Hello and welcome to Symphony Class. We are a fun, bubbly class, full of great ideas and enthusiasm for learning. We are all unique, with a huge range of individual skills, but we work hard together to be the very best team that we can be.
Our class teacher is Mrs Jones and we are very fortunate to have Mrs Brice and Mrs Butler supporting us with our learning and our reading.
We start each day quietly with silent reading or an independent morning task, followed by culture connoisseurs which focusses on our cultural heritage: music listening, art, poetry and inspirational individuals. Mrs Jones, Mrs Brice and Mrs Butler enjoy hearing us read to them. After collective worship, we split into our English groups and have an opportunity to practise spelling and handwriting. During English, we learn a wide range of comprehension and grammar skills, together with techniques and tools for writing creatively for effect and purpose across a wide range of genres.
“English is important because the words you write can help fight for equality, against racism, and for women’s rights.” – Mia
After break, we have maths lessons and very much enjoy being challenged to apply our numerical skills to systematic investigations, mathematical reasoning and problem solving. Maths and English are taught by our Year 4/5 team of teachers (Mrs Jones, Mrs Dobashi, Mrs Price and Miss Pullan) and give us a wonderful opportunity to work with other children within the year groups.
“When I help my dad building things I have to use maths to figure out where things go.” – Logan
“I like the hard questions because it challenges me, and I feel good when I get it right.” - Jess
Our afternoons are different every day and we are extremely lucky to have a wide range of experienced subject specialists who come in to share their passion and their wealth of knowledge with us.
On Monday afternoons, we alternate between having art with Mrs Lockhart and RE with Mrs Jones.
“I like drawing and painting because it’s creative.” – Henry D
“I like RE because I have a religion, and I like learning about all the other ones.” - Abigail
Tuesday afternoons are exciting, as we have three different lessons: life skills with Mrs Parsley, French with Madame Bastable, and steel pans with Mary. Learning to play the steel pans is a lot of fun and such a wonderful, unique experience for us all.
“I enjoyed learning about the law in life skills” - Mason
“French is good because if you are going to France you need to know the language – you can ask for something to eat and drink.” – Dylan
“I like to play the different steel pans and learn the different songs.” - Patryk
On Wednesday afternoons, we have PE or history lessons. In PE, which is coordinated by Mrs Price and Mrs Carvill, we keep fit and healthy learning a range of new sporting skills. Mrs Dobashi takes us for history, teaching us how to explore the past, make chronological links between events and people and identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods.
“Tennis is great fun, and I like winning when my ball goes in.” – Alana
“I liked learning about the Victorians and how different it was to today – they had different toys to us, and they didn’t have cars then.” – Shay
Every fortnight, on Thursday afternoons, we have a science lesson taught by Mrs Jones (Y5) and Mrs Price or Mrs Hearn (Y4). These lessons include a range of practical activities and investigations to develop our understanding of scientific principles and our ability to work scientifically. On intervening Thursdays we have geography with Mrs Jones and then Mrs Jones teaches the Y5s computing, while the Y4s have Mrs Hearn or Mrs Price again. Computing lessons cover a range of topics, including spreadsheets, databases, coding and how to stay safe online.
“Science is good because you can predict what’s going to happen and then test it out” - Jake
“I enjoy geography because we get to locate places with coordinates on a map, globe or atlas.” – Fiyin
“I really like doing coding and making my own games” - Tafari
Fridays are really fun because we have choir in the morning with Mrs Morley and Miss Rowden, alternating with philosophy for children with Mrs Jones or Mrs Parsley and outdoor education with Mrs Lane and Mrs Urquhart. We also have special gifted, talented and enrichment classes where we can develop our skills and passions further in a range of subjects including art, dance, drama, journalism, STEM and computing.
“I like outdoor ed because you get to explore and go on walks around Englefield.” – Natalia
“I love choir because you get to learn different harmonies.” – Olivia
“I like P4C because I like having discussions and giving my opinions” – Sabrina
“I was in the STEM class, and I got to learn loads of new things and It was fun.” – Henry W
In the afternoon, we finish our week with music, dance and drama lessons. We are extremely fortunate to be taught by three wonderful performing arts specialists: Miss Rowden, who teaches music; Carrie, who teaches us drama; and Claire, who teaches us dance. We really enjoy learning new skills and look forward to having opportunities to perform.
“I like drama because I like to act. Getting a part in the school production is exciting.” – Albie
“It’s nice to learn the different moves that you can do in dance” – Hannah
“Music keeps me calm, and I like the quizzes” - Jenson
At the end of every day, we particularly enjoy coming back to our classes for story time. This helps to extend our vocabulary and comprehension, allows us to experience different authors and genres, and provides a calm and relaxed end to the day.
“I’m really enjoying A Series of Unfortunate Events – there’s a good story to it. Count Olaf is very mean, but I don’t think he will get the fortune in the end” – Thomas