Welcome to Willow Class 2024-2025

Hello and welcome to Willow Class webpage.

Willow's teachers are Miss Raheem and Mrs Fairbairn. 

Mrs Fairbairn will teach Willow Class every Monday.

Willow's wonderful teaching assistants are Ms Coverdale and

Mrs Johansen 

Term 5 - PE will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please wear your PE kit to school on these days. 

This page will be updated termly with information that may be of interest to you regarding projects, timetables, the curriculum, videos, pictures and more. It will be useful to keep checking this page for any helpful documents that will keep you informed about this year. You will also find some useful resources that can be used to help your child with their learning. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch using the contact box below.  

Useful Information and Links

This term, Willow class were introduced to, ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes in reading and writing lessons. We looked at opening to the Iron Man and identified the features of a successful story opening, such as; powerful vocabulary, expanded noun phrases, similes and different sentence structures. Then, using some of the techniques used by Ted Hughes in The Iron Man, we wrote our own version of the opening. Willow class have done a great job!

"I've learnt how to draw a maze." Harvey

"Even if the object has a little bit of metal on it, it's not always magnetic." Emily C

"Plastic objects are not magnetic." Archie

"Iron is magnetic, and tin and plastic are not." Alex

"The plastic bottle had bumps, so it was quite tricky because the object falls down. A flat and smooth bottle works the best." Kole

"Certain objects are attracted to each other due to a magnetic force." Owen 

Year 3 had a great time at Crocodiles of the World in Brize Norton. We enjoyed learning about the different species of crocodile, their natural habitats and diet. In addition, we got to see other animals including meercats, snakes and other small reptiles. Our guide Colin was very informative. Interestingly, we learnt that crocodiles have bumpy skin because their skin acts like solar panels, helping to regulate their temperature. We loved feeding time and getting to see the crocodile’s jaws and teeth up close. Year 3 had a brilliant day out learning about these fascinating creatures. These are some of our reflections:

“I loved seeing the meercats being fed, they are so adorable!” Edie

“I liked to see how really big the the crocodiles were!” Leyton

“I liked seeing the crocodiles being fed, and watching them leap out of the water.” Alex

“I enjoyed learning about how crocodiles have eyelids that act like goggles to help them to see underwater.” Isobel

“I learnt that crocodiles keep cool by keeping their mouths open.” Pippa

“I learnt that you can tell the difference between crocodiles by the way their teeth hang out of their mouth.“ Emily C

“My favourite bit was watching the crocodiles being fed, especially when they jumped up to catch the food.” Misha

“I learnt the difference between crocodiles and alligators, alligators are slightly small and crocodiles are bigger.” Emily M

“I was fun at Crocodile World because I learnt a lot about crocodiles!”

“My favourite game was Zombie Cave, there was always something do!” Ronan

“My favourite game was Dragon Treasure, it’s a bit like Granny’s Footsteps, but there’s treasure instead. I liked the fact that you had to try and sneak to try and treasure.” Emily M

“I liked it when my team was playing the Elephant Game, it was funny because even if you were out the leaders showed you some exercises.” Phoebe

“Freddie was a very good leader, he listened and helped me a lot.” Jovi 

“Harry helped me with the game, it gave me more confidence. He was really good, he was so kind and polite.” Archie

“I liked Myles because he helped me and encouraged me when we played a game like Grandma’s footsteps.”

“The whole thing was really fun because the all the Year 6 leaders were nice.” Bodhi

“I think the best sports leader is Logan because he said everything loudly and clearly so it made sense.” Misha

The children have been working very hard on their sewing. They have done running stitch, cross stitch and some have even tried back stitch. They have persevered when it was difficult and frustrating and shown excellent resilience! 

Here are some of of our wonderful observations:

"I think it is night because there is a moon in the corner of the picture.” Ronan

“I can see a bird, I think it is dead. If I was there I would be able to smell bird blood.” Kole

“I think the wooden pole holding the bird spins, and the man’s hand is pointing at it to make it spin.” Callum

“The bird has flown in and they are trying to rescue it.” Alex

“This picture is from a long time ago, and a long time ago they used to capture birds.” Archie

“I can see somebody crying and it looks like there’s lemonade in the glass so it’s a new painting.” JJ

“I think the tall man is sprinkling something on to the bird.”

“I think the girl is sad because the bird is going to die.”

“If I was there, it would smell woody because there’s lots of wooden things around.”

“They could be in a treehouse because it looks like it at the top of the picture.” David

“Some people in the picture are really looking at what’s going, on some are looking in the other direction.” Phoebe

“Everybody in the picture looks serious and worried.” Emily M

“The man’s face looks like a skull, it’s frightening.” Amelie

“The arm does not look connected to the man.” Harvey

“I think the glass is a lantern and it’s creating the light; the painter wants us to look at the part that’s not in the dark.” Bodhi

We celebrated Roald Dahl's birthday this week by exploring some of his wonderful work. Roald Dahl is famous for his children's books, but he is also famous for his poems. We started the week by reading an extract from The BFG, followed by an extract from Fantastic Mr Fox. Later in the week, we explored the poem, The Dentist and the Crocodile. We have been developing our retrieval skills through a quick quiz, to see how much we can remember from what has been read.