Badger Class

Class Teacher – Mr Dakin 

If you would like to see what we are learning across the whole of this term please have a look at our learning pathway below:

Year 4-5 Summer Term Pathway 21-22

If you are interested in the knowledge of our Topic please look at our knowledge organiser below:

Knowledge organiser Class 4 – ‘How green is our planet”

If you would like to see how our learning progresses across the term please have a look at our Topic and Art learning loops below:

Art Learning Loop Summer Term

Topic Learning Loop Summer Term

Our Summer Term Learning – Latest at the Top

Properties of shape and angles – exploring and estimating

Key Stage 2 get to explore in their maths too! Over the last couple of weeks, Badger Class have been exploring angles. We started by creating our own angles and discussing what was the same and what was different between them. We then recapped key vocabulary or acute, obtuse, right angled and reflex angles. To develop we solved problems and had to estimate angles around the classroom using the angle sizes we knew already. Badger Class love having fun with their maths.

Dada – Artwork Group Project

As part of our loop of learning for Art, we have been looking at the art movement of Dada. The movement took old pieces of rubbish that had ‘lost its value’ and then turned it into a piece of art through its meaning, value and heritage – giving it new life. We used rubbish from our lunch boxes to create a group Dada project, wrote a paragraph to explain its significance and then did observational drawings.

Noah’s Ark Zoo Trip – Animals including humans

Owl and Badger class had the most amazing zoo trip. Beautiful weather, amazing animal encounters and education sessions throughout the day. The children were remarkable with their insight, energy and enthusiasm, while at the same time showing how well behaved children from a Bishops Lydeard Church School are. We enjoyed our science workshop ‘food glorious food,’ where we explore the teeth of different animals how that related to their diet. We also met a corn snake and an animal with 14,000 teeth – a giant African land snail. Thank you to all our parents helpers who helped keep us safe, supporting our school, and ensuring the children went in the right direction.

Collective Worship – British Values Parliament Visit

Today, we had a collective worship for KS2 focussed on our British Values. We had a guest speaker who came to tell us about the Houses of Parliament, House of Commons and House of Lords. We looked at how and why laws are made, and how we elect constituents. The children were respectful, listened carefully and asked excellent questions like, ‘How do politicians help homeless people?’ ‘If there was another Covid outbreak what would they do better next time?’ ‘How do people know what laws are made?’ ‘Can parliament help get nurses higher wages?’ ‘What challenges to parliament face and how do they overcome them?’ ‘Do MPs get angry when the don’t get what they want?’ ‘How do they decide how much schools get paid?’

Topic Day – Land-use project

In the afternoon, we spent time on a field use project. We mapped out the school grounds looking at land use. We then created keys, sketched the different terrain and started our next project. We were tasked with redesigning what we would use the school grounds for if we owned it. This was all about the human geography aspects of land use, economy and demand. We talked about how Bishops Lydeard has changed over the years.

Topic Day – Self-watering planters

Badger and Owl class have had a wonderful day in school. We started by talking about environmental factors such as recycling – reduce , reuse, recycle, repair. We made self watering planters to ‘reuse’ waste for a purpose. Badger Class planted vegetables such as beetroot, sweet corn and spinach; Owl Class are having a sunflower growing competition.

Fire safety visit – Somerset Fire and Rescue

A fire and rescue officer came into school to educate our classes on fire safety and prevention. We learnt about how to prevent fires, check our smoke alarms at home regularly and what to do in the event of a fire. The children were highly engaged for the whole lesson and were full of amazing questions and insights. One that seemed to register with the class was, ‘Should we rescue our pets?’ The fire officer told us that we need to gather together, leave together and to never go back inside. He explained that animals hide when they are scared and part of the fireman’s job is to rescue them as well. Once he rescued a gigantic python for a family.

Welcome back

Welcome back from the Easter holidays!! We are ready and over the last 2 weeks have prepared a wealth of lessons activities and learning for our children to discover. Our topic this term is ‘How green is our planet.’ This will draw on Geographical knowledge, links to changes in history and the natural environment. We will be having a Geography day to get the module started. As well as this, we will be going to Noah’s Ark Zoo for a day exploring our Science modules of ‘Animals including humans,’ looking at skeletons and teeth.  If you have any questions, please email the office or look at our learning documents above.

Our Spring Term Learning – Latest at the Top

 Year 4-5 Spring Term Pathway 21-22

DT Learning Loop Spring Term

History Learning Loop Autumn Term

Knowledge organiser Class 4 – ‘Who were the invaders’

Jigsaw – How to stay calm in an emergency

We played a game where person A had to pull and calm face and person B had to pull a frantic face. When I said go the children acted out their responses to a situation. We discussed why a calm response will have a greater and safer impact in an emergency. We then reminded ourselves of the recovery position, when we use it and practised as a class. To finish we looked at a range of scenarios and wrote down our responses in the Jigsaw books.

Science – Magnets

We have been exploring magnets in class. We asked the children what objects and materials they thought were magnetic. They then went and explored recording their data. We wrote it up and discussed key questions. What was a common factor of magnetic materials? Are all metals magnetic? We then went through the teaching of why magnetic behave in this way.

World Book Day – Reading Rivers

The children were asked to complete reading rivers, tracking their reading journey over the years and in school. The results were incredible and such high quality. We presented them to the class at the end of the day.

World Book Day – Reading to Ladybirds

We teamed up with Ladybird class in the afternoon and read them our favourite stories. The children really enjoyed this experience as the showed their reading skills to the Year R/1 class who were very impressed. It have them something to be aspirational about.

World Book Day – Dressing up

To celebrate world book day, Badger class came dressed up as their favourite book character, a famous person from America (our country class choice) or in pyjamas. Didn’t they look great?

Safer Internet Day

This Tuesday was Safer Internet Day. We spend some of the day answering quizzes, discussing online situations and exploring how we can make better choice when we are ‘in the moment’ online. We finished the day by making fortune tellers. On the outside were our favourite apps and in the middle were key questions we thought about, asking people about their online behaviour and choices. Some questions the class came up with include: have you ever been hacked before – tell me more, have you ever experienced cyber bullying, have you ever rage quitted a game, have you ever been asked for personal information, what is your favourite way of using the internet?

 

Science – Equal and Unequal forces

Badger class have been exploring forces. We have been learning key vocabulary of friction, gravity, equal/unequal force, resistance force and thrust. We started by doing the experiment, ‘How does different material change how far a car travels?’ We then looked at how forces affect our every day lives. We threw basket balls around and then explored what forces were impacting the ball in its arch of travel. We drew detail diagrams using force arrows and decided if there were equal or unequal forces involved.

History Day

We had an amazing Viking afternoon in Badger class. To start, we wrote Viking Sagas using the key grammar skills we have been learning in English. Badger class then designed and built shields for an epic battle on the playground. This has been uploaded onto the class Teams page. After our carefully choreographed battle, we came inside and wrote our sagas onto tea-stained parchment, complete with ancient runes. We had a wonderful time being inspired by the Vikings.

 

New Children

Badger Class are really pleased to introduce Shaun and Mollie to our class. Shaun is in year 5 and Mollie is in year 4. They have settled in wonderfully and are enjoying the life and learning of the class.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to the Spring term. As the weather starts to brighten, the class will be learning about the Anglo-Saxon and Viking conflict for the conquest of Britain in our topic ‘Who were the invaders.’ In the picture below and the pathway and loops above you will find out how we will weave this learning into our work over the course of the term.

Our Autumn Term Learning – Latest at the Top

Autumn Term

If you would like to see what we are learning across the whole of this term please have a look at our learning pathway below:

Year 4-5 Autumn Term Pathway 21-22

If you would like to see how our learning progresses across the term please have a look at our Topic and Art learning loops below:

Art Learning Loop Autumn Term

Geography Learning Loop Autumn Term

Realism or Fauvism? – Art

This week Badger class have been exploring the difference between realism and fauvism, modelling our work on the famous artist Matisse. In these pictures you can see Badger class getting out into nature to create landscape compositions. Next week we will be converting those landscapes into the fauvist style.

Welcome back – Check out how our loop of learning has grown

Should we appreciate the importance and beauty of the Qur’an to Muslims? – Religious Education

We have been looking at the 5 pillars of Islam, the rules and impact of the Qur’an for Muslims. In this lesson, we were shown pictures taken from ancient pages of the Qur’an. We discussed and asked: why they were so intricate, why would someone take so much time on it, why should that matter to me and what does this teach me about the Islamic faith. Here are some of our thoughts and pictures.

Fossilisation – Science

In our science lesson we asked the class, ‘Were Dinosaurs Real?’ Then then had a debate arguing both sides of the discussion. We decided dinosaurs were real because we have different types of fossil evidence. We looked at the process of fossilisation by acting it out; using Summer as our dead dinosaur and bean bags for the layers of compressed rock.

Grouping Rocks – Science

We had already learnt the 3 different categories of rocks in the previous lesson – igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. In this lesson we were looking much closer at different rocks and deciding what made them different. We looked at their permeability (do they let water in), durability (how touch they are), and density (how packed with molecules they are). We dunked, sank, scratched and stroked the rocks – here are some pictures to show our experiment.

The Shahadah – Religious Studies

The second pillar of Islam we looked at is the Shahadah. We learnt that every time Muslims pray they say these words, ‘there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’ We played a whisper game to show that when something is whispered we listen very carefully to it. We asked ourselves why Muslims whisper the Shahadah to babies when they are first born.

Key Geographical Vocabulary on World Maps – Geography

As per our loop of learning we started the Geography learning this year with the key vocabulary we need to know. We spent time researching the words on iPads and then labelling a world map which what the word means and where it can be found. To extend the learning we asked children to find cities and countries that are found on those key geographical terms.

Collective Worship – IN THE HALL!!!

We are finally allowed back into the hall in smaller numbers to learn all together. Our focus is on the value of Respect. In these pictures 2 of our pupils are acting out the story of the 2 builders. We talked about how to respect is a sign of wisdom. We learn from people who tell us stories to help us.

Rakkah – Religious Education

This terms RE module is focussed on Islam. Our Big Question is – ‘How do Muslims Submit to God?’ We started by looking at the pillar of prayer. We learnt about how, when and why Muslims pray. We wrote fantastic ideas and thoughts in our RE books and the floor book is worth a look. The pictures show us pretending to pray so that we can better experience how Muslims practise their faith.

English WOW Starter

Our text this Talk for Writing module is a Warning Tale. We did this type of text in Year 2. A warning tale is when a character is told not to do something but they do it anyway. Our text is called the Canal. To get Badger class motivated by the text we created our own dangerous area where we had to travel around. We used the hall and gym equipment to create a ‘Dangerous Jungle.’ Here are some photos of the children enjoying the moment

Badger Class 2020 – 2021

Badger Class 2019 – 2020

Badger Class 2018 – 2019

Badger Class 2017 – 2018