reality, including designing the trains, tracks, tunnels, bridges and railway stations! You can still see many of them today.

The children experienced different classes of passenger transport, learnt about the different speeds of train and how they produced the steam, and even designed their own bridges and stations in Lego. They were great school ambassadors, had a great time, brought lots of knowledge back to school with them and created a beautiful thank you card from all their memories of the day.

The science of seeds

Linked to our science about plants, the children worked together to sort seeds into groups of their choosing whilst observing all the various sizes, shapes and colours of seeds and exploring the question of why seeds are all so different.

They then got their magnifying panes out and looked closely as they dissected broad beans to see what is inside a seed and what helps it germinate and begin to grow.