Thank you 

Mrs Lambert , Mrs Gibbons and Mrs Bale would like to thank everyone for their lovely gifts and good wishes. We hope you all have a great summer and would like to wish everyone good luck in their new school. You’re all going to be awesome.  🤩 

Water fight !!

Yesterday was the infamous year 6 water fight, once everyone was suitably dressed, bins full to capacity, battle lines drawn, water guns at the ready. This was the moment they had been waiting for all year. Payback time ! 
Poor Mrs Lambert, Mrs Gibbons and Mrs Bale didn’t stand a chance ! 

Colchester Zoo- Thursday 4 July 

Yesterday, Oystercatchers visited Colchester Zoo and saw some amazing animals.After a long coach journey, we spent time looking at a mix of animals.The class was split into 3 groups around the zoo ,meeting up at lunchtime and when we went to the land train to see the lemurs.They had fabulous time seeing sea lions, penguins, giraffes, rhinos, elephants amongst many other animals.

Thanks go to our 3 parent helpers. Some very tired children and adults arrived back around 5pm.

Wednesday 3 July 2024

Oystercatchers achieved a class attendance reward recently and as part of their reward ,Mrs Lambert came up with idea of making pizzas on Wednesday afternoon.So ,Miss Strutt and Mrs Gibbons along with some help from our wonderful kitchen ladies , spent the afternoon with Oystercatchers making the dough and adding the toppings to create their own pizzas.They then enjoyed eating their pizzas in the new outdoor classroom.

Art Exhibition - Friday 28 June 

Oystercatchers have a lovely couple of weeks producing some beautiful art work for the Art Exhibition. They have worked collaboratively in small and then larger groups to produce some amazing photos. Also, they created some amazing cardboard sculptures in the style of Georgia O’Keefe, a famous American artist.

Sky Arts week Year 6 session

Year 6 had the opportunity ,with local artist Martin Gibbons, to experiment with the theme of Connections. They were able to work collaboratively together and make their own shape patterns using their hands and feet. The class was split into four groups who worked separately and then joined to form 2 larger groups. Some amazing photos were taken.

KS2 Sports morning - Wednesday 12 June 2024

Oystercatchers had a very busy morning running and throwing and jumping as well as 

encouraging lots of the other children in the other year groups.Great sportsmanship was shown many times so well done to you all. Here are some action photos taken by year 6.

Year 6 Technology Day - Monday 10th June 2024

Year 6 children spent today undertaking a design technology task- we have been very lucky to have Rotary Downham Market in today setting them a technology challenge. They had to design, test and make a scaled model of an animal crossing (bridge) using dowling, tape, elastic bands, card, netting, pegs. They spent time designing , testing out different variations - some worked , some didn’t,and had to produce a portfolio of their ideas for the judges to look through. They were marked on whether animals ( squirrels) could safely cross the bridge, design, camouflage, staying power ( wind testing) and more importantly how they worked as a team. The children have had a fantastic day and our final winners were the BZMR team. Thanks go again to Alan and John from Rotary and to our three governors who came into judge- Mr Tennant, Mr Porter and Mrs Ellerby 

Maya art workshop Thursday 6 June 2024

Today, Oystercatchers were lucky to spend the morning learning and making Maya art. Mr Gibbons, a local artist, came in to show them different elements of Maya art. The children made a clay frieze using Maya patterns, a mono print using Maya images, a Lino cut of a Maya mask and spent time creating Maya posters - thanks to Mrs Jones who came into help.

Plastic Pollution

Today we surveyed the school and its grounds for plastic waste. We were quite amazed at how much plastic pollution there was! 

National Numeracy Day

National Numeracy Day is held every year to raise both children’s and adults’ awareness and confidence around Mathematics.

In Oystercatchers Class we watched a live lesson and learned about how Maths is used in Space. We then considered how numbers and Maths are used in other professions. We also worked out savings plans and found out how much difference saving just a little at a time can make! 
As well as this, we battled it out in a mini-tournament against our classmates on TTRS.

Chill-out Day

After 4 days of SATS tests, Year 6 were well and truly ready for some relaxation. The day was spent sharing and playing games from home, eating a buffet brunch, movie watching ( until technology let us down!) more snacks and computer time. 
A lovely day was had by all. 

Visit from Toby the guide dog.

This week we got the chance to learn all about guide dogs when Toby and his owner paid us a visit. We learnt all about his training and how he helps his owner. We even got to get up close and give him a stroke!

This week we have been investigating how wire length affected the function of components. 

Hinduism visit - Wednesday 24 April 2024

Today , we were lucky to have a visitor in to tell us more about Hinduism.She spent time sharing lots of information about Hinduism and the children had lots of questions .She also spent time telling us about story of Holi. She invited Mrs Gibbons up and showed us how they used powder paint on their faces to celebrate Holi. She also showed us the length of a sari - 6 metres long!!

She then proceeded to show us how to put on a sari and all of the clever folds and tucks she did with the sari material. Photos to follow 

Science

This week we experimented to see what happened when we increased the voltage in a circuit.

Comic Relief - Friday 15th March 2024

Today, the children arrived in red head to toe or various combinations to celebrate Red Nose Day or Comic Relief. Here are a few pictures of them in their ‘redness’.

World Book Day - 8 March 2024

Today, the children celebrated World Book Day with an assembly and lots of book themed activities. Some pictures to follow showing the costumes or comfy reading clothes. 

Crucial Crew Event Monday 4 March 2024

We spent an interesting and informative morning at the local Crucial Crew event held near Shipdam. During the morning, all of the groups spent time with RNLI, Police,Fire Brigade, Cadent, Eastern Air Ambulance ,Norfolk County Road Safety team and St John’s Ambulance learning lots of valuable information. 

Science 

Last week, Oystercatchers had great fun in their Science lesson - they were investigating micro -organisms. We tested to see if yeast was a living organism .As you can see from the pictures below the results were interesting .

One of our class even tried at home!

Children’s Mental Health Week 5-9 February 2024

This week we have been celebrating Children’s Mental Health Week - this year the theme was Your Voice Matters. On Monday, there was an assembly where the children found out more about the week and what special activities were taking place. The children watched a special song also they shared what they thought were good things to do to have good mental health.

During the week , they all watched a video book and  had the opportunity to share and discuss some very different and interesting pictures in class designed to initiate some thinking and questioning .Finally today, we had another assembly to finish the week and celebrate Crazy Hair Day - Express. Yourself  - some amazing hair creations !! 

DT

In DT, the class have enjoyed exploring the use of Microbits. 

Tuesday 6th February 2024

Oystercatchers held their next Reading Cafe this afternoon- it was closely linked to the class book ,The Viking Boy , which we are reading in class.Parents were able to listen to extracts from the book and the children were able to share their character /story knowledge through some questions from Mrs Lambert.After this, the children were able design their own Viking shield ,learn more about and draw their own Viking long boats.

Friday 2nd February 2024 - Number Day

Oystercatchers celebrated Number Day 2024 by completing a Buddy maths challenge - as a group they had to solve different maths questions and then find the missing puzzle piece in the classroom - these had been well hidden ! We followed this, by playing maths 4 in a row games answering some tricky questions. After break, we played ‘maths detectives’ trying to discover who the culprit was in the Arithmatown Who Dunnit challenge - this involved lots of problem solving, code breaking and map work. 

Thursday 1 February 2024 Dance sessions 

Over the last couple of weeks , Oystercatchers have had fun trying out different types of modern dance. They have had to watch and copy the styles and then develop within a small group their own routine to the music.

29th January

Today we have been looking at food labels and using them to calculate food miles.  We were amazed to see how far some of our food had travelled, for example the radishes came from Senegal and the brown sugar all the way from Mauritius! 

23rd January 

This week we have danced to a song of the noughties - Cha Cha Slide

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year 

Thank you for all our lovely gifts - we hope you have a lovely Christmas break 

Awards Assembly - 20 December 2023

This morning, our end of term awards assembly was held in the hall. Congratulations to everyone. 

Year 5/6 Bike Ability course 11 December 2023

Year 6 had great fun yesterday finding out what makes their bike safe to use and then started to practise some important skills on the school playground. Today, they will start to put these into practice on local roads close to school.

Christmas Decoration Day

Trip to Cambridge

On Thursday 7th December, we visited the Museum of Zoology and the Sedgwick Museums in Cambridge. We learnt lots more about Darwin - although we amazed the teacher there by how much we already knew- and saw lots of exhibits showing how nature has adapted and evolved over the years. 

TTRS Rocks - 13-17 November 2023

Last week, it was the TTRS Rocks competition.As mentioned in the newsletter , Oystercatchers 

were the overall winners of our own school competition. Axel Dewees was also the overall school champion with Honey Spinner coming in third.

Children In Need -Friday 17 November 2023

Oystercatchers enjoyed getting dressed up expressing themselves. We had a real mix as the pictures show .

Oystercatchers Maths Cafe - Thursday 2nd November 23

Last Thursday, Oystercatchers had their first Maths cafe in the school hall. There were 4 different activity stations and the class were split up and moved around each station. The activity stations included TTRS/NUMBOTS work on the chromebooks, a Maths investigation booklet , work on factors and a final station using a mix of takeaway menus , the children had to pick a meal and then cost it using two different takeaways - lots of practical maths !
Thank you to the parents who came and hope we didn’t tax your brain too much so early in the morning - we hope you enjoyed it and got an insight into Year 6 maths. 

Thursday 19th October 2023

As part of our DT topic this term, we have working at planning, developing and producing our 

wooden frames to use as a picture frame. Oystercatchers had a very productive afternoon yesterday and some managed to complete their picture frame. Here are some pictures of the work achieved so far. 

Monday 16 October -Japanese Day 

On Monday, the class went all Japanese. They learnt how to and made their own Sushi Rice balls and had fun turning them into bears, pandas and other creatures. In the afternoon, we had a dance visitor in to teach them all about Japanese dance. They also found some interesting facts about Japan.

DT Topic - Bridges

This week in DT, the class spent time designing and making their own version of their bridge using lolly stick and glue - there were many different designs as you will see in the following photos . Over the coming weeks, they will have time to evaluate their first bridge and then think about how to make it stronger as they plan their next version using wood .

Sports Leaders Course

On Friday 15th September, 19 children from Years 5 and 6 were trained as Sports Leaders. They learnt lots of new activities to share with other children at lunchtimes. They even got to practise on Kites Class this afternoon!

15th September 

This week we have continued to work hard. We have continued studying Night Mail by WH Auden, learnt about the journey of a red blood cell in Science and completed some more map work connected to Japan. 

Friday 8 September 2023

Oystercatchers have had a good first week settling back into school and Year 6.

They have been swimming already , produced their own Japanese cherry blossom picture , got stuck into their reading and had fun in maths using spinners to create their own numbers in maths