Careers day

On Friday 21st October, William Barcroft Junior School hosted their first careers day to help broaden our children’s horizons about their future! In the morning, the children had the opportunity to speak to a variety of different people who work in a multitude of fields from engineers to mental health nurses, and soup developers to musicians. The excitement in the room was electric and all of the guests commented on how polite and well-behaved the children were, asking insightful questions and showing genuine interest in their lives. Around this, our work in class centred on self-reflection and thinking about where their hobbies could lead them in the future – it was a fantastic way to end Autumn 1!

Throughout summer term, all of the children at William Barcroft have been experiencing curriculum trips , to enhance and extend their topic learning. The three year four classes have been working on a topic called Healthy Living and have all had the pleasure of visiting Claxby Grange Farm where they have had the opportunity to meet Farmer Andrew and learn all about life on a farm. They walked through the produce fields, explored minibeasts in the woodlands, ground wheat in a mortar and pestle and even had the chance to sit on a combine harvester! They’ve had some great discussions on how our healthy, organic foods get to our table and asked some fantastic, inquisitive questions.

This term, Year 5 welcomed the Planetarium into our academy. This was an incredible experience and the children were so excited to have a long-awaited visitor in our school. We travelled into space (the Planetarium!) and gazed at the millions of stars that surround us. Lucy, our space guide, gave us a VIP tour of our solar system. She showed us what the planets look like, explained their atmosphere and distance from Earth. Lucy then showed us the phases of the moon using a model Earth and a torch! We learnt so much about how the Earth changes from night to day and different time zones around the world. Our children then discovered the dwarf planets and their locations in our solar system. We didn’t know there were 5; Ceres, Pluto, Makemake, Eris and Haumea.

The Planetarium then became the night sky and we became star gazers! Fascinating stories were shared about how the constellations came to be. The children were given tips on how to spot these magnificent constellations themselves: a few of our favourites being Orion the Hunter, Scorpius the Scorpion and Sagittarius the Archer. Many of our children were so inspired by this that they put their new skills into practice that very night and even sent in photographs on Twitter of Year 5 superstars stargazing!

The Planetarium was only the beginning for us: Year 5 then followed with a full space themed day. We researched each planet in depth, creating a knowledge organiser of facts! We then debated life on other planets and even created our own newly-discovered Planet X. Year 5 were so inspired by the day and the Planetarium was the perfect rocket jumpstart to our Spring topic!

During the final week of December we had an incredibly exciting maths enterprise week here at William Barcroft Junior School!

The pupils were tasked with the job of creating items to sell, making games or offering a service to their parents and wider community under a strict budget per class, with all the proceeds being donated to a charity of the pupil’s choice after some careful research.

The week was led heavily by the pupils with a little bit of careful guidance from their teachers! Maths was involved at every stage, from calculating the greatest potential profits when deciding on their project to mapping out their spends and prices. Children enjoyed creating their items (lots of careful measuring involved here too) but also understood and appreciated the fact that they had to work within a tight budget- there were lots of mathematical debates and on the spot thinking going on in the middle of their Tesco visits! The pupils began to develop a sense of value for money and understanding of how much things cost.

There were a host of different things on offer for parents to buy, from pots of slime, Christmas games, marshmallow snowmen and much more! All stalls were held on the final day of term and the pupils were busy making sure that they gave the correct amounts of change for items sold. It was a great end to the Autumn term with lots of positive feedback from teachers, pupils and parents.

The total profit for each class was as follows:

The grand total raised was £1204.82!!

At William Barcroft Junior School we have been exploring the opportunities that open up to us when we work hard as mathematicians in school.  Each year group have learnt about a famous mathematician from our fantastic entrance display.  Year 3 pupils have explored the life of Ava Lovelace and her achievements, Year 4 pupils have learnt about Rosalind Franklin whilst years 5 and 6 investigated the lives of Stephen Hawking and Alan Turing.  Children have been amazed at what can be achieved through being great at maths! Activities in school have included researching and creating a factfile,  playing ‘tell me more’  and writing a letter in role to the Prime Minister.

We also have our very own William Barcrcoft example on our display.  Mr Dawes was taught maths by Mrs Sargent as a pupil and is now our new year 3 teacher! He loved maths at school and went on to study it at university.  Our children have been excitedly talking about their aspirations and what careers they might like to do linked to maths.