Chestnut Class

Welcome to Chestnut Class

Classteacher:  Miss H. Barten

I have had such a fantastic time with all of the wonderful children in Chestnut Class. I am so proud of every single one of them and they should be so very proud of themselves for how much they have improved. I feel like the luckiest teacher!

Have a brilliant summer and thank you so much for all of my beautiful cards and gifts - very generous of you all! Miss Barten :) 

Week commencing 10th July: I cannot believe that we are so close to the end of term! It was so brilliant to see so many of you at the exhibition evening on Thursday and to showcase Chestnut Class’ fantastic work from across the year. They have all made some amazing improvements and should be extremely proud of themselves. We have completed our geography and science P.O.P Tasks this week and the children have remembered so much about South America and also Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution too. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Week commencing 3rd July: It has been another lovely week in Chestnut Class. We have been consolidating our knowledge of converting between equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages in maths and have continued to read our book all about Charles Darwin in our reading lessons. In English, we have been translating Scene 3:1 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into our own language and also acting out parts of the scene. We had the most amazing Shakespearean workshop on Friday which I know the children enjoyed so much. I cannot believe that we are nearly at the end of the academic year! Have a brilliant weekend and let’s hope the sun shines for us all.

Week commencing 26th June: We made a bust of a head and shoulders this week in the style of British sculptor Elisabeth Frink. Thank you so much for sending in your cardboard and plastic to aid with the creation of our sculptures – they all look brilliant. We also had class swap week this week and although I was sad to see the children go, I was so proud of their exemplary behaviour as they went into Year 6. Have a wonderful weekend!

Week commencing 19th June: We have had our assessment week this week and I have been so impressed with the children’s mature and sensible approach to showcasing their learning. It was also so brilliant to see so many of you at our Sports Day – everyone tried their absolute best and had lots of fun too! We have been continuing to explore Romeo and Juliet in English and writing poetry inspired by the famous Shakespearean love story. The children have been enjoying design and technology so much – we have been creating circuits which are controlled using code, with a motor and LED lights. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend.

Week commencing 12th June: We have had a wonderful week – what fantastic sunshine we have all had too! We have been revising everything that we have learned about properties of number this week in maths, including identifying prime, composite and square numbers. In English, we have been comparing and contrasting Romeo and Juliet with West Side Story and I have loved reading the children’s discussion pieces on the two narratives. The children have been loving our new Design and Technology focus and have been working hard to programme crumbles, sparkles and motors using the chrome books to formulate instructions. We had an interesting lesson all about time zones in geography and are continuing to learn all about the life of Charles Darwin in our class book. I hope that you all have a lovely weekend.

Week commencing 5th June: What a lovely first week back in Chestnut Class! We so enjoyed seeing lots of you at our shared learning session and I know that the children loved playing the role of teacher and sharing some of the ways that we learn. We have embarked on our new English focus this week and we have been focusing on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. On Tuesday, we even managed to act out the whole play as a class which was so fun! Our new reading text this term is all about Charles Darwin and I can already tell that we are going to have some fantastic discussions about his important contributions to our scientific understanding of the world. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend.

Week commencing 22nd May: It has been a wonderful final week of term and I have been so proud of every member of Chestnut Class for their focused and determined approach to completing all of their topic work beautifully for this term. We have written our own discussion texts in English and I have loved reading all of their convincing arguments as to why SATs are or are not a good idea for Year 6 pupils. In maths we have been looking at arithmetic and it has been great to see the children methodically working through the four operations using varying column methods and mental calculations to find the correct answer. I hope you all have a brilliant half term break!

Week commencing 15th May: We have continued to look at data this week in maths and have been constructing our own pie charts. It was great to see the children utilise their knowledge of protractors from earlier this year to help them to create accurate pie charts. We have also been looking at data in science and have produced bar charts which depict the life span and gestation periods of different animals. In English, a new non-fiction unit of discussion texts has begun and I know that the class have enjoyed constructing well balanced arguments using connectives. Our class text of ‘Not My Fault’ is nearly finished and the children are excited to see how the story ends. It has been a lovely week and I am impressed by everyone’s focussed and engaged approach to their learning. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Week commencing 8th May: I was so impressed with the children’s action stories this week. Every single member of the class wrote a story they should be very proud of, which were all jam packed with engaging openers, rhetorical questions and dialogue that advanced the action. We have been looking at data and timetables in maths and the class have enjoyed collaboratively working through various word problems to do with time and timetables. We have also been reading and interpreting line graphs. We have continued to look at the work of artist Eduardo Paolozzi in art and we had some very interesting conversations about the character motivations in our class text ‘Not My Fault’ by Cath Howe. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that the sun shines too!

Week commencing 1st May: We have been planning our own action stories this week and the children have also started to write them. I have loved reading their imaginative ideas in a range of settings, from the jungle to the arctic! We had a very exciting art lesson on Wednesday where we moulded our faces out of clay, then cut them up and stuck them imperfectly back together again in the style of artist Eduardo Paolozzi’s sculptures. In history we explored the impact of the industrial revolution and the cramped living conditions on the spread of illnesses and diseases. We also had a fantastic afternoon celebrating King Charles’ coronation and everyone looked very smart! I hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend!

Week commencing 24th April: The class have been really enjoying our new class text of ‘Not My Fault’ by Cath Howe. We have had some interesting debates about who is at fault for the accident in the book and also who we feel the most empathy for. The class created some bright and colourful artwork in the style of American artist Keith Haring, which I know will look very eye-catching when on display in our corridors. We have been converting between imperial and metric units in maths, such as kilometres and miles. We have also been learning some literary tools for action writing in English and I cannot wait to read their own action stories, which we will be planning and writing next week. The class have embarked on our new topic of Buddhism in RE, and have been looking at gestation periods and life spans of animals in science. I hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend!

Week commencing 17th April: What a wonderful first week back in Chestnut Class! We have been translating and reflecting shapes on coordinate grids in maths and have embarked on our new topic in English of writing an action story. In science, we looked at the changes in humans as they develop into old age and we started to investigate spreadsheets in computing. We have also started our new topic in history which is about changes in medicine over time. Everyone has come back with a fantastic attitude to learning and I can already tell that this is going to be a fantastic term!

Week commencing 27th March: It has been a very impressive final week in Chestnut Class. We have been doing our end of term assessments and the progress of every single child from the Autumn Term up to Spring Term has been fantastic. They should all feel extremely proud of themselves for their significant improvements and amount of hard work. We have also been engaging in our whole school Safety Week, which has involved us exploring aspects of road, train and water safety. I know the children found this interesting and I have been very happy with their reflections on the best way to stay safe in our local area. I hope that you all have a fun and restful Easter break!

Week commencing 20th March: What a brilliant week it has been in our classroom. We have been completing all of our finishing for the term and the topic books are looking fantastic! The children should be so very proud of all of the progress they have made and also of their beautiful presentation. We have finished our recount text unit in English and I loved reading the children’s independent writing imagining that they were a character from our class book ‘Wonder’. We have also been further exploring angles in maths and using a protractor accurately. Our batik designs of our pharaohs in art are really coming together too. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Week commencing 13th March: We have had a wonderful week in Chestnut Class. I have been so impressed with every single member of our classroom and their fantastic application of their knowledge about angles in maths. We were able to calculate the missing angles on a straight line and also in a full turn. We have been planning and writing our own recount texts in English. In geography, we discussed the causes of flooding and talked about assembling a flood kit, as well as other advice we could give to people who live in an area at high risk of flooding. I enjoyed reading the children’s science quiz answers where they were able to showcase all of the amazing learning that they have done about properties and changes of materials. I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Week commencing 6th March: It has been a brilliant week in Chestnut Class and I have been so happy to be reunited with my lovely class! We have started our new unit of learning in English and are looking at the literary features of a recount text. In maths we have been exploring volume and calculating the volume of cuboids and cubes. We had an exciting history lesson where we explored various aspects of daily life in ancient Egypt, looked at artefacts like true historians and even wrote our own hieroglyphs onto papyrus-style paper. In art, we designed a drawing of a pharaoh that we are going to use to batik onto fabric just like the ancient Egyptians. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Week commencing 6th February: What a fantastic final week we have had in Chestnut Class. It has been Children’s Mental Health Week and we have been doing lots of talking about the value of being kind and of sharing our feelings too. We have each created a beautiful patch for a patchwork quilt which includes an inspirational message all about the value of nurturing our mental wellbeing. We have been exploring algebra in maths and persuasive literary techniques in English. We have also completed creating our Stitch Head cushions in Design & Technology. I have been so proud to be Chestnut Class’ teacher this term, they are improving so much and we make kind and considerate choices every day. It was lovely to meet some of you at the parent teacher consultations this week too. I hope you have a fun and restful half term!

Week commencing 30th January: I have been so impressed by Chestnut Class this week. They have independently planned and written their own suspense stories with lots of elements from our literary toolkit including; prepositions to intensify the threat; repetition to further create suspense and metaphors to describe a mysterious sound. We have been exploring relative problems and ratio in maths and have discovered the importance of maintaining the relative size. Our Stitch Head inspired cushions in Design & Technology are starting to take shape and we will be finalising them next week by securing them with a blanket stitch. I know the class enjoyed researching the gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt in history and also discussing the properties of thermal conductivity in science. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and I look forward to seeing you at the parent teacher consultations next week.

Week commencing 23rd January: What a busy week we have had in Chestnut Class! We have started looking at percent in maths and everyone has been working hard to understand a new mathematical process. Knowing how to make a number 10 times smaller has really paid off here, as the children were able to find out 10% of a number easily. They have been using their place value charts to help them. We engaged in another experiment in science, investigating whether different materials were soluble or insoluble and seeing whether they dissolved in water. I know the class have been loving our new Design & Technology topic and enjoyed practicing their different stitching techniques last week and developing their design ideas for their own stitch head creations this week. The class have also been planning and writing their own suspense stories in English, based on a spooky sound getting closer and closer! Everyone should be very proud of their effort and their improvements.

Week commencing 16th January: It has been a truly wonderful week in Chestnut Class and I am so proud of everyone for how hard they have been working. We explored the process of mummification in history and we designed our own stained-glass windows for a Jewish synagogue in R.E. We have been building on our suspense writing toolkit in English and gripping our reader by using prepositions, metaphors and repetition. We have been dividing and multiplying decimals in maths and it has been great to see so many children remembering to put the decimal point into their answer box. In science, we considered the difference between reversible and irreversible changes and we have been singing lots of Young Voices songs too! Have a lovely weekend :)

Week commencing 9th January: We have had such a busy time for our first full week of learning in January. The children had an exciting morning on Thursday when we engaged in a scientific experiment; separating various materials through processes of filtration, sieving, magnets and evaporation. We were all doing so well to use our scientific language to describe the separations and everyone had a chance to work independently too. I was very impressed by the whole class’ mature approach to their independent group work during this practical science lesson.  The class continue to be delighted by the engaging and hilarious story of Stitch Head by Guy Bass in their reading sessions and have also started thinking about the literary devices needed to write their own suspense stories in English. In maths we have been delving into decimals and exploring tenths, hundredths and thousandths and comparing and rounding different decimal numbers. We have been exploring the key terms for rivers in geography – such as source, mouth, tributary and estuary and we have been singing lots of different songs from the Young Voices setlist as well! I hope you have a very restful and relaxing weekend, with time for some fun too!

Week commencing 2nd January: It has been a very short week for the beginning of our Spring Term in Chestnut Class and I have been so proud of how everyone has come back to school with a fantastic learning attitude. They have been so excited about our new class text – Stitch Head by Guy Bass – and have also created some very imaginative descriptions about some monsters, similar to the ones in the story. I am very excited for Spring Term and all of the wonderful learning that we are going to do!

Week commencing 12th December: What a spectacular Christmas performance it was on Tuesday evening. It was so lovely to be able to showcase all of our hard work. Every member of Chestnut should be extremely proud of themselves for their effort and positive attitudes. We have been reflecting back on our topic books over the course of this term and writing our topic book evaluations this week. The improvement that every child has made has been brilliant! I hope you all have a magical Christmas and a very happy new year.

Week commencing 5th December: Chestnut have had another wonderful week. We have been doing lots of practising of our Christmas songs ahead of our performance at the church next week. I am sure it will be truly magical and we cannot wait to see lots of you there. We have been exploring techniques for explanation text writing in English and have been working on our arithmetic skills in maths. I am so happy that the class are understanding the value of taking their time when it comes to tricky mathematical processes and I have seen a big improvement since September. 

Week commencing 28th November: It has been the loveliest week in Chestnut. We have started our new topic in English on explanation texts and have also been continuing to look at fractions in maths. I have loved hearing the children practicing their Christmas songs for the church performance, it is going to sound truly magical on the night. We have been looking at the differences between life in Europe and Ancient Baghdad in AD 1000, and the contrasts in the way that the people used numbers, which the class found fascinating. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Week commencing 21st November: We have had such a busy week in Chestnut Class! We have been writing our own wishing stories with a focus on character. These were written independently with features from our character toolkit and I have been very impressed by everyone’s ability to showcase all that they have learned. We have also had our assessment week, and the whole class should be so proud of themselves for their mature and sensible attitude to working on their tests. We all understand that these are purely to help me to see the gaps in their knowledge, so that I can help them to learn all that they need to know for year 6. Well done to everyone in Chestnut, you have been working so hard! 😊

Week commencing 14th November: We have had another brilliant week in Chestnut Class. We have been writing our own stories with a focus on character and looking at fractions in maths. The class have also created a travel brochure all about deserts to showcase all of their learning from our geography topic and I was blown away by how much they could remember! We are now absolute whizz kids at everything to do with deserts – from arid climate zones to how various animals and plants have adapted to their environment. We had a very exciting Wednesday when we visited our new library – I loved seeing how excited everybody was with their book selections! I have added a photo of Chestnut Class at the lantern parade on Wednesday from the Colchester Gazette. It truly was a magical evening so thank you to everyone that came along and well done to all of the class for making such beautiful lanterns!

Week commencing 7th November: What a wonderful week it has been in Chestnut Class. We have continued to focus on division in maths and I have been so happy with how hard they have been working. The children also wrote some fantastic story openers with a focus on developing character. I wanted to say a big well done to those children in Chestnut Class who represented us so well in the squash Roman Cup. I was particularly proud of how kind and encouraging they were to their fellow teammates. We had such a fun day on Friday making our lanterns for our whole day of art. We felt so lucky to have had the opportunity and I cannot wait to see you at the parade! The lanterns look truly magical and I am sure they will look even more amazing when they are lit up.

Week commencing 31st October: It has been a wonderful first week back in Chestnut Class with the whole class presenting a fantastic attitude to their learning. We have embarked on our new class text which is focussing on various different stories from the Arabian Nights. This week, we have been looking into the origins of ‘diamond in the rough’ Aladdin. In maths we have started to look at division and different approaches that we can take to find the answer, as well as the new vocabulary of dividend, divisor and quotient. In English we have been thinking about how best to write about character, and the various literary tools we could use. We have also started our new design and technology topic, which is focused on food technology and the origins of the ingredients that go into houmous. It will be a very busy and fun term!

Week commencing 17th October: It has been a lovely week in Chestnut Class and everyone should feel very proud of how hard they have worked. I enjoyed reading everyone’s non-fiction information text on different lizards and I can tell that we are all getting better at our long multiplication in maths. It has been a brilliant half term and I have really enjoyed getting to know everyone and helping them with their learning. It was great to meet those of you that came to our parent teacher consultations and I wish you a very restful half term full of lots of fun too!

Week commencing 10th October: The class should feel very proud of themselves this week for their fantastic behaviour and lovely manners when we travelled to the Garrison to play squash on Thursday. Everyone worked hard and had lots of fun too. We have been looking at different ways to multiply two-digit numbers in maths, from partitioning through to using our knowledge of factors. In English, we have been exploring non-fiction writing through the form of a fact-file about an animal. We also researched the House of Wisdom in Ancient Baghdad on our Chromebooks for our history lesson. I look forward to meeting you all next week for our parent teacher consultations. Have a lovely weekend!

Week commencing 3rd October: It has been another lovely week in Chestnut Class as everyone becomes familiar with the expectations of working in a Year 5 classroom. It has been brilliant to see everyone focussing on their work and taking ownership over their own learning through asking questions and checking through their books for feedback. We have been exploring properties of number in maths and learning new mathematical language in the form of factors and multiples, as well as prime and square numbers. In geography we applied our geographical knowledge to locating Baghdad on a map and we also researched a famous scientist in our science lesson on the laptops. I was impressed with their ability to apply features of our literary toolkit to their own setting stories based on our class text of Holes.

Week commencing 26th September: This week we have been working on our addition and subtraction. We have been looking at the column method and on exchanging. The class have also enjoyed writing their stories with a focus on setting and have been using lots of literary devices from our writing toolkit. We delved into the structure of ancient Baghdad and investigated the many features of the city. Our science lesson was very interesting as we explored how the heart works and how blood travels around the body.

Week commencing 19th September: Chestnut Class should be very proud of themselves for how hard they have worked this week. They were also fabulous role models for the younger children with the Year 6 class being on residential this week and our Year 5s being the oldest in the school! We have been exploring poetry and every member of the class has compiled their own poetry anthology based on our class text of Holes. We have been writing in different styles of poetry from haikus to limericks and I have really enjoyed reading all the children’s different ideas. I know that they are very proud of the collection of poems that they have created.

Miss Barten :)