Eagles Class Learning: Spring Term 2025

Welcome to our class learning page for the Spring Term 2025. Here you will find out about all of the learning that we have got up to during our  Disasters and Survivors class theme.

Eagles Class Spring Term 2025: Shipwrecked on Ape-adillion Island

How would we survive being shipwrecked on a deserted island? What would be our priorities in the first few days? What kind of skills would we want in the people we are shipwrecked with? What will we discover about this new, unknown place? What would be the best type of shelter to build?

We will be trying to answer these questions and more in the first few sessions of our class project. Here's a video to show what could happen if you are shipwrecked:

Here is a quick quiz to find out what jobs you would prioritise first if you were shipwrecked! Use the scroll bar on the left-hand side of the quiz box to work your way through the quiz:

 Eagles Shipwrecked on Ape-adillion Island: 7th January 2025

To start off their new topic, Eagles class participated in some sessions to help them think about their survival skills. In the first session, we completed the survey and rated the types of jobs that we thought were the most important if shipwrecked on an island. As a class, our top three were: finding water, making a shelter and building a fire. 

Then we thought about our fellow castaways and the types of qualities, skills or knowledge they might have that would be useful to survival. Having a kind and caring personality was key as was being able to make decisions and problem-solve effectively.

We were then given 5 different people who were stranded along with us. Our job was to look at their jobs, knowledge, skills and personality and decide which 3 to keep. Here is a summary:

We had to come up with some interview questions for each person and then conduct the interviews to help us decide which 3 would be the most useful on the island. It was a tough choice!

After we had completed our interviews, we voted on who to keep. As a class we decided upon: the builder, the chef and the biologist because they all would support those vital survival jobs that we had looked at in the start of the session. 

Eagles DT Project: Frame Structures January 2025

Many of us filled in the shipwrecked survey and together as a class we noticed that lots of us rated 'Making a Shelter' really high. So we explored shelters asking ourselves these questions:

• What key features does a successful shelter need to have?
• What can we learn from other structures from around the world?
• How can we use these features to help us to design our own shelters?
• How can we test our shelters to prove that they are effective?

We looked at 4 different types of shelters and rated them based on: SIMPLICITY, STRENGTH, FLEXIBILITY, PROTECTION and WATERPROOFING - giving them a rating out of 10 for each category. When we had done lots of averages, we noticed that the Tipi design seemed to score (on average) higher in each category. 

These two videos also shows just how simple a structure like this is to put up - especially if you are in a hurry!

/i/video/Eagles_Videos_2024_-_2025/How_To_Build_a_Shelter_in_Under_3_Minutes___Haven.mp4

In our next session, we will be looking at Frame Structures and the different ways parts can be joined together to be made more stable and stronger.

Eagles English: Lighthouse Animation - Setting Descriptions

In our English lessons, we have begun to explore the Lighthouse animation. Lighthouses play a key role in avoiding disasters at sea; they serve to warn mariners of dangerous shallows and perilous rocky coasts, and they help guide vessels safely into and out of harbours. We started by watching the first part of the animation:

/i/video/Eagles_Videos_2022-2023/Lighthouse_Animation_1a.mp4

 We thought about how we could introduce the setting using the 4,3,2,1 technique: 4 expanded noun phrases, 3 prepositional phrases, 2 short and snappy sentences and 1 sentence with a relative clause. Here's is what we wrote together:

High above the village, at the edge of the cliff, sat the Briar’s Rock lighthouse.  Its bright light danced over the rooftops and out to sea; the darkness was no match for its strength.  In the village, the narrow walkaways and paths were bathed in the pale light of a milky moon and bare, sinuous trees awaited their springtime leaves.  Amber lights shone from friendly windows and inside noisy revellers danced and applauded.  Houses of all sizes dotted the grassy clifftop and beyond the cliffs and the pretty little village, the restless sea gurgled and churned.  Light swept the village.  The lighthouse, which didn’t benefit from the same warm glow of the beam, or the same cheeriness of the village, stood by silently watching in the near darkness.  The villagers cheered.

 We can't wait to see what happens next!

Eagles Computing: Scratch Games with Variables

This half term, we have been enhancing our programming skills by creating our own games in Scratch as part of the Young Coders competition 2025. Young Coders is a national competition that asks teams of coders to create a game for others based around a theme. For this year's challenge, they are inviting coders to design computer games using Scratch that entertain and educate their peers about how to save, spend, and manage money wisely.

Here is a video for the winners of the 2024 competition:

In our computing sessions, we have been learning many of the skills that we are going to be using when creating our games. We have focussed on repetition, variables and most importantly, debugging! We have particularly explored these games in Scratch.

The aim of this game is for the cat sprite to click on the mice before they disappear.

This game is called Blockbuster. Use the left and right arrow keys to make the robot move. The lightening will break the meteors and rescue the rocket!

This is a racing game. Use left and right arrows to turn and forward and backwards arrows to move and try to get Dot the dog safely to the Earth without going off track.

We were then given the task of creating a simple game that was similar to the Hide and Seek game to show off our coding skills so far. This example is called Winter Chase. 

We are now going to start to design our own games on the theme of 'Budgeting Better' in our coding crew and then enter our games into the competition. Look out for more updates soon.

Eagles English: Lighthouse Animation - character and action

In English, we have been exploring the 2nd part of the Lighthouse animation. This is the part where after the window is closed, something happens that will destroy the tranquility of the evening. Watch it here:

/i/video/Eagles_Videos_2022-2023/Lighthouse_1b.mp4

We explored the emotions of the Lighthouse Keeper (or Mr Stonegarden as we have named him!) to track how the action that has happened has directly affected how he is feeling and what he does.

We broke this part of the animation into 5 key moments: 

He was working at the table.

The sound distracted him.

He shut the window.

There was a loud noise.

The candle went out.

After some shared writing, we then had to write about this moment making sure that we included action but also his emotions too. Here is one of our paragraphs written by a Year 6:

The tired yet dedicated Lighthouse Keeper of Briar's Rock was working at his cluttered table in his lighthouse living quarters. It had been a busy day and these reports were not going to write themselves he thought to himself. Sneaking their way through the open window, joyful cheers could be heard from the small fishing village below.  Distracted by the noise of the repeated cheering, the irritated lighthouse keeper attempted to block out the sound by slamming the only open window.

Suddenly, from the machinery room above him, he heard an unexpected grinding and then a loud clank, followed by darkness.  

The beam stopped turning. The villagers ceased cheering; they had heard it too. There was nothing but silence.

Before he could react, the window was violently blown open which  extinguished the candle: almost as though it were in one mind with the light.