• Language

Northgate Primary School

Northgate Primary School

Explorers class Archive 2022/23

Welcome

Hello there.

My name is Richard Coath and I would like to welcome you to the Explorers class page on our website. I am the class teacher and, alongside Mrs Tina Priestman our Higher Level Teaching Assistant and Miss Chloe Turner our Early Years apprentice, we make up the Explorers class team. 

We are a Reception class and we love learning.

 Class information

We are very excited about our school and the children have settled in amazingly well. All the information about life in Explorers class can be found on the class newsletters below. 

Our Summer newsletter is here.    

We also have a curriculum overview to explain our learning goals this term. 

Summer A can be found here

We also have a Knowledge Organiser which explains what our learning will be over the next term. This can be found below. Please feel free to share this with your child. 

Summer A Knowledge Organiser

Spring Term 2023

 

Court farm

We had a great visit to Court Farm. We got to meet Farmer Ed and he took us around the farm. We saw some special Valais Black nose sheep from Switzerland, Ruby Red Devon cattle, Gloucester Old Spot pigs, Nubian Goats and two donkeys called Dan and Rusty. We watched Jodi the cow being milked and fed some very hungry lambs. All in all we had a great day. 

 British Science Week

During British Science week this year, we talked about connections. We were set two tasks. One was to create our class paperchain which meant we were all connected together. Our second task was to work as teams to create boats to deliver a message to keep us connected. We then checked if our boats could float.

On Friday we were lucky to have a Zoom chat with Dr Rob Jackson from Birmingham University who is a Professor in Tree Diseases. He told us all about his job and how important it is to look after trees.

At the end of the week, we displayed our work and also had a chance to see what the other classes had been doing too.

World Book day

Our theme for World Book Day this year was favourite words from favourite books. We saw lots of different costumes and words. We also shared lots of stories. Miss Priestman came from Year 6 (Franklin class) to read a story.

Snow day

We had a great day at school when it snowed. We enjoyed going out and building snow people. It was great fun.

 PE this term

Mr Armitage has been teaching us about gymnastics and hockey this term. Firstly, we used the apparatus to practise our balancing skills and then we learnt how to dismount by jumping down safely. 

In hockey, we learnt the importance of controlling the ball and how to keep it close by.

 The Little Red Hen

We were very lucky to have a visit from Farmlink who brought a little red hen called Mary. We re-read the story and learnt all about growing wheat, cutting corn using a combine harvester, milling flour and making the bread. It was great to meet Mary and we got to feed her some bread at the end.

Mary is a very happy red hen. She was very well behaved in the class Following the story of the Little Red Hen, we all planted some wheat seeds.
We then took some ripe wheat and, using a coffee grinder, we mimicked a windmill. We saw that it made flour. We all gave Mary some bread for being so well behaved in Explorers class.

Explorer Dome

We had a visit from the Explorer Dome and we followed up our learning on 'Our  Special World'. It was fantastic to go inside the dome and see all the different habitats. Please see some photos of our visit below.

Up, Up and Away

The second part of our learning this term has been about leaving the Earth and travelling to the moon. We looked at the books 'Zoom, Rocket, Zoom' by Margaret Mayo and Alex Ayliffe and 'On the Moon' by Anna Milbourne and Benji Davies. We designed our own rockets and then made 3-d models of our designs. Then, during our History creativity week, we learnt about the first people to visit space and the moon, as well as Tim Peake and Mae Jemison the first black woman in space.

First we designed our rocket. We then made our rockets from recycled materials. They looked fantastic. We also created rockets with other materials and objects like these magnetic shapes.
We were visited by Jackson, a historian, who explained all about Neil Armstrong, the first human on the moon. We even had our very own moon in a box. It was out of this world!

 

Parents/Children Creativity Morning

As part of the learning about 'Our Special World', we had a lovely morning where the parents came in to create an environment in a box. There were also lots of other activities to do with the world around us which the children could do with their adults. We had a brilliant morning. Thank you to all the parents and carers who were able to attend.

The children worked with their grown ups, choosing the environment they wanted to create. Even little brothers and sisters got involved!
Everyone was very creative and there were lots of amazing ways to create trees and leaves, ice and sand in the desert. We were amazed by the lovely boxes that were made and these will be displayed in school.

Our Special World

This term, Explorers class have been learning about the world around them. We initially looked at Bridgwater, and we made some maps of our classroom. We then went on to find out about the different environments around the globe, including the polar regions, the desert and the rainforest. Please see some of the photos of our learning below.

We looked at polar creatures and the children created images. Here is our penguin with its baby.
As Explorers we also knew that we would need shelter so we used our building skills to create a tent using the materials we had. Brilliant work! Here is our completed shelter which would be great for lots of environments.

Spring Newsletter is here.   

Spring A curriculum overview here

Spring A Knowledge Organiser

Spring B curriculum overview is here

Spring B Knowledge Organiser

Autumn Term 2022

Nativity

Explorers class joined with Blake class and Brunel class to perform our nativity. This year our story was 'It's a party' and we were beautiful angels. The children learnt a number of songs which they sang really well during the performances.

'We're going on a bear hunt'

We decided that as part of the traditional tales unit, we could also look at a story that we think will be a new traditional tale. We also used this opportunity to raise money for the Explorer's class enterprise project. We read 'We're  going on a bear hunt' and then we went on our own bear hunt around school. We looked for clues to a famous bear and worked out who it was. We had a great morning and, thanks to our family's generosity, we also raised over £600. A huge thank you to all of the parents and carers who contributed. Please see some photos below.

First we started by looking through clues by walking through swishy, swashy grass. We went through the deep, dark forest and found some letter clues.
We found a swirling, whirling snowstorm of bubbles. We visited our story 'cave' but we found our bear friend had gone to our classroom. We found them there in the book corner.

Three Billy Goats Gruff                                      

As part of our learning this term, we have been looking at different traditional tales. We read the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We went on a wet welly walk to retell the story of the of the Billy Goats using the new bridge on the Brewery field. We had great fun and Mrs Priestman played a very grumpy troll! We also took the opportunity to have a look at the surroundings to discuss the Autumn and what happens during this time of year. Here are some photos to show what we did.

We pretended we were on the side of the valley with lots of mud. It was very realistic! We all trip trapped across the bridge and we met the grumpy old troll (beautifully played by Mrs Priestman).
The children were very careful as they went across the stones. We also looked at the trees, whilst we were in the park, and we talked about the signs of Autumn such as leaves changing colour and falling down.

Multi-cultural week

During multi-cultural week, the different classes in school chose a country to learn about. In Explorers class, we have been learning about the United Kingdom. We found out lots of facts such as the four countries that make up the UK and also about the royal family including the late Queen and King Charles. We built castles, made crowns and flags and we took part in a parade to celebrate. We also learnt a dance which we performed for our parents. We had a Kings tea party to celebrate our learning.

We took part in a parade and showed the crowns and flags that we had made We performed a dance to 'A spoonful of sugar'. We did this for our parents.
We finished by having a King's tea party. First, we made our jam sandwiches. We really enjoyed celebrating our learning about the United Kingdom with our tea party.

 

People who help us

This term, we have been learning all about people who help us. We talked about the ways in which teachers, doctors, nurses and paramedics, fire fighters and the police support the community. We had a visit from the school nurse and PC Penny. Please have a look at our pictures below.

PC Penny told us all about the equipment he carries to keep everyone safe He showed us how the handcuffs work.
We had some new police recruits for the future. We all enjoyed seeing the police car and hearing all the different types of siren.
Anne-Marie the school nurse came to tell us all about how she helps people. She concentrated on oral hygiene and how we look after our teeth. We even used a giant toothbrush and set of teeth to practise our brushing skills.
We have really enjoyed finding out about different people who help.

Learning in Explorers

 

Please find below some pictures of the children learning in Explorers class. 

   

 

 

Autumn newsletter here. 

Autumn Knowledge organiser is here

Autumn Curriculum overview is here

 

 

This page is awaiting content