Slaves for Sale!

Coconut class have experienced the conditions of the Africans in the slave trade, both on the ship and a mock auction.

Before 1788, slaves were packed onto the trade ships. In 1788 the Slaves Reform Act was introduced to reduce deaths on the slave ships. Slaves were generously allocated a set amount of space: men had 6 ft by 1 ft 4", women had 5 ft 10" by 1 ft 4" and children had 5ft by 1 ft 2" of space. Here's how that (roughly) looks:

Men were shackled together, as they were considered a threat, women had a bit more freedom and were not chained together.

Food and water was plentiful on the ships as the loss of a slave would be loss of earnings. However, the slaves were expected to all drink and eat from one bucket, which caused lots of arguments and quickly spread diseases (as they were all sharing from one bucket.)

Once all the slaves had arrived (two/three months of travel - that's longer than you spend at school without a holiday!) on ship they were sold off at auctions, sometimes alongside animals. This was another way to degrade and dehumanise the slaves.

The slaves were inspected - like animals - by prospective owners to check their physical condition.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1... We have blast off!

Year 6 had a fantastic time setting off their water rockets today in science - many thanks to those parental contirbutions of plastic bottles!

Although getting soaked, they had a thrilling time pumping the air into the bottle rockets and watching them whizz away.

Each set of children worked with a different volume of water in their bottle so as to establish which volume of water would project the rocket the furthest length.

We are still crunching the number, however, in these early stages we realised that the rockets with the lesser water travelled the furthest. This is because those with more water are heavier and so found it a struggle to take off. Also, these bottles have less space for air inside; the air being pumped into the bottle causes a build up of pressure, when there is no space left for air, the bottles are projected forward with the release of pressure in the bottle.

Athletics... The big throw.

Coconut and Palm have joined forces. In their PE lesson this week, they started practicing their arm strokes with the athletic throwing equipment.

There were javelins: 

The discus: 

And shot putt (did you know those balls are actually rather heavy!) modelled well by Mrs Johnston:

Well done Year 6, everyone else... Watch out for Sports Day! We are coming for you...

Royal Courts of Justice - Coconut

After weeks of preparing their trail, Coconut class finally went to Royal Courts of Justice to perform their mock trial.

With around 90 courtrooms, the Royal Courts of Justice deals mainly in appeal cases and constructed 120 years ago.

After arriving in our courtroom, the children were able dress up as the characters from the courtroom.

We had a judge...

 A clerk and an usher...

We had barristers and witnesses.

Not forgetting those important people who decide the fate of the defendant, the jury.

After performing their impressive trial, the class got to speak to a Judge's clerk and ask her questions about the careers in the courts, as well as her sharing with the class stories about some of the trials she's been involved with, including Apple vs Samsung.

The trip was topped off with a visit to the costume department, with some if the outfits worn by the members of the courts on display! Can you spot the outfit embroidered with 24 carat gold?!

We then saw this unusual sculpture of Cheif Lord Justice (2000-2005) Harry Woolf, can you tell which everyday household item it is made from?

Tudors

Tudors in year 6, some children have had the opportunity to go with Miss Munday to research information and facts about Henry viii and he's daughter Elizabeth 1. Armed with research the children we eager to create a fact file poster to demonstrate all the fascinating facts they found out!

Did you know many people blackened their teeth in Tudor times? Sugar was an expensive luxury, the people also knew sugar made your teeth black, therefore they blackened their teeth make people think they were wealthy enough to afford sugar!

Name That Symmetry

Did you know that there are several different types of symmetry? Did you also know that symmetry and symmetrical patterns can be found all around us, even in nature! That's exactly what our Year 5s were searching for today. Together with Mrs Stallard, Miss Munday and Miss Reynolds, they teamed up to find different types of symmetry around our school. This was following on from thismweek's learning about line, reflective and rotational symmetry. "I didn't know there were things with rotational symmetry in our school!" said Matthew. Luis exclaimed "it's so clever that things in nature are symmetrical!" Our clever children even found some items with more than one type of symmetry. Great investigating, Year 5!