Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Summer Term
WB 13.6.25
It has been a busy week of assessments, so the children ended the week enjoying some time in the glorious sunshine.
Fun in the sun!
WB 2.6.25
What a great start to our first day back!
We have enjoyed our swimming sessions at Davenant and are very much looking forward to continuing with these sessions when we are in Year 6.
Hawthorn class also had their sessions with the Tottenham Hotspur coach. It has been a very fun and exciting morning.
Working with the Tottenham Hotspur coach
Today, Wednesday 4th of June, we celebrated the children who successfully completed The Brilliant Club Programme. Well done on all of your hard work. Mrs Burling and I are very proud of you all.
Tudor Day
Year 5 travel back in time to Tudor England!
The Setting: May 1536, The Final Days of Anne Boleyn
It is the time of the Reformation. Henry VIII has broken from Rome in order that he could divorce his first wife, Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Now, however, with only a daughter and no son from his new marriage, and rumours of affairs with other men, Anne has been taken through Traitor's Gate at the Tower of London and is being tried for treason. We are in a country manor house awaiting news of the trial, helping the craftspeople who work in different rooms of the manor.
This day gave the pupils a rounded picture of the Tudor world, also covering such things as religious beliefs, literacy, crafts and materials of the period.
Activities included:
* limning (painting lockets)
* ink making and writing with quills
* soap makers
* leather bookmarks
* sewing
* scent bag making
* apothecary
* barber surgeon
* Alchemist
Please look in your child's brown paper bag for these items.
In the afternoon, the children went off into different groups to rehearse the entertainments for the feast, which included a play, singers, dancers and jugglers, while a few of the children were trained as servants with our teacher, Sir Ian. Sir Ian then hosted the afternoon's feast. The feast included bread, cheese, grapes and some wine (juice).
We had a fabulous day making memories and bringing our learning to life to experience what life was like in the Tudor era.
Tudor Fun!
A Tudor Banquet
Welcome back! We hope that you have all had a restful half term. Can you believe that the children are in their final weeks of Year 5. Time really does go by so quickly.
Sports Day
WB 19.5.25
This week we had a surprise visit from some unexpected guests. We first noticed them as they left piles of stones around the school. As a result in computing we carried out some research on our unexpected guests using the website 'The Beaming Botanist'. We later used this research to make information leaflets about our guests. Do you know what they are called? They are called Hoebbles. What are Hoebbles I hear you cry?!
A Hoebble is related to hobgoblins, Hoebbles (also referred to as Hobbles) are guardians of our natural world. These friendly beings are known to give nature a helping hand by tending to the soil, caring for plants and removing waste from our natural water sources.
To make our Hoebbles feel welcome we made them Hoebble beds, using lots of different things from nature. Hoebbles can only stay inside for a little while and they will need our help getting back to nature.
An unusual visitor
Hoebble Leaflet
Making Hoebble beds
WB 5.5.25
VE Day
What is VE Day?
VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) was the day when fighting against Nazi Germany in Europe stopped.
On 8 May 1945 at 3pm, Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, announced on the radio that the war in Europe had ended.
World War Two began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war on them.
2025 marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
VE Day celebrations
Year 5 enjoyed a fabulous day in the Natural History Museum. The children had the opportunity to engage in an earthquake and volcano workshop to enhance their learning. Everybody had lots of fun!
They also had the opportunity to explore the earthquake and volcano zone to learn more about earthquakes. The children got to experience what it would have felt like to have been in an earthquake by going on the earthquake simulator.
We also explored different living things and their habitats to support our Science topic. They had some amazing mammal and insect exhibits to see.
The Natural History Museum
WB 28.4.25
What a busy week we have had in year 5!
On Monday we were lucky enough to have watched the Year 3 & 4 performance of 'Panto Pandemonium'. We were extremely proud of the performers and thoroughly enjoyed the show!
In swimming we ALL pushed ourselves to improve our technique and work on our breathing in order to develop this important life skill. We left feeling proud of ourselves and we are looking forward to our next lesson.
In ICT we learnt how to code our names onto Micro:bits using the MakeCode software, what WOW moment that was! We are excited to extend our learning further in our next lesson, as we will be finding out the exciting variety of things they can be used for.
In History we have been learning about the upsetting and shocking topic of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, this topic has been met with many questions and discussions in order to deepen our understanding of this terrible time in history.
In Maths we have been learning to order and compare decimals (up to 3 decimal places) and rounding numbers to 1 decimal place. We used our growth mindsets and, as a result, we were all incredibly successful in our maths this week.
We hope you have a fantastic Bank Holiday weekend as we look forward to another very busy week next week - which includes a school trip to The Natural History Museum and the VE Day picnic!
WB 22.4.25
Welcome back, we hope that you have all had a lovely Easter holidays. Can you believe that the children only have one more term left in Year 5. The year is flying by.
It has been a busy week in Year 5!
In English we have been writing our own portal stories about our adventures to a volcanic island. We used lots of different writing techniques including 'show not tell' to engage our reader. We enjoyed writing our portal stories and look forward to sharing them with you when we can.
In Maths this week we have been learning about equivalent fractions and decimals. We have learned about equivalences of tenths, hundredths and thousandths.
1/10 = 0.1
1/100 = 0.01
1/1000 = 0.001
We also learned about other equivalences including
1/2 = 0.5
1/4 = 0.25
3/4 = 0.75
1/5 = 0.2
Next week we will be learning about ordering and rounding decimals.
In Geography we have been learning about different time zones.
This week, we also enjoyed our first swimming session at Davenant school.