Count on Us: Year 5 Maths Challenge Afternoon

Yesterday was Year 5's maths challenge afternoon.  We would like to say a big thank you to all of the parents that joined us - we hope you had fun!

Year 5 demonstrated some amazing mathematics skills and fabulous learning behaviours. There were some wonderful reciprocity skills on show, with children working together and helping each other to solve their challenges. The children also used their resourcefulness skills, trying out ideas, exploring possibilities, working methodically and capitalising on each other and their previous Count on Us challenges in order to solve their puzzles. As well as all that, we also saw a bucketload of resilience in all of the games, but particularly when trying to create a square in tangrams - it was tricky, but the children (and some parents) persevered and succeeded. Well done everyone!

The successful team of Elizabeth and her dad!

Year 5/6 Price Waterhouse Cooper Talk

"If you want to be successful, start with the end in mind." Wise words to bear in mind when one considers training a champion sports team, saving money for a large investment, or even preparing our children for a successful future. For that reason, some of our Year 5/6 children were fortunate enough to hear from Varun Sharma, who grew up on Straight Road, and is now an employee of Price Waterhouse Cooper, one of the highest rated graduate recruiters specialising in advising and consulting professional businesses in how to improve and make a profit.

Varun talked to our children about how their learning in class, how the values that we install in our children and the high expectations we have of them can help to build a professional career in the future.

He showed them how writing stories in class helped him to write possible scenarios for advising businesses; how maths lessons help him to now calculate tax and revenue predictions and how a knowledge of the world from Geography lessons helps Varun to figure out the countries that businesses can set up in or that he visits frequently. 

With an informed view of the careers available to them in the future, we ensure that we are preparing our children and setting them up to make educated choices about jobs and paths when they eventually leave school or higher education. Our children can see the end target, and work with us to build a strong foundation to work towards every day at Broadford, thus giving them the best chances possible.

Count On Us: Year 6 Maths Challenge Afternoon

A big thank you to all of the parents that joined us in Year 6 for our maths challenge afternoon. 

Not only did Year 6 do an excellent job of demonstrating the mathematical skills behind tangrams, the 24 game and pentominoes, but they also managed to show fantastic reciprocity in their learning behaviours too. 

Working with their partners (and some willing parents), the children created some technical shapes and helped eachother to master the challenging calculations for the 24 game. 

Parents quoted:

"You realise just how fast their calculations are when they are beating adults to reach a total of 24!" 

"What a fun way to rehearse mathematical skills!" 

Year 5 will be hosting their Count on Us mathematical challenge afternoon next Friday afternoon, 27th November 2015 from 2pm. 

Year 5 multiplication tarsia puzzles

Yesterday, the children in Miss Chau's maths set were applying their multiplication knowledge to 3 different levels of tarsia challenge. 

Harry Vincent, Elm, said 'I find the tarsias challenging but fun because we have to work out the answers to each multiplication sum before we can put the puzzle together'. 

Natalie Towner, Elm, added that 'Creating my own tarsia puzzle was enjoyable because I had to think up my own questions as well as checking that the answers were correct'. 

The children demonstrated impressive levels of resourcefulness by developing their reasoning skills by working out answers methodically and they also sought out connections between the different jigsaw pieces. 

Anti-Bullying Workshop

Last Tuesday, Year 6 took part in the Freshwater Theatre Company Anti-Bullying Workshop. The children started on a quest about what bullying is and the different types of verbal, physical and emotional bullying. The children worked through different role plays and situations and how to respond to a situation.

'Wonderland' performed by The London Symphony Orchestra

We believe in providing opportunities for pupils that widens their experiences.   Year 5 pupils were fortunate enough to be invited to a magical interpretation of 'Wonderland' by the LSO at The Barbican Centre in London.

Classical music and musicians may not play a heavy part in an average day for a 9 year old, so it was fascinating to see their amazement at how lots of people, playing 'lots of different instruments could make such an awesome sound!' Athenkosi, Maple

New experiences and knowledge:

I loved 'Dance of the Paper Umbrella' by Elena Kats-Chernin.  I could listen to it again and again! Holly Turner

"When a musician plucks the strings of their violin, it's called pizzicato."  Jack Silva, Elm

"Harps and pianos are grouped with the percussion instruments, I thought they would be with the strings."  Emma Bloy, Maple

"The sound of a celesta is magical!  In 'Sugar Plum Fairy' and the Harry Potter piece you could really feel the magic because of the celesta."  Ruby, Maple 

Year 5 Spellings

Here are the spellings for this week. The spelling test will be on Friday every week. Please encourage your child to look up definitions of the words as some are trickier than expected. A reminder that children are expected to bring in their spelling book and reading record to school every Friday. 

Move it like the Mayans... Extra pics.

Some extra pictures from the Mayan Ball game afternoon. The children found the competition harder than they initially thought they would!

Remembrance in Acer... A special thanks

A special thank you to Molly and Simona for sharing work that they prepared at home for Remembrance Day. Molly bought in a balloon poppy (it received many compliments throughout the week) that she created after visiting the British Legion. Simona - after reading 'In Flanders Fields' in class- was inspired to create a beautiful piece of artwork at home.

Remembrance in Acer

Last week, the children in Acer put their literacy skills into action when they created poems to commemorate Armistice Day. Inspired by the poem 'In Flanders Fields' they created various poems including Acrostic, Kennings and shape type poems.

Here's how they got on...

Area of leaves

Yesterday afternoon, Acer were working hard in science collecting and finding the area of leaves.

With their mathematical thinking at the ready, the children drew around their leaves onto 1cm squared paper. After counting the number of full squares, the children counted the part squares. Realising that two part squares could make a whole, the kids then halved the number of part squares. With the number of part squares and number of full squares, we added them together to make the are of the leaf. Our maths brains worked out the  equation for the area of the leaf is : F + (P/2) = A.