Wednesday 16th November was Positive Noticing Day where we all made a special effort to notice and recognise something positive about the people around us. This involved adults handing out brown tags saying what positive actions they noticed each child carrying out. We then encouraged pupils in Shamrocks class to notice the positive actions of their peers and to write and give out positive notes themselves! There was a huge buzz of positivity in Shamrocks class and children were proud of all of the positive recognition they received from adults and peers alike.

It was amazing to see how many brown tags each and every child went home from school with and I hope that the children shared these with you with pride!

In our Mantle of the Expert lesson we stepped into role as Travel Agents and worked extremely hard to design our company websites. We then held a meeting with the Indian Minister of Travel and Tourism, who commissioned us to plan and advertise unique trips to India. He asked us to design packages which showcase locations less visited by tourists in the three key climatic areas of India - the cool mountain region in the North, the hot dry central plains and the hot humid tropical South of the country. We then held a company meeting to draft the key action points we would need to complete going forward.  
 tropical sout

Welcome back! I hope you all had a restful October half term holidays and are ready to hit the ground running in the busy second half of the Autumn term. The countdown to Christmas has already begun and we have lots of lovely things planned before then, including our Jack and the Beanstalk pantomime at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury on Thursday 7th December and our Christmas church service on Wednesday 13th December.

Geography
In the second half of the Autumn term we are studying India as a non-European comparison to the UK. We will be focusing on weather, climate and biomes and linking this to our Mantle of The Expert where we will become Travel Agents, planning exciting adventure holidays to the different areas of India.

Design Technology
This half term we will be studying Food Technology where we will be researching and making some Indian dishes.

Science
In Science lessons this half term we will be learning about Electricity, including investigating the effect of voltage on the brightness of bulbs and volume of buzzers and using recognised symbols when representing simple circuits in diagrams.

PE
Our timetabled PE lessons will be alternative Tuesdays and Thursdays , beginning on Tuesday the 7th November and Thursday 16th November. KS2 children are to bring their PE kits (shorts, t-shirt, trainers and jogging bottoms) to school and change in school, before PE, every week.

We are looking forward to a wonderful second half of the Autumn term. If you have any concerns, please know that my door is always open for a chat.

Kind regards,

​Mrs Holmes

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Lions ROAR is an inspirational educational competition run in partnership with Lions Clubs and 8billionideas. This unique project inspires children between the ages of 7-11 years old to think big and dream big about their own ideas and their potential to change the world. Pupils are encouraged to think like entrepreneurs and develop a product that they believe will help to revolutionise the world. 

We launched this project by watching a highly entertaining video, with some great ideas, to get us thinking. We then began to think about what makes us special and our own skills and potential to become entrepreneurs.

After half term we will be working in groups of up to 4 pupils to design and make a prototype of our very own products which aim to solve a world problem and make the world a better place to live in.

I think I can safely say that all of Shamrocks class were motivated and inspired and the creative juices were already flowing. Lots of innovative ideas and suggestions have already been shared. I cannot wait to see what the children come up with in their product design after half term. 

In order to build our prototypes we will be needing junk model materials so please save your recycling for us and send it into Shamrocks after half term. Once the designs have been completed the children may have some more specific ideas on what kinds of boxes/containers/tubes etc. they will require to build their prototypes.

As part of our Ancient Islam topic this term we researched Ancient Islamic Art and discovered that there were three main forms of art in Ancient Islam 

• Islamic Calligraphy
• Vegetal Patterns 
• Geometric Patterns

Geometric patterns were very popular in the early Islamic civilisation and they decorated everything from clothing to mosques. Geometric patterns could be used on their own or combined with calligraphy or vegetal patterns to form more complex artwork.
Geometric patterns consist of repeating, interlaced or overlapped shapes arranged in complex, intricate patterns.

We then designed and made our own clay tiles using geometric patterns inspired by Ancient Islam. We studied complimentary colours on a colour wheel and used these in our designs.

Each and every member of Year 6 had an important role to play in this year's Harvest Festival at Morda Village Hall.

Our service thanked God for our daily bread and focused on breads linked to our topics. We led the service as narrators and sang the Harvest songs and hymns beautifully. I couldn't have been more proud of Shamrocks class.

It was an amazing turn out from family and friends of Morda School so thank you very much for your continued support!

As part of our Harvest celebrations this year we thanked God for our Daily Bread by researching bread recipes linked to our learning in our History topics in each class. As we have been learning about the History of Ancient Islam we researched ancient Arabic bread recipes and made our own flatbreads. We then enjoyed tasting them with hummus!

We were very lucky to receive a visit from Jane Webber to lead an hour long workshop on Self-Esteem. The children were very engaged in completing the self-esteem work book which accompanied the session and shared some great thoughts and insights.

Thank you very much to Jane for helping us all to be more aware of our own self esteem and what we can do to build the self-esteem of ourselves and others around us.

Shamrocks have been learning all about Earth and Space in our Science this half term. To finish off our topic we had a practical lesson where we carried out lots of practical activities and demonstrations to show what we have learnt about Earth and Space.

We discussed how sometimes friends fall out and other times friends just grow apart with no falling out. Sometimes we lose friends because of circumstances such as moving schools. We thought hard about looking out for other children who might find themselves in this situation and how we could help them. 

The children were given one of the following scenario cards and were asked to discuss what advice they would give other children in these situations

Some great advice was given such as:

• Remember that you can have more than one friend... even if your best friend plays with someone else too, it doesn't mean they don't like you anymore.
• Find children in your new class with the same interests as you.
• Talk to any trusted adult (teachers, parents, guardians) and share how you are feeling.
• Start a friendship bench or friendship club at school (at break and lunchtimes) for other children who are feeling lonely.
• Do things that make you happy when you're feeling lonely, you might find others want to join you in what you are doing.