St Modwen's Catholic Primary School Parent Portal

What we have been learning last week... Friday 4th July 2025

Nursery:

Our new story this week is 'Walking through the Jungle'. The children are learning to share their predictions of what animals they might see in the book. In Maths, we are consolidating our learning of repeating patterns by continuing ABAB patterns and creating our own by drawing, painting and printing.

Reception

We visited our new classes in Year 1. We met our new class teacher and played lots of fun games. We even went on to the big playground for break time. It was different, but very exciting! Throughout the week, we continued our learning about the rainforest and Australia. We have enjoyed looking at pictures of different landmarks and animals in Australia too! On Thursday, we watched the Talent show where some of our Reception children performed! They were very brave!

Year 1:

Last week the children were busy exploring the days of the week and the months of the year, using these to solve fun maths problems. In English, they enjoyed writing their own journey stories showcasing their creativity and imagination. The class also had a wonderful time attending the outdoor Mass, celebrating together as a school, and enjoyed watching the talented children in the school talent show, which was a real highlight for everyone! It's been a week full of learning and fun!

Year 2:

Year 2 have had a fantastic week full of learning and celebration! In English, we’ve started our new text all about Rapunzel and have really enjoyed diving into the story through our reading and writing. In Maths, we’ve been working on pattern sequencing and have impressed our teachers with our problem-solving skills. We were very proud to showcase one wonderful performance from our class in the school talent show - it was a big hit! We also took part in the Feast Day celebrations, joining the whole school for a beautiful outdoor Mass and enjoying the summer fair afterwards. We also said goodbye to Miss Allen, who has finished her teacher training with us. We’ll miss her lots and wish her all the best as she starts her new job as an ECT in September.

Year 3:

The week was jam-packed with learning and fun. In Maths, we finished our time unit by looking at the numbers of months in a year, days in a month and days in a year and leap year. We will be moving on to a unit of shape, angles, parallel and perpendicular lines. In RE, we have been learning about times when Jesus prayed. We enjoyed our feast day activities in the sunshine, including the talent show and the garden party.

Year 4:

We thoroughly enjoyed playing the glockenspiel in music last week. We found out about Hadrian's wall in history and created fact files. In RE, we explored the life of a Monk and created diary entries. We continue to explore share in Maths and learnt about quadrilaterals and polygons. We have now got our pet fish, which we are thrilled about. We have started our learning towards our final got task of Year 4 which will be a portal story. We investigated the teeth of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores during science.

Year 5:

We started our very last English unit of year five! Hopefully, the children can apply all of the techniques that they have learnt throughout the year to their balanced arguments. We are continuing with decimals in Maths and have multiplied and divided them by 10,100 and 1,000. In Science, we have looked at the life cycle of a ladybird. The children have explored the Domesday book in history too! The highlight of the week has to be St Modwen's Got Talent, both classes did themselves proud!

Year 6:

This week we have been preparing for our production. We have done our dress rehearsal and are ready for our first performance on Monday morning.

We have also been researching our new Pope in RE. In Geography, we compared the River Amazon and the River Trent.

What we have been learning this week... Friday 11th July 2025

Nursery:

In Nursery this week the children have continued with their learning around the story 'Walking through the Jungle', role playing how the animals move, crawling, leaping, creeping and slithering around the classroom. In Maths, we have revisited our learning about what comes before or after a number. Try practising this at home or on a journey over the holidays to see how good the children are!

Reception

This week, we have been learning all about the celebration of Mass. We looked at the different artefacts that you'd find in church, and we explored different hymns that we sing. In English, we carried on learning about Australia and looked at Aboriginal art in more detail. It was fascinating!

Year 1:

This week Year 1 looked at time in Maths. We started by looking at the clocks and discussing where the numbers are. We then learnt how to tell the time to the hour and to the half hour. In English, we have worked hard on our handwriting. We have been writing simple sentences, making sure they have capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. Have a lovely weekend in the sunshine!

Year 2:

This week we have been busy with lots of exciting learning! In English, we used the story of Rapunzel to inspire us to create our very own enchantress characters, imagining their magical powers and mysterious personalities. In Maths, we explored the concept of mass, learning how to compare and describe the weight of different objects using vocabulary like "heavier" and "lighter." During our RE lessons, we wrote our own bidding prayers, thinking carefully about the people and situations we want to pray for. It’s been a wonderfully creative and thoughtful week!

Year 3:

We have had another busy week in Year 3! On Tuesday, we enjoyed our trip to the canal. The children were super-engaged and behaved superbly. In Maths, we have been learning about different types of angles. You can help with this at home by quizzing your child on acute, obtuse and right angles. In English, we wrote a fiction narrative based around rags to riches. In RE, we learnt about how churches help to create a prayerful and reverent atmosphere.

Year 4:

This week in Year 4 we have been busy completing our final hot task, which is a portal story of us going back in time to ancient Rome. In Maths, we have been working on statistics and co-ordinates. In reading we are finishing our book 'The Girl who Stole the Elephant'. In Science, we are in the middle of an interesting experiment where we are looking at the effect different liquids have on our teeth. We do this by keeping eggs in vinegar, water, coke and orange juice. In art, we have used clay to create some amazing sculptures based on the work of Barbara Hepworth.

Year 5:

Year 5 have had a fantastic week! The children climbed all the way to the top of Thorpe Cloud in Dovedale on our school trip. They also completed some geography fieldwork and sketching. In English, we have written a balanced argument about whether battles should be used to gain power. In Maths, we have been learning about negative numbers. In RE, we learnt about the Apostles and St Stephen. In Science, we have explored life cycles.