Autumn Term

Our big question is, 'Why is belonging to God and the church family important to Christians?'

We began by thinking about starting school and how it felt to be new. We shared lots of stories and talked about the things we do to welcome each other and what it feels like to belong.

We found out that some people are part of a church 'family' or community who might welcome a baby in a special way, and that this is called a baptism or a christening. We looked at pictures and a video of this happening and were then very excited to welcome Revd Dr Michael Volland in to show us what he would do if he was baptising a baby.

We found out about how people might celebrate this special day and talked together about special days in our own families.

Spring Term

Our Big Question this first half term has been 'How can we care for our wonderful world?'

We thought about all of the different plants and animals we knew about, and we talked about the different places we have been too. We then looked in books, used the internet and watched some clips about animals that live in different countries and environments. We couldn't believe how many there were!

We thought about what would happen if people don't look after plants and animals and decided to make a difference at school. We found out about the Big Schools Bird Watch and wanted to feed the birds around our school. We used lots of different things from our recycling box and made a mixture that birds would like to eat. We hung the birdfeeders in our garden and waited.

It was very exciting to see birds eating from them!

We explored the story of creation in the Bible and used small world figures to tell the story ourselves.

We have had some storytelling with Victoria from CSOC this term. She came to tell us a story about Jesus as we start Lent. The children then used some creative resources to respond.

Victoria came back to share the Easter story with us at the end of term.

Summer Term 

This term we have been exploring Judaism. Our first big question was 'Why is learning to do good deeds so important to Jewish people?'

Our second big question is 'Why is the Torah such a joy for Jewish people?'

We found out about a celebration called Simchat Torah that is held when the whole of the Torah has been read. This takes a year and ends with dancing and celebrating. We found out that Jewish people value the words of the Torah so highly that some are written down and kept as a small scroll, inside a beautiful case. This is then placed on a door frame so that every time someone walks through the door they can touch it and remember the special importance of the words inside.

We wrote some words that we thought were good for us to remember at school. We wondered about the things that were most important and would help to make our classroom a good place to be!