Whittingham C of E Primary School

Autumn Term 2025-26

Autumn 1

Class 2 are enjoying their new ‘Reflection Area’

We started the year with an exciting project called 'Pop UK'. We learned seven songs and added dance moves to make our performance even more interesting for our audience. We put on two performances in the village hall for our families and friends. Everyone agreed it was an amazing experience. Thank you to Rachel and Jim from Pop UK who helped us with this project - Rachel taught us the songs and Jim recorded us and created our very own sound track.

In our Art lesson, we have been taking inspiration from acclaimed ceramic artist Magdalene Odundo. She always begins her work with drawings before turning these 2D images into 3D clay vases. We used her technique to create these pictures.

In Geography, we have been finding out about TheMagic Kingdom , what it is? and where it is?

Following this we used a map of the park to plan a route, we had to go to 6 different attractions in a logical sequence, stop for food and a drink after ride 3 and ride 6, visit 2 souvenir shops and be on the parade route at the end of the day in time to see the Festival of Fantasy.

We have been looking forward to making soap sculptures. First we looked at sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth for inspiration. Once we started we soon realised that it wasn’t as easy as we thought but we persevered and made our first ever soap sculptures.

Continuing our work on sculptures we have been using wire to make our latest works of art. First we experimented with the wire to discover which shapes, curls and bends we could make.

In our R.E lessons we have been learning what it is like for someone to follow God. We have been learning about making promises through the story of Noah and the Great Flood. We have also been making our own covenants.

In our science lesson this week we investigated what happens to the food we eat when it gets to our stomach. We put a cracker into a bag which represented our stomach then we crushed the cracker up before adding some soda water (stomach acids). It didn’t take long for the cracker to turn into a pulp. We know that after this it travels into the small and then the large intestine. On this journey our bodies absorb all the goodness from the food into our blood stream.

We loved making these shadow creations, we had to think of words which we thought were relevant to our class.

We enjoyed our day today supporting the mental health of young minds on International Mental Health Day (10th October). We set up our class Photo Booth, coloured sunflower pictures and played well-being bingo. Our school raised money to support the work of this charity.

We had a fabulous afternoon at Alnwick Rugby Club this afternoon taking part in a rugby festival organised by the School Games Organiser and led by Year 12 students from the Duchess’s High School.

We have been using our computers to play a game called The Human Body game. It helped us to recap on our learning so far in our topic on Animals including Humans.

We welcomed Springs Dance Company who deliver dance workshops today to each class. We reflected on the schools connection to the parable of The Good Samaritan and links to our values of being kind, collaborative and courageous.

Autumn 2

We enjoyed our rugby session with Amy from Newcastle Falcons.

We had a visit from a local police officer. He talked to us about road safety and measured us to see if we still needed to use a car seat. Then we watched a video and talked about all of the different jobs that police officers do. It was very interesting.

We planted some poppy seeds for Remembrance Day.

Enjoying the snow with our friends

Today, we mixed the Christmas pudding and added a wish each.

This week, we have participated in 8 online workshops organised by The Great North Museum. We have learned lots about Hadrian’s Wall and the soldiers who lived in the forts along the wall from experts from the museum, Newcastle University, English Heritage, Northumberland National Park, the Tullie Museum and many more. We even met a Roman soldier! It was a fantastic way to learn and now we will follow up these sessions through lessons in our classroom.

Today, we were so lucky to receive a gift of a Bible from St Bartholomew’s Church and the Whittingham community. Rev’d Rich Townsend came into school to present us with our individual Bibles, we will be able to use them in school and when we leave in Year 6 we can take them with us.

In our DT lessons we are thinking about eating seasonal food and we will be making a seasonal vegetable tart. Today we learned how to peel and cut different vegetables safely, we used the claw grip and the bridge hold. We also learned to peel away from our body.

We have been learning about Human Rights Day, exploring why human rights are important for everyone around the world. Through discussions and activities, the children discovered the key rights all people share and reflected on how they can help promote fairness and respect in their own community. They enjoyed linking these ideas to real-life examples and thinking about how they can make a positive difference.