Danes

To enrich our historical learning this term, we have rehearsed and performed a dance inspired by the building of the Egyptian pyramids. Throughout the dance, we use our bodies to […] […]

Over the last couple of weeks in Danes Class, we have been enjoying Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’. Focussing on an extract in which Pip met Miss Havisham for the first […] […]

In this unit, we have created our own Spooky Story compositions, featuring a drum beat, melody and bassline. Charanga’s YuStudio enabled each child to have their own work space and […] […]

This term in art, Danes have been responding to the learning question: How Do Artists See the World? Throughout the learning journey, they practised their skills and explored how artists […] […]

Danes Class finished off their French topic on schools and subjects by designing some amazing posters to showcase their learning. These included fantastic sentences, which included the day and time, […] […]

We began our learning about light by considering what we already knew and remembered about how shadows are formed. We learnt in detail about how our eyes work – this […] […]

Raye Montague, a trail-blazing engineer, has been the focus of our English learning for Maths Week. We spent the week learning about her incredible achievements as well as the set-backs […] […]

Our PSHE learning was a particular highlight of Maths Week. In true apprentice style, we worked in groups to manufacture a paper product worthy of Miss Branagan’s, Mrs Avis’ and […] […]

To celebrate Maths Week, we looked at how we can construct an impossible triangle in art. First, we had to draw an accurate equilateral triangle using a ruler and protractor […] […]

On Friday 14th November, Danes and Puddlebridge Classes enjoyed a visit to The British Museum. This supported their historical learning about the Ancient Egyptians. Our day began by exploring the […] […]

On Tuesday 11th November the whole school walked up to the church to take part in our Remembrance service. Pupils from Year Six led the prayers and shared a bible […] […]

Danes class made a Remembrance Day wreath in their French lesson out of cornflowers (‘les bleuets’). They learnt that after World War One ‘les bleuets’ continued to grow on land […] […]

In design and technology, we worked in groups to design and make an Egyptian shaduf. These were used by the ancient Egyptians to collect water from the River Nile to […] […]

Today, a team of seven children from Year Five competed in a table tennis tournament at Barclay Academy. Our children showed incredible commitment and enthusiasm in preparing for the event; […] […]

Our RE learning this term in Danes has been all about Islam and how Muslims show commitment to their God. Each week, we’ve explored each of ‘The Five Pillar of […] […]

Thursday 21st October – 10:30pm Today was a very important day – Ted’s birthday. We all rose bright and early to kick-start the celebrations; we gathered together in the lounge […] […]

Years Five and Six have had lots of fun learning about electrical circuits during their science lessons this half term. We began by thinking about what we already knew – […] […]

Today, a group of children from Years Five and Six had a wonderful PE opportunity at the Stevenage Golf and Conference Centre in Aston. The sun was shining for the […] […]

This term in history, we are learning all about the Ancient Egyptian Civilization. Our learning is helping us to answer questions such as ‘How can we discover what ancient Egypt […] […]

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring place value. This has included some very large numbers as well as decimals. To secure our learning, we have enjoyed […] […]

We were delighted that 22 children from Years Five and Six (with two children from Year Four competing in the Year Five team) were able to represent our school at […] […]

We have loved our maths learning all about ‘The Number Devil’ by Hans Magnus Anzensberger this half-term. This captivating books tells the story of twelve-year-old Robert who hates his maths […] […]

Earlier in the term, our English learning was based upon ‘Oliver Twist’ by Charles Dickens. With the eponymous character, Oliver, starting his life in a workhouse, we decided to look […] […]

Having spent a couple of days learning about William Shakespeare, today we explored the opening to his tragedy – Macbeth. We began our morning imagining we were on a bleak […] […]

Today, Years Five and Six had an extended PSHE session in order to complete their First Aid training. They learnt lots of important knowledge and life skills in order to […] […]

Today, Year Six visited the Hazard Alley Safety Centre in Milton Keynes. Our morning was spent learning important messages about drugs and alcohol. During this session, the children learnt what […] […]

Year Six very very lucky to enjoy a session led by Chris of Fit Kidz. They got to grips with how a rowing machine works and practised their technique. They […] […]

In Design and Technology, we have been developing our skills working with textiles. Our challenge was to design and make an attractive cushion that would also be durable. Before we […] […]

We have been enjoying Zana Fraillon’s beautiful ‘Wisp: A Story of Hope’ in our English learning. Her use of vocabulary and metaphors along with Grahame Baker-Smith’s breathtaking illustrations tell the […] […]

Our art learning this half-term has enriched our historical learning about the Mayans. We began our learning journey with the learning question ‘What is perspective?’. We looked at a variety […] […]

Today, Danes Class enjoyed participating in the 2025 GoConstruct K’nex challenge. This is an engineering challenge involving around 180 schools across Hertfordshire and surrounding areas. Led by our local STEM […] […]

Last half-term in Danes Class, our music learning was based on Adele’s cover of ‘Make You Feel My Love’ by Bob Dylan. We learnt the instrumental section on both recorder […] […]

In Danes, we have been learning about Peter Thorpe. We looked at many of his rocket paintings, observing the use of colour in the background and foreground before having a […] […]

Recently, we have been developing our geometric reasoning in maths. We began by looking at properties of polygons and investigating quadrilaterals. Learning about diagonals helped us to deepen our understanding […] […]

In science, Years Five and Six are learning about the Earth in space. We have enjoyed becoming experts on our Solar System and the planets within it. We worked in […] […]

Danes and Puddlebridge classes enjoyed an exciting day at the Natural History Museum to enrich our geographical learning. We began the day exploring different areas of the museum before heading […] […]

For our PE learning last half-term, we learnt and performed a dance inspired by the Blitz during World War Two. The dance begins with families waving off their young children […] […]

As part of our learning in design and technology, we have worked in groups to design and make a Second World War Shelter. We learnt how to construct a jinx […] […]

Our first DT topic of the year went brilliantly. We used our prior scientific knowledge of circuits to help construct our own war planes that actually flew. We made a […] […]

Year Six had a wonderful time on their recent trip to Marchants Hill PGL Centre in Surrey. Please enjoy the video to share some of the highlights of their trip. […]

Today, we had a special visit from three magistrates. They taught all of us in Years Five and Six about how the judicial system works and what job magistrates play […] […]

What a brilliant day we’ve had! To enrich our historical learning, we decided to become evacuees for the day.  Our special day began with finding the classroom looking rather different; […] […]

Today we went to church for our service of Remembrance. Danes and Puddlebridge classes were dressed as evacuees as part of their learning about the Second World War. It was […] […]

In our English learning this week, we have been looking at the effect personification can have in poetry. After watching a virtual reality video in an underground station during an […] […]

In science, we have been learning about air resistance. We had so much fun setting up our own PPPOP investigations using paper helicopters. Some of us tried varying the size […] […]

To begin our learning in art this year, we have sketched Second World War planes. We started our learning journey looking at photographs of a variety of planes and drew […] […]

Thursday 24th October 7:00pm Wow! Standup paddle boarding was so much fun, the lake was so cold and the children got so wet! Everyone ended up in the lake and […] […]

Despite the rain, we were delighted that 21 children from Years 5 and 6 were able to represent our school today at the Stevenage Sporting Future Teams Cross Country competition. […] […]

Puddlebridge and Danes classes had a wonderful day at Duxford Imperial War Museum.  The visit supported our learning about World War Two and The Battle of Britain. We started our […] […]

In science, we are learning about forces. We began by exploring what we already knew and were able to name forces such as gravity, friction and air resistance. After discussing […] […]

In music, we are enjoying Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi – a rock song that was released in 1986. We will also be listening to other classic rock […] […]

What another great show! So much talent in our school and it was wonderful to see all of the children performing together and having fun! Well done to each and […] […]

Today, Year Six enjoyed ‘ringing the changes’ during a visit to St.Mary’s Church. Mr Falder taught us all about the bells and how to ring them. We were amazed to […] […]

In science, Years Five and Six have been learning about micro-organisms. We have learnt that microbes can be bacteria, viruses or fungi and that some are helpful whilst others are […] […]

Today, Year Six visited the Hazard Alley Safety Centre in Milton Keynes. Our morning was spent learning important messages about drugs and alcohol. During this session, the children learnt what […] […]

In maths, we have been exploring circles. We began by revising the vocabulary associated with circles – radius, diameter and circumference. We then practised our measuring skills by measuring circles […] […]

In art, we have been producing our own masterpieces inspired by the work of Wassily Kandinsky. First, we learnt about his life and how his work developed and changed over […] […]

As part of our geographical learning, we enjoyed a walk to the River Beane. This gave us an opportunity to observe, discuss and embed many aspects of our learning about […] […]

Today in science, we began our learning about the circulatory system. We learnt about the heart and what it does. Many of us chose to draw our own diagrams – […] […]

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Today, Danes Class enjoyed participating in the 2024 GoConstruct K’nex challenge. This is an engineering challenge involving around 180 schools across Hertfordshire and surrounding areas. Led by our local STEM […] […]

To celebrate World Book Day this year, each class read The Invisible by Tom Percival. The book centres around very important themes, including poverty, gratitude, invisibility, community, empathy and hope. […] […]

What a fantastic day Years Four, Five and Six had visiting Tower Bridge! This visit supported our learning in Geography and DT. In Geography, our focus is Rivers so it […] […]

Year Six really enjoyed their rowing session – despite it being very hard work! During the session, they learnt how to improve their rowing technique whilst competing in various fun […] […]

In maths, we have been developing our geometric reasoning. First, we revised some of the language associated with two dimensional shapes before moving on to explore some of the properties […] […]

As part of our learning in geography about North America, we worked in pairs to carry out our own enquiry about different North American capital cities. We made a class […] […]

In English, we have enjoyed reading the touching story of the life of palaeontologist Mary Anning. We read two books: Stone Girl, Bone Girl and The Fossil Girl. This unit […] […]

What an exciting start we have had to the term! On our very first day back after the Christmas break, we enjoyed a DT day. We began by learning about […] […]

In art, we have been practising our observational drawing skills by drawing poppies of Remembrance. This built upon our previous learning about how to create texture and depth in our […] […]

On Friday 10th November the whole school walked up to the church to take part in a remembrance service. Pupils from Year 6 read prayers and some of them performed […] […]

In English, we have written leaflets to provide essential information to anyone wanting to explore mountainous terrain. First, we needed to become experts ourselves; we did lots of reading from […] […]

To link with our learning about Roman Britain, we have been looking at mosaics in Art. We learnt about how mosaics were used to decorated the floors in Roman villas […] […]

In science this week, we explored electrical resistance. Our learning question was ‘Does the length of the wire affect the brightness of the bulb?’ Most of us thought that the […] […]

This week, our learning in English has been focussed around Michael Rosen’s poetry collection called ‘On the Move’. We have been inspired by reading many of the poems which are […] […]

On Wednesday 4th October, Danes and Puddlebridge classes spent the day in St. Albans. Our morning was spent visiting Verulamium Museum to support our learning about Roman Britain. During our […] […]

This Thursday is National Poetry Day and the theme this year is Refuge. Today, we talked about migration and some of the reasons why people might migrate. We choose the […] […]

In Science, we are learning about electrical circuits. We have enjoyed our beginning this learning sequence by building circuits using different components (batteries, bulbs, motors and buzzers) and representing these […] […]

In English, we are looking at Roman Myths. We will be developing our writing skills including experimenting with figurative language, varying sentence structure and how to use a range of […] […]

What another great show! So much talent in our school and it was wonderful to see all of the children performing together and having fun! Well done to each and […] […]

What a fantastic day we had! After thinking that we may not even be able to go yesterday when our coach broke down, we were very grateful to travel in […] […]

Today, Years Five and Six had an extended PSHE session in order to complete their First Aid training. They learnt lots of important knowledge and life skills in order to […] […]

Today, we used a range of strategies to understand Shakespearian language. Once we were familiar with the extract from Act 1 Scene 3, we prepared a reading of the extract. In this […] […]

We have been learning how to create quizzes in Purple Mash using 2quiz.  We began by creating a simple picture-based quiz for young children.  Purple Mash offers different question types, […] […]

Today, we have begun to explore the wonders of the Fibonacci sequence. We discovered lots of patterns within the sequence. It really was wonderful to hear so much excited ‘maths […] […]

This week, we have made our own pencil cases. We learnt how to use a sewing machine last year when we made cushions so we were able to refine our […] […]

Please scan the QR code to listen to Danes Class playing their recorders. […]

This term in history, we have been learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and about Thomas Clarkson who devoted his life to campaigning to abolish the trading of enslaved human […] […]

We are enjoying our maths learning based upon the book ‘The Number Devil – A Mathematical Adventure’. In this book, we meet twelve-year-old Robert and the Number Devil who brings […] […]

In DT, we have been making bread. We began by sampling some different breads from around the world. We compared their taste, their texture and their appearance. Some of our […] […]

This term in PSHE, we are considering our short-term and long-term goals and the step we can take to achieve these. We began by looking at different qualities and strengths […] […]

We are so very, very proud of everyone in Year Six; last week, they completed their SATs assessments with such determination and enthusiasm. Despite some tough papers, they stayed positive […] […]

We have now completed our sequence of science lessons about the properties and changes of materials. We have learnt about reversible and irreversible changes – we were amazed to discover […] […]

We enjoyed our challenge to design and make a Moon Buggy or Mars Rover. First, we needed to research these vehicles to learn about their features and functions. Next, we […] […]

We throughly enjoyed writing our own non-chronological reports about the imaginary planet, Pandora. These were inspired by the book ‘Planetarium’ by Raman Prinja. We published these in our own class […] […]

This half term, we have enjoyed reading The Watertower and Boy in the Tower. We have looked at how the authors create a sense of mystery and build suspense. When […] […]

On Thursday 2nd February, we visited Bayfordbury Observatory to support our learning about Earth in Space. First, we enjoyed a presentation all about our universe and beyond. We learnt so […] […]

In art, we will be looking at the work of artist Peter Thorpe whose life-long love of space exploration has inspired much of his work. We will be learning about […] […]

Having learnt about forces in science last half term, we were able to apply our understanding of levers in design and technology as we worked in groups to design and […] […]

In art, we have been developing our drawing skills. First, we experimented with different grades of pencil before focussing on how texture, shade and tone. After that, we looked at […] […]

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