Week Commencing 3rd February 2025
Blog written by Grace, Hannah, Megan and Isla H
Grace-I enjoyed our new art topic, surrealism. It is fun to design our own artwork in this afternoon lesson; it depends on your imagination and creativity. I am designing a world head poking out of a space book, I have not completed it yet but I am sure it will turn out great.
Isla - This term I have thoroughly enjoyed English we are currently on the topic of learning how to setting scene. We were allowed to pick a picture of our choice out of a calm forest scene, a creepy house in a spooky wood and two tree houses. I chose the spooky setting because I felt it was the picture I could describe the most. When I was stuck Mrs Knight helped me think of better word choices, so I ended up writing a piece of work I was very proud of.
Megan – This term I have really been enjoying our maths unit. Fractions. We are currently subtracting mixed numbers, which includes converting and finding common denominators. At first things were tricky but now I have the hang of it is much easier.
Hannah- This term I have loved P.E IT WAS DANCE. For dance, we did Mounting climbing (it was fun) we needed to lift someone up. Our song was upbeat and energetic for us to dance to; our teacher for P.E was Sarah and she will work with us for our end of year show too!
Mrs Knight - this week has been Mental Health week in school with the theme of 'know yourself to grow yourself'. I have been so impressed with the children's reflective nature and how they are considering how kindness can help them to 'grow' themselves as people. They produced some great work and were aspirational and empathetic in their work.
Week commencing 27th January 2025
Another fantastic week in Year 6. In English, we are looking at narratives and the children have been exploring different types of sentences (simple, compound and complex) and also active and passive voice. Next week they will be choosing a narrative setting to write about in detail considering interesting sentence openers.
We have completed our adding fractions section in maths and on Friday, we moved on to subtracting fractions and will continue this next week. The children have really got the method and been resilient with the different steps as it is necessarily a quick process when you’re adding mixed numbers!
In Science, we completed an experiment thinking about the length of shadows. Children had high expectations of themselves and managed to carry out their shadow experiment in good time recording their results as they went. We will explore these next week and consider what conclusions we can draw from it.
Our dance work continues with Sarah and the children are having opportunities to include their moves in the dance. It has been great to see it develop over the weeks. Once again they have been aspirational with their movements and we even have some gymnastics thrown in there too!
RE this week has been very thoughtful considering the gospel of Luke, where Jesus tells the well-known parable of the prodigal son; we have linked this to how we should try to be forgiving in our lives. We talked about God’s love and our parents love and how forgiveness can always be sought. Here children showed their empathy and compassion as we looked at how Pope John Paul II was shot and how he forgave his shooter.
On Friday we had the pleasure of a visit from a magistrate – Gary Horscroft – to talk about the Mock Trials that we are taking part in. The children asked thoughtful questions and were engaged throughout showing their REACH values.
We also got to use the mini keyboards in Music Technology – the class were very excited about this! They produced a range of sounds using these and explored different features on Garage Band.
Week commencing 20.1.25
Another great week in Year 6. We have started work on our fractions unit in maths and have needed resilience. To begin with, we are focused on adding fractions – this will be our focus for 2 weeks – and here we are finding common denominators, converting mixed numbers and using these skills to solve questions. The children have grasped the methods well and are working hard to apply them to a variety of questions.
In English, we finished our discursive text and many people chose subjects they felt really passionate about such as exotic animals being kept as pets and is it abusive to ride horses? It was great to see their confidence shine through when writing about these interests. We are now on to narrative settings and our big focus is on description including figurative language (similes, metaphors, alliteration etc).
Our Geography unit is taking shape and we have started to learn about how mountains are formed. Then in dance this week, our ‘On Top of the World’ piece has started to take shape as we have learnt the first phrase of the dance – have a look at the pictures to see the class in action. Many children have been aspirational with their movements and are trying to push themselves to be the best they can be in these sessions.
Friday’s music technology session was great as the children worked on chords and following a pattern. We learnt the importance of all of the instruments playing the same patterns etc so that songs sound musically accurate. We then went into a nice relaxed Reading for Pleasure session and many of the children were enjoying newspapers (First News arrives weekly at school).
Week commencing 13th January 2025
Our first full week back has been action packed.
Knex – We had our workshop on Tuesday afternoon and the STEM/Reinshaw staff were very impressed by how well the class worked together showing resilience. Their specification was to create a model/system involving pulleys and a handle, which had to raise a box 11cm off the table and it had to fit on the lid of the box. Everyone met the brief and felt proud of their achievements – they were very aspirational.
Dance – On Thursday, we started creating the beginning of our dance linked to On Top of the World and the children went into two groups to create a move showing a climber (Grace and Samuel) going up a mountain. They then worked as a whole class to allow another climber (Annabel) to climb through a mountain. All our climbers showed great confidence. Both Sarah and I were impressed with the results and we are looking forward to putting the different elements together to create an amazing piece of dance.
Music Technology – Our session on Friday focused on drums and rhythm. The children remembered lots of facts from last week and were keen to get going on Garage Band again. They built on their skills and recorded another piece considering tempo and a range of beat patterns. I enjoyed listening to some of the children’s work and seeing their faces whilst recording!
I was very proud of how well the Falcons house captains organised their treat for their house group. Crafts and snacks galore! Well done Samuel and Tansy - high expectations shown.
Week commencing 6th January 2025
We have had an extremely busy three days back at school! The children have really come back ready to learn using their REACH values.
We have started our new maths unit linked to the order of operations and have thought about BODMAS. The children are getting to grips with what comes first when the four operations are being used.
In English, we have continued to look at our discursive texts and learnt one called ‘Should Zoos be Banned?’ The children had mixed views about this any many of them definitely felt ‘on the fence’ about this discussion. We will be going on to explore different discursive texts linked to issues that the children often have strong opinions about.
Our new topic has started in RE – Galilee to Jerusalem, and the children have been exploring different images of Jesus and how different people have represented him. They have thought about why different cultures and religions might show him in a variety of ways – there were lots of very thoughtful suggestions.
It is exciting to have Sarah Davis-Berry in delivering our PE dance sessions and we are going to be exploring our Geography theme ‘On Top of the World’ through these sessions. This week the children had lots of suggestions for what the word ‘mountain’ meant to them. In our Friday session, we looked at some extreme sports that you would do on or near a mountain – kayaking, snowboarding and rock climbing.
On Friday’s for the next ten weeks, we have the pleasure of having Salo in from The Music Works to work with the class using an online music program called Garage Band. The children engaged well with this and there were lots of smiles around the room!