English hook – Monkey see, monkey do

Class One found a letter from the hat seller asking if we had found his hats. We found that they had been blown all over the playground! We gathered the hats up and picked our favourites before they were returned to the hat seller.

Recreating Pollock using shades of colour

In Art, Class 1 have been learning about colour. We learnt that adding black to a colour creates a darker shade. We looked at paintings by Jackson Pollock and tried to recreate his style in a splatter paintings using different shades of yellow, orange and green.

 

Mixing tints using white paint

In Art, Class 1 have been learning about colour. We learnt that adding white to a colour makes the colour lighter and makes a tint.

Class 1 visit Blue Planet Aquarium

Class 1 had a great time at the Blue Aquarium to support our Science work on animal groups.

Hodnet Celebrates World Book Day!

Hodnet kicked off our World Book Day celebrations with a Traitors themed assembly!

We were welcomed into the Great Reading Castle of Hodnet – a place where the Faithful Readers were being thwarted by the Book Traitors. The Faithful Readers love stories, use their imagination and protect books; whereas the Book Traitors try to stop the main character, they try to stop the happy endings and they try to make stories something to dislike.

Four Readers had been chosen at the secret round table and one of those was selected to be the Book Traitor.  The Readers were set two challenges to see if the children could work out who was the Book Traitor.

The first challenge asked the Readers to identify the book using picture clues. The children tried to guess which of our Readers was the Traitor!

In the second challenge, our Readers were given a book character and had to deliver two truths and a lie about their book. The children had to see if they could spot the traitor by the way they delivered their lie.

After the two challenges, the children voted for the Reader they thought was the Book Traitor. It was in fact Miss Honey from Matilda!

After successfully finding the Traitor, the children were asked to consider the Oath of the Faithful Reader. Faithful Readers promise to give books a chance; to use their imagination; to try new books and to protect the magic of reading!

It was a great start to our World Book Day celebtrations!

Printing – Creating relief print tiles

To finish off our printing unit, we created a relief printing tile using a cardboard base and polystyrene tile.

We then used rollers to apply paint and created three prints from our tile.

Forest school – the end of winter

In Forest school, we discussed the end of winter and how winter can look very different depending on the weather. We completed four end of winter activities.

We were season detectives, looking for signs that spring was starting.

We tried digging in the soil. The soil was much softer and wetter than it had been in the frozen weather. We even found some worms!

We created animal homes for any small animals and insects coming out of hibernation.

We used chalk to create pictures of the weather today. There were lots of clouds and rain!

Art – Mondrian collages

In Art we have been learning about primary colours. We made collages inspired by Mondrian using the primary schools.

Computing – Recreating Matisse

In computing we used our paint skills to create coloured shapes. We tried to recreate Matisse’s snail using different coloured squares which we then filled.

Storytelling Week 2026

Storytelling week was the second event in our calendar of events to support the National Year of Reading 2026. We enjoyed a range of events to highlight the importance of listening to, telling and reading stories.

 

On Tuesday, Year 5 and 6 enjoyed a ‘Soundtrack Your Story’ workshop from the National Literacy Trust where they learnt about rhythm and rap with Alim Kamara.

On Wednesday, we held a storytelling assembly where each class shared their Talk for Writing text. Reception told ‘The wheels on the bus’; Year 1 told ‘Lost and Found’; Year 2 told ‘Edgar’s Adventure’, a warning tale, and Year 3 told a suspense story ‘The Manor House’. Year 4 carried on the suspense stories with Zelda Claw; Year 5 shared the non-chronological report ‘The Rhiswanozebtah’ and Year 6 told the story ‘Red’, a twist on the traditional version of Little Red Riding Hood.

 

On Thursday, we had a special visit from Sal Tonge who is a storyteller. Each class enjoyed a workshop with Sal where they listened to and joined in with lots of stories and songs.

 

We have also held a class reading swap where the older children read with the younger children.

We hope that our storytelling events will have provided enjoyable experiences for all!