AUTUMN TERM 2026

Our topic this term is 'Vaynor or Victorian?' and we are developing our learning to understand what the Victorian Era was like and to find out what school life for a Victorian child was really like! 

History

The children will spend the autumn term learning all about the Victorian Era and where it fits within history. This will link to our King now, and the relation to Queen Victorian. Our focus will be Victorian childhoods, specifically how school life was. This will allow children to compare school life now to school life then, how the lessons were different and also the discipline children were subjected to.

We will be able to 'magically' go back in time and turn Vaynor into a Victorian classroom! The children will be able to experience what it was like for a child to attend a Victorian school. They will take part in Arithmetic, writing on slates, drill and even play with Victorian toys!  Would they rather be a Vaynor child or a Victorian child?

        

 

English  

In English, we will be focusing on Narrative in English for the first half term and build some of our learning around the text 'The Three Little Wolves' by Eugene Trivizas. The children (and teachers) love how this story takes a twist on the traditional and is full of brilliant surprises! The children will then look at 'The Storm Whale in Winter' by Benji Davies to help them develop their writing skills for different writing purposes.

     

Steering the children's learning towards more Non-Fiction elements, we will look at the largest animal on the planet... the mighty Blue Whale! We will research facts to amaze the reader about this almighty mammal. Did you know a Blue Whale's tongue weighs the same as an elephant?

Art

In art, we are going to be looking at Illustrator Axel Scheffler. The focus will be our drawing skills and using different types of skills (such as dots, dashes and lines) to create our own artwork inspired by his book 'The Three Little Pigs'. We will also experiment with tones and smudges. Our new skills will help us to use lines to create facial expressions on our characters, before using oil pastels to finish them. Check out last year's work below before it gets updated!

     

Maths

Our Maths focus this term is 'Number'. This includes: place value of 2-digit numbers, ordering and sequencing and counting in different steps. We will use practical resources to support our learning and develop a deeper understanding of place value. In Autumn 2, we will move on to addition and subtraction and use our place value knowledge to support our calculations.

Science

In Science, the children will look at materials and their properties. They will have the opportunity to plan and conduct different experiments to test the suitability of materials. Working in groups, they will be able to do the experiment and explain their findings. I wonder if there are any silly inventions that the children might be able to use their findings to explain why they might not be the best. Chocolate teapot anyone?

Geography

In Geography, the children will recap the four countries of the United Kingdom and their capital cities. Moving on from this, we looked at coastal towns before focusing more directly on the coastal town of Staithes. We will then look at the Urban city of Birmingham, comparing the two places in terms of physical and human features, but also the way of life for people living there too.