This week the children have been writing non-chronological reports about castles. They have had to include what a castle is, parts of a castle, jobs within a castle and write about Corfe Castle and its history. It has been great to see the children rising to the challenge of organising their information under different headings and seeing their interest in learning about a local castle.

In science the we looked at the structure of plants and the children have all planted a sunflower which they have bought home. A couple of years ago this was a great success which resulted in the head of the sunflower that was grown being bought back into school for us to use the seeds the following year. A real lesson on the life cycle of a plant. Please do share any photographs of the sunflowers growing - it's always good to know they have germinated and are growing well. This week we had some peas bought in from the pea seeds the children planted  last term. 

In DT they have made clay pots and learnt about the importance of clay in the past for making cups, plates and bowls to eat from in the days before plastic. 

Year 2 are currently learning about time in maths and it is expected that they will all be able to tell the time including quarter past and quarter to. Ideally accurately to 5 minutes - ie 5 past, 10 past etc. Please do practice this at home throughout the weekend so the children are familiar with different clocks.

We also had a virtual visit from Rosemary Locock our local fire safety officer. She talked to the children about what the fire brigade do, how to stay safe and what to do if there is a fire. The children were very responsive to the stories and songs and hopefully have talked to you about some of what they have learnt.  In our conversation afterwards a few things came up that would be worth discussing with your children. The first was, where would you meet if there was a fire in your house? Lots of the children had great ideas about where a good place would be so maybe as a family you could come up with a place. The other was that some of the children didn't know their address. Hopefully they would never have to call 999 as there would always be an adult with them, but if they did, they do need to know where they live.

The mantra they were given was if there is a fire Get out, Stay out, Call 999.