English

Geography, English and Art - Amazon Explorers! (Year 5 - Autumn 1)

Across our first half term, Year 5 have thoroughly researched the Amazon Rainforest across a range of subjects. In English, we have been inspired by Deadly 60 and researched deadly animals that can be found in the Amazon Rainforest, presenting this information in the format of fact files. We have also been inspired by Henri Rousseau, a French artist who painted a series of masterpieces depicting tropical rainforests, creating collages inspired by his works with Mrs Coldman.

What an exciting topic - through independent and structured research, we have developed our knowledge of the Amazon Rainforest using a cross-curricular approach to learning. Feel free to ask us about the Amazon, we're sure to impress with our brilliant information!

Geography and English - Save the Rainforest! (Year 5 - Autumn 1)

This half term, Year 5 have concluded their learning on the Amazon Rainforest by researching the threats it faces, such as deforestation. Even though we understand the dangers it poses, we investigated a range of reasons why people still support it, balancing these ideas with why people do not support deforestation. We presented our findings as a balanced argument, considering both arguments for and against the subject, before ultimately making a decision as to whether we should or should not support it.

To develop our communication and public speaking skills, we then had a class debate as to whether we should or should not support deforestation. Each pupil argued their points eloquently and with confidence - it was amazing to see how well everyone participated in the lesson and worked as a team.

English - Acrostic and Blackout Poetry (Year 5 - Autumn 1)

In our English lessons this half term, Year 5 have been exploring the poetry and spells from The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. We have created blackout poetry using hidden spells, and found lost words of our own along our journey of writing.

Year 5 have responded to the spells found, and used these to produce our own poetry inspired by The Lost Words. What words will you seek, find and speak?

We are thoroughly enjoying our class text 'The Firework-Makers Daughter' by Philip Pullman. It is a wonderful adventure story, bursting with tension and excitement. Inspired by this, we have written diary entries form Lila's point of view. Read about how she ventured bravely through the jungle, fought off pirates and came face to face with a tiger. We have also written powerful character descriptions of 'Razvani the Fire-Fiend'. We have made excellent use of the features of the different styles of writing and we are very pleased with our final pieces.
 

In English, Year 5 have been creating their own stories designed to build suspense. We began by reading a story that builds suspense, analysing the features they have used to create a tense atmosphere, such as the use of figurative language and descriptions of setting. We thoroughly enjoyed expanding our vocabulary to elevate our writing, all while developing techniques to improve our writing and build suspense.

Have a read of some of our spine-chilling stories above...

We have really enjoyed learning about the features and structure of explanation texts. We have used these successfully when writing our own explanations about how to use the 'The Air Powered Snow Maker'. We hope that you enjoy them!

We enjoyed reading a range of poems written by Charles Causley. We identified the themes and conventions and shared our personal opinions. We analysed a number of witness statements and annotated the features used.  

Our witness statements are inspired by the poem 'My Mother Saw a Dancing Bear' by Charles Causley. We made good use of the appropriate features and enjoyed using a wide range of fronted adverbials, similes and expanded noun phrases. We hope that you enjoy reading our writing!
 

Inspired by our Geography topic on rivers, we carried out research and found out lots of amazing facts. We investigated the features of non-chronological reports and used our findings to write our own examples.  We hope that you enjoy them!

Year 5 - English and History: Meet the Maya!

In our History lessons, we have learned about the day-to-day lives of the Maya. We explored the areas they lived in, what their empires were like and how they lived everyday! We then applied this knowledge in our English lessons to write a diary entry from the perspective of a Mayan child. We hope you learn as much as we did!

Celebrating Our Writing in Year 2 - January '23

This half term, Year 2 were inspired to write their own 'World's Worst Children' stories after reading an array of fun stories by David Walliams. We used focussed vocabulary we explored within the text, in order to create our own very mischievous characters. We used a range of sentence types to share the stories of our own exciting characters. What amazing young authors you are Year 2! 

Year 5 - English and Geography: Save the Rainforest!

In English, we have been exploring the use of formal letters to persuade. We began by exploring some key features of formal letters to persuade, then linking our new knowledge to our Geography lessons, where we discussed ways in which we can prevent deforestation. This helped to show us the ways we can save our planet - all while becoming brilliant writers too!

Year 6 have completed their own amazing balanced arguments for the following question: Should National Service be reintroduced?

With a purpose to discuss, Year 6 have researched and gathered imaginative vocabulary in order to create their balanced arguments. Take a look at their incredible work above and consider...what conclusion to do you come to after reading their arguments?

Amazing work Year 6!

Year 2 took part in a walk of our local area to visit Cross Flatts Park. Whilst at the park, we used all of our senses to develop expanded noun phrase for the autumnal things we could see around us. Together, we explored some amazing adjectives to describe the scene around us. This experience will really help us when we begin to write our own setting descriptions over the next couple of weeks. 

Just a snapshot of some of the super noun phrases Year 2 thought of are:

"Crunchy, golden leaves"

"Mossy, ancient tree trunk"
"Cold wind softly blowing through the gigantic, bare trees"

"Twisting, brown branches"

What amazing work Year 2! 

As part of our History topic, we imagined that we were passengers on the Empire Windrush, destined for a new life in the Britain.  We wrote farewell letters to our families explaining our reasons for leaving and included what we were looking forward to. We hope that you enjoy reading them!
 

Leeds Children’s Mayor (LCM) is an annual citizenship project for primary schools that is now entering its 19th year. Run in partnership between the Democratic Services and Voice, Influence and Change Team at Leeds City Council, the project aims to actively engage children in the process of democracy and promote an understanding of their rights and responsibilities. Year 5 children are asked to write a short manifesto about how they would make Leeds a better city for other children, starting with the following line:

“If I were Children’s Mayor of Leeds I would…”

As a class, we voted for our favourite manifesto which become St Anthony's candidate for the year. A panel of children and young people helped to shortlist them down to a final 12 yesterday, selecting who to move forward to the citywide election and voting stage. We are thrilled that our school entry has made it into the final 12! Let campaigning begin... 

Year 5 love a writing competition and we found the perfect opportunity to showcase our writing skills! The Merrion Centre launched their 'Write a Happy Rhyme - Win a Great Time!' competition and we jumped at the opportunity! To enter, we wrote poems on the theme of 'Happiness and Wellbeing'.

This half term, Year 6 have been studying Macbeth. We have all enjoyed taking it in turns to read as the different characters and have had some outstanding cackling witches in particular! In our writing, we have produced excellent newspaper articles to inform the residents of Glamis of King Duncan’s murder and showcased our understanding of showing shifts in formality by using formal conventions in the description and informal conventions in the quotations used. Finally, we ended the unit by creating poems inspired by the Three Weird Sister’s potions – they are revolting! Have a look above at some of the freeze frames created of the witches…

During Spring 2, Year 6 read BarrowQuest (a non-linear story) and were all hooked by the different challenges the main character (Lin) faced! After we finished this, we created our own Quest Map and were all assigned a different chapter to write. We understood the importance of ensuring each chapter contained a dangerous element that our main character must face as well as showing courage and including a magical element or a puzzle too. Furthermore, we tried hard to include dialogue which advanced the action whilst also using informal conventions within this speech. The final drafts are found in the Year 6 shared area and classroom, come and have a read!

In Year 6, we have all worked incredibly hard to improve our writing this year. We have written a wide range of genres and thought carefully about who our audience is and what the purpose of the text is. Whenever we have started a new genre, we always read an example and annotate the different features as well as conducting research (if it is non-fiction) or reading more examples (if it is fiction). Once we have learnt new grammar and punctuation linked to the genre, we will then complete a first draft. Afterwards, Mrs Nicholson or our writing partners will assess our work and we use green pen to make improvements. Finally, we complete a final draft which could be chosen for display. Have a look at the photographs above of our Quest chapters, Nelson Mandela biographies and Macbeth diary entries…