Autumn Term – The Victorians

Welcome to the Emerald class page. We are looking forward to starting the Autumn term and a new year.

History
Our topic for the Autumn term will be The Victorians. We will be discovering what life was like in Victorian Britain will find out about how the Industrial Revolution changed society and what benefits came from the introduction of the railways. We will have a particular focus on how Crewe changed during this period and how the railways affected the town. We will also learn about what life was like for children during this period and about important historical figures who worked to improve children’s lives. To enrich our learning, we will be visiting Quarry Bank Mill.

English
We will be reading the books ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty and, 'Leon and the Place Between,' by Angela McAllister and Grahame Baker-Smith. ‘Street Child’ links closely to our history topic, The Victorians, and will help the children to understand life for children during this period. In grammar, the children will learn how to improve their descriptions by choosing their nouns and pronouns carefully and adding detail to their nouns to make them more engaging. They will learn about different ways to open their sentences and how to organise paragraphs around a theme. The children will also learn how to use commas and speech marks.

Maths
In our maths work we will be concentrating on Number. We shall spend the first four weeks understanding more about place value in numbers to 10,000. This will include comparing numbers, partitioning them, rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000, and will include looking at Roman numerals. We will then learn more about calculation (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and then look at measuring area. We shall also be assessing which times tables facts we know and work towards learning all our tables to 12 x 12.

Science & Computing
This term the class will be looking at two areas: electricity and sound. In the unit about electricity, the children will learn about common electrical appliances and how to construct simple series circuits. The children will learn about cells, wires, bulbs and buzzers and about the different types of switches. The children will also learn about conductors and insulators and know that metals are very good electrical conductors. In the unit on sound, the children will learn about how sounds are made, associating them with something vibrating and understand how they travel to the ear. They will also learn about what affects pitch and volume.

In Computing, the children will begin to understand selection in computing programs using ‘IF’ and ‘IF/ELSE’ statements. They will explore variables and coordinates in programming. The children will also learn about online safety including phishing, malware, plagiarism and will consider the positive and negative influences of technology on health and the environment.

PE
This term, PE will be led by our sports coaches and will be on Wednesday mornings. The class will also be having swimming lessons on Tuesday afternoons at Nantwich pool.

Art
In Art, we shall first learn about how to create light and dark, shades and tints using paint and mixed media. We will then move onto drawing still-life while thinking about composition and proportion.

Design & Technology
In Design & Technology, we will first learn how to make our own torches, linking this to our Science learning. We will then learn about air resistance and kinetic energy so that we can build our own sling-shot cars.

Music
This year, the children will learn how to play the clarinet and to read musical notation by a Music teacher on Wednesday mornings.

RE
In RE, we shall be exploring some important parables told by Jesus about love and forgiveness and will look at how the Bible is used by Christians today. We shall also look at the Holy Trinity and learn about what different religions believe about God.

Click here to view work from our class.