History
This tope took as right back to our historical roots in Stoke-on-Trent. We discovered what it would have been like to live in our city 200 years ago. We found out that we have a heritage of pottery and coal mining and how they worked together. Did you know that if we had been born 200 years ago, then we would probably have worked alongside our parents in the mines, opening and closing doors in the dark or pushing heavy coal tubs through long underground passage ways whilst our fathers would have been mining for coal at the coal face. We might have worked in the pottery industry, lighting the kilns in the early mornings, painting pottery by hand or we could have become a Saggar Maker’s Bottom Knocker!
Over the years, many famous names have been linked to our city. Josiah Wedgwood, Josiah Spode, Clarice Cliff, Sir Stanley Matthews, Reginald Mitchell and Robbie Williams all came from Stoke on Trent each of them making our city famous around the world. We were archaeologists and fact finders!
We ended our topic by visiting places of significance. We went to The Bet 365 stadium, Wedgwood and Hanley Museum to see the famous Spitfire. We certainly live in a city full of history!
Love of Reading – Around the World in 80 Days!
This has been a great story to start our reading journey. We followed the adventures of Phileas Fogg and his faithful butler Passepartout as they made their way around the world in just 80 days. We followed them on elephant rides, train adventures and train journeys
We used the story to base our writing on and have practised writing for a number of different reasons. We have written stories, newspapers and brochures to name just a few. We always love to share our writing. We became journalists when a local archaeologist found what appeared to be an old bottle kiln in our school grounds, he contacted us immediately so that we could report on the discovery. Along the way, we have discovered how to add description with adjectives and adverbs and how to tell our reader more in our sentences by using conjunctions. We also know that writing more detailed sentences help us to produce paragraphs so that our writing is more interesting and informative to the reader.
Maths
We have been very busy this term learning how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. We have practised all of our calculations skills and investigated how to show them using different equipment. We know how to solve these using a written method and how we might start to develop strategies so that we can answer them in our heads. Using our calculations is very important in the real world so we have been solving problems along the way. We have also been learning our times tables facts so that we are quick when answering questions.
Science – How do you make your body strong?
Science has let us investigate our human body. We know the names of the skeleton and why it is important – to give us structure and to protect our important organs. We are experts at putting together a skeleton! Of course, we have to look after our body so we know which foods keep us healthy. We know that if we wanted to run a marathon they we would need lots of carbohydrates to give us energy and protein to build muscle. We investigate what would happen to processed food if we left it for a week compared to fresh food. Surprisingly, the processed food looked fine to eat even after a week! We also came up with questions such as “Can a person with longer legs jump further?”, “Can a person with bigger feet kick a ball further?” and “Can a person with bigger hands hold more?”. We carried out investigations to help us answer these and developed the skill of collecting and recording results. We know that our body moves by contracting and relaxing muscles like the ones in our arm. We made our own working model of the arm!
Art – Clarice Cliff
Since we have been studying our local pottery industry, it made sense to find out about a local artist. Clarice Cliff was a unique potter from Stoke on Trent, who created striking pieces of art work. We found out about her designs and her use of colour. We then had a go at designing our own pieces of pottery. We planned them carefully, made them with clay and then painted them with very bright colours. We loved how they turned out.
PE
In PE, we have been learning the skills of rugby and hocked. We have become experts at tackling, dribbling and dodging. We also have perfected our Gymnastic skills. We have been learning how to control our balances and link them together. We enjoyed working with partners and groups to create counter balances which needed extra strength and stability!
Educational Visit – Middleport Pottery
Our educational visit took us to one of our world famous pottery factories. Middleport Pottery has been producing pottery since 1888. It is based beside a canal so that it could transport the goods from the factory to the rest of Britain and the world. Middleport Pottery provided hundreds of jobs for the people of Stoke on Trent and still does to this day.
Whilst we were there, we went inside the huge pot bank and found out just how big and hot it would have been to stack up the thousands of saggars containing the pottery. We saw the famous transfer and glaze being produced and even had a go at making our own pot banks out of clay, using the coil technique. We had a pretty fantastic day discovering our past.
