In English this term, Year 6 have been explaining the famous ‘nonsense’ poem ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll. The poem is a story about a brave knight defeating an evil monster. In the photo you can see the class performing the poem together. The poem features lots of strange words like ‘galumphing’, which we thought meant ‘galloping’. What do you think?

In Maths this week, Year 6 have been work-ing on ratio and propor-tion. As a practical ex-periment, they were given a recipe for a fruit smoothie that made enough for 2 people. They had to correct this to enough for all 7 peo-ple in the group. Here you can see Dama-ris and Antonella pre-paring the ingredients.

Many thanks to Mim

Lyon for donating a

cash till for Year 3 to

help them in Maths by

playing shops.

Each class is raising money for a charity of their choice by organizing small

fundraising events throughout the year. The money raised so far is: Year 3 £166.42

Year 4 £96.60

Year 5 £29 – for SARA Figures are still rising! Year 6 £375.70 - for the RNLI

- for St John Ambulance

Many thanks

to Steve Pocock

for repairing

the Sandpit lid

and to Steph

van As for sort-

ing this for us.

Presentation Subject

Focus School—Berkeley Campus Primary Newsletter

Date: February/March Issue: 6

Friday 20th March: 10am Solar eclipse where the sun will be 90% covered by the moon.

Friday 27th March: Break up at 12.30 for the Easter holidays.

Monday 13th April: Students return to school.

Active Kids is back! Vouchers are available to collect from all Sainsbury’s stores, petrol stations and when ordering groceries online, be-

tween Wednesday 28th January and Tuesday 5th May 2015. This is a good initiative for our schools as it enables us to get valuable PE equipment, saving the school money. Please send the vouchers you have collected into school with a student. We have collected 2024 so far.

Damaris van As—for excellent demonstrations in swimming. Carmen Baker—for working hard and producing an excellent plan for an earthquake shelter. Scott Lamming—for excellent effort in Literacy sessions. Jago Baker—for working hard with a great attitude! The whole Year 4 class! - for an excellent effort learning spellings and tables this week. Damaris van As—for great effort and participation in Maths fraction works. Sapphire Coldrick—for working consistently hard all term to learn her spellings, tables and complete her homework on time. Arni Botterill—for sustained effort with his handwriting and a great attitude to his work! Harrison Tennent—for making a fantastic effort to improve his handwriting. Hetty Smith—for fantastic story writing. Kiara Smith—for extra effort with homework and writing a great story. Bonnie Tennent—for working well independently and as part of a group. Lyle Pocock—for writing an excellent ‘Diary’ entry. Lachlan Huntley—for clear and relevant explanations in science. Chester Huntley—for excellent and relevant explanations in science. Schyler Smith—for making huge strides in English especially ‘SPAG’! Lucas Davies—for making continuous good effort in maths—however hard it gets! Scott Lamming—for spotting and correcting an error in his groups ‘fair’ test and standing up to the rest of the group who insisted it wasn’t! Lachlan Huntley—for spotting and correcting an error in his groups ‘fair’ test and standing up to the rest of the group who insisted it wasn’t! Denzil Holley—for effort in his work this week and a huge improvement in his reading. Keryn Pavey—for effort in her work this week and a huge improvement in her reading. Kenzi Botterill—for working really hard to improve her handwriting.

Scott Lamming

&

Chester Huntley

Year 3 have made an early start

this year on their gardening project. They have plant-ed some tomato and cu-

cumber seeds in a propaga-tor in order to have the plants

ready to go outside as soon as the weather is warm enough.

Hopefully, we will be able to pick tomatoes and cucumbers before the

summer holiday.

As part of their topic this year, Year 5 have been learning about Chinese culture and traditions. As the Chinese celebrated their New Year dur-ing our half term, the children decided to share

what they had learnt about in as part of our KS2 celebration (certificate) assembly. The photographs show all the children sharing a poem (Kung Hey Fat Choy, which means Happy New Year) that they had learnt about the New Year and some of the art work that they have completed. The Story of Nian Long, long ago in Ancient China, there lived a monster called Nian. The Nian was a dreadful, disgusting, beastly monster…..RAH! Every New Year’s Eve, the slimy brute would come out of his home (up in the mountains) where he could gobble up the farmer’s crops. Everyone was so scared of the Nian that they had to boarded up their houses. At this time, the villagers would always keep their family indoors too so that the Nian could not gobble them up too! A couple of years later, on New Year’s Ever, an old man came to the village. He was tired, hungry and needed rest. Non one would offer him food except a kind, lonely lady. Politely she said, “Would you like to come to my house to eat?” “Yes, I would love to come,” uttered the old man gratefully. When the old man had started eating, he declared, “Thank you for giving me shelter and good food to eat. I will tell you a marvel-lous secret in return……..Listen……….you know the Nian that you villagers are incredibly scared of?” “Yes,” said the lady, leaning closer to hear. “Well,” continued the old man. “The Nian is scared of red and afraid of loud noises……” The next day (as quick as a flash), the speech went out to everyone in the village. Quickly, the villagers hung up beautiful read

banners and set off fireworks all over the village. Since then the Nian has nev-er come back. Retold by Lachlan Huntley This extract by Romain Leflaive finishes off the story nicely and brings us up to the present day: Nowadays, they hang red and gold lanterns in the streets and wear colourful masks. They also let off fire crackers and fireworks to frighten off Nian in case he ever comes back. Not only do they use firecrackers and fireworks but gunpowder too.

In History this term Year Four have been enjoying learning about the Ancient Greeks. They have looked at the Ancient Greek alphabet and learned to write their names. They have learned about Ancient Greek

schools, Greek city states and the Parthenon. They have also looked at Greek pottery and designed their own pots. This week we read about the Battle of Marathon. The children wrote their own play scripts and the best one was adapted for our class assem-bly on Friday. The children put a lot of effort into their preparation of the assem-bly and it was a great suc-cess! The children have also been working particularly hard on their reading, ta-bles and spelling and are making great progress. Keep it up Year Four!

The children did a ‘shadow puppet’ play showing the story of how the Chinese came to name their “years” after animals.