Hill Top Primary Academy

School Council

In every year group at Hill Top there are two nominated school councillors. 

Everyone is given the opportunity to present their manifesto about why they would like to represent their class, and then the class vote for their preference. The two children with the most votes become the Councillors for the year.  We discuss this process with the children and talk about how this relates to Democracy and Fundemental British Values.

The councillors then attend regular meetings, where they can bring classmate suggestions and are asked for their views on things which affect pupils in school.

Here are our Year One Councillors -

Christmas has arrived in Year One! 

Today we all decorated our class Christmas tree whilst listening to Christmas songs. 

Our new topic this half-term (Nov./Dec.) is Toys, toys, toys! 

In PE on Thursdays this half-term we have been doing DANCE.

Today we were creating movement to a beat of 8, linked to the weather.

We skated on ice, jumped in puddles and spun around like leaves in the breeze.

We then worked in groups to create a short dance sequence, using our beat to try and ensure we were all doing the same action at the same time! 

In History this week we have been talking about how we can find out about old toys.

We shared the information we had from our homework asking parents and grandparents about their favourite toys with our friends.

We also looked in non-fiction books for information and at pictures of old toys.

We have begun our Computing lessons this half-term and are learning how to develop our 'mouse skills'.

With this in mind, we had lots of fun today using the laptops and creating pictures on Sketchpad by selecting the 'fill icon' and 'clicking & dragging' images.

We have had a lovely Children in Need day!

After a busy morning rehearsing our Christmas show, some 'down time' with Pudsey Bear was needed! 

We all looked amazing in our yellow & spotty clothes, and definitely brought some sunshine into the classroom on a very wet & dreary day!

It has been Interfaith Week this week and all the children throughout school had the opportunity to learn about a religion not covered in our curriculum.

Year One learned about Buddhism.

We talked about the principles of this religion, the special temples Buddhists have and also how they use meditation to help calm their

minds and think a little deeper about things.

With this in mind, we all took the opportunity to complete 'mindful colouring' in the form of a Buddhist Lotus Flower mandala whilst also

having calming music playing.

The children all confirmed that they did feel much more relaxed and able to focus better after our 'meditation session'!

Friday 17th October at Hill Top was...ALL AROUND THE WORLD DAY! 

Every year group spent the whole day learning all about a different country.

We looked at France.

Our day began with learning some interesting facts about France, such as what landmarks are available to visit, what foods are eaten and also what religions are followed. 

We then watched a video all about how croissants are made, whilst enjoying some ourselves! 

After our 'snack' we went on a virtual tour of Le Louvre and learned a lot of interesting information about the Mona Lisa.

Then we drew our own versions of this famous work.

In the afternoon we learned to count to 10 in french, learned how to greet each other and finally learned the names of colours in french so we could complete our L'arc-en-ciels (rainbows)! 

We had a very busy, but also a very enjoyable day visiting France!! 

In our Art lesson today we learned about continuous line drawing. We all practised drawing spirals on big paper without taking our pencils off the paper!

We even took chalks outside and drew spirals on the playground floor!

We then created a piece of artwork which began with a spiral, but was then adapted into a rainbow snail! 

Amazing! 

In our first PSHE lesson together we watched the story of Elmer, and talked about why is is important that we recognise that we are all different, and respect those differences. 

Our activity for this lesson involved the children working in small teams to see what was similar about them, whilst also finding out what was different. Here are a few examples they gave - 

Today we had our first Art lesson.

Our task was to draw an accurate self-portrait. We used mirrors to help us get the colours of our eyes right & to look closely at our own facial features. 

We talked about how Art is subjective, and how whilst some artwork is pleasing to us, someone else may not feel the same about the identical piece. 

With that in mind we had a little 'Art Gallery' at the end of the session, where the children walked around to admire their friend's work. We then had a few comments about who liked what and why.

This gave the children to chance to think about why a particular piece had been of interest to them & how to verbalise that. 

In this week’s Geography lesson we looked at a selection of different maps and talked about how useful these are. 

We then talked about how maps look different to what we can see with our own eyes and learned

about aerial (bird’s eye) views.

The children then created these super maps of our classroom using an aerial view.

Today in our Science lesson we conducted experiments to see how easy it is to identify things using only one of our senses! 

We visited 5 'Senses Stations' where we tried to figure out what three different foods, photos, sounds, smells & objects were using only one sense!

Some tests were harder than others, but we all decided that it easier when we can use more than one sense! 

In PE with Mr Whawell the children have been looking at perfecting their ball skills. 

Today's lesson was learning how to control and stop a ball using only your feet! ( It is tricky when it is sooo tempting to use your hand! )

This week's Geography was all about our school grounds.

We looked at an aerial view of our school on GoogleEarth and talked about what we could see. 

Then we all went outside to do some 'fieldwork' and observe what features were where, within our school property. 

Once we were back in class, our task was to draw an aerial map of the whole school grounds. 

The children did a super job! 

Today was DT Day! 

The theme of our day was Fruit & Vegetables

We began the day by identifying some fruits and vegetables and then discussing what the differences between them were.

We learned that fruit has seeds and grows on trees/plants/vines.

Vegetables do not have seeds and grow under or just on top of the ground. 

Our activity was to look closely at a selection of food on our table and decide whether we thought it was a fruit or vegetable.

Our next task was to practice our chopping and juicing skills to prepare all the ingredients we were going to sample later, in order

to help us to decide the recipe of our own smoothies!  

Once we had prepared all the available choices of fruits, we sampled them and decided which ones we would like to make a smoothie with.

We then worked with a grown-up to blend our choice of fruits together.

Finally, we drank our 'designed' smoothies and 'reviewed' our choices with a thumbs up or thumbs down! 

In Science this week, we are re-capping everything we have learned this half-term about our bodies and our senses. 

To see just what the children have learned, after playing Simon Says & singing 'Heads Shoulders Knees & Toes', 

they made some amazing plasticine bodies and then placed lots of labels in the correct places! 

In Thursday's PE lessons we have been looking at 'fundamental' skills. 

Today we have been practicing our jumping skills using french skipping ropes. 

There was some super 'skip' & 'two-feet' jumping, and also some fantastic teamwork!