Diamond Class 2023-2024

Welcome to the Diamond Class website page.

Diamond Class is Year 5 and 6, taught by Miss Self.

We are supported by Mrs Beckett Debanks and Mrs Debanks

Click here to read our latest class newsletter...

Diamond Class

Long Term Plan

Our PE days in the Spring Term are Tuesday and Friday.

Please remember to bring in coats and warm layers as the weather gets colder 🥶.

Our School Council members

Our Faith Council members

Summer Term 2

Summer Term 1

Highwayman Writing
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.....
This is a romantic ballad and narrative poem written by Alfred Noyes, first published in 1906. The style of writing was very different but we enjoyed finding out what it was about and considering how each character felt throughout. For our final piece of independent writing, we wrote from the perspective of 'Bess' the Highwayman's love.

Mountains
Our Geography topic for this half term was 'mountains'. We enjoyed learning that there are 5 types of mountain formation:

Volcanic Mountains.
Fold Mountains.
Block Mountains.
Residual Mountains.
Dome Mountains.

We used maps, atlases and websites to find mountain ranges across the world and what their main features are. We learnt that some people live on mountains and we loved finding out about mountain goats!

SATs
During the week of the 8th May, children in Year 6 took their SATs - they came in early for SATs breakfast club and then the tests began. All of the children worked extremely hard, both during the week of the tests and while revising!

STEM challenges
In Computing, we have been working together in groups to complete a range of STEM challenges. Our most recent challenge was to replicate famous buildings (such as The White House and Buckingham Palace) but using spaghetti and marshmallows!
Here are some of our designs - can you tell which buildings they show?

Spring Term 2

Trip to West Stow

As we arrived, we looked up at the village on top of the hill, we couldn't wait to look around. Our group started at the family house, inside was a raised wooden block, with woollen blankets. We learnt that they were used as beds, there would have been up to 10 family members sleeping in the small room. There was a fire pit in the middle of the room, for warmth. It must have been very smoky! We looked inside the farm house, the weaving house and we then looked at the Oldest house, it was interesting because there were odd ways to shut the windows an the bed looked like a coffin. After looking around the Anglo-Saxon village, we met up in the Hall and Stephanie explained the history of the site and people had a chance to ask questions. We asked about the Sunken house and he explained that Anglo-Saxons might not have built houses close to the ground as it would have been too cold inside. In the afternoon, we looked around the museum. When we entered, we saw an animal skin hanging by the door, I thought it was a coyote but it was a wild boar skin. The cabinets were full of artefacts that had been found on the site and lots of information. In one of the cabinets was part of a real jaw-bone! The final part of our day was an activity to look at artefacts and guess what they were. We held a brooch, a cleaning set, a piece of roof tile, a spear-head, a shield boss and a door lock. I learnt that the site was also lived on by Romans and people in the Middle Ages. Some of the Oak wood houses can stand for at least 65 years.

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Evolution and Inheritance

This term, we have been learning about evolution and inheritance in Science. We planned and conducted an investigation to explore bird beak adaptations and find out how beak shape affects the type of food that birds can eat.
We learnt that birds with certain beak types are only able to pick up certain foods - therefore their beaks have had to adapt in shape over time to enable the birds to survive. If they do not adapt, those bird species will die out.

Floodland - WBD
Our class reader for World Book Day was Floodland. We finished reading the story and looked back to our initial predictions about the ending, to see if they were correct. We all enjoyed the ending of the book and some of us had almost predicted the outcome! Our challenge was then to create a scene, or a character from the book - using an eggbox!
Here are some of our final creations:

Spring Term 1

Au parc d'attractions
In French this term, we have been learning how to describe theme parks and rides. We have built up our understanding by firstly, learning the vocabulary and how to structure sentences, then saying the sentences (with our best pronunciation!) and finally writing the sentences.
Here are some examples of our final work:

Science:
In Science this term, we have been developing our understanding of electricity. We investigated different ways that static electricity is generated. We learnt that static electricity is an imbalance of electrical charge, in the atoms, on the surface of an object. Objects are then either attracted to, or repelled by other objects.
We planned and carried out an investigation to find out if the brightness of a bulb would be affected by changing components in a circuit.

Maths Café
This year our maths café was based on the book 'Tower to the Sun' by Colin Thompson. The maths challenge for the children and parents, was to build a stable structure using 3D shapes, which they had to make themselves! Everyone used their maths knowledge and building skills to make some amazing towers! Some towers remained stable and strong; others fell down quite quickly.

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Autumn Term 2

Design and Technology
In DT this term, we have been developing and refining our sewing skills! We have designed a felt case for a mobile phone. We needed to choose which sewing stitch would be best for us to use when making our cases, so we practised a running stitch, backstitch and an overcast stitch. We had to be very patient and resilient, particularly when threading the needles! We gave some of our phone cases to our families as Christmas gifts - they were very impressed!

Victorian Experience Day

Our History topic this half term has been Victorian childhood. We learnt about what it was like to be a child in Victorian times and that children often had very different experiences, depending on their background. Some children didn't even get to go to school, they had to work in dangerous factories or find other work such as farming or chimney sweeping. On our experience day, we came into school dressed as a Victorian child, we chose Victorian names which we used for the day. As we came in we had handwriting practice using chalk and black paper – it was very hard to write! We learnt some latin phrases, for example scientia potentia est which means ‘knowledge is power’. The teachers were really strict and quite scary! If children were badly behaved they would be hit with a cane or slipper. In maths, we practiced our times tables by reciting them out loud – we really enjoyed it! Then we completed arithmetic questions. In the afternoon, we played Victorian games, like jacks, pick up sticks, chess and tiddly winks.

Letters to Mr Cole
Children at Hintlesham and Chattisham Primary are very Road Safety aware. We wrote letters to local, Mr Cole, to give our suggestions for improving the road safety outside school.

Autumn Term 1

It's been a busy start to the school year, in Diamond Class! Here are a few of the activities we have enjoyed so far...

Maths and art
We enjoy maths investigations and this term we were excited to take part in a maths lesson that linked with art. Have you ever heard of a cardioid? We hadn't! It is a heart-shaped natural curve that occurs in nature - they can be drawn using times-tables! Here are some examples:

Residential to Manor Adventure:

We set off on a 4-night residential to Manor Adventure, feeling excited and nervous! While we were there, we tried paddle-boarding, canoeing, axe-throwing, rifle shooting and lots more!
We showed determination, resilience and perseverance during many of the activities. We also worked together as a team to achieve our goals and supported each other throughout, demonstrating patience, kindness and courage.

Letters to Rishi Sunak PM about Climate change

At the start of term, we carried out some research about climate change and the effect it is having on
the world and our lives. We considered what could be done to tackle climate change and wrote to Rishi Sunak PM to offer our suggestions, ahead of his COP 28 meeting in November. We wonder if he will use our ideas 🙂