English
This term Elm studied the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank as part of their learning about World War II in Europe and Hitler’s relentless persecution of Jews.
Not much older than themselves, Elm observed how Anne’s life changed, from happy middle-class girl whose preoccupations were friends and boys, to the mature and reflective person who pondered the meaning of life and concluded that ‘in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.’
The class reflected upon and wrote about the resilience of human nature under the most dire and frightening circumstances, as demonstrated by the residents of the Annex. At the same time, they observed the petty arguments that broke out among the same group of people forced into such close proximity with one another with no respite, while the ‘hiders’ risked their lives each day to protect them.
Elm class learnt a poem this year called Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson. It is about the driving force of hope that burns in human beings, even when life is at its bleakest:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
The courage, resilience and hope for the future expressed by Anne Frank through her diary entries is testimony to the power of hope.
French
Mathematics
In Geometry and measures, Elm worked on identifying and constructing congruent triangles, and constructed similar shapes by enlargement, with and without coordinate grid. In Statistics , the children constructed and interpreted different tables, charts, and diagrams, including frequency tables, stem and leaf diagrams and pie charts. In Algebra,, Elms worked on solving Formulae problems and linked to our Young Entrepreneurs project, constructed and solved real life problems while calculating profit, expenses and interest rate.
Young Entrepreneurs Project – Business project
A business is more than just a product or a service. Behind every item that we buy, every service that we use, there is a story. Running a business involves many skills – creativity, leadership, team work, communication, budgeting, planning, design, customer-awareness and many more. During this unit, children learnt these vital business skills, as they embarked on their business journey. The children were encouraged to take risks, be independent and realise that the hard work that goes into planning and setting up a business pays off.
The children engaged in team activities to create their business plan, research the market, practice pricing and budgeting and design logos and slogans. Four teams created their own stylish leaflets and implement strategies to increase their profit.
We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience. – John Dewey
Like all serious business people, Elm and Oak Young Entrepreneurs met to reflect upon the performance of their respective business projects at the Summer Fete. Their ‘project retrospectives’ were a moment to think about:
· What they had planned to do
· What actually happened
· Why it happened
· What they would do next time
· What they learnt
· How they can improve
Ginormous THANK YOU to all our customers for supporting our business venture ! We would not have been able to do it without you!
Trip to Accrocamp St.Germain en Laye
Oak and Elm visited Parc Accrocamp, a tree climbing adventure park located in the forest around Saint Germain-en-Laye.
This event took place to celebrate the achievements of our Young Entrepreneurs who, as you know, recently devised, planned, acquired bank loans for and ran businesses, the proceeds of which have covered the cost of this well-deserved class activity.
The tree climbing activities will see the children discovered a variety of courses, including rope bridges, zip lines and scramble nets, high up in the trees (safely secured in harnesses, of course).
Science
This term, Elm class learnt about cells and the reproduction. The children focused their learning at looking closely at the functions of the cell wall, cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, vacuole, mitochondria and chloroplasts. They did this by learning how to observe, interpret and record cell structure using a light microscope. From this the class were asked to observe and record the similarities and differences between plant and animal cells, doing this by taking a close look at the structural adaptations of some unicellular organisms.
Once they had collected their data the Elm class were asked to present their findings to their peers. They did this by creating their own presentations as well as setting themselves their own success criteria to achieve this task.
History
This term was all about World War II and as well as learning about the war itself the focus was about how and why it happened. Our research led us back to the outcome of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles.
Elm learnt about the punishing terms of the treaty that were intended to crush Germany but in doing so sparked a nationalist backlash that unleashed Hitler. They learnt about the attitudes and goals of the main parties responsible for imposing the terms: France, the U.S. and Britain.
The class learnt about the outbreak of WW2 and the German occupation of Europe. To reverse German expansion the allies needed a presence in Europe and the beaches of Normandy were chosen as the entry point. Both Oak and Elm learnt about Operation Overlord and took a trip to Normandy to see for themselves some key sites of the D-Day landings, with a visit to Omaha Beach, the Pointe du Hoc and the American Cemetery. The also visited the Overlord Museum dedicated to the memory of this key event in WW2 and full of fascinating military equipment and memorabilia.
Geography
This term Elm learnt about coastlines and how they are constantly changing and being worn away, principally by the power of waves.
The class learnt about what causes waves and how they shape the coast.
They learnt the geographical terms to describe the processes of coastal change: erode, transport, deposit, longshore drift.
The learnt about the landforms created by waves and how to define and recognise them: beaches, bays, headlands, caves, arches, stacks, wave-cut platforms, spits.
They also looked at some of the reasons why the coastline in the UK is eroding fast, with a particular focus on the village of Happisburgh on the east coast, where the sea is gradually taking the ground from under people’s homes. They researched the different kinds of coastal defences that are available as part of ongoing coastal management of the land-sea boundary.
ICT
This closing term, Elms used Colab or ‘Colaboratory’ from Google, it allowed students to write and execute Python. The students worked in an introductory project to learn the correct format to input string variables into Python. They came up with their own ideas for menus (starter-main-desert) and chose three options to offer each day, some of them added drinks to their menus. Here is an example of one of the student’s work:
Students learned how to use Canva (website used to create professional designs) and spent their last term days working in the Summer fête posters. Here are examples of their work:
Elms showed their ICT skills by learning how to use a new platform and finding the solutions to the everyday challenges that each lesson brought. Well done Elms!
Spanish
This last term, Elms developed their Spanish skills by learning about infinitive verbs, identifying them from a text and being able to conjugate those verbs in present tense.
They were able to find the lyrics of two popular songs in Latin America (Color Esperanza and La Copa de la Vida) by choosing from a list of words. They found the meaning of those words and were able to sing the songs out loud. They found out that some names of Sports in Spanish and English are almost the same or quite similar and reviewed the vocabulary related to these Sports plus some important information. They were able to read and answer related questions from a text. Buen trabajo Elms!
Sports Day
