Croeso Pawb!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to the rest of the school year together – I certainly am! We have so many wonderful learning opportunities planned for you and lots of visits, visitors and celebrations to look forward to.

I can’t wait to help you learn and grow throughout the year and hope you continue to be the best you can be. Here’s to a wonderful rest of the year.

Mr Sheehan 😊

This year we will be continuing to develop the four purposes of the new curriculum for Wales:

* Ambitious, capable learners ready to learn throughout their lives

* Enterprising, creative contributors ready to play a full part in life and work

* Ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world

* Healthy, confident individuals ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society

This term, our topic is Invasion, where we will explore an important chapter in Welsh history: the Age of the Princes. This period, during the 12th and 13th centuries, saw Welsh leaders such as Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd defending their land and identity against Norman and English invasions. We will learn about the challenges they faced and how these events shaped Wales. As part of our learning, we will be exploring aspects of medieval life, including castles, food, and clothing. Designing and creating our own coat of arms, learning about its meaning and symbolism. We will be writing our own myths and legends, inspired by Welsh stories from the time and investigating key historical figures and events that influenced Wales during this era.

Through these activities, pupils will gain a deeper understanding of Welsh heritage and the resilience of its people.

This term, we are reading Invasion by June Crebbin, a gripping story set during the time of the Welsh princes. The book helps us imagine what life was like during this dramatic period in history and connects closely to our topic work. Through this text, we will explore diary writing, stepping into the shoes of characters to express thoughts and feelings; create newspaper reports, learning how to write headlines and report historical events as if they were happening now, and develop their creativity by writing alternative endings, imagining how the story could have unfolded differently.

These activities will help pupils build their writing skills while deepening their understanding of the historical context of the Age of the Princes.

In Maths, we’ll be developing our skills in place value and number operations; mental and written strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; problem-solving and reasoning; times tables fluency and statistics later in the term. We will also be exploring our map skills through the use of coordinate plotting to locate significant castles in Wales.

We’ll use practical activities, games, and challenges to make learning fun and meaningful.

Our RE topic this term is Galilee to Jerusalem. During this topic, pupils will consider Jesus’ question to Peter, ‘Who do you say I am?’ They will also reflect on Jesus as the servant Messiah and how he announces the Kingdom of Heaven to those who were seen as outsiders due to illness. We’ll reflect through discussion, art, and writing, and consider how these themes apply to our everyday lives.

This term, we are focusing on the virtues of being curious and active. These virtues help us grow not only as learners but as kind and respectful individuals.

• Curious: We encourage pupils to be curious—asking questions, exploring ideas, and wanting to learn more about the world and their faith.
• Active: We want pupils to be active—taking part, helping others, and using their talents to make a positive difference in school and the community.

These virtues will be woven into our daily learning and celebrated in our classroom environment

Dates for your diary:

15^th January – Class mass @ St John Lloyd Church at 9:30am.

27^th January – Class trip to Cardiff Castle.