Whole School Brain Presentations

By Mrs c Hern22nd May 2015

WOW! WOW! WOW!

This morning, all year groups came together in the hall and shared their learning about the brain.

The facts that the children learnt were incredible! As we speak, the children are currently working in their colour teams creating posters to share their knowledge.

This afternoon, the children will be making a brain out of their bodies on the playground. Mr Rickett, is currently drawing a very large brain on the playground in chalk to help us create our image.

If you want to see our learning at the end of the day then please look on the playground.

Miss Low’s Blog – 22nd May 2015

By Mrs E Allen22nd May 2015

Sorry I haven’t been blogging for the last few weeks but I’ve been busy supporting children in school to achieve their best during their SATS. Our growth plans are being realised this week as children are being allocated their place at either Fen Street or Countess Way campus. Equally parents of Foundation to Year 4 have been considering whether they would like to make a campus transfer request.

Thank you to everyone who has come to talk to us this week. We will now let the Local Authority carry out their processes and by the end of the first week back we should know who is attending which campus.

This week we have also purchased furniture for both Fen Street and Countess Way. Both sites will be furnished in a very similar way to provide a consistent message about how we teach and learn at Brooklands Farm Primary School.

We have also met with companies who are bidding for the IT contract. Our aim is to provide one network across the two campuses.

I am now going to sit for a week and reflect upon how we will communicate across the two campus’s to ensure ONE COMMUNITY, ONE SCHOOL, ONE LOCALISED PLAN FOR COMMUNICATION. Hopefully if the sun shines I will come back with great ideas!

Next half term I will be reviewing the new curriculum and the resources we will need to deliver the best framework for your children to thrive. Have a good half term.

Evaluating our Brain Week Learning

By V Holloway21st May 2015

Year 5 completed their endorphin investigation today as they spent time in a dark, silent room completing their work. We monitored our well being and learning zones and the majority of us found that our well beings dropped when in this situation because endorphins were not being released. We have written diaries this week to monitor our personal emotions and learning zones, writing how we were affected by the situations we were in. Also, we plotted our changes in well being and involvement on line graphs and drew our conclusions from them.

Finally, we started creating our presentations (posters and drama) about our learning to share with the rest of the school tomorrow.

Here are some examples of line graphs and diary entries:

Amazing growth mindset in year 4

By J Francis21st May 2015

All week we have been testing our brains to see how we like to learn best.

Not only that, we have been trying to develop our growth mindset so that we always say ‘I can I can I can’ and keep growing our learning.

This morning the learning zones in Year 4 were amazing! Everyone had a growth mindset and nobody minded if they had to re-draft their work. In fact, lots of children chose to do this several times to make sure their work was the best it could be!

Well done year 4!  We are extremely proud.  Your new growth mindset will help you achieve fantastic things.

This picture represents our learning this week.  Two children using all three learning styles – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic – and a growth mindset to take their next steps in maths…

Year 2 learn about neurotransmitters!

By Mrs L Odell20th May 2015

In Year 2 we are thoroughly enjoying Brain Week! We wanted to find out more about our brain and what we can do to keep it healthy.

We found out that our brain can tell you how your body feels and that the chemicals that do this are called neurotransmitters. When the neurotransmitters in your brain are out of balance, it can stop your brain working properly!

There were three different neurotransmitters that we learnt about today.

  • Serotonin makes you feel happy. It is responsible for serenity and happiness. If you have too little serotonin on your brain you might feel down or unhappy.
  • Glutamate is needed for learning and memory…but if you have too much it can make you feel angry and irritated!
  • Dopamine makes you feel energetic and excited, but if you have too little dopamine you might start to make bad choices!

We wondered how to balance the neurotransmitters. We thought it might be tricky! Luckily, you can eat foods that will help to keep the neurotransmitters in balance!

Tomorrow, we will be finding out what foods we can eat to balance our neurotransmitters! 

3a brain week!

By Miss G Sheridan20th May 2015

3a have been busy learning about the brain this week. They have been to a knowledge assembly with people from the brain injury rehabilitation centre where they learnt lots about ‘what the brain is’. From here they came together as a class and come up with specific brain protection and safety question ready for their specific session with experts on brain  safety. The children thoroughly enjoyed this and the level of questioning was extremely high.

To ignite the project and to spark the creative side of the brain  the children re created images to show the difference between the left side and the right side of the brain. They used blow painting and sketching using pencils as their techniques. All children came together to take part in a class sewing session where they used a running stitch to create their own part of the right side of the brain.

 

 

Year 6 Brain week so far…

By Miss Rebecca Snowdon20th May 2015

Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed the brain week so far!

We have carried out some interesting research about the brain and had a visit from ‘The Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust’ to hear a first-hand account of what it is like to live with a brain injury.

We then applied all of the knowledge we acquired into models of the brain, which we labelled and wrote accompanying paragraphs describing each section and its role within the body.

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Thank you to Mrs McCarville and the other visitors from The Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust –  we learnt so much from you!

How does exercise impact on our learning zones and well being?

By V Holloway20th May 2015

Year 5 continued their investigation into endorphins today and chose to look at the effect of sport and exercise. We started by levelling our well being and learning zones before we started our lesson. Then we played a game of rounders which created an excitable buzz!

After, we completed a  short written paragraph about our investigation and endorphins and again assessed our well being and learning zones. We found a slight increase in learning zones but our well being wasn’t affected as much. We discussed the possible reasons for this: one team lost at rounders which affected well being, there can be a lot of standing around in rounders so maybe no or not many endorphins were released.
We decided to raise our heartbeats even more and tried a zumba routine!
Then, while completing some brain challenges, we made a final assessment of our learning zone and well being. The majority of children in the class found their well being and learning zones increase dramatically after zumba!
We are now plotting the changes in our well being and learning zones on line graphs.