Classes
We have five classes at Colby School:
Amber Class taught by Miss Moore and Miss Covell
Sapphire Class taught by Mrs Frost
Emerald Class taught by Mr Brown
Ruby Class taught by Mrs Towers
Amethyst Class taught by Mr Frost
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At Colby School we have a team of highly qualified higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs) and teaching assistants who support teaching and learning in all classes. Mrs Mead, our Headteacher, enjoys supporting teaching too.
Year Groups
Children spend three years in Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 (EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2) therefore they spend two years in either Amber class or Sapphire class.
Children spend four years in Key Stage 2 (Year 3, 4, 5 and 6), therefore they spend two years in either Emerald, Ruby or Amethyst class.
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When a year group is split between classes the following factors are considered:
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Social and Emotional Factors, particularly friendship groups
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Learning styles / preferences
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Class sizes across the whole key stage
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Ability across the whole key stage
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Access to play based curriculum (Reception /
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Year 1)
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Month of birth (Reception / Year 1)
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More able children do not automatically move onto the next class because ability can change as children make progress throughout the year. It is important to have a mix of learning styles and abilities within classes to provide the best learning environment for all children. All lessons are differentiated to ensure children are challenged, whatever age or ability they are.
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Children always spend their Reception Year in Amber Class, Year 2 in Sapphire Class, Year 3 in Emerald Class and Year 6 in Amethyst Class.
Amber Class
Amber Class has a fun and vibrant atmosphere, with a comfortable reading corner, large art and design area, role play spaces and musical instruments. It also has a large covered outdoor area next to the playground. The class is led by Miss Moore (teacher) Maddy, Josie and Elli (teaching assistants). Ben (teaching assistant and qualified PE teacher) also teaches PE in Amber.
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Children will spend their Reception year and sometimes Year 1 in Amber Class as they begin the transition from play to more formal learning. Amber children have access to a large covered outdoor learning area with a variety of activities zones and access to the playground. Once they have settled into their new class, the children move on to enjoy the school garden and playing field, often accompanied by their buddy (an older child that takes the role of friend and mentor).
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Sapphire Class
Sapphire class is a colourful and inspiring learning space led by Mrs Frost (teacher) and Ms Everett (teacher), along with Alice and Elli (teaching assistants) and Ben (teaching assistant/qualified PE teacher). It includes children from Year 2 and some from Year 1 who have moved on from Amber class. The exciting topic displays that the children produce, which adorn the classroom walls, reflect an increased keenness to learn and question. In Sapphire class, children continue to gain in confidence and independence as their learning is nurtured.
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This term Sapphire will be focusing on Kenya, looking at its geographical location and the physical environment, before finding out about the animals that live in the Savana. In history, children will be discovering who Nelson Mandela was and why he was so important. In science the focus will be on growth in animals, including their diet, and their young. We will be looking at how to care for our local birds in winter.
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In maths we will be focusing on multiplication, counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. We will be investigating links with division too. Later on in the term we will explore 2D and 3D shapes.
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In English, as well as spellings, handwriting and phonics, the children will be writing letters and story writing this term linked with one of the books we will be sharing. We will be looking at the Anansi tales from Africa and also Flat Stanley.
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Art will see us looking at the artist Tilly Willis who has painted some stunning African landscapes and we will be attempting to follow her techniques and style to create our own masterpieces! Sapphire children will also be learning about the Jewish faith, enjoy music sessions, work on a DT project, take part in computing sessions and health and fitness circuits.
Ruby Class
Emerald Class
Children begin their Key Stage 2 journey when they join Emerald class, led by Mr Brown assisted by Ms Everett (teacher) and Alice (teaching assistant). The class consists of all Year 3 children and some from Year 4. Mr B is our head of sport and children spend lots of time outdoors enjoying a wide variety of sporting opportunities. Emerald also has its own pet, a tortoise called Clark, which the children help to look after. The children have built him his own house and garden area and they even grow him his own food.
Emerald Class enjoy spending time reading in their lovely book corner, which has big comfy chairs and lots of teddies to keep you company whilst you snuggle up and enjoy time with a good book. They are lucky that Alice is great at art and helped paint lots of amazing pictures on the walls of Emerald Class. Mr B has put up lots of fairy lights that twinkle around their 'Wall of Wonder' when children have produced some amazing work!
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In the mornings the children typically focus on English and Maths, whilst in the afternoons they enjoy a curriculum that allows all children to further express themselves in a range of interesting and enjoyable lessons.
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Emerald Class have a great attitude to learning and this is encompassed by their class motto of 'Work hard, Play hard'.
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Ruby Class
Ruby class is made up of children in Year 5 and some from Year 4 and is led by Mrs Towers (teacher) with Mrs Moulton (teaching assistant) and Simon (higher level teaching assistant) who teaches French and RE. Whether pupils spend one or two years in Ruby class, they will focus on consolidating their learning, explore a wide range of topics and develop their IT skills and understanding.
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This half term in literacy we will be starting our film project “The Temple of Boom” and focusing on writing scripts, character descriptions, letter writing and narrative writing. We will be reading Tom’s Midnight Garden in class.
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In Maths, we will be continuing to learn our times tables up to 12 x 12, looking at negative numbers, bar charts, line and time graphs, angles, symmetry and continuing to improve our addition, subtraction and multiplication methods with larger or decimal numbers. In Science, we will be looking at sound and finding out how we hear sound. We will also be investigating materials that can help muffle sound and finding out about sound waves and pitch.
Our main topic this term will be Ancient Egypt. We will be finding out about when this period of history was, who Tutankhamun was, mummification and who the Egyptian people worshipped. In art we will be drawing faces and then produce our own Egyptian death masks.
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In music, we will be listening and learning the song Fresh Prince of Bel Air. We will be making use of our new Glockenspiels to help us to do some composing to this song. Our RE topic this term is “What is the meaning of Passover?” and we will learning about vocabulary for Our School and Family and Friends in French.
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Our PE sessions will be health and fitness sessions and dodgeball and our computing sessions will be finishing off our previous unit of computing about technology as well as online safety.
Amethyst Class
Amethyst Class is taught by Mr Frost (teacher), Simon (Higher Level Teaching Assistant / qualified PE teacher) and Ben (teaching assistant / qualified PE teacher). The class is made up of all Year 6 children and some Year 5 children. During their time in Amethyst class the children hone their independence, confidence and life skills and, by the end of Year 6, are fully prepared for the transition to High School.
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In Maths, Amethyst class eill be doing lots of shape and angle work, before moving on to coordinates, symmetry, transformations, 3d shapes and volume, scale factors and finishing with ratio and proportion.
Our science topic is animals (including humans) focussing on the heart and health which will tie in with the circuits work we will do in P.E. (as well as hockey).
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In Literacy we will focus on two very famous poems: ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling and ‘The Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carol.
In History, Amethyst will be looking at the stone age and how much we can learn from places like Skara Brae and how tools were so important to these people.
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In RE, children will be exploring the question “What kind of Leader was Jesus?”. In French we will be learning vocabulary for food and shopping.
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Our art topic will be exploring form and colour in real life observations of plants and flowers. Within this we’ll look at the work of Alexander Calder, David Oliveira and Henri Rousseau.
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In computing we will be developing the children’s data handling skills across the half-term.