News – West Earlham Junior School

Welcome to our 2023/2024 Year 5 Blog

Year 5 Trip to Norwich- ‘Our Fine City’

We went to visit the centre of Norwich. Once there we were given a number of challenges to complete on our trip. These included:

Visiting Norwich Market
Creating a map of key Norwich landmarks that can be viewed from the top of the market.
Going on a George Skipper building hunt to think about how one architect can make a difference to one city.
Viewing the George Skipper’s botanical tiles in the Royal Arcade.
Sketching the botanical tiles to provide inspiration for our printing designs once back in school.
Investigating the modern Norwich streets for historical clues as well as journeying underground to find out what hidden secrets lie beneath our feet.

**Looking for Norwich landmarks.**
**Here is the spire of our Norman Cathedral.**

Patron of Reading Visit: Macbeth Workshop

What a fabulous workshop. We loved learning about Macbeth in our taster session and are really looking forward to taking part in the Macbeth drama workshop when we are in Year 6. Steve Skidmore also had lunch with the Year 4 children and held to Awards Assemblies in the afternoon. We found out that one of the Year 5 classes had read the most words in the school and that one Year 5 child had gained their ‘Millionaire Reader Badge’. Well done everyone and keep reading.

Garden Project

The school has been working in partnership with the ‘Garden Project’. As part of this project we have planted trees with the Year 4’s at the bottom of our field and have attended a range of workshops to find out more about the Science and Geography of our local environment. Here are a few photographs from our day.

Into University: Business and Enterprise Day 2023

A monk visits West Earlham

Year 4 welcomed a monk ‘from another time’ (around 793AD to be precise) to join the class today for a Q & A session. The class were incredibly respectful to ‘Brother Brian’ who told them all about the Vikings raid on the Lindisfarne monastery. The class will be using the information they gathered to create their own diary of a monk.

Row like a Viking

4GM learnt how to row in an imaginary Viking long ship today. Mrs Stanners beat a drum and they rowed to the rhythm in time. The class thought very hard about which parts of their body would begin to hurt if you were had to row for a very long time. They came to the conclusion that being a Viking – rowing on a long boat – would be incredibly hard work.

How can one person make a BIG difference?

Throughout the year, we will be using what we have learnt to think about the overarching question “How can one person make a BIG difference?” In the Autumn Term we thought about how King William changed Britain and how the Norman rule shaped the Norwich landscape. We compared the Norman influence on Norwich with the influence of local architect George Skipper. We loved searching for clues in our fine city.

When learning about the Ancient Kingdom of Benin, we thought about how one person (the Oba) can make a big difference to society and a community of people. In the Summer Term, we will inquire into the lives of Robert Kett and Ruby Bridges. Two very different people who made big decisions that will be remembered throughout History. We can’t wait to find out more and think about how we can make a difference to those around us.

A starry night in West Earlham

Year 4 have been creating their own masterpieces inspired by the Artist Vincent Van Gogh. We have made a foreground (observational drawing of West Earlham Junior School), Middle ground (using pastels and chalks to draw landmarks of the Norwich skyline) and lastly, a painted background of a starry night, inspired by galaxies. Here is our work in progress. The next stage is to put them all together.

Forest Garden Project Part 3 – Seed Bombs!

We have continued with our project and in this session we learnt how to make seed bombs that we are going to explode on the field in our April session. We also selected a Strawberry tree as our latest addition to our tree planting area. Whilst the Strawberry tree will bear fruits that are edible they are best preserved and turned into jam rather than being eaten freshly like more common strawberries.