White Ribbon Day – Year 5

By Sophie Porteous26th November 2025

White Ribbon Day is a global campaign to end violence against women and girls. 

For White Ribbon Day this year, all of the children came to school wearing something white – whether that be their clothing or a small accessory. The children took part in a whole-school assembly to find out what White Ribbon Day is trying to do, and later in the day they completed some work in their classes. All pupils make a pledge:

Kind hands, kind feet, kind words to all. 

We are a no violence school. 

We respect each other. 

Each child also wrote their own personal promise on a piece of paper which we then connected to make a whole-class paper chain of promises. This will then form a whole-school promise.

We learned about which organisations can help people if they are experiencing bullying or abuse and all vowed to #speakup to #changethestory.

 

Year 5 Fire Talk

By Sophie Porteous24th November 2025

Year 5 had a visitor from Humberside Fire and Rescue today.

They spoke to the children about fire safety – identifying potential hazards in the home and what to do if they discover a fire.

We learned to STOP. DROP. ROLL. if our clothing were to catch fire.

We know to call 999 and ask for the fire service.

If we cannot leave our home, we know that we should try and gather all our family in one room and close the door. We should get as low as possible as toxic smoke rises and we should try and block the bottom of the door with a rolled up blanket to keep smoke out.

We were also spoken to about arson and the consequences of this.

The talk finished with a discussion about the dangers of open water and that no matter how tempting it may be on a hot summer’s day or when it’s cold and looks frozen-over, we should never enter the water as there are many hidden dangers.

Year 5 – An introduction to gravity

18th November 2025Sophie Porteous

This afternoon we learned that a force is a push or a pull.

We did a range of experiments and practical activities to show that unsupported objects fall downwards due to gravity.​ We looked at our hair when we do a handstand, watched paint run down a sheet of paper and threw objects in the air to watch them fall. We realised that Gravity is an invisible force that makes unsupported objects fall towards Earth. Throughout history, people have tried to explain this force. Galileo realised that gravity causes objects of the same shape, but different mass to fall at the same speed.​ Although some of us predicted that heavier objects would fall faster, we proved Galileo right by dropping 2 identical water bottles – one full and one half full – at the same time. They both hit the ground at the same time. We also learned about Isaac Newton who realised that Earth must have a force towards its centre that pulls things straight down. He is the person that named it “Gravity”.

Year 5 Bikeability

By Sophie Porteous9th November 2025

Year 5 had a very busy week completing Levels 1 & 2 of Bikeability!

Every child that took part managed to achieve something personal to them, whether that be sitting on a bike for the first time, riding one-handed whilst signalling, or overtaking parked cars on the road in a safe manner.

The children showed excellent listening skills and resilience. There was a lot of information to take in and remember but the children were absolute superstars and showed the instructors what it means to “Be The Best You Can Be!”.

Well done Year 5!

The Nowhere Emporium – Year 5

By Sophie Porteous15th September 2025

The children in Year 5 received a mysterious golden invitation inviting them to visit and explore the wonders of the “Nowhere Emporium”. They excitedly entered the smaller classroom in the Y56 POD only to discover that it had transformed – as if by magic – into an emporium of wonders!

There were dragons and owls, cards and potions, a well-dress mannequin, jewels and an array of other intriguing objects that captured our attention and sent our imaginations running wild.

When they returned to their classrooms, the children discovered that they would be reading “The Nowhere Emporium” this term and that their writing work would be centered around this book.

It was certainly a fantastic ‘hook’ to get us all excited for our English lessons!

National Day of Spain

By Sophie Porteous14th October 2023

On Thursday 12th October, the whole school celebrated the National Day of Spain (Fiesta Nacional de España).

This is an annual public holiday in Spain which is celebrated on October 12th. It remembers Christopher Columbus who first set foot in the Americas in 1492.

On this day. Spanish people will have the day off, schools and most businesses are closed. In order to celebrate the day, the King and Prime Minister lead a military parade. This parade includes representatives from Spain’s military units and various vehicles that they use. Usually, the people of Spain will use this day to spend time at home or in the company of friends and family.

Because we all learn Spanish at Christopher Pickering, we decided to celebrate this day with a range of exciting activities. We had a non-uniform day and all came to school wearing the colours of the Spanish flag. We started the day with an assembly with Mrs Porteous and Miss Dale where we learned all about the special holiday and even learned a Spanish song to sing together.

In our classes, we learned different Spanish songs and nursery rhymes and also played some classic classroom games speaking only in Spanish. Some particular favourites were cabezas abajo pulgares arriba (heads down, thumbs up), lotto (bingo), Simon dice (Simon says), salchichas (sausages) and caliente/frio (hot/cold).

We all had lots of fun learning Spanish and can’t wait for our next lesson!

Year 6 Math Project – Bakery

By Sophie Porteous26th May 2023

Over the last couple of weeks, Year 6 have been working collaboratively to run our very own bakery. We have applied lots of different areas of the maths curriculum we have mastered this year to this real-life project:

First we had to scale the recipes looking at ratio and proportion.

Then we had to calculate the costings for the ingredients and research which shops offered the best value by looking at unit conversions, comparisons, percentages and different deals.

Next, we looked at profit and loss and calculated how much money we would make and what we would need to sell the cupcakes for in order to not make a loss.

After that, we explored packaging and worked hard designing the nets for a single cupcake box and a double cupcake box. We had to draw accurately and use our knowledge of perimeter, area and volume.

We had to tackle some real-life baking problems, calculating cooking times and the mass. This required our knowledge of algebra, fractions and ratio.

We then got busy baking, following our recipes to create our delicious cupcakes.

We have made £198 profit in total across Year 6! Well done!

Year 6 – artist workshop

By Sophie Porteous5th March 2023

Year 6 recently had the fortune of working with local artist, Charlotte Eldred.

We began our session by looking at some of Charlotte’s work and learning about her style and doodling. Charlotte spoke to us about what it was like being an artist and what inspired her to do it.

We began the session by exploring pattern, concentrating on putting our pens to paper and thinking of as many different patterns as we could. We also took inspiration from the world around us – just like artists do. We noticed our display boards had wavy borders and we had a bricked effect on some of them – this inspired us to explore these patterns on our paper. After a few minutes, we had full pages of different patter line drawings. We then used these in the next part of the workshop.

Charlotte then spoke to us about the famous artist, Banksy. We have been studying Banksy and his style of graffiti artwork in our art lessons this term.

We looked at 2 of Banksy’s pieces: The Girl with the Balloon and the Wildstyle Cow. We didn’t know that Banksy had (controversially) graffitied on real cows too!

We discussed the different interpretations of the pieces of art. Some of us thought that the girl with the balloon represented something that was just out of reach and feelings of frustration. Some of us felt that it represented loss and sadness in letting go of something or someone you love. Some of us thought it represented hope and showed that your dreams are always within reach, you just need to push yourself to achieve them. We had some great discussions both within and after the lesson. The beauty of art is that there are no right or wrong answers!

Charlotte then spoke to us about how artists can take inspiration from other artists. She showed us how we could be inspired by and draw on Banksy’s artwork, and her style of art, to create our own versions.

Charlotte helped us to think about how we could begin our drawings but we discussed how everyone’s interpretations of art are different. We spoke about how art is a medium for expression and how we can express feelings/emotions through our creativity. We thought carefully about which of the patterns we had explored earlier in the lesson could represent the feelings we wanted to get across. Linear stripes could suggest that our thoughts were clear and calm whereas spirals and scribbles could suggest that we were confused or had a lot going on in our lives. We tried to express ourselves in our artwork: some of us gave our cows more pointed angles whereas some of use used softer curved lines; some of us drew heart-shaped balloons and filled them with patterns that represented hope and love; some of us drew more pointed balloons filled with patterns that represented more negative feelings of loss or anger. We also thought carefully about the facial expressions on our cows and of the girl/boy with the balloon.

Overall, we all had a fantastic workshop and learned a lot!

Thank you Charlotte!

Year 6 – Investigating the anatomy of the heart

By Sophie Porteous30th September 2022

Year 6 investigated the anatomy of the heart this week in science. We dissected some pig hearts to investigate the 4 chambers of the heart, the valves and the different blood vessels.

We were able to identify the aorta, superior vena cava and the pulmonary artery and were able to put our fingers into these to investigate where they led to.

When we cut the heart open, we were able to identify the 4 chambers of the heart – the atria and the ventricles. We observed that the walls of the left ventricle were much thicker than the other chambers as this is the chamber responsible for pushing the blood all around the body so it needs to be strong.

We also identified the valves that separate the atrium from the ventricle on each side of the heart.

It was really interesting to see all of the intricate parts of the heart – including the heart strings (chordae tendineae) which hold the valves in place while the heart is pumping blood.