We are now officially an Eco-Ecole. We were awarded this status in recognition of our pursuit of ecological practices and for involving our pupils in projects that promote the values of sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Our projects include the E-Baobab plastic sculpture in the playground, built to raise awareness of plastic waste. The children are conscious of the need to conserve energy and have made posters encouraging the saving of water and electricity; they recycle paper whenever possible and use old paper, plastic and other materials in Art and Design Technology projects.
Built our E-Baobab tree,
And have earned “Eco-School” label.
Will hang our flag up high,
It will fly in the wind but we will fix the pole well, will make it quite stable.
Behaved well enough,
And did not get in detention.
Visited Science Museum,
and saw many inventions.
And then went kayaking,
Did put our oars in the water,
There was no need to worry, mums,
We did not lose your daughters.
…boys came back safe as well.
Prepared for the Summer Fête,
And left important messages on the wall.
Summer is here,
Where is my good friend? I am ready to play ball.
In Literacy
This term Oak has been reading the classic novel Stig of the Dump by Clive King, about a young boy who meets a caveman when playing near a dump near the home of his grandparents. Written in 1963, the book is relevant today in its celebration of recycling, with Stig making ingenious use of the items he finds in the dump to furnish his den in the chalk pit, and inspiring Barney to do the same.
We looked at the use of dialogue, and then wrote our own, expanding on scenes in the book.
Oak also worked on general writing development, expanding vocabulary and their range of tenses, and using a wider variety of punctuation, including speech marks when writing dialogue.
In History and Geography
The theme of Young Entrepreneurs led Oak to look back at the development of trade through the ages, with a focus on the ancient Silk Road. The class looked at the great cities that lined the route and the products that were traded, from East to West (silk, tea, dyes) and from West to East (horses, glassware, the grapevine and grapes). They chose cities to research and prepared brief presentations of the key information.
In Geography, Oak researched the extreme landscape of the route. They used atlases to locate the great mountain ranges and deserts that traders had to cross and plotted them onto maps.
“Young entrepreneurs”
We have learnt:
- how to create a product or service which serves people’s needs and wants
- how to persuade investors to finance calculated start-up costs
- how to cooperate as a team in planning, production and sales
- how to create advertisements
- how to sell our products
The Business Process:
- We got our idea
- We turned it into a plan
- We finalised our details and got a plan ready for the bank
- We showed the plan to the bank hoping that they would like it and invest in our business
- We made our products using the loan money the bank gave us
Calculated my expenses,
and then my profit.
Did a lot of work to sell my product,
Now I am a young entrepreneur, young businessman boffin.
What are my expenses?
And what is my interest rate?
Worked closely with my friend,
He is my business mate.
Polaroid pictures and hand-made flowers,
Mint tea and beautiful jewellery,
And waterless carwash,
Oh yes, we have the business superpower.
Sock puppets entertaining games,
And school logo caps,
Those tunes played on the piano,
I am ready to run laps.
Business card and beautifully made leaflet,
And then Excel spreadsheet.
I am proud of my business,
It is not a secret.
I‘ve learnt new things,
Know what worked well,
And what I would do differently,
Next time I will open my business, I will do it skilfully.
ICT
This term we focused on the different software and programmes that can be used to run our own businesses, in other words, on being authentic entrepreneurs.
Unfortunately, we are living through difficult times caused by a virus, in which people who are running enterprises have had to come up with new ideas and strategies to avoid BANKRUPTCY.
At FISP we want to provide real learning experiences that can be applied and used in the real world. For this reason, our pupils gained experience in what it is to be an entrepreneur in this complex context.
First, they familiarised themselves with Excel by making arrays, tables, charts, lists and graphs. Then they applied their knowledge of Excel software to solve some daily business problems (income, expenses, profits).
Finally, Oak class undertook a creative project called “My trip to the Olympics”, which involved selecting, using, and combining multiple applications, analysing data and presenting their findings.
After thinking about the business that they wanted to run, they designed a logo using their computer skills. Below are some examples:
Furthermore, they designed a business card, where they added their name, title, email, website, address and phone number.
Oak class took care of every single detail of their business card, because this is the first exposure and overall image given of their business!
Finally, they used their understanding of Excel to identify, gather, input and edit data into a spreadsheet.
Spanish
Oak class has been building on their language skills by doing presentations, playing games, listening and writing, including exercises to improve their Spanish grammar.
We introduced a new section to our learning called Spanish survival, where students had to deal with daily situations in Spanish: for example, going to a restaurant, asking the price of items and ordering food in a restaurant.
Furthermore, we used a range of different teaching approaches. As seen below,
Oaks , are doing a short Spanish lesson focused on the verb To be (Verbo Ser o Estar).
Our pupils loved playing, as well as using new technologies; for this reason Kahoot is the perfect tool for learning by playing with computers.
We used kahoot to assess students’ vocabulary in Spanish, such as food, sports, parts of the house, classroom objects, family members, and so on.
“Promenade in Vétheuil“
Went kayaking in Vétheuil,
And it was all quite pretty,
We were so happy to escape,
from the noise of the big city.
We saw waterlilies,
And free flying birds.
if only you were there to hear that music,
And nature’s beautiful words.
Claude Monet was here once,
And painted 200 paintings.
It is rather beautiful here,
And Oaks and Elms do concur , it is quite amazing(s).
Sports Day
… summer
I then received my certificate,
Because I’ve achieved so much this year.
I have definitely matured,
I have learnt from my mistakes, it is quite clear.
I am ready for summer,
See you soon friends.
We’ll enjoy our holiday,
And will meet again in September, just as our summer ends.
To those of you now leaving us,
It’s sad for me to say goodbye.
For those who’ll jump from Oak to Elm,
I’m sure you’ll all climb very high.
So thanks Roger and Veronika,
Thanks Lois, Storm and Josefine.
Thank you for a lovely year,
And, oh my, what a year it’s been.
