Shipton Bellinger Primary School

Learning and Growing Together

 Year 6 Archive

2022-2023 (Including Autumn 2023)

 

 

Our Weekly News

Autumn 2 Week 3

A wonderful week has once again flown by! 

In English, we have embarked on a new book, The Ways of the Wolf, by Smriti Prasadam-Halls. This explanation text brings to life these fascinating creatures within the classroom has allowed us to start to start to create our own explanation text to further expand our knowledge of these North American wonders. This non fiction text is the perfect partner to our new guided reading book, Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. We have introduced ourselves to the alternative history brought to life within this heritage text and started to explore some of the books more interesting characters. 

In maths we have been extending our knowledge of time, timetables and timelines. We have taken on some tricky problem solving tasks including those that require us to combine our fraction and timeline knowledge!

In addition this week we have celebrated Interfaith and Anti Bullying week. Interfaith week culminated with our celebration of Fijian Day on Friday. We were absolutely honoured to have some of our wonderful Shipton parents join us to celebrate and bring the wonderful Fijian culture to life for us all. 

Another fantastic week in Year 6.

Autumn 2 Week 1

What a windy and wet start to the second half of the Autumn term! However this has not stopped a great start to our wonderful learning. 

This week saw us press a temporary pause on our journey through the Americas as we focused on our History Hero - Ella Fitzgerald. We learnt about her amazing musical talents and how she came from incredibly humble beginnings and overcame unbelievable adversity to become the 'mother of Jazz'. We learnt about how Ella's story was but one example of a life impacted by the appalling segregation laws effective in the United States right up until 1964 and how discrimination impacted her life. The children all showed incredible maturity discussing, what is still, such an important subject. Our learning was really brought to life through the use of Virtual Reality Headsets. These allowed us to understand, in a small way, what happened and what it would have felt like to live under the USA's segregation laws. We had the opportunity to witness Rosa Parkes making a stand on the bus. We attended a Martin Luther King rally as well as witnessing and being inspired by the wonderful work of Mary Seacole. An absolutely wonderful learning experience.  

Other things we have conquered this week include some wonderful fractions learning in maths, deepening our understanding of what Armistice Day means in RE and tackling some team game challenges in PE. 

Well done all, a great start to what will be another term of awesome learning!

Autumn Week 7

This half-term has flown by! This week we celebrated Harvest Festival. As a key stage, we walked to the church where we shared with Rev. Sarah and parents some of our learning around the how Harvest is celebrated within America and Canada: Thanks Giving. We are so fortunate to have the church so near to our school and listening to the children sing there is truly moving for all. 

Within school, we created our arpillera! An arpillera is a brightly coloured patchwork picture constructed from scraps of cloth that usually depicts a South American rural scene. The children showed great perseverance as they sewed their element and great collaboration as we brought all the pieces together to create a wonderful combined work. The final pieces is something that the children are very proud of and has been displayed outside our classroom. 

It has been a wonderful but tiring 7 weeks and so I hope that all children take the opportunity that half term brings to rest, catch up with family and friends and have a generally wonderful time (as well as keep reading obviously :-)!)

Autumn Week 6

My goodness the children have worked hard this week.

On Monday, we undertook out first couple of practise SATs papers. As explained to the children, these will help me establish where we need to focus our learning  and where the children are secure on a topic or concept. It is made clear to all children that SATs tests (and mocks) are simply a chance to practise skills that they will need in later life and show off what they know. All the children worked very sensibly and made me so very proud. A fabulous first try.

By Thursday we had completed our practise papers and took the opportunity to catch up on some other curriculum areas. We designed our Christmas Cards (early we know but the elves have a lot to print!) and, in preparation for our Harvest festival, learnt about the American tradition of Thanksgiving. We made a Thank giving display and created our own 'gratitude pumpkins'. 

Friday saw us back to it as we imagined ourselves adventuring within a sandstorm and wrote letters to loved ones recounting the events. We also started our long division learning as we divided 4 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers! The perseverance shown by the class was wonderful to witness. They are all growing in to mature and capable learner which will come in to its own next week as we continue to conquer long division!

Autumn Week 5

Cripes another week is over! Time is really, really flying by! We have had another wonderful and busy week. Two particular highlights stand out: meeting our 'Buddy class' Year R and National Poetry Day!

Meeting our Year R Buddy class was wonderful. We spent some time with them, playing and showing our nurturing side in the Year R outside area and supported our buddies learning about what is special to them as we supported their celebration of National Poetry Day. It was wonderful to be able to stand back and see just how considerate, caring and kind all my lovely Year 6s are when it comes to supporting the youngest in our school.

'Refuge' was the theme for this year's National Poetry Day. To celebrate this wonderful art of poetry, we looked at 5 wonderful poems that reflected the concept of refuge in different ways. We thought carefully about what it means to have a place, person or thing of refuge as well as what it might be like for those for whom their refuge is taken away from them. All the children reflected on their own 'refuge' by writing a collom lune (a 3 lined poem that follows a particular poetic structure). Having written and published these poems we had a chance to share them in an additional Friday assembly where we came together to celebrate our wonderful poetic talents. I was very proud of all the children: what a talented bunch they are!

Autumn Week 4

It is hard to believe that we have already completed 4 weeks of this school year! Time is truly flying and no wonder given all the wonderful work that Year 6 are getting through.

This week we arrived in Costa Rica on our journey through the Americas, excitingly, our first stop in North America! In science we continued our learning around adaptation and evolution. We looked at some of the wonderful wildlife that has adapted so well to live in the beautiful and diverse landscape of Costa Rica. We also created our own new Mr Men/ Little Miss characters as we imagined what the off spring of different Mr Men and Little Miss would look like!

English saw us bring together our learning around varied sentence structures as we composed a diary entry as one of the characters on our The Explorer text. The children's final pieces are truly wonderful: their writing has improved so much even in the short time we have been back at school! Guided reading saw us stick with the idea of survival as we read more of David Long's collection of true stories, Survivor. We even read how one climber had to sever his own arm to survive! 

In maths we reminded ourselves of fractions, multiples and prime numbers ending the week by carrying out our own mathematical investigation to identify all prime numbers between 1 and 100. There are 25. Why not see how many your child can recall!

In addition to the above we have extended our french knowledge, sent postcards in art and giggled at Miss Macleod attempting some of the more complex boxercise skills in PE. 

A wonderful week. Well done Year 6!

 

Autumn Week 3 

This week we went to the poles for our school council elections! Monday saw us hear short speeches from our candidates; posters were displayed in our classrooms and on Friday, we visited the ballot box in Mrs Holloway's office. Our Monday assembly and PHSE sessions saw us explain why democracy is important and how it sits within out British Values. The election results will be announced on Monday with the first meeting of our new school council taking place on Thursday. 

In English this week we have focused on sentence structure. We have looked at how we can use coordinating conjunctions to create compound sentences as well as how relative clauses can be embedded within a sentence to add detail. In addition we have introduced ourselves to hyphens to avoid ambiguity. Katherine Rundell is a wonderful author and our class text, The Explorer, has allowed us to study how varied sentence structure can make a text engaging to the reader.

Maths this week has focused on all things area and perimeter! We have looked closely at rectilinear shapes and looked at how we can use incomplete information about them to work out the information we are missing. A tricky skill but one all children have made great progress in! 

The theory of evolution formed the core of our science learning this week as we looked into Darwin's journey to the Galapagos. We looked at some of the unique species that are found there and how they have changed and adapted over time to best suit their environment. Looking closely at the world was a skill that also featured in our art learning this week as we started to design our South American inspired Arpilleras. 

Our geography this week provoked some really thoughtful reflection as we 'visited' the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. I was really impressed with the appreciation of the complexity of the lives of those who live their from the children. 

Another great week in Year 6. Well done all! 

Autumn Week 2

This week we travelled to Brazil, the capital of carnival, on our learning journey through the Americas. We started to explore this vast and vibrant country in geography and looked a little more closely at carnival in art, sending a postcard home summing up our experiences!

Maths this week saw us focus on informal strategies for addition and when to use them. In addition we took on some challenging addition multi step problem solving something that all the children really got to grips with well. 

In English, we carried on our exploration of 'The Explorer'. We created instructions for raft making as well as crafting some beautiful setting descriptions bringing the Amazonian Rainforest to life. All the children worked hard to explore what it would feel like in the Amazon using all 5 senses as well as showing off their use of prepositional sentence openers. 

PE saw us develop some skills that may well be useful in the Amazon: first aid and boxercise! Whilst in science we introduced Carl Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, as we looked at how we could  categorise all the wonderful creatures and plants we come across. 

All in all, a wonderful week. Well done Year 6!

Autumn Week 1

What a fantastic start to the academic year we have had! I could not be more proud of how the children have settled and started their Year 6 journey. This week has seen us really learn to embody our school values: Collaboration, Perseverance and Respect. From what I have seen this week, Year 6 are fantastic members of the Shipton team: true role models for our younger children.

This term we are starting our 'Journey Through the Americas' topic in Argentina. We have learnt about the famous geographical features such as the Iguazu Falls and the highest peak in the Americas, Aconcagua as well as looking at the culture of Argentina and where it sits within the Americas. In art, we transported ourselves to Buenos Aires to send a postcard home! All in all a great start to our learning.  

In English this week, we have started our new learning journey based around Katherine Rundell's Explorer. We have introduced ourselves to the 4 main characters (Fred, Con, Lila and Max) and used our inference skills to work out what they are like. We have also put ourselves in their shoes and thought carefully about what we would do if we found ourselves lost in the Amazonian Jungle. In maths we have warmed up our 'times table' engines by identifying any gaps in our knowledge whilst focusing on refreshing and expanding our place value skills. 

It has been a warm but wonderful week and I can not wait to see Year 6s smiling faces as we launch ourselves in to week 2 on Monday. 

Summer 2 - FINAL WEEK!

What can I say? Year 6, primary school mission complete! You have all been absolute stars this year. You have spread your wings and you have flown! I have no doubt whatsoever that every single one of you will continue to blossom and grow as you move to secondary school. Well done lovelies. I will miss you all. 

Summer 2 - Week 6

I can not believe that next week is the last week of primary school for my lovely Year 6s!

This week, like this year, has raced by. As you would anticipate, the class has been adding the final touches to the play; I have to say Friday's dress rehearsal was outstanding. Every single child has given 110% to the play and I know that, as we perform it to the school and parents next week, their hard work and dedication will pay off. I am already one very proud teacher!

When not undertaking the rehearsals, we have continued with our English learning. We have completed a number of 'mini' studies looking at the history of Lego, reminded ourselves of our dictionary skill by organising some rather unorganised animals in to alphabetical order and visited an 'imagination station' to create some wonderful cartoons. In maths, we have reminded ourselves of our timetable knowledge (something the children will need to use at Secondary school) and refreshed our times tables and fluency skills. We have also refreshed our understanding of why moderation is important when it comes to screen time (a key reminder as we approach the long summer holidays!). 

All in all it has been a wonderful penultimate week! Well done my Year 6 super stars!

Summer 2 Week 5

Whilst the weather has been more changeable this week, we have not let it dampen our moods or focus as we have continued to press ahead with our school production, The Island that Rocks. Scenery has been painted, props made and our school hall filled with super songs and powerful performances. We are all in for a treat when we get to see the end performance!

It hasn't been all play, we have pressed ahead with our maths and English learning too. In maths we have studied angles and how they relate to turns. We have calculated missing angles on a straight line and learn that opposite angles where 2 lines cross will always be equal.

In English, we have finished our mini study of a Midsummer Night's Dream. We all enjoyed the adventures and mishaps of pesky Puck and the countless mishaps that befall Lysander, Helena, Hermia and Demetrius.  The children did incredibly well to unpick some of the Shakespearean language and even gave writing their own sonnets ago (something we definitely found tricky!). 

In addition to all the above, we managed to fit a morning to help our buddies solve a mystery! Aliens had landed on our school field! Thankfully the teachers had managed to  get hold of the Prime Minister who asked us to collect some details. All the children worked wonderfully together to track down all the aliens and collect the data needed before creating an Andy Goldsworthy inspired Aliens of our own. 

All in all a wonderful week. Well done lovely Year 6.

Summer 2 - Week 4

Cripes time is flying by in Year 6!

This week has seen us continue to work on our school play: singing, prop making, dancing, not to mention acting! I have to say the children are putting in a huge amount of effort and their hard work is really paying of! Things are starting to really come together!

Despite all of our play preparations, our English and maths learning has not stopped. In English this week, we started our mini study of the Shakespearean classic, a Mid Summers Night's Dream. We have started getting to grips with who all the characters are and how they relate and interact with each other in the play so that we don't get our Hermia and Helena in a muddle. We have also looked at some of the extracts from the start of the play as Shakespeare wrote it, grappling with the complex language and riddles used to convey the points Shakespeare was making. 

In maths, we extended our Roman Numeral knowledge to 'M' (1000). We took the opportunity to take our maths learning outside and motored around the play ground trying to complete a tricky loop card activity. 

Of course, our week ended with an exciting sports day. All the children were brilliant and threw themselves in to every challenge; it was a pleasure to observe the team work displayed by children who don't always hang around together. Unfortunately, we were not able to complete the running races however we will endeavour to give these a go at another point. 

Another super week Year 6, well done! Only 3 until you leave us!

Summer 2 - Week 3

Another great week in Year 6. The play is in full swing! The children have been working like crazy and I have to say, from the snippets I have seen so far, are all doing a wonderful job! This week saw a focus on the dances with Mrs Hudson having her sanity questioned by her husband as she practised 'the moves' in the garden on her own (what a super star she is!). I did offer to help the children with the dancing but I believe they felt my 'Mum dancing' was not up to scratch! When we haven't been dancing, the children have been turning the classroom in to a tropical beach scene by creating their own surf boards and tropical back drops. as the 'props' department have swung in to action. The technical team have also been working at full tilt with not 1 but 2 laptops now needed to support the production. 

When we haven't been practising the play, we have been continuing our study of explanation texts in English and working our way through 'Wonder' in guided reading. In maths we have focused on position and direction and the 4 quadrants of a graph. Without doubt the maths highlight of the week was a rather intense game of battle ships where we practised our understanding of coordinates. 

On Wednesday, some of our class competed in an athletics and did an absolutely fantastic job with members of staff from other schools commenting on their team ethic and collaboration. Well done all!

Summer 2 - Week 2

This week has been hot, hot, hot yet all the children in Year 6 have coped admirably, making the right choices even when tempers are understandably a little frayed! This makes me really proud and shows just how much progress they have made as people and learners. They are without doubt ready to move up to secondary school!

Learning wise this week we have focus on 'cracking contraptions' in English. We have designed our own unique machines and thought carefully about how we could 'sell' these machines to others. We ended the week creating an advert to persuade our peers that our machines were worth investing in. In maths, we have continued to look at all things statistics including tackling the 'mean mean'! We ended the week by switching  our focus to coordinates and battling our friends in an intense game of battle ships.

The play has continued to feature heavily in our school day. Rehearsals are progressing well and we now have a number of 'surfboard' props (created by the children) temporarily hanging out in our classroom. We have also been treated to some of Miss Jones awesome dancing skills this week as she has helped the endlessly talented Mrs Hudson choreograph some fancy dance moves!

Another awesome week. Well done all!

Summer 1 - Week 5

This week we have hit the ground running as we accelerate our learning in preparation for secondary school!

In English, we have continued our study of The Wonder Garden using the text as inspiration for non chronological reports about our own islands. Similarly, we have extended our thinking of the new experiences as we have began to look at a new guided reading book, Wonder by R.J Palacio.

In maths, we have consolidated our understanding of fractions by taking on the challenge of proving why our known tips and tricks for multiplying and dividing fractions work. This proved trickier than we first anticipated!

In Art this week, we finalised our Kristjana S. Williams inspired collages creating some stunning pieces in the process! In science we continued to think about electricity as we experimented with the impact of changing voltage on the brightness of a ball.

To finish the week we all let loose with a game of dodge ball.

All in all another fantastic week. Well done Year 6. 

Summer 1 - Week 4

EVERY SINGLE CHILD MADE ME SO PROUD THIS WEEK!

A busy and different week, but a week where every single child made me, the school and most importantly themselves, extremely proud. Well done you little super stars. 

On top of sitting our SATs, we managed to squeeze in some wonderful water colour art, some mindfulness activities, lots of eating of brioche and croissants, a very interesting discussion about conflict in PHSE and plenty of PE and outside time.

We ended the week by choosing the production we will put on in Summer 2! Much more on that to follow but for now, have a wonderful rest this weekend my lovely Year 6: you deserve it! 

Summer 1 - Week 3 - Coronation week 

A short but jam packed week!

This week our learning has, for the most part, taken on a coronation theme. In English, we have looked at the coronation itself and all the ceremonial and celebratory aspects that will take place on Saturday when King Charles III is coronated. We have put our figurative language skills to use as we described the interior and exterior of Westminster Abbey thinking carefully about what it will be like to be in the abbey during the coronation. We further practised our descriptive skill by describing our own ideal feast. This produced some absolutely wonderful writing from the children including such wonderful extracts as 'the smell of crisp, juicy, bucketed chicken flooded my nose.' The culmination of our coronation themed English was looking at celebratory recipes and creating a trifle to  be proud of (there has never been so much jelly and custard in the corridors of Shipton!). 

In Art, we studied the work of Andrew Jamieson - the heraldic artist who created the artwork for the official coronation invite. We then used our new found understanding to inspire our own invitation's design inviting our loved ones to our coronation picnic. Some of the watercolours produced by the children were truly lovely - renowned artists of the future are definitely in our midst at Shipton. 

In maths we have kept on top of our SATs preparation as we have added a final polish to our percentage, fraction and measurement knowledge. Despite all this hard work, we managed to have a lot of fun creating the largest number we could from the digits within 06.05.2023!

Have a wonderful weekend Year 6! Eat well, smile, relax and rest up :-)

 

Summer 1 - Week 2

What a week it has been! We have continued our foray through our text, The Wonder Garden, focusing in on some tricky SPAG skills including: colons and semi colons, figurative language and embedding relative clauses. No wonder we all feel a little tired! 
In addition to thinking about the Wonder Garden in English, we have used the text to study the art of collage. We have looked carefully at Kristjana S. Williams' illustrations within the Wonder Garden and used them to inspire our own collage design. In the coming weeks, we will be transforming these ideas in to wonderful collages of our own!
In maths, we have revisited our old friend: fiendish fractions. I can not say enough how proud I am of the children's perseverance in their maths learning: they have all come so far.
Other highlights this week have included some super science (looking at electrical circuits) and some wonderful times shaking off all our hard work in PE.
Well done Year 6!

Summer 1 - Week 1

My goodness, I can honestly not believe we have already completed the first week of Summer Term! Summer term is, without doubt, my favourite term and I know you are all going to have a wonderful final term of primary school!

This week we launched our 'I wonder' topic and started to explore Jenny Bloom's wonderful book - The Wonder Garden. As we started to explored our way through the book's pages, we imagined our own remote Pacific island. We pictured how we might have arrived there and practised our emotive and descriptive language skills, 'building' on simple sentences to create sentences that paint a vivid image in the readers mind. We finished the week by using these superb sentences within a diary entry, recounting the day we arrived on our island. 

In maths, we have revisited BODMAS and thought carefully about how to tackle complicated multistep problems. All the children have showed so much perseverance this week and, as a result, all have made great progress: the hard work is paying off!

A particular highlight this week was art where the children designed their own island! The imagination and creativity shown was wonderful to see. 

Next week is our last full week before the SATs and I have no doubt it will be a focused yet fun one! Have a great weekend all my super Year 6s.

Year 6 Easter Holiday Revision

 


Dear My Lovely Year 6s!

I am already so proud of you. You have put in a lot of hard work this year and you should feel incredibly positive about what you’ve already achieved. The upcoming SATs should and will be a celebration of all the wonderful learning you have done throughout your time at Primary.
To keep your learning brains ticking along (and not too weighed down by chocolate), I have set some revision tasks for the Easter holidays. These are nothing to worry about but, in preparation for your time at Secondary School, they should be taken seriously. To that end, I really think you will all feel the benefit of doing a small amount of revision over the Easter break.

You should aim to revise on 10 different days during the holiday. A little bit of revision regularly is best -20 minutes of English and 20 minutes of maths per ‘revision day’. The rest of your time should be spent relaxing and having fun (this is very important!)

Each of you have been given a revision pack. This contains Maths, English and SPAG tasks; these are explained below. Your pack also contains knowledge organiser and ‘How to…’ documents to support your learning. If those do not help, remember I am also only an email/ message away! I will be checking Google Classroom throughout the holidays. If you have a question, ask me: don’t struggle in silence. I will make sure I get back to you.

Remember, you have all got this! Have a wonderful break you super stars.

 

                                            

Easter Revision Tasks           Spag Booklet              Reading Booklet           Amazon Comprehension      River Rescue Comp.     Talent Show Comp.       The Cave Comp.       Grammar Knowledge Organiser

Spring Term - Week 12

The Easter holidays are upon us! 

This week has been a very productive one in Year 6. We have taken our final 'Mock SATs'; created some wonderful descriptive writing based on the BBC adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days and managed to squeeze in some times to be good role models to our buddies in Year R. All the children have done themselves proud with what they have achieved in their mock tests and I can not express how honoured I have been to witness their progression. 

As we only have 13 teaching days left before the real SATs, it would be really great if all the children could undertake a little revision over the Easter break to kick their marvellous minds ticking over. To that end, I have sent home a revision booklet for all children. I will be contactable via Google Classroom so please don't struggle in silence: I am here to help! Just in case revision documents get lost, I have attached downloadable copies to our class page along with some handy guides. 

Have a wonderful Easter. 

Spring Term - Week 11

What a week!

This week we celebrated the wonderful talents of so many of our Shipton pupils. Our class entered a marvellous magician and a dynamic dancer in to the school talent show and, I have to say, both acts were superb! Both of our class representatives should feel incredibly proud of what they achieved; they were wonderful.

In our more day to day classroom activities, we have written persuasive letters to the Prime Minister; started to create Lowry inspired art works; and, taken on some statistical challenges using historical data. As you can tell, our 'Here to There' topic has been in full swing!

This week also saw us host a SATs briefing at school. I have attached a copy of the presentation used on this page. Please do let me know if you were not able to make the event but have a query.

Well done Year 6, as always you are superstars!  

 

Spring Term - Week 10

Another week has cantered by! 

This week saw us revisit all things shape related in our maths learning. We focused on using our problem solving skills to work our way through some very tricky perimeter, area and volume conundrums. All the children showed great perseverance when taking on these far from easy challenges!

In English, we finalised our Cogheart inspired narratives before turning our thoughts to a complex moral question! Should the 'mechs' in Cogheart be owned or, given their level of human thoughts and feelings, should they be free? We are going to use our skills of persuasion to write letters expressing on our views on the rights of mechs next week. 

In History, we stepped back in time to conduct a mini study on the Andover Workhouse and the Poor Law of 1834. Lots of us were shocked by what could constitute a criminal offence in the Victorian era and how poverty was often seen in the same light as criminality. We also applied our maths skills to our history studies as we looked at how the population of Andover changed during the Victorian period - using our statistics knowledge to interpret some tricky graphs. By studying the law in our PHSE session, we were able to make a direct comparison between how the law affected children in the Victorian era and how it affects children today.

Another wonderful week Year 6! Well done! 

Spring Term - Week 9 

A personal highlight for me this week was having the opportunity to share the wonderful achievements and awesome levels of effort with the parents of my fantastic class. Having the chance to pause and reflect on how far we have come at this point, half way through the year, was a genuine pleasure. Thank you to all the parents who made the time to pop in. If anyone was not able to make it but would like to share in some of their child's awesome achievements at school, please do get in touch with the office and we can arrange a time. 

During our normal school day, we have been knuckling down to our learning! In maths we have been thinking about all things measurement! From mega mass to tricky time, we have taken on and conquered them all!  In English, we have carried on reading Cogheart, pausing at a cliff hanger in the story to write some wonderful diary entries. The writing produced by the class was fantastic and I am really proud of the improvement they have made. 

In history, we have carried on looking at the impact of industrialisation on the local area. We studied some maps from various points during the Victorian era and compared these to modern day maps of Andover. The change in the landscape was striking to see! We also used our maths skills to sift and sort our way through some population data from the Victorian era looking at how the population has changed and thinking about why that may be.

All in all, a wonderful week. 

Spring Term - Week 8

This week has simply flown by!

In English, we have started a new book, Cogheart by Peter Bunzl. A steampunk adventure story set in an alternative Victorian England. We have thought carefully about how emotive language is used to create interest within the text and, at the end of the week, applied what we have learnt in a diary entry written from the perspective of one of the main characters. 

In maths, we have been turning our focus to multiplication and division - concentrating on how we can use known facts to help us solve trickier mathematical problems. We have also revisited some of our fraction, decimal and percentages skills whilst continuing to do our daily 95 times tables questions!

The highlight of this week for me was World Book Day. We came together to celebrate as a school to: parading to the parents; partaking in a World Book Day assembly; joining a BBC Teach live lesson; dining with the tiger who came to tea; dropping everything and reading on Miss House's bell ring; and, popping back to school for hot chocolate and a bedtime story. Personally I love reading (as my class well know!) and it was such a pleasure to see so many children delighting in the wonders of words. 

Have a wonderful weekend Year 6! YOU ALL MAKE ME VERY PROUD!

Spring Term - Week 7

What a hard-working week we have had! 
This week all the children had a go at the 2022 SATs paper as part of our preparation for this year's SATs Test. All the children focused really well, tried their best and made me proud. Our school's value of perseverance is most definitely evident in Year 6!
Despite all the hard work we, we still had time for some creativity and fun! Wednesday saw us celebrate Mental Health week where we came together as a school to focus on kindness and, specifically, one kind word. We based our discussions around Charlie Mackesey's 'The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse' with all the children sharing some really thoughtful comments about and perspectives upon what it means to be a friend. We finished the day by illustrating and annotating the score of the Black-Eyed Peas' 'Where is the Love' with comments and illustrations that represented kindness to us. This was inspired by the illustrated score on the inside cover of the book. We concluded our afternoon by watching the wonderful BBC film version of 'The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse' (here is the link in case anyone wants to watch again https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001gn7t/the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse).
 
All in all a brilliant start to the term - Well done Year 6!

Spring Term - Week 6

Head over to our Liddington 2023 page!

Spring Term - Week 5

Another wonderful week has flown by! Without doubt the highlight of this week was our celebration of National Story Telling Week with our Year R buddies. On Thursday afternoon we headed down to Year R where we met our buddies and undertook a search of the Year R area to find clues to the story that we were going to share. Once we had found all the clues, we headed in to the classroom to listen to one of my favourites stories, The Worst Princess. After sharing the story together, all the children individually read a book to their buddy and then had the absolute pleasure of hearing our buddies read their reading books to us! This was a truly wonderful experience and one that was universally enjoyed. 

In English this week we have tackled how we can use speech in a narrative and looked carefully at how this is done in our current text, The Nowhere Emporium. In maths, we have continued our programme of revision and reminded ourselves of all things fraction related! In Science we have expanded our knowledge of light and thought about how we see colour - a tricky concept to get our heads around! With this and much more, it has been another week of great learning.  

Spring Term - Week 4

This week saw us start to use the Nowhere Emporium (by Ross MacKenzie) as our text driver as we continue to let the world of magic and mystery inspire us across the curriculum. We looked carefully at how suspense is created in a narrative and tried applying some of these skills to our own writing. In maths we revisited fractions - a tricky area that we will conquer! 

Miss M took on a tricky challenge of her own in PE as we continued to look at Street Dance. We have started to rehearse our own street dance routine which we hope to be able to video and share in the future (all of the children are picking it up far quicker than their teacher!). Another highlight was talking through our forthcoming Liddington trip and finding out whose group we are in and who we will share a room with, not to mention discussing the breakfast, lunch and dinner set up in detail!

All in all, a great week. Well done Year 6! 

Spring Term - Week 3

Another super week in Lion Class.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • This week we have taken on some tricky division and multiplication problems as we have revised these vital mathematical techniques;

  • Our English work has seen us focus on how to increase the formality of our writing. To achieve this we have looked at how vocabulary can change the tone of our writing and thought about how we can use the passive voice and subjunctive form to achieve formality;

  • In science we have learnt how we see, expanding our knowledge of the amazing human eye; and
  • In art, we finalised our Fantastic Beasts - I was particularly the proud of the charcoal pictures that resulted from the children's focus and resilience here.

Well done Year 6!

Spring Term - Week 2

Cripes this week has sped by!

In English we have continued to base our studies on J K Rowling's Fantastic Beasts. We started the week with some independent writing as we sought to persuade the Ministry of Magic to join us in our quest to protect our native dragons! As the week progressed, we refined our understanding of how to vary the formality of our writing and thought about how, if we were to use the subjunctive form, we could increase the formality.

In maths we have continued to revise key concepts focusing on both informal and formal methods of addition and subtraction. Whilst in Science we expanded our understanding of how we see as we continued our study of light.

Art, this week, saw us begin to design and create our own Beasts and, in PE, we practised our cross country running skills as well as our street dance style walking skills!

As always in Year 6, a busy but fun week! Well done lovely Lion Class. 

Spring Term - Week 1

 What a fantastic start to a new year of learning! As we all recovered from the Christmas holidays and got back into the swing of learning, we launched our new topic, Mystery and Magic.

Our English learning journey will see us study J. K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts. This week we explored some of the amazing beasts set out within the pages of this book; thought about what is in a name; started to create our own beasts;  as well as getting our creative juices flowing by writing some poetry about our own beasts. We have also started to read the wonderful 'The Nowhere Emporium' and, it is fair to say that, the initial chapters have already captured to imaginations of all the children. 

In maths, we have gone back to basics and reminded ourselves of our place value skills as we launch our Year 6 SATs maths revision and reminder learning. 

In Science, we launched our new 'Light' learning by reminding ourselves of some of the key ideas that we have studied in previous years. The children really impressed me with their knowledge and absolutely smashed some tricky knowledge check questions. 

Well done Year 6 - A super start to the year! 

 

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Autumn Term '22