Dear Parents/ Carers,
On behalf of all of the staff team at Clawton, we would like to wish you all a very happy new year. We have really enjoyed having all of the children back after the Christmas break and it has been great to see how quickly they settled back into their learning.
For this week’s newsletter, we would like to explain our learning for the term. The framework for our curriculum is based on four cornerstones: Academic, Character, Community, and Digital and Innovation.
| Our Academic Cornerstone covers the knowledge and skills learnt through the core subjects (maths, English and science) and foundation subjects (such as geography, art, PE etc). Each class has an overarching question which is answered through studies in both core and foundation subjects. |
| Our Character Cornerstone covers intellectual, moral, civic, or performance virtues. We believe, as a school and as a trust, that if we teach the children how to display these virtues, allow the children to “catch them in action” through modelling from staff and observing peers, children seek to display these virtues independently, giving them vital skills for later in life. |
| Our Community Cornerstone covers our place in our School, Local, National and Global community. The children regularly learn about other locations through their studies and how they can make a positive contribution to their community. |
| Digital and Innovation is our fourth cornerstone, where we encourage the children to become independent and life-long learners. Through this cornerstone, we encourage the children to develop their digital skills along with innovation, entrepreneurship and independence in their learning. |
Below, details the learning for the term in each class. We always welcome offers of expertise, so if you have any skills that would support the learning of the children at Clawton, we would love to hear from you. We look forward to sharing news and photos over the term!
Kind regards,
Mrs Maryl Steyn
Owls:
We are investigating how we express themselves through art.
| Academic:
Owls are going on their travels this half term, exploring different art from around the world. We will be learning emotion in art through Van Gogh and Picasso, exploring Gongbi and Shuimo art in China, painting with fish in Japan, Canadian landscape artwork by Ted Harrison, Mexican bark painting, African Kente art finishing our travels with large scale Aboriginal cave paintings. |
| Character:
Our focus character virtues are Motivation and Creativity. These will be explored through our art projects sparking creativity and motivation to create our own art masterpieces, using famous artists as our inspiration. |
| Community:
Owls will be visiting Holsworthy Fire Station and learning about being an Inspiring Leader and speaker as part of our next Inspiring Changemaker Challenge. |
| Digital and Innovation:
Owls will be tasked with creating their own ‘Happiness’ art using Van Gogh Sunflowers impasto technique using only shades of yellow and ‘Sadness’ art using Picasso’s Weeping Woman using triangle shapes to create a geometric collage. |
Hedgehogs and Squirrels:
We are investigating how the arts can help us develop our creativity and imagination.
| Academic:
This half term we will explore how artists use colour and symbols to tell a story and create emotion in their work. We will learn about the work of well known artists such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Jacob Lawrence and explore the techniques they use to express themselves. We will then use their work to influence our own which we will display in a class art gallery! |
| Character:
Our character virtues this half term are respect, determination and critical thinking. We will explore these virtues through the use of stories and celebrate any virtues ‘caught in action’ by placing a leaf on our character tree. The children will also work towards earning their Inspiring Skill Builder award by learning how to sew! |
| Community:
We are very much looking forward to the Lunar New Year celebrations on 22nd January and will mark this occasion by joining in with traditions such as making decorations, preparing food and creating dragon dances. Gong hei fat choy everyone! |
| Innovation:
For their innovation task, the children will use the skills they have been taught to design and create their very own pop art tapestry in the style of Andy Warhol. |
Squirrels:
We will be investigating how Improving our communication skills helps to better express ourselves and others
| Academic:
This half of term the Squirrels will be exploring the artwork of Frida Kahlo. We will consider how Frida expressed herself through the medium of her artwork and what her use of colour and shape meant. We will use this theme to support our learning across the curriculum and will research Frida’s life as part of our History and English learning. In Maths we will cover 2D and 3D shapes, as well as learning how to tell the time. Science will see us investigate materials and their properties. |
| Character:
Our character virtues this half term are respect, determination and critical thinking. We will explore these virtues by thinking about how Frida Kahlo showed them throughout her life. We will be constantly on the alert to see these virtues in action throughout the school. |
| Community:
In our RE learning we will start to learn about different world religions. This term we are looking at Islam and will learn about the Muslim faith, how they live and how they are a part of our Global community. |
| Digital and Innovation:
Squirrels will use their new understanding of Frida Kahlo’s artwork to produce their own self portraits in her style. They will also use collage to create frames for their work. The children will work towards their Inspiring Changemaker Awards by writing, learning and performing TED talks about Frida Kahlo and why she was an Inspiring Changemaker. |
Foxes:
We will be investigating how we express ourselves?
| Academic:
Our Inquiry based question this half term is :- How do we express ourselves? – With the key concept of Celebrations, cultures and Traditions. We started the term off looking at what celebrations we have. Such as Birthdays, Christmas, New Year alongside this we looked at how we each have our own individual traditions. We will explore how these celebrations have evolved, where and when they were started and if they are different for different countries or religions. We are going to link this with looking at the Roman Empire in Britain and how Britain has developed over the years in relation to the traditions and celebrations from the Roman Empire to the present day. We will be linking our topic to our English writing based on a child being taken back to a historical period. In Maths we are finishing multiplication and division, then we will move on to area, length and perimeter finishing this term with Fractions. In Science we are going to be looking at forces, how we push and pull and working out how things move. |
| Character:
Our character virtues this half term are respect, determination and critical thinking. We will explore these virtues by thinking about how we use them during the school day by how we present ourselves and how we complete tasks given. |
| Community:
Our community cornerstone will be explored through different sporting events on offer throughout this term. We will visit to Beer Mill. Over the course of this term during RE we are looking at how religions celebrate differently to each other, and different celebrations that take place in different Religions. We are starting with Sikhism. |
| Digital and Innovation:
Foxes will be innovators throughout this term by creating slideshows to present to the whole class to build their Inspiring Speaker skills. We are also going to create some coins using clay. This is linked to how in History people often associated coins with celebrations and traditions. We will be looking at what we use for celebrations and how this has changed. |
Badgers:
We are investigating How we express ourselves, and how design can reflect our identity, cultural traditions and history.
| Academic:
Our Inquiry based question this half term is :- How do we express ourselves? – Design can reflect identity, cultural tradition and history. We will be designing a farm and thinking about how farming has changed and adapted over time and how it might change in the future. Our science will also be linked to this. We will learn about allotment habitats and food chains, life cycles, growing and seasonality. In maths we will cover ratio, algebra, multiplication and division, fractions and decimals. |
| Character:
Our character virtues this half term are respect, determination and critical thinking. We will be using all of these on our visits to Holsworthy and Launceston colleges where we will be participating in sporting challenges with several other schools. |
| Community:
In RE Badger class will be answering the question ‘Why do some people believe in God and some people not?’ This will give the children a chance to debate and express their own views. |
| Digital and Innovation:
As part of our literacy, Badger class will be looking at the animated story ‘ The Girl and the Fox’. They will review the animation and create their own animated story on their chrome books. Badger class will also be making soup as part of our farm project.
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