Beech Tree Class Blog 2023-2024
Beech Tree Blog
Weekly Update-19/9/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, in our writing, we have started our unit of work on character descriptions. The focus of this work revolves around the story of Beowulf. Together, as a class, we have read and discussed the story and watched a video depicting the story as well. The children really enjoyed the story and have chosen to Grendel as the character to focus on for their character description. Once the class had chosen their character, we looked at a WAGOLL character description and identified lots of the features that appeared within it. The following lesson, we banked as many adjectives and descriptive phrases as possible to describe Grendel. We then followed that up with a lesson where the children used all those ideas that they had generated and created exciting, expanded noun phrases with prepositional phrases to go with them. The children have really enjoyed this unit of work so far and are excited to work on their character description of Grendel. We have also focused on using a and an correctly within sentences.
In reading, we have focused on the second chapter of our class novel and practised using our retrieval skills to pick answers out of the text and summarising skills to mention all the main events of the second chapter in four sentences or less.
In maths, we have been focusing on finding 1,10, 100 or 1000 more or less than a number and we have also been focusing on using number lines to 10,000 and understanding the calculations required to work out what each increment is worth on a number line. We have also been using those skills to help with estimating on number lines to 10,000
In art, our unit of work is on British Art this half term and our first two-part lesson focused on illustration skills and telling a story through a piece of art. The children watched a video about the story of The Monkey and The Crocodile, which would be the focus of the illustration. We discussed what the story was all about and the children were tasked with creating one illustration that could be associate immediately with a part of the story. We discussed all the steps and skills involved with producing accurate illustration and the children produced some lovely pieces of work and listened and followed the steps given to them.
In history, our first lesson focused on the chronology of different historical events and people that the children have previously learnt about, identifying them on the timeline, understanding that different periods in history could have been occurring at the same time and placing where the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings fit in within that timeline.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou :)
Weekly Update-12/9/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, in our writing, we have continued our work on recapping and practising using different punctuation. This week we have focused on using commas for lists, question marks and exclamation marks.
In reading, we have focused on the first chapter of our class novel and practised using our retrieval skills to pick answers out of the text.
In maths, we have been focusing on representing the value of digits in four digit numbers in a variety of ways and comparing and ordering numbers to 10,000, with a big focus on understanding the meaning of all the mathematical vocabulary involved with it e.g ascending and descending.
In science, we have been focusing on the functions of the skeleton and the different roles that different bones have e.g protecting vital, internal organs.
The children also attended their first swimming session this week, which they all really enjoyed and it was lovely to see!
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou :)
Weekly Update-5/9/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
Welcome back to Rufford Park and welcome to our weekly class blog where we will share the learning we have undertaken in class. It will be updated every Friday each week of term. What a fantastic start to the year! It has been lovely getting to know the children this week. They have settled in really well and I have been extremely impressed with how positive and enthusiastic they have all been whilst settling into our new classroom and routines. I have had such an enjoyable start to each day because the children have welcomed me every day with such happy beaming smiles despite potentially underlying start of term nerves.
We are very excited to share that we have been able to organise a visit to Murton Park this half term to support us with our new topic about the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. Further details regarding the trip have been shared via ParentPay.
In reading, the children have been learning about the importance of reading and how it can support their learning. We have focused on on the different reading skills that we will be using throughout the year, which are represented in the form of dogs e.g Inference Iggy and Predicting Pip. Our class novel, which is related to our topic this term, is called Thorfinn the Nicest Viking and the Terrible Treasure by David MacPhail, and the children have already made some great predictions about what it might be about just based on what they could see on the front cover. We have also chosen our story time book, which is Billionaire Boy by David Walliams, and the children have been really enjoying that so far. The children have also made their own lovely bookmarks and created their cubist style portraits. The portraits will form a lovely display in the corridor out side the Beech Tree classroom.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou