Welcome to Cedar Class

Years 5 and 6

Ms Ostler

Class Teacher (PPA)

RE Subject Leader

Mrs Hipwell

Mrs Hipwell

Teaching Assistant

MFL Coordinator

What's our topic this term?

Pupil resources:

Name
 Information for meet the teacher evening.docxDownload
 Meet the teacher evening.pptDownload
 timetable.docxDownload
 topic web.docxDownload
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Class blog

Autumn 2023

We have had a great start to the year enjoying studying food and farming in our topic lessons, learning about the changes to farming over time, the different stages involved to get food from the farm to the shops and the research involved in improving farming and looking at how this works in practice in dairy farming and wheat producing.

In English to compliment our topic work we have been reading Animal Farm and have enjoyed exploring the vocabulary and using this to help us develop character descriptions.  We have thought about the motivations of the characters and will finish our work writing a diary from a character's point of view about the events in the books.

Science has taken us to space which has complimented our discussions in RE about the big bang and Genesis. In PE we have been developing our hockey and gymnastic skills and in art working on drawing skills, drawing people moving and working on perspective.

Our maths work has focused on place value, the four calculations and we are beginning our fraction work thinking.  We are focussing on being able to explain our thinking in all areas we work on and using mathematical vocabulary to do so.

We have been lucky this term as we had a visitor from the Wildlife Trust who came for a day to teach us all about wildlife and nature in the classroom,  using maps, learning about habitats and features of animals using biological keys and discussing what action can be taken locally to help wildlife.  As you can see from the photos below, we had a great day!"

See photos from our trips this term:

Wildlife day

Summer 2023

On 29 June, our Year 6 pupils visited Clare College, University of Cambridge. See our Special Events Photo Gallery.

Spring 2023

We have continued our learning via the topic of Explorers and Inventors. In Cedar class we looked the stories of major expeditions that occurred early in the 20th century.  Our first book was about The Endeavour expedition to the Antarctica and our second about the Great Serum Race in Alaska where a group of 20 mushers did a relay across Alaska to bring back a serum to the town of Nome to stop the spread of Diptheria. Both stories inspired us greatly and we have been very excited to learn about the courage and resiliience of those involved in the expeditions. Our writing has been focussed on recounts, thinking about formal reports, informal diary writing and we are finishing the term writing our own story about an expedition.

With a focus on the Americas we have looked at the natural and physical geography of the countries that make up the Americas as well as also been finding out about the history of the Mayan civilisation. We are in the process of creating Mayan style masks out of clay - photos will follow once they have been finished.  As well as our art in DT we have been looking at automaton and creating our own moveable parts - again photos will follow once finished.

Our maths work has been a focus on multiplicative and additive structures as well as working on understanding fractions. This year we have been encouraged to explain our thinking at every possible moment and have found this has really helped our understanding. Our maths swop focus was on reasoning when problem solving.

In PE we have started to train for the cross country competition next term in Priory Park and have had a lot of fun doing orienteering too.

In RE there has been a focus on the Islamic religion and have learnt about the significance of the different prayer positions. We have had some very interesting discussions about prayer. We have also enjoyed singing songs from around the world in music and adding our own musical accompaniment to them.

We hope you enjoyed the taster we gave you of our learning this term in our Assembly, which we were very proud of.

Autumn 2022

We have been pleased to welcome back some children to Cedar Class and meet a group of new children to the class and are looking forward to a very exciting year. 

The children have settled in to the routines quickly and are already working very hard.

We enjoyed our trip to Hilltop in November - see the photos in our Special Events Photo Gallery.

Globe Theatre visit

On 6 November, as part of our Tudor topic we went on a day trip to London by train to visit the Globe Theatre.  We were given a tour of the theatre and learnt about its development and what caused it to burn down.  We also learnt about how plays were staged in Tudor times and the difference in price for seated audience and the groundlings, as well as the etiquette at the time. We have been studying Midsummer Night's dream and were given a drama workshop looking at a scene between Oberon and Titania which we really enjoyed.

We enjoyed our lunch sitting by the Thames watching all the sights before returning on the train home. 

Parish Councilor visit

We were lucky enough to have a visit from Mrs Mickleborough a parish councilor for Godmanchester council who talked to us about local democracy and how the council works and liaises with the Local Authority.  

Visit from local magistrate

We were very lucky to have a visit from one of the local magistrate, Mr Watts JP, who gave an extremely interesting talk to the children about the workings of a Magistrate Court.  The children had many questions and Mr Watts was particularly impressed with their engagement and the quality of their thoughts and questions.

Summer 2022

Safer Swimming trip

Year 6 had a great day on Tuesday 5 July at Milton Country Park. They spent the first half of the morning learning about safer swimming, where it is safe to swim and where not and what to do if they have found themselves in difficulty in the water. They then enjoyed some time learning how to paddle board which they all thoroughly enjoyed.  After lunch a relaxing time was had playing in the adventure park.

Spring 2022

We have written some poems inspired by an anthology called Poems from a Green and Blue Planet by Sabrina Mahfouz.

Summer 2021

Milton Country Park

On 6 July the Year 6s visited Milton Country Park where they learnt how to paddle board and swim safely, they then had a picnic lunch. A great time was had by all!

Stibbington

Cedar Class had a great day out at Stibbington experiencing what it would have been like to have been evacuated during the war.  They caught the train and walked from the train, being shown the houses their alter egos would have been staying in.  They then learnt how to wash clothes and got to play with traditional toys.  After lunch, it was time for school and to learn more about propaganda posters.  The siren went off as there seemed to be an air attack so we all had to retreat to the Anderson Shelter, where we sang songs to keep our spirits up.

The children thoroughly enjoyed the day and applying what they have learnt so far in Topic to real life experiences.

Train journey to Stibbington

Work and play!

1940s school experience

Autumn 2020

Roman Day - November 2020

Cedar class enjoyed their Roman day this term. The children were able to get involved in many activities including: 

  • making wax tablets
  • creating mosaics
  • grinding materials to make ink and then write their own messages
  • making bronze brooches 
  • creating their own herb potions
  • making clay charms
  • exercising and even going to the latrine!!  

The day was organised around being a Roman legion in a camp and the children got to try out different shield formations as well as do an investigation into whether there was a spy in the camp by looking at various artefacts.  

We all learnt so much about Roman life and the investigation into the artefacts was particularly fascinating.  Did you know the Romans had nail tools to keep their nails clean?

Autumn 2019

As always, we had a busy Autumn Term in Cedar Class. We started our year with a trip to Bush craft. The children enjoyed various activities from making fires and dens to sleeping under the stars. They learnt how to use camouflage, listened to stories by the campfire, and enjoyed sumptuous food. They even rescued the teachers from a plane crash (with some serious over-acting from the teachers!).

Our topic was food and farming; the children were gripped by the story of Animal Farm and imagining themselves to be Benjamin, the long-suffering donkey, wrote diaries of the events. We went on another trip, this time for a day, to Houghton Mill and had a fascinating tour of the mill and shown its workings and told the history. Although a soggy day, spirits were high!

In science, we investigated space and forces, using our DT skills to make wind power. We learnt some hockey skills and developed a moving dance about bullying for our PE work and we finished the term with some Slam poetry, with the children creating their own and performing them for each other. The children made their own compositions in music and then explored the work of Shostakovich.

Great fun was had preparing for and performing Going for Gold and we will be revisiting the themes from the show in the summer term.

This term our topic is communication and we are exploring the experiences of refugees through our English work as well as looking at the development of writing in the Sumerian civilization. We will also be exploring an ancient story and comparing it to a bible story. We will also be looking at the development of communication to modern day and learning some Makaton and sign language. The children have already started bringing homework in with examples of different forms of communication.

Science is animals and their habitats and materials and In Music we are looking at the work of modern composer Kerry Andrew. Inspired by her composition “No Place Like", we will be thinking about sounds that conjure up our homes and making music of our own.
In RE we are exploring Judaism and asking, "What influences the Jewish people?" We have puzzled over the tefillin and will be thinking about special words that we would like to guide our lives.

Please see below Hannah's writing, inspired by Christmas - 2019.

Summer 2019

Our Peace Garden

Spring 2019 - Human and Physical Geography

This term we have been reading The Explorer by Kathryn Rundell and have written our own explorer diaries. We have also been finding out about the Americas. We have mapped he longitude and latitude of various places in the Americas. We have also worked out what the climate is like and the biome according to its location. As part of our work we have been learning about the Mayan civilisation who lived in what is now central America. We have been making Mayan masks and explored their writing and maths symbols. We did some fieldwork of our village exploring the human and physical geography and some of our Powerpoints are here for your enjoyment. We really enjoyed doing this work and presenting it to each other in class. Our intention is to compare where we have investigated with a place in the Americas.

Name
 Exploring Cambourne Feb19.pdfDownload
 Field work.pdfDownload
 fieldwork presentation.pdfDownload
 jennas geography at home presentation.pdfDownload
 Now and then.pdfDownload
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Autumn - 2018

English Writing - Writing a Recount Using Dialogue

Our Previous Work

Our World Topic - Australia

During art, we have created picture of animals inspired by aboriginal art. Art has always been an important part of Aboriginal life because it connects the past and present, the people and the land, and the supernatural and reality.

There has never been a written language for Australian Aborigines. They used art to convey their important cultural stories from generation to generation.

It was important for Aborigines to pass on information to preserve their history and culture. Indigenous art is centred on storytelling. Storytelling through art is used as a method to convey knowledge of the land, events and beliefs of the Indigenous people.

The use of symbols was a way to write down stories of cultural significance and to teach survival and use of the Australian land.