Poplar Class

Welcome

In Blue class we have eleven children ranging from year one to year three. We work hard on our phonics and maths skills every day alongside lots of other curricular learning such as science, art, music, PSHE, PE and much more.

We work on our attention and listening skills through Attention Autism ‘Bucket’ sessions. Blue class have got so brilliant at watching the various stages and resisting the urge to touch the resources! They love taking part in the stage three activity when invited by the adult.

Alongside our curricular learning, we have lots of opportunities to play! Our social skills are always developing along with our ability to turn-take and share resources. We love messy play, encouraging children to step out of their comfort zone to explore new textures and sensory experiences.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Our Staff

Mel Smith

Class teacher

I am Mel and I qualified as a teacher 10 years ago but worked as a preschool leader for a few years before having my daughter. I joined the Mendip School as a TA in February 2022 and took on some teaching responsibilities from September. Then in January I took the plunge and started teaching full time again in blue class!! In my spare time I love reading and spending time with my family in the garden

Tia Mortley

Teaching Assistant

I am a teaching assistant in Blue class, and joined the Mendip school in 2017 and absolutely love working here, every day is different and it’s extremely rewarding. In my spare time I enjoy making new memories with family and friends and going on long dog walks.

Becky Newman

Teaching Assistant

I am a teaching assistant in Blue Class and started at The Mendip School in early 2022 working with the very youngest class. I am really pleased to have come up to Blue Class and look forward to every day in the classroom. In my spare time I enjoy visiting museums, reading and spending time with my pets.

Summer term 2 – Learning Overview

English – fiction Mavis the magical cat – Making our own magical stories

English – non-fiction Minibeast fact files Holiday leaflets

Numeracy Number bonds to 10. Shape Counting in 2s, 5s, 10s. Numbers within 50/

IT Using a laptop

Science – Recycling

Humanities –

Geography Holidays – Where shall we go?

Music

Charanga – Exploring instruments

Art Sculpture with paper

PSHE Growing and changing

PE Athletics Running skills

Summer term 1 – Learning overview

English – fiction  

 Talk for writing – The Tiger who came to Tea.  

Retelling the story and writing captions using colourful semantics   

English – non-fiction  Writing invitations and thank you letters.  
Numeracy  

Number bonds to 10. 

Shape  

IT  Scratch 
Science – chemistry   

Reactions   

Reversible and Irreversible reactions 

Humanities – History  The Great fire of London 

Music 

  

Dynamics and Tempo 
Food and Nutrition   Making sandwiches and wraps   
PSHE  Being my best – being healthy, confident and myself.  
PE  

Tennis skills 

Swimming 

Term 4 

Last term we learnt the story ‘Dear Zoo’ we received some parcels and had a visit from the school dog. We spent a lot of time describing what animals looked like and as our final writing piece the children chose an animal to describe. In Maths we were exploring measures. We did lots of practical activities with ruler, scales and water play. As part of our topic work, we explored food from around the world. On Tuesdays we learnt some information about different countries and tasted some of their cuisine. Then on Wednesday in our cooking session we made our own food from that particular country.

Term 3 2022

After a lovely Christmas focused end of term two, we have returned to focusing on our phonics skills in English, as well as lots of reading and learning to draw information from what we have read or listened to through comprehension style questions.
In Maths, we have been using part whole models to sort collections of objects into ‘parts’. We have also been using these models to calculate simple additions. We will be going on to look at ‘measure’ in the second half of the term for our Shape, Space and Measure topic.
So far in Science, we have been exploring forces. We have learnt about push and pull forces, exploring different toys and how they work using forces. We have also explored the terms sink and float, estimating if everyday objects in the classroom will sink or float, and then testing our predictions with practical investigations.

This term, we have also been enjoying Sensory Circuits with our Occupational Therapist, Susy. We have been learning how to wake up our bodies, make our bodies feel good, and then how to calm our bodies down using lots of OT movement and strategies. 

 

Term 2, 2022

In term two, we focused our English skills on the composition of a story through Talk for Writing. We learnt the story ‘Dear Zoo’ with the help of a story map, and were able to recite this story, using Makaton signing, to the rest of our class. We innovated this story as a class, and then independently to create our own versions with different animals and reasons for returning them to the zoo.
In Maths, we focused on matching quantities with the correct numerals, and extending how far we are able to count in Number. We also worked on naming and identifying the properties of 2D shapes in Shape, Space and Measure.
In Science, we explored various materials; deciding which material lots of everyday objects were made of, going on a material hunt, and looking at properties and uses of materials for specific purposes.

Along with lots of other fun subjects, we also really enjoyed Sensory PE sessions with Nova sports. We learnt the rules of various sports including rugby, skateboarding, skiing, volleyball and tennis, exploring these sports through lots of multisensory activities. We also included offsite visits in our weekly timetable, exploring the local community through welly walks and trips to the park to work on our physical development alongside having lots of fun. 

 

Term 1, 2022

Blue class had a busy first term, focusing on our phonics skills of reading, word building and writing in English lessons.
In Maths we focused on counting with ​one-to-one correspondence in Number, and imitating, continuing and creating our own repeating patterns in Shape, Space and Measure.
In Science, we learnt about our own bodies by playing body part bingo, drawing around our friends and labelling to scale body outlines, and began thinking about organs inside the body too.

We enjoyed Attention Autism ‘Bucket’ sessions twice a week, working on our attention and listening skills as well as turn taking, as well as lots of lovely play activities to bond us as a group.

 

Term 1 update

In maths this term, we have been working on our understanding of number. We have been furthering how far we can count, but...

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Parent HelpLine

Educational Psychology Service (EPS) Telephone Helpline for Parents and Carers Parent Helpline Sep 20

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