Welcome to Year 6!

We have had a wonderful start to the new school year, and it's been lovely to welcome the new class and start to get to know them.

The Heads and Deputy Head students were announced last term and today the House Captains and Deputies were voted for. Students prepared a speech, which they confidently delivered to their houses and a vote was taken. Congratulations to the new House Captains in Year 6, and we look forward to seeing their leadership skills in practise as well as encouraging and mentoring the new Deputy House Captains. There will be many more jobs and opportunities for the rest of the class to show their leadership skills throughout the year.

This week we have already started lots of our new topics:

• RE: Why does religion look different around the world?
• Art: Drawing - Expressing ideas
• Music: Dynamics, pitch and texture
• Computing: Online Safety and Bletchley Park and the history of computing

In our Reading lessons we have been predicting what our new novel 'Floodland' by Marcus Sedgwick might be about from the clues on the front cover and blurb and today we finally read the first chapter!

In Maths we began our Place Value unit reading and writing numbers to 1 million!

Next week we will begin our Science, Geography, PSHE and French units as well as our first PE lesson on Wednesday with Mr Firman. Please remember to wear your PE kit to school that day.

Week 2 beginning 7th September

This week in Science we were learning about what defines a living and non-living thing, so we explored the school grounds for examples. We did find some tricky objects, such as an apple on the ground which we decided in living on the tree as it can excrete, reproduce, move and grow.

In Geography we started our global population topic and researched dense and sparsely populated countries of the world. For our writing this term we are writing a suspense story and linking it to our class reader Vorjak Paw and the story Zelda The Claw. Currently, we are writing and learning our story map.

Today's Reading lesson was Hot Seating, taking on the role of Zoe from our book 'Floodland' by Marcus Sedgwick. The students asked thoughtful questions and our 'Zoes' showed real empathy and a deep understanding of how Zoe might have felt about certain situations.

In Art we continued our Street Art unit by looking at some interesting pieces Ms Poole found during her weekend visit to Oxford. It led to some great discussions about its place and whether we liked the work or not. We then began to create some one-point perspective work, starting with a vanishing point, drawing in the horizon and guidelines. It was tricky but we tried really hard!

Week 3 beginning 14th September

In Science this week we sorted animals and plants into different groups and criteria. In Writing we have completed a short burst of writing linked to our suspense writing and have started planning our final story. We have also learnt about subordinating conjunctions and can identify main and subordinate clauses. We put these to good use when writing a book review of our class reading book 'Floodland'. 

Our Computing lesson this week looked at Bletchley Park and the use of secret codes during World War 2. We looked at the Pig Pen, Caesar and Acrostic Paragraph codes, deciphering the messages and writing our own! And the week finished with our Art lesson, looking closely at the giant murals created by Mexican artist Diego Rivieria and beginning to learn how to scale up images using the grid method.

Week 4 beginning 21st September

Year 6 have been making classification keys for animals using closed questions in Science and in Geography we looked at the push and pull factors for migration and discussed refugees. In PHSE we listed the qualities of a good friend and how to resolve disagreements amicably and respectfully.  We have also conducted some Sats practise.

This week we have also had our first Swimming lesson. We were very proud of the students behaviour whilst walking to and from the leisure centre and they were all worn out at the end of the hours lesson! We are continuing our focus on Reading and children are being encouraged to complete quizzes each time they complete a book. The class have already banked 39,373 words from just a few quizzes...we'd love our class to be word millionaires before the end of the year!

In Music we created texture in sound whilst improvising as a class. Each group created a different sound which we layered up adding to our final piece one at a time and then withdrew them one at a time. We were all in time with the beat and the effect it created sounded incredible! 

Week 5 beginning 28th September

This week most of us have been away on our residential trip to Condover Hall in Shropshire for a few days of outdoor, adventure and problem-solving activities. We have taken part in survivor tasks, trapeze, laser maze and initiative exercises, archery tag, abseiling, axe throwing, a silent disco and the second night we had movie which allowed us all to chill for an hour and a half! Our leaders Meg and Will were incredible and made the whole experience absolutely brilliant! Our teachers are incredibly proud of our behaviour, attitude and resilience in completing new challenges, the school values were evident in every move the children made.

Back in school we have been right back into the usual swing of things, picking up the Reading of our class novel Floodland; working in teams to think of arguments for and against the main character's next move in her quest to escape the island and find her parents. In Maths we began our new unit: Multiplication and Division and we have been planning and writing a recount of our residential adventures in our Writing lessons. We also threw in a swimming lesson!

A super, action-packed week for the Year 6's! Well done :-)

Week 6 beginning 5th October

This week has been back into full school learning again!

In Science we have looked at the classification of plants and spent some time identifying trees in our school environment and in Reading we continued with our book Floodland, which has been getting very exciting. After reading chapter 10, we discussed the impact that stories have and what the characters in the book have learnt from them. The children shared their own stories that are important to them and explained why. This helped us to show a greater understanding of the characters and we had fun creating freeze frames - acting out the main events, sharing our ideas and tableau.

Our Geography work this week links in well with our reading; looking at the effect of climate change on the global population. Our theme in PSHE this week was 'Behave Yourself'. We discussed how to be assertive in relationships and not to be bullied into things we don't want to do. We performed a play and then discussed our thoughts on the character's actions. We spent another hour swimming, improving our strokes, lifesaving and other water skills and began the planning for our final Art piece, which will showcase the skills we have learnt this half term.

Week 7 beginning 12th October

This week Sue from Scarf visited us and we had a PSHE workshop on our future goals. We watched videos of children and their hopes for the future, discussing how self-regulation, being active, self-esteem and meaningful participation can help with our wellbeing. On Tuesday a group of us took part in the cross country race at Prince Henry's High School, Evesham. We walked the route through the orchards and school grounds and then ran it as fast as we could. Some great results! Well done Year 6 and the other year groups that took part.

In Music we continued our work on texture, dynamics and pitch. Firstly we listened to an amazing composition that we all agreed sounded like an actual thunder storm rolling in...then we watched and were aghast that it was actually created by a group of people making sounds using their bodies! Then we had another go at composing our own pieces in small groups, making sure to include elements of texture and dynamics. In RE, we looked at the differences in the Jewish Friday night meal and discussed why and how those changes took place.

Another very busy week, well done Year 6. Next week we finish our swimming lessons and have a disco and climbing session to look forward to.