Good Afternoon All,

Just a quick message to say welcome to Columbia and Orion.

Staff Members:

Columbia –  Mrs. Campbell-Whitfield and Mrs. Onwumelu

Orion:  Ms. Cole, Ms. Sitch and Mrs. Baker

Orion meet the teacher presentation sept 2022 adapted

Columbia meet the teacher presentation sept 2022

Kind regards,

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield

We have reached the end of the Summer 1 half term!

Our topic this half term was Natural Disasters, where the children have explored a range of natural disasters including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes. They have used map skills and learned lots about the Earth’s structure. Our written tasks have been explanation texts and poems, in which the children have demonstrated a range of new skills.

In Maths, we looked at fractions and began exploring time. Please continue this over half term and encourage children to read the clock daily.

In science, we have studied rocks and soils. We carried out investigations that included classifying and comparing. We looked at fossil formation and the work of Mary Anning.

PE this half term has focussed on Athletics, where the children have built skills in running, jumping and throwing.

Next half term, we will be taking traveling back in time to Ancient Egypt!

Thank you for your continued support and for all the donations towards our Jubilee party. It was enjoyed by all and the generosity was very appreciated.

We look forward to the final half term!

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield and Mr Ward

Dear All,

Friday marked the half-way point in this half term! I’m sure many of you will join me in finding great joy the nearer we get to the summer daylight hours.

Last week was Writing Week so the children were given the opportunity to show off their writing skills in the form of a letter to a friend, based upon the novel we are reading, ‘Ted and his Time-Travelling Toilet: Tudor Tangle’. We saw some wonderful work across the classes, with lots of ambitious vocabulary being used.

In Maths, we started looking at measures and converting units of measure. This is a skill that will continue to be developed over the coming weeks. We had lots of enjoyment in class measuring different objects. Try asking the children what unit of measure is best for measuring different things.

In Science, we made the most of the sun and investigated the question: ‘Do people with longer legs jump further than those with shorter legs?’. This task showed great scientific enquiry.

Finally, it has been so nice hearing the children talking about their reading books from World Book Day. We had so much fun going to the Review book store in Peckham, where each of the children cashed in their tokens to get a free book. Please encourage the children to continue reading and share their love for it.

Let’s keep pushing for the final few weeks of the term!

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield and Mr Ward

 

 

Hello all

Thank you for reading our blog! This half term has started fantastically! There has been lots going on inside the school and we are in full momentum for the coming weeks.

This half term, our topic is Tudor Britain. So far, we have explored the Tudor monarchs and the timeline of events through the Tudor era. We also looked at what life was like for children during the Tudor times.

The book we are reading in DR is ‘Ted and his Time-Traveling Toilet: Tudor Tangle’ by Steven Vinacour. It has been going down very well with the classes with lots of laughs!

In Maths, we have been looking at data representations, such as bar charts and tally charts. This is a good skill for the children to begin to analyse and unpick data, particularly helping their reasoning development.

Science this half term looks at the human body and later on we will be looking at plants. They children have been learning about the skeleton and what the purpose is of different bones. Try testing them at home, they have a lot to say!

We have been lucky enough to have had an external yoga instructor come in to complete 3 sessions of yoga, something the children enjoyed very much. We are continuing with our PE curriculum and hopefully as the weather warms up, we will be able to do this outside (fingers crossed!).

This week, we celebrated World Book Day. It was so fun seeing the children in their costumes and sharing their love of reading. We looked at a book by Aaron Becker called ‘Journey’. The children made story boards, predicting new endings and had the opportunity for role play. We also made diary entries from the perspective of the main character.

To finish up, we want to remind parents that they can contact us through Class Dojo, or feel free to talk to us at the end of the day. We also ask that you continue to sign your child’s reading record weekly so we can track what the children are reading at home. Please understand that sometimes the timetable has to change unexpectantly but we endeavour to cover our entire curriculum and are always willing to explain any changes.

Have a great weekend!

 

Hello all,

We have had a busy week in Year 3 this week! In Maths, we started the week with some more column method work before moving on to estimating and rounding, which is reflected in the homework for this week.

In our Learning Across the Curriculum lessons, we have been looking at stone age jewellery and tools, including looking at the materials and methods used to create them. We even had some children pitching their ‘inventions’ in a Dragons Den-style pitch!

The skill we have been focusing on in DR has been ‘inferring’, so please test the children on this skill over the weekend. We read ‘Stone Age Boy’ as a class this week, which the children seemed to enjoy lots.

We saw huge improvements in the home reading engagement levels this week (with a year 3 class winning the school-wide home reading competition), so please keep this enthusiasm going for the coming weeks as it has really reflected in class!

Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing everyone Monday!

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield and Mr Ward

Below is a message from our student council, please have a read!
“Hi, we are the student council from Oliver Goldsmith Primary School.
We have a great school but it is in a very busy part of London and the traffic is all around us. We want to add lots of green space to our school playground where we can play and learn. We want to grow plants, flowers, trees and vegetables so that we can create a positive environment.
We want to use re-cycled materials to support our planting, seating and shade in the playground.
This is all very expensive so this is why we are trying to raise funds to help us create a future proof, environmentally positive space.
We would love to be able to do this so we are asking for your kind donation to support us with this. Thank you.”
Any donations would be hugely appreciated! Follow this link to find out more:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/environmentally-positive-school?qid=020b9b864400a3d5ce7b101e07af26d6

Hello all!

It has been a fast-paced first week back, making a great start to the new half term.

In maths this week, we have been covering addition and subtraction using the column method.

We have also introduced our new topic which is Through the Ages. We have talked about what history is and dived into the different periods within the Stone Age. Our DR lessons have been linked to this, reading the book Cavekid Birthday whilst focusing on predicting.

Our science topic this half term is Magnets and Forces, so this week we began looking at some of the different forces. This will be covered more throughout the half term.

Please keep reading with children at home. It is essential that parents leave comments in the reading records so we have a good understanding of what is happening at home.

Enjoy the weekend and we look forward to another great week next week.

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield and Mr Ward

Hello All,

Today, we were lucky enough to have Rock Steady deliver workshops for us all. It was great seeing all of the future drummers, singers, keyboard players and guitarists from Year 3 enjoying themselves!

Since the return, we have been very busy and making leaps of progress across the curriculum. In topic, we have been building on our geography skills whilst learning about Kenya which has enabled us to write tourist leaflets so be sure to ask your own personal tour guides at home all about Kenya! In theme with our topic, we have been reading Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters and Lila and the Secret of Rain in our reading lessons. In Maths, we have been focusing on place value and the children have been learning how to represent 3-digit numbers. In Science, we have been learning about the different food groups and what constitutes a traditionally balanced diet.

Going forwards, we will be preparing to write a piece of descriptive writing about the day in the life of a child in Kenya, developing the necessary skills needed for this task. In Maths, we will be learning to add and subtract with 3-digit numbers.

Just as a reminder, our PE day is Wednesday, so please try to come in to school in a PE kit on Wednesdays only. We also ask that you continue to practice spellings at home and listen to your child read daily, recording all responses in the reading record.

Have a lovely weekend and let’s keep the positive energy flowing for the coming weeks!

 

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield and Mr Ward

Hello all!

Well done for getting through a warm and wonderful first week back! It has been great to see everyone again along with some new additions to our classes. We hope everyone settled in well and feels pleased to be back.

This week, we have been using our time to get to know the children and begin to introduce the new topic (Kenya) for this half term, along with Destination Reader which is a new concept for children starting KS2.

It was a pleasure to meet so many of you at the Meet the Teacher talks on Friday – we hope you found this useful. To follow up from this, we have attached the presentation to this blog for you to read. We would appreciate if you can all connect with us on Class Dojo as this is a good way for us to communicate throughout the year. If yo have any more questions from the session, feel free to contact us this way.

Have a great weekend, get some rest and we will see you all Monday!

Mr Ward and Mrs Campbell-Whitfield

Meet the teacher presentation Year 3 2021

Hello All,

We are all excited to see you on Monday 6th September and hope you had a lovely summer.

This year, your teachers will be Mrs Campbell-Whitfield (Columbia) and Mr Ward (Orion), assisted by Mrs Baker and Ms Doswell.

Our topic to start this year is Kenya so if you have any interesting artefacts to bring and share, feel free to do so.

Mrs Campbell-Whitfield and Mr Ward