Welcome to our fantastic class for the oldest pupils in school!
A bit about us…
Class 4 is our upper Key Stage 2 class for Year 5 & 6 pupils. Our class teacher is Miss Murphy and she is supported by
Mrs Cooper. As a team, they are constantly keeping their pupils on their toes, stretching and challenging their learning, helping them to collaborate with each other, encouraging them in their strengths and supporting each pupil as they demonstrate determination, perseverance and resilience, in order to make the very best of themselves.
Whilst we work hard in Year 5 and 6, be prepared for lots of fun and to take part in lots of sports! We love sports in Class 4 and take part in local sporting leagues, where we learn new skills and how to work as part of a team!
Year 6
Year 6 is an incredibly important year, giving children the opportunity to bring together all of their prior learning in preparation to achieve the highest academic level possible ready to embark upon the next step at secondary school. It is also the year that pupils take parts in SATs (Statutory Assessment Tests) in Reading, Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling and Maths. These take part annually in the month of May.
To find out more about our curriculum, you can read our curriculum over view, view our Long Term plans below, or read the whole-school curriculum offer by clicking here.
Things you should know:
*Each child is given a reading book to read at home. Children will be listened to reading during shared reading sessions, as well as by different adults in school. Reading at home is expected and encouraged; we aim for at least 3 times a week as this will really help your children’s progress.
*Your child will bring home 10 spellings each week to learn for a spelling test on Friday.
*One of our key focuses in numeracy is times tables, ensuring children are ready for the multiplication check in year 4. Every child, from Year 2 onwards, is expected to complete 20 minutes of multiplication practise each week on the TTRockstars app.
Class Four Planning Documents
English Long Term Planning
Y5 & Y6 English Cycle A Y5 & Y6 English Cycle B
Foundation Subjects Long Term Planning
Class 4 Cycle A LTP Class 4 Cycle B LTP
What have Class Four been up to?
October
We have had a very busy, fun-filled month and a spooky Halloween! 
We have been reading the picture book ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith. We enjoyed taking part in different drama activities to help us relate to the characters and themes of the story. In one lesson, we generated interesting questions we would like to ask the father about his ambitions. Children then took to the hot seat and tried to answer these questions, using their knowledge of the character. When we read the second half of the story, we discovered that the young boy continued his father’s legacy by creating his own set of wings so that he could fly. We split into two groups to discuss whether the son made the right choice by following his father’s dream instead of his own. Everyone then presented their reasons for and against, in our conscience alley. In addition, we have produced lots of text types, using the story as inspiration. We wrote diary entries from the point of view of the father in the text. Then, we chose our own success criteria to assess our writing against. We colour coded the examples of success criteria we found.
Class 4 have been working very hard in maths this month! We have been using different manipulatives (like cubes, counters and maths apps) to help us find multiples and factors of numbers. Year 5 children have been improving their rapid recall of multiplication facts too!
In science, we have been learning about animals, including humans. After learning about the life cycle of a human, we focused specifically on the elderly stage in life. Children used books and the internet to research this stage and then created powerpoints to share what they had learned. They presented their powerpoints with confidence to the rest of the class! In history, we have exploring the earliest civilisations before beginning our topic on Ancient Egypt. Using our prior knowledge, we investigated the different achievements/inventions around the classroom and used post-it notes to indicate which civilisation it was. Then, we discussed which achievement was the greatest and why. October is Black History Month. We chose to learn about artist Althea McNish. We discovered that she came to Britain as part of the Windrush generation (which children could remember a lot about from their Year 3/4 topic!). When Althea came to Britain, she missed the warm weather and plants of her home country so she used bright, vibrant colours in her designs. We decided to create our own designs, inspired by Althea’s work.
Our First Two Weeks
We’ve had an exciting and productive start to the school year! Over the past two weeks, the children in Class 4 have been working incredibly hard and have quickly settled into their new routines.
In English, we’ve been reading The Tunnel by Anthony Browne, which has given us a wonderful opportunity to explore rich descriptive language. We’ve been working with expanded noun phrases, personification, and relative clauses to enhance our writing. In maths, we’ve started our unit on place value, exploring numbers up to—and beyond—one million. Our Year 5 students have particularly impressed us with their ability to read and write Roman numerals up to 1,000. We’ve also begun our Spanish topic, where we’re reading Ricitos de Oro y los tres osos (Goldilocks and the Three Bears).
We’ve had a fantastic start to our sports events this term as well! Class 4 participated in a handball festival with local schools, where Team Sunnybrow Red secured 3rd place. A group of Year 6 pupils also represented us at a netball festival, achieving an impressive 3rd place finish! Every Wednesday, our girls’ football team has been competing in the league at Bishop Auckland F.C. What has stood out most at these events is how strongly our students have embodied our HEART values—particularly their resilience and respect for others. We are very proud of them all!
We’ve also been thoroughly enjoying our new art topic on typography. The children have explored a variety of fonts and researched graphic designer Louise Fili, drawing inspiration for their own creative work. We can’t wait to see how their final art pieces turn out!
Last week was Election Week at school, where we discussed democracy and its significance as one of our core British Values. After learning about how democracy works in the UK, children interested in joining the school council wrote and delivered their own speeches to the class. They then answered thoughtful questions from their peers, explaining how they would contribute to improving the school as councillors.
Finally, everyone participated in a secret ballot to elect their school council representative. With such impressive speeches, it was a tough decision!
2023-2024
Saying goodbye to Primary School for Year 6 06.07.23
Year 6 children went for lunch at The Copper Mine with Mr Vincent and Ms Kitching for their leavers meal. The
children got to order a drink, main meal and dessert from the menu. It was lovely to spend time with the children, see them chatting and having fun for one of the last times in Primary School. Their manners and behaviour were impeccable. We couldn’t be prouder of our wonderful pupils.
The First Three Weeks (22.09.23)
Class 4 pupils have really risen to the challenge of being the oldest pupils in school, and we are so proud of how they have returned after the summer break. As you all know, Year 6 is a very busy year but our motto is that we work hard and play even harder-especially with our sports! So far this term, we’ve played a Handball festival at Parkside where our second team won their league and our first team came second. We’ve played 2 rounds of Tag Rugby fixtures at Wolsingham and we’ve played our Level 2 Netball competition and came second!
of a plant by dissecting plants from the school field. We’ve also been looking at the differences between sexual and asexual parts of a plant. We carried out an investigation where we took cuttings from an existing plant’s stem and placed them in water. We’re observing them over the next few weeks to see which ones grow new roots and can be replanted and which ones can’t. Geography has been really interesting too. As part of our work on Volcanoes and Earthquakes, we’ve been looking at plate tectonics and understanding how seismic activity occurs at plate boundaries. We used Popadoms, to show how the earth’s crust is thin, and broken into pieces (plates) like a jigsaw.
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October in Class 4
Class 4 have been working hard this month-there is never a spare minute in the day and every day is so different! We’ve been learning about the life of the Ancient Greeks in History, dissecting eggs to learn about the different parts in Science and writing and improving diary entries in English! On top of that, we’ve had a visit from Crook Firefighters to remind us about Bonfire Night safety and we took part in our school Harvest celebration at St. Stephen’s church! What a fabulous month!
November and December in Class 4
Wow, time is speeding by! It’s been a whirl of festive preparations, lots of learning and sporting fixtures. Some of our highlights have been our class Christmas party, taking part in our production of ‘Baubles’ and going to Panto. We were incredibly proud of the children who took part in a visit to Willington Care Village to sing Christmas carols for the residents. In DT, we made pop-up books. We chose our younger children as our target audience and used Christmas as our theme.
January 2024
Class 4 have gotten off to an electric start this year and have been enjoying our electricity topic in Science. We’ve been exploring circuits and have really enjoyed the practical side of the topic!
February 2024
This month we’ve been very busy in class. We’ve celebrated LGBT+ History Month, Safer Internet Day and Children’s Mental Health Week. We’ve also had a visit from Chartwell’s Food company, who showed us how to make simple, healthy food which we can all enjoy! The children in Year 6 finished 4th in the local dodgeball league, and we are all working hard in class with the year 6 children now building towards their SATs in May!
For Children’s Mental Health Week, we took part in a competition against the other classes where we had to prepare a healthy 2-course meal. One of our school’s ‘5 Ways to Shine’, is all about the importance of healthy eating. We prepared a chicken stir-fry dish and some healthy raisin biscuits. We loved chopping and putting all the vegetables together. Everyone agreed it looked, smelled and tasted really good.
Continuing with the food theme, we had a visitor from the people who make our school dinners (Chartwell’s Food). They talked to us about the benefits of healthy eating and how important it is to maintain a balanced diet. We talked about the different food groups and the types of food we might expect to find in each. At the end, we were shown how to make a healthy smoothie from fruit juice, strawberries, bananas, spinach and yoghurt. We all had a go at tasting it, even though some of us weren’t keen on the smell at first!
As part of LGBT+ History Month, we created fact files on a significant LGBT+ person. The theme this year was ‘Medicine #UnderTheScope’. So we looked at numerous significant individuals from the world of Science and Medicine. We learnt some amazing facts and produced some very colourful and bright pieces of work. We all know how it important it is to raise awareness around significant LGBT+ individuals to show everyone that anything is possible. 
The theme for Safer Internet Day this year was ‘Inspiring Change?’. We talked about the benefits and the dangers which the internet has for all of us before focusing on AI. We had a very interesting class debate around whether we believed AI was a good thing, or a bad thing. We shared all of our ideas and then split the class in half, to argue the reasons for. and against, the use of AI.
March 2024
It’s been such a short half-term, it feels like we’ve packed so much in over the last 5 weeks. We’ve celebrated Careers Week and Science Week. We’ve welcomed the NSPCC into school for a workshop with our class. We’ve also taken part in the Badminton World Cup at Bishop Barrington and celebrated World Book Day. At the end of the month we will be taking part in the Girls’ Football World Cup when we will be trying to win it for the second year in a row! We’ve also got our Holi colour run on the last day of term to celebrate the Hindu festival. In class, we’ve been working on formal letters and play scripts in English, looking at Statistics in Maths, while continuing with our foundation subjects too.
For Science Week, we took part in an investigation exploring whether or not the children with the longest legs run the fastest. We found that it was actual the children with the shortest legs who ran the fastest in our class.
Careers Week was a fantastic opportunity for us all to listen to a variety of professionals about their job, and why they decided to get a job in a certain profession. Everyone who came in to speak to us were very informative and inspirational. We had talks from a sports coach, nurse, hairdresser, police dog handler, teacher and a professional BMX rider who has represented Great Britain!
The NSPCC came in to talk to us about the importance of ‘speaking out to stay safe’. Everyone was really sensible and asked some excellent questions. Everyone was able to name a trusted adult and talk about situations we might find ourselves in which are tricky or might make us feel uncomfortable and upset us.
World Book Day in school was great fun! We came into school wearing something which made us feel happy. We took part in a quiz about the teachers. We had to guess the teacher based on an extract from their favourite book and 3 clues about them! Throughout the day we also took part in, ‘Stop, Drop and Read’. Whenever the bell was rang, we would have to stop whatever it is we were doing, drop everything and pick up our favourite reading book to read. We also had hot chocolate and our amazing reading ambassadors delivered a very informative assembly for us all.
April 2024
The children all settled back into class life brilliantly following the two week Easter holidays. Although this was only a short month, there was still plenty going on in class and around school. The Year 6 children are continuing working hard in the lead-up to their SATS, which begin on the 13th May. We’ve started new topics across our subjects including looking at poetry and the poems ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling, and ‘The Supply Teacher’ by Allan Ahlberg. In Maths we’ve been working on geometry and position and direction, while in PE we’ve started looking at the different skills we can learn through Tennis.
‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling
We created our own versions of the poem ‘If’. The poem is about Rudyard Kipling giving advice about life and growing up to his own son. We picked someone we thought we could give advice to and then thought about what we could give advice about. There were some excellent ideas from everyone.
In PE we’ve started looking at the different skills needed to play tennis. The first week we began by looking at racket control and getting used to going form a forehand to a backhand position.
We then moved onto rallying and accuracy while also looking at how to develop our footwork and reactions.
In D&T we finished off creating out Steady Hand Games. We looked at the importance of designing a solid base, and then linked in our work on Electricity in Science to create a simple, functioning circuit which was fit for purpose. Everyone had great fun testing the games out afterwards!
May 2024
We’ve had another busy month in school. The Year 6 children have taken their SAT assessments, which they did absolutely superbly in! We have been continuing to look at poetry in English by moving on from ‘If’ and looking at ‘The Magic Box’ by Kit Wright. There has been a lot of revising going on in Maths, as the Year 6’s prepared for their SATs. In D&T we have been developing our own recipes by adapting and making a spaghetti bolognese. We have also had Sports Day and gone on a visit to the local library. The children in Class have represented the school in an after school Cricket league, and the girls did brilliantly in the Girls Cricket World Cup, where they finished third and only lost one game! Finally, in Science we’ve been looking at our new topic, Properties and Changes of Material where we did an investigation and tested different objects for different materials.
We took part in an investigation looking at how we can test the properties of different materials. The children came up with their own tests for hardness, permeability, flexibility, magnetism and transparency.
Sports Day was great fun, and the weather just about stayed dry for us! The whole school was spilt into 8 different teams, and we went around competing in different activities trying to gain the most points for our team. At the end we had class races, and then the parents had a race too! It was brilliant to see so many people watching and involved.
In D&T our topic was ‘Developing a Recipe’. We looked at the Farm to Fork process, and then began adapting a recipe for a spaghetti bolognese. We talked about different items we could change, what needed to stay the same and the nutritional value in making a bologenese. We then spoke about how the dish is put together and the correct sequence, before practising our cutting skills by preparing our own vegetables to go in our dishes. We also looked at how we could make them healthier.
During the last week of half-term, we visited Willington Library where we did a book hunt and looked at some of the amazing books that they have to offer. At the end we got to choose a library book to take home.
Finally, a massive well done to all of the Year 6 children who sat their SAT examinations this month. They are never easy, and assessments are not a nice way to spend time in school. However, all of the children were absolutely sensational. Their attitude was brilliant and they never gave up, they showed amazing resilience throughout and we are all incredibly proud of them all. They are a credit to our school, themselves and everyone associated with Sunnybrow. To celebrate they made their own ice-cream sundaes and played games. Well done Year 6!!
June 2024
This month has been very busy as we are starting to county down towards the Summer Holidays! As well as all of our normal lessons, we have taken part in lots of different sporting competitions, been on our end of year residential, had a visit from Jack Drum Samba and took part in some basic first aid training. The Summer term is always filled with lots of things to do, and this month, so far, has been no different!
We took part in an Athletics Competition at Bishop Barrington School. Our team took park in events including the 60m, 100m, 800m, relays, long jump, standing triple jump, shot put and howler. We had some brilliant performances including two 3rd place finished in the 60m and the Howler throw.
We also began our Netball league at Bishop Barrington. There were two separate leagues on a Wednesday and Thursday nights. Our team played absolutely brilliantly and won all 5 of their games, finishing unbeaten with a maximum 15 points out of 15. Everyone played with fantastic skill and determination!
Our sporting competitions finished with a Rounders Festival at Parkside School. It was a great opportunity to practice our striking and fielding skills in a competitive situation.
We took part in basic First-Aid Training session in school. We brought our teddies into school so that we could practice everything that we were being shown. We learnt what to do in an emergency and some basic first aid techniques like using bandages and treating cuts and head injuries. First Aid really is so important, and this was a brilliant opportunity to learn some life saving skills!
Towards the end of the month we went on our end of year residential to Ford Castle in Berwick. It was amazing to stay in an actual castle and take part in activities such as, Laser Tag, Vertical Challenge, Zip Wire, Trapeze, Aeroball and Fencing. We also had chance to watch and England match while we were away. It was a great 2 nights away!
To end the month, our Year 6’s had a visit from Jack Drum Samba club. They taught us how to play lots of different types of drums, and taught us a song we could all play together!
July 2024
The final month of term has arrived!! This year has flown over incredibly quickly and it only feels like two minutes ago when we were all sat in class, in September at the start of the year. Everyone has achieved so much and made brilliant progress throughout the year! It’s the time when we celebrate the Year 6 children, and everything they have achieved at Sunnybrow Primary School, before they move on to their new adventures and new schools. It’s also the time when the Year 5’s get ready to move into Year 6 and become the oldest children in the school. As ever, there is so much going on for us all to enjoy during the last few weeks of term.
In Science we’ve been finishing off our work on Properties and Changes of Materials, by conducting different investigations into how different materials dissolve, whether that’s the speed or if they actually do dissolve. We also looked at reversible and irreversible changes and different ways of separating mixtures.
In D&T we’ve been looking at ‘Stuffed Toys’ and how we can design, create and evaluate them. We worked with different fabrics, created templates and thought about how we were going to stuff our toys, before then having a go at blanket stitching our fabric together to create our toys. We got our parents in and had a go at creating our toys for our Class 4 Parent Event. The finished products were really good…and quite scary!!
Our class were lucky enough to visit the Hancock (Great North) Museum this month. We were invited to take part in the Time Odyssey Experience. This was a virtual tour of the museum, where we had to work in groups on tablets, and meet different virtual characters. These characters took us on a tour around the museum where we had to complete different quests before we could move on. We explored the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Anglo-Saxons, Romans and the Dinosaurs, while also exploring some amazing wildlife and creatures.
As a treat for the Year 6 children on a fantastic year for them all, we took them for their dinner to The Coppermine in Crook. The food was amazing…especially the puddings! By the time everyone got back to school we were all stuffed and ready for a lie down!
Archived Class Information
You can view our archived Class Information on our website.
