Bramble

Welcome back Bramble Class! I hope everyone has settled back into school and are ready for another successful term.  

Bramble Class returned to school to a boarding pass, telling them that they were going on holiday to Brazil. We first used our geographical thinking to locate Brazil on a map and found out some more information about the country. We then prepared for our journey. However, during our flight, we had to make an unscheduled stop. We soon found out that we were very far away from school...we had landed in the Amazon Rainforest!

We made our way through the jungle and arrived to find a letter addressed to Bramble Class:

Bramble Class thank goodness you’re here to help! My name is Greta Thunberg and I am a Swedish Environmental Activist fighting against climate change.

The Amazon Rainforest is in danger and needs help from people all over the world to ensure it continues to grow. I need you to explore the rainforest for yourself and find out about this amazing eco-system. When you have learnt all you can, I shall write to you again and explain your next challenge. I fear it will soon be too late so I need you to act quickly! I am leaving this in your capable hands to protect this biodiverse, wondrous eco-system that our world so heavily relies upon.

Thank you so much Bramble Class, I look forward to hearing all you have learnt very soon.

Goodbye,

Greta Thunberg

This term, we will develop our subject-knowledge and skills through exploring the Amazon Rainforest. We will learn about the importance of Rainforests and the positive impact they have on the environment. We will be finding out a lot more about Greta as she guides our learning and encourages us to think about how we can help protect our eco-system. We aim to decrease St Mark's carbon footprint in order to help prevent Climate Change. We will be thinking about how we as a school can make small but significant changes to lower our impact on the environment. 

Throughout the term, Bramble Class will be building on our Growth Mindset to help us become better learners. We will think about how we can become more resilient by taking part in challenges and investigations across a range of subject areas. We will focus on improving our own confidence by maintaining a ‘have a go’ attitude and celebrating our achievements (no matter how small!). We will continue to focus on developing our writing skills: the children will be encouraged to take a more conscientious attitude towards their own learning by evidencing where they have achieved their targets and learning goals. We will continue working hard to learn our times tables.

Please continue to support your child with their reading and times table recall at home. If you have any concerns, or your child is struggling with their homework, please let me know and I will delegate time in the week to go over the tasks. 

Please see below for this term's class overview. If you have any questions do please come and see me, ideally at the end of the school day. If you have any urgent queries, please contact Mrs Richardson to book an appointment and I will try my best to be available at 8.30 am. 

I look forward to another fantastic term with Bramble Class!

Miss Button 

Meet Bramble's Superheroes!

We use our powers to help us fight off negative feelings and overcome any challenges we may face in our learning. We understand that it is ok to fail and it is an important part of our learning journey. The most important thing is that we have a go! 

On Wednesday 18th December, Bramble Class held an Africa Day! We came in to school dressed in the colours of the South African flag and learnt about the Baobab Tree: The Tree of Life. We began our day by finding out information about the iconic tree and all its incredible functions. We then presented our findings to the rest of the class. After break, we looked at ancient fables that tell the story of why the Baobab tree has its unique look and created our own version. We enjoyed acting out our fable! Later on in our day, we designed and created our own 'Tree of Life'. We had to think carefully about our design and ensure that each part of the tree had a function that can help people living in Africa. All 23 children in Bramble class told Miss Button a fact about the Baobab tree at the end of the day!

On Wednesday 6th November, Bramble class enjoyed their Marvelous Middle! We explored Aesop's Fables and identified the common writing features used in Fables. We recognised that Fables must include a moral; a lesson that is learned, however sometimes we must 'Dig Deeper' to work out what the moral is. We then created our own Fables and acted them out. We will use this experience to help us write our own Fable centred around how an African animal got its own physical feature. For example: How the Leopard got its Spots!

We were also very fortunate to have one of our Governers, Ann Bennett, come in to teach us some Swahili. We enjoyed learning about the African number system and learning some Swahili phrases. Asanti Ann!