Welcome to Year 6 - Lion Class
Teacher - Miss A Macleod
Learning Support Assistant - Mrs G Hudson
Key Information
PE - Wednesday and Friday (however PE kits should be in school at all times).
School Council
Sophie and Amelia
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.
