Ysgol Cefnllys

Learning today to shape tomorrow

Dysgu Heddiw Er Mwyn Llunio Yfory

Dosbarth Helygen/Year 5/6 - Mrs Smith 2023 - 2024

Welcome to Dosbarth Helygen!

Spring Term 2024

This term’s topic is ‘Our Wonderful World.’

World Book Day

Monday March 11th, 2024

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, we created ‘Story Stones’ for Dosbarth Glasbren and Dosbarth Cangen (Reception and Year 1).

Working in small groups, we chose a well known fairytale and then decorated stones and a hessian sack to store them in.

Once they were complete, we practised telling the stories in our teams before heading to the Reception and Year 1 classrooms to tell the younger children our stories!

We have now given our Story Stones to the infant classes to use to tell the stories themselves!

Our Story Stones

Friday March 1st, 2024

Our Shoebox Biomes

We have worked so hard over the last few weeks to plan and create shoebox biomes using a range of materials.

Each model had to have:

- a hanging part

- a moving part

- a reflective part

We are very proud of them!

Our Shoebox Biomes

‘Cymru’ Spotlight Day

Wednesday February 28th, 2024

On our ‘Cymru’ spotlight day, we made

Welsh cakes and created posters and brochures all about Wales.

Here are some photos from our day!

Cymru Spotlight Day

Our Science Investigation

Also this week, we have been learning about how different plants and crops have to adapt to different climates, temperatures and weather conditions in order to grow.

We wanted to know if all plants need the exact same conditions to grow.

So we have set up an investigation planting seeds in four different conditions:

1) Water, soil and sunlight

2) Sunlight, soil but NO water

3) Water, soil but NO sunlight

4) Water, sunlight but NO soil

The pupils have been split into 6 groups and each group has planted a different type of seed. This way, we can find out if all plants respond in the same way to each condition. We were amazed

at how different each type of seed looked when they were taken out of the packet!

Our Science Investigation

Friday February 23rd, 2024
Performance Poetry

Since returning from the half term holidays, we have been learning about performance poetry. We started by watching some examples, including ‘Walking with my Iguana’ by Brian Moses and ‘Don’t’ by Michael Rosen - this was our favourite!

Then we split into groups to practise performing poems that we wrote before the holidays about different biomes.

We created our own success criteria to follow and used lots of different skills such as listening, discussion, communication, compromising and performing. We discussed how to vary our vocal pitch, tone and dynamics and how to add in body movement and percussion for effect.

Here are our performances to the class!

Performance Poetry Group 1

Performance Poetry Group 2

Performance Poetry Group 3

Performance Poetry Group 4

Performance Poetry Group 5

Performance Poetry Group 6

Our Topic Cover Pages

Explanation Texts

Our first text type for this term has been explanation texts.

We began by exploring examples texts and annotating the language and structural features in them.

Next we each chose an animal to research and then planned and presented information about how they adapt to their environments.
Here is some of our fantastic work!

Our Explanation Texts

World Religion Day

January 24th, 2024

On World Religion Day we celebrated the religions and faiths in our class. After learning about lots of different religions, we learned more about our class religions including Christianity, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhism and Islam.

We made information posters about a faith of our choice and then created and decorated 3D symbols using different materials.

Here is our display for World Religion Day!

Our World Religion Day Display

More photos from our display

Our Shared Planning - what we would like to learn this term!

To begin, we created a Jamboard on Google Classroom to share all of our ideas and questions for the new topic. Working in pairs, we sorted our ideas into each of the six areas of learning. Have a look at our great suggestions!

Monday December 4th, 2023

Our Crime Scene

What an eventful and exciting start to the week we’ve had! Dosbarth Helygen walked into class this morning to discover a crime scene!!
They have worked so well in detective teams to carry out different activities including analysing handwriting samples, chromatography, dusting and lifting fingerprints and measuring footprints. So many skills used! 🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♂️📏🔎

Crime Scene - Rich Task

Friday December 1st, 2023

Inheritance and DNA

This term, the pupils wanted to learn more about ourselves and our DNA. We had lots of great whole class discussions about inheritance and DNA, where we talked about our own characteristics and physical appearance compared to our families.
We then made our own diagrams using jelly bear sweets, demonstrating how a person inherits around 50% of their DNA from each biological parent.
We were all able to explain our diagrams with a partner too! Fantastic learning from everyone!

DNA Gummy Bear Diagrams

UK Parliament Week 2023

This term, we participated in UK Parliament Week!
To begin the week, we learned about how our country is run and how laws are made. The children also experienced a virtual tour of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Then, the pupils were split into teams to debate the topic ‘Children should choose the subjects they want to learn from Year 5.’ They did a fantastic job, debating some excellent for and against points! Da iawn, pawb!

UK Parliament Week Debates

Please watch our fantastic debating skills! The motion was ‘Children should be able to choose the subjects they want to learn from Year 5.’

Our winning team!

Another great debate!

Fantastic debating skills!

Our Autumn term topic is 'Who Are We?'

At the beginning of the term, we had a class discussion and planning session about what the pupils wanted to learn about, based on this key question. There were many excellent suggestions and ideas, which the children were able to sort into the six areas of learning in the new curriculum for Wales.

To begin our topic, we have focused on the Victorians. This links to 'Who Are We?' because Llandrindod Wells is a Victorian Spa town and the pupils were keen to learn about the history behind this era.

Our Class Novel

To link with our Victorians focus, we are currently reading 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty as part of our literacy work. The pupils are really enjoying the storyline and have produced some excellent work so far, including: character descriptions using inference and deduction skills, diary extracts from the perspective of a child in the Victorian workhouse and emotion graphs showing the emotions of Jim Jarvis (the main character).