Rugby sessions

Fred and Tom put us through another tough but fun session of rugby today. Despite the cold wind we all had great fun and enjoyed our short games of tag rugby. We are starting to get a better understanding of the rules as we go along.



Dragon Studios visit to the set of Will

We had an amazing experience today as we got to visit the set of a major American TV series being filmed at Dragon Studios in Llanharan. The show is based on the life of young William Shakespeare and is currently in production at the studios. As the crew were off filming on location today, we got the opportunity to have a tour around the sets.

As it is being set in Shakespeare's London, the first place we visited was a London market place, directly outside the front of the Globe theater. The recent rain made the muddy squalor even more realistic as we squelched around in our wellies. We got to see how realistic every single detail was on the set, from tools, clothes, food to buildings.

We then walked through late 1500s London from the poorer area to a richer trading part. It was a relief to have stone pavements under our feet rather than mud. Again the scenery was amazingly realistic with frontage set to look exactly how it should. The most baffling part of it was seeing the wood and bricks - then feeling it...which turned out to be plastic.

Following this we walked to the poorer area of the town - which looked completely different - the mud was back with style. The houses were built in shanty style and did not look very welcoming. All of these scenes were surrounded by giant green screens to add background detail.

Next we moved indoors to one of the huge sound stages where we got to see a dungeon set. Again it was almost far too realistic for our liking - it felt like being a real life dungeon. Some of the torture props did not look pleasant at all. We then moved into a pub set and got to sit on the seats at the inn. No drinks were had!

The final part of the tour was a visit inside Shakespeare's Globe theater which looked amazing! We even got to go on stage and act out one of our Christmas Concert scenes.

We had a fantastic day and would like to thank Tony Hood who took us around the set.

Fairy tales - breaking News

As part of our focus on alternative Fairy tales we have been looking at how the events would be reported in today's 24 hour rolling news broadcasts. We discussed a range of fairy tales and what the main key events of these were.

We then had a demonstration of the Breaking News application on Classtools. Mr Roberts modeled and example of a main event from a tale and showed how to fill in the page. We focused on having short, concise and snappy headlines and a description with more information and alliterative features. We also discussed using appropriate images linked to the story.

We then split up into partners and used our iPads to have a go at making Breaking News stories from our own chosen fairy tales.

Here are some of our efforts.

Arwyr - experiments with using Tellagami for Welsh

Keeping in line with our topic looking at heroes and villains, we experimented with using Tellegami as a vehicle for developing our Welsh second language skills.

We took some of our famous Welsh heroes and revised some sentence patterns.

Into Film Cymru Wales on Film resources launch at the Senedd

Yesterday was an amazing experience for us as a school, as we were invited by Into Film Cymru to showcase and celebrate the learning experiences we had when working on the pilot of their media literacy project. This event took place at the Senedd and was attended by many leading figures in education and politics in Wales. There were speeches from Professor Donaldson, Jane Hutt and Kirsty Williams. Oh, and from myself and two Year 6 pupils Eliza and Iwan...

We were invited to participate in this exciting project in the Summer term of the last academic year. This involved myself receiving training from Into Film Cymru and two fantastic education consultants in Tim Bleazard and Philip Webb. As a school we also received INSET from Into Film Cymru in film literacy.

The media literacy project focused on using a short film, The Girl and the Fox, as an impetus for a mini project using comprehension, inference and digital literacy skills. The experiences that the class got from this project were amazing and the learning that came from it was of a very high standard. Pupils got to experiencing using film as the driving force for learning literacy skills...and have a lot of film. They even planned, wrote, filmed, edited and produced their own short films.

Yesterday Into Film Cymru were launching their Wales on Film resources at the Senedd and invited us to not only showcase the learning that took place by having a stand but also asked us to present to the invited crowd. I invited two of our Year 6 school council members to accompany myself and Mrs Price and to have the opportunity to join me in presenting. Iwan and Eliza spoke well and were a credit to the school,

We then returned to our stand and shared and explained our experience to all guests who visited us. One such visitor was Professor Graham Donaldson, Chair of the Independent Advisory Group for the Welsh Government. He spent a considerable time talking to myself, Mrs Price, Eliza and Iwan and was very interested in the range of learning that took place throughout the project.

Great display by @llanharanps at the Senedd today, showing off some excellent work done during the Media Literacy Project pic.twitter.com/wlfwSyuD8s

— Into Film Cymru (@intofilm_cymru) 9 November 2016

Now hearing from the pupils themselves from @llanharanps & @YsgolPennant - plenty of enthusiasm pic.twitter.com/N3AIjGnw9M

— Into Film Cymru (@intofilm_cymru) 9 November 2016

@intofilm_cymru amazing work @llanharanps. It's been exciting following the blog and seeing it all come to life

— Tim Bleazard (@idletim) 9 November 2016

I shared the learning that took place on this very blog. You can follow the journey from start to finish below:

Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 9
Session 10
Session 11
Session 12 part 1
Session 12 part 2
Session 13
Session 13 The Films

Heroes and Villains - Welsh Heroes

As part of our Hero and Villains topic, we have been learning all about heroes and villains throughout history. We have been researching their lives, looking at their timelines and writing biographies.

Our main push for our topic is to champion a Welsh hero to find out who is everyone's favourite. We chose heroes at random.

To be successful we need to:

Create an iMovie trailer to promote their lives
Create a portrait
Create an advertising poster
Prepare and deliver a 1 minute oral persuasive presentation

Our first task has been to create our iMovie trailers. Here they are:

Welcome to a new academic year

This half term’s topic in Year 4/5/6 is Heroes and Villains. This project has a history focus and teaches children about heroes and villains from different periods of history, their motives, their beliefs and the ways in which they changed the world. At the heart of this project children write persuasively in the form of reports and letters, and additional skills in writing biographies and speeches.

 

In the Innovate Stage children apply their skills and understanding by championing a Welsh hero to find out who is the most popular.

 

In this project the children will learn:

 

• How to research using a range of historical source materials including ICT and the media; 

• The chronological order of a range of significant people throughout history and about the times in which they lived and how this influenced them; 

• About a range of influential historical figures and about their beliefs and actions; 

• About contemporary heroes and villains; 

• How to write in a range of forms to persuade people; 

• Why laws and social change comes about from the impact of heroes and villains; 

• How to perform an influential speech
   
  Our Literacy focus this half term will be the epic poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. In this poem the children will have a focus on letter writing, features of poetry and journalistic writing.
   
  In numeracy we will be immersing ourselves into Singapore mathematics, beginning with a focus on number.
   
  Our science topic this half term is electrical circuits.
   
  PE days will be on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Wednesday’s PE will be striking and hitting and will, weather permitting, be outside so will therefore require trainers, tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts. Friday’s PE will be gymnastics and will take place in the hall therefore pupils will need to wear shorts/tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts. Please can you ensure that all pupils clothes are named to avoid the confusion of lost items of clothing.
   
  Pupils will be given weekly online homework via studyladder. They will also have access to sumdog (an online mathematics challenge website) and languagenut (an online modern foreign language website),