Year 6

Welcome to Year 6

Friday 19th April- Week 26

For outdoor PE this half term, Year 6 are looking at the skills needed to play cricket. On Wednesday, as a year group, Year 6 practiced their catching and throwing skills using tennis balls. In particular, we focused on the importance of accuracy and communication when catching and throwing. Similarly, we focused on overarm and underarm throws as these types of throws are needed within a game of cricket. Over the next few weeks, we will be refining our skills and knowledge, so by the end of the term we can play a successful game of cricket.

Thursday 28th March- Week 25

Today, Year 6 spent the whole day working on their Design and Technology project for the half term. The outcome for their project this term, was to produce a new playground for Miss Thompson. The children embraced the idea by considering what they already liked about pre-existing playgrounds and what they could include in their playground to make it even better! Over the day, the children recorded, collated and produced their final outcome using a range of resources. All the teachers were thoroughly impressed with everyone's final outcome. Amazing work, well done Year 6!

Friday 22nd March- Week 24

In Science this half term, Year 6 have been investigating the circulatory system. Year 6 looked at oxygenated and deoxygenated blood travels around the body. To illustrate this concept, Year 6 got practical and use red and blue counters to understand the process of oxygen travelling around the circulatory system. By the end of the lesson, Year 6 were able to identify that the right side of the heart pumps deoxygenated blood (low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide) to the lungs. Whereas, the left side of the heart pumps oxygenated blood (high in oxygen and low in carbon dioxide) to the organs of the body.

Friday 15th March- Week 23

In English this week, Year 6 have produced a non-chronological report about Yellow Spotted Lizards from their text driver: Holes. Below, we have attached some of amazing outcomes produced across all three classes! Keep up the brilliant work Year 6!

Friday 8th March- Week 22

Across foundation subjects this week, Year 6 have been fascinated, from investigating how the Circulatory System works in the human body in Science to finding out what international links Twinings Tea (whose headquarters are based in Andover) have, in Geography. 

Friday 1st March- Week 21

In Geography this half term, Year 6 will be thinking about their local area (Andover) and how Andover has links to the wider world. In today's lesson, the children looked at an aerial map of Andover and identified human and physical features of the town. Next lesson, the children will consider how Twinnings Tea, whose headquarters are based in Andover, import and export tea all around the World.

PGL Day 5

It was a dry (finally!) morning for us and our last activities.

Your children were an absolute delight all week and were complimented about their collaboration, perseverance and respect towards each other - they demonstrated our federated values so brilliantly and we were very proud to be their surrogate parents for the week!

PGL Day 4

It was a truly horrible day weather wise but we have all risen to the many challenges the day threw at us!

We were surprised by how exciting Problem Solving was as we took on moving toxic waste and an enormous marble run. The rain did not stop play and we have braved Jacob's Ladder (it turns out not named after the first person who reached the top!), trapeze, Sensory Trail, Zip line and eaten a good amount of delicious PGL food.

Normal school life will feel quite strange after all this adventure!

PGL - Day Three

The rain was not going to stop us today. We have had a great day getting stuck into our activities and challenges. We have been covered in mud in the survival challenge and have climbed heights in the rock climbing. The giant swing being a particular high light for many children, closely followed by the zip wire! The teachers and staff are so proud and impressed with the perseverance, collaboration and team work going on - they are really working hard to achieve. We can't wait for more activities tomorrow. 

PGL Day Two

Another brilliant day here on Planet PGL! Highlights have included Giant Swing where lots of children conquered their fear of heights and archery where we have discovered some potential Olympic champions!

After a good night's sleep, we had a full cooked breakfast and took on two activities, then lunch and two more activities and we are now headed for dinner! We are needing the fuel to keep us going with the groups covering 12,000 steps so far today. The children are all having a wonderful time, getting muddy and showing incredible perseverance.

Mrs Gynn's highlight of the day has been a member of PGL staff asking "How many children have you got here?" When the staff member was told 80, they said, "Well, incredible manners from every single one." And we couldn't be prouder of them.

This evening our evening activity is Ambush which everyone is looking forward to before another well-earned sleep!

PGL Day 1 - Monday 19th February

Good evening everyone! We arrived safe and sound this morning, just before lunch time. We got some time to unpack and settle into our new bedrooms for the week - some have already been asking to test out the showers and get into their pyjamas! The afternoon was spent on the field playing games and by dinner time everyone was hungry! Tonight's meal ended with a DELICIOUS homemade iced sponge cake (this went down really well!). We're all looking forward to waking up early tomorrow for breakfast to start our first full day of activities. Fingers crossed everyone sleeps well!

Thursday 8th February- Week 20

This afternoon, the whole Federation, discussed the importance of Anti-Bullying. In year 6, we read the story Kindness Grows. Then each child wrote a phrase about what they think kindness is and why it is important. As a year group, we then added each leaf to our Federated Tree Display for Anti-Bullying Day. 

Friday 2nd February- Week 19

Year 6's focus for Science this half term has been light. During the week, Year 6 looked at the concept refraction. This is where the light enters the object at a different angle and gives the illusion that the object is bent. For example, Year 6 investigated the idea of refraction by placing a pencil in a cup of water and then shining a torch at it. Due to refraction, when the children looked in the water it seemed as if the pencil had bent but actually this was just  refraction (the light had entered the water at a different angle) giving the illusion that the pencil is not straight anymore. 

Friday 26th January- Week 18

Year 6's focus for indoor PE this half-term is gymnastics. In today's lesson, Year 6 looked at different types of jumps and even explored jumping from a height as well as off the floor. Throughout the lesson, Year 6 were reminded of key gymnastic skills such as making sure their bodies are tense and streamlined. Year 6 have really enjoyed their gymnastics lessons this half term and are looking forward to next week, where they will be making a routine using all the skills they have acquired this half term.

Friday 19th January- Week 17

Following on from our Science lesson last week, the children investigated why and how a shadow is formed. Children investigated this idea by using torches and solid (opaque) blocks to see what happened. Using their Year 5 knowledge on solar eclipses, Year 6 were able to understand and recognise that light can't pass through a solid object but can cast a shadow, mimicking the object's shape.

Friday 12th January- Week 16

In Science this half term, Year 6 are focusing on light. This week, Year 6 discovered that light always travels in a straight line. Year 6 also carried out an investigation to see what happens when light is blocked from shining through a gap. As a year group, all students were able to understand how light reflects off a shiny surface into a person's eye. Likewise, if light is blocked then it can not pass through a solid material. 

Friday 5th January - Week 15

Happy New Year! Year 6 have had a brilliant first week back. Over the half term, Year 6 will be learning gymnastic skills and creating sequences and routines. In today's lesson, we looked at balancing. As a class, we discussed how tensing our bodies can help our us become more stable and keep us balanced for longer. This is a skill we will continue practise over the half term. 

Friday 15th December - Week 14

This last week has been full of fun, laughter and creativity. Year 6 had a brilliant time at their Christmas Disco and even got Mrs Wilkins to show off her famous dance moves! Year 6 also had a brilliant last day as they created their own steady hand games, for the Year R's, using all their fantastic Science knowledge on Electricity. 

Friday 8th December-Week 13

Today, Year 6 enjoyed a delicious freshly-cooked Christmas dinner within their classrooms. The students ate their Christmas dinner alongside their teachers and the support staff. What a great way to end the week!

Friday 1st December - Week 12

For our current English Learning Journey, Year 6 are looking at the text driver 'Santa Trap'. In today's lesson, the children annotated a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like) of an explanation texts about how to construct a Santa Trap. This was useful in helping the children identify the features of an explanation text and made them think about what they will need to include when writing their final outcome.

Friday 17th November - Week 10

In today's History lesson, Year 6 got to explore, investigate and try on replica clothing from World War 2. The children thoroughly enjoyed immersing themselves in the 1930s era. The children also loved being able to feel and see items from the time period in real life. This helped build their context and understanding of the time period. By the end of the lesson, Year 6 could recognise how life was different in the past to now, the modern day.

Friday 10th November - Week 9

During our Science lessons this half term, Year 6 will be learning about Electricity. In our Science lesson this week, the children were able to make their own electrical circuits using: wires, buzzers, motor, lightbulbs and a battery. All the children were able to draw an electrical circuit scientifically, using the correct symbols. 

Friday 3rd November - Week 8

On Tuesday of this week, Year 6 children experienced a 'World War Two' Day. During this day, they had a workshop from openbox and used virtual reality to experience what life was like in the trenches for soldiers. The children also looked at the famous poem 'dulce et decorum est' by Wilfred Owen. Year 6 were able recognise that life in the war wasn't as great and dandy as propaganda posters made out! Over the half term, we will continue to investigate how propaganda was used to persuade people to participate in the war effort.

Friday 20th October - Week 7

This week we used VR (Virtual Reality) to help us develop vocabulary for our English Learning Journey based off the text driver, 'The Princess' Blankets'. The children were able to explore a mountain scene and generate adventurous vocabulary and figurative language (similes and metaphors) based on what they had experienced. 

Friday 13th October - Week 6

In our Free-Reading session today, Year 6 created their own storyboards of the story of 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane' (our Guided Reading text). The children added a few sentences under each picture to help show what was happening in each scene. The children worked collaboratively and were able to have in-depth discussion about what has happened in the story so far.

Friday 6th October - Week 5

This week, Year 6, had a visit from Hampshire Constabulary who discussed Hate Crime. The children were told about the importance of accepting everyone regardless of their beliefs or gender. The children participated in activities to help them understand that as a community we should be accepting of everyone. This visit links in with our Health and Wellbeing Curriculum and our topic this half term, 'Stand up, Stand Out' which has taught the children how to recognise and resist peer pressure.

Friday 29th September - Week 4

In Religious Education this week, the children investigated what is meant by 'The Holy Trinity'. The children discussed how The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit are three different forms that represent God but can not be representations of each other. To help gain better understanding of this concept, we used a strip of paper to visually show the children how the three different forms link together to represent God.  

Friday 22nd September - Week 3

This week in Health and Wellbeing, each class played a game of “follow my leader”, with the children following the actions of the person in front of them.  The leader moved in different ways (hopping, skipping, side-stepping) and added in various big arm movements, which were repeated along the line. We were then asked the question: what if you didn’t want to follow my lead? We discussed how we felt about the game, who had actively participated and why some children had not been enthusiastic. Then we discussed how this could relate to questions previously raised about self-esteem and self-worth. We explore our concept of Stand up, Stand Out in more depth over the rest of the half term. 

Friday 15th September - Week 2

Over the week, Year 6 have loved refining their badminton skills in PE. This week all students were successfully able to have a rally with a partner using both the overhand and underarm hitting technique. Similarly, in Art the children investigated 'colour theory' and created their own colour wheel which they will use for their final outcome - creating their own surrealism painting.

Friday 8th September - Week 1

Welcome Year 6! We hope you have all had a brilliant first week. Today, we enjoyed reading outside in the glorious sunshine for Free- Reading Friday. Over the week, we have also been demonstrating our fantastic place value knowledge in Maths using concrete resources. 

Friday 14th July - Week 6

What a brilliant week! The children absolutely smashed it in their production! We are so proud of them all, they all worked so hard. As well as this, we were blown away with the audition entries for Balksburys Got Talent! It was lovely to see such as wide variety of talents across the year group: singing, dancing, magic and rapping were just some of the acts we enjoyed! We look forward to a very exciting last week in year 6! 

Friday 7th July - Week 5

What a week we have had! It was full of so many exciting opportunities for the children to test out all the Arts have to offer for us - there was Bollywood dancing, music composing on computers, theatre workshops, street dance and painting. During the week, with our focus on the continent of Antarctica, we looked at the artist David McEown and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and explored new techniques and mediums including clay and acrylic paints. Thank you to all who came to the Arts Week Fair - it was such a brilliant afternoon.

Friday 30th June - Week 4

Our Dragon's Den project has seen us working in small groups from across the whole year group. This week, we have been working on our pitches that we will show the Dragons in a few weeks' time. Our ingenious ideas range from mocktails, car washes, cakes and even healthy slushies! The children are working to earn "funding" which will go towards our Year 6 Fun Day. The collaboration and respect shown by all children has been wonderful to see!

Friday 23rd June - Week 3

We took our reading to exciting places! We enjoyed reading and swinging around like monkeys. It was lovely to listen to your children read in a new environment.

Friday 16th June - Week 2

We had a great start to the week! We finally finished our sculpture! They are looking really good, such an effective way to get a message across about our environment. 

With all the lovely weather this week, we have been able to practise our running, ready for sports day! Next week we will practise our relay racing ready for the big day! Let's hope the weather stays like this. 

Friday 9th June - Week 1

We have had a busy start back this half term! The sunny days have made for excellent PE and swimming weather and in our classrooms we have been arty and scientific.

In Science, we investigated how many bulbs could fit into a circuit before the resistance became too much and they stopped working. It was interesting to measure the level of brightness of each and lots of scientific vocabulary was used to describe our predictions and conclusions. 

In art, we have been working on our sculpture unit looking at the work of Alexander Calder. We have been creating sculptures that have an environmental message using wire and old tights. The photos show stage one! Stay tuned next week for the finished sculptures. 

Friday 19th May - Week 5

We had such a wonderful time at Trinley Estate today and we even managed to avoid the rain! (Mostly!)

The children had a fun tractor ride looking at the crops that are grown there and we painted the scenes we could see. We also explored the land for plants and flowers and dissected them, looking at the different parts of them. We saw buzzards, kites, hares and even rescued a frog! 

Friday 12th May 2023 - Week 4

What a week! The children have been absolutely amazing - we are so proud of them. We have really enjoyed 'Project Go Kart'. From what started as a blue print on a piece of A3 paper, we now have a fully functioning Go Kart and a cushion to make it a comfy ride. All ready to race on Monday!

Friday 5th May 2023 - Week 3 

Over the last few weeks, we have been developing our skills in planning and constructing our own playgrounds. We had the chance to recreate some of our favourite playground apparatus. Part of our success criteria was to ensure the playground included the safety features that we discussed in our classes. It was fantastic to see all the playgrounds come together using the knowledge and skills that we have acquired throughout this learning journey. 

Friday 28th April 2023 - Week 2 

This week we have been working on our reasoning skills in Maths. For this we had to make sure our arithmetic knowledge was at its best. We had the chance to work with people we wouldn't normally pair up with, and share our strategies to solve different arithmetic calculations. It was fantastic to see how well we can work collaboratively and celebrate our successes. 

Friday 21st April - Week 1

We had the chance to take part in a tennis taster session this week. Joe from Andover Tennis Club came and showed us some key skills for playing tennis. We learnt the 'ready position', how to control the ball and played small games against lots of different opponents. If you're interested in having tennis lessons, contact Andover Tennis Club.

Friday 31st March 2023: Week 6

As it was the last of our hockey learning journey, we played an inter-house game of hockey. Using the knowledge and skills learnt in our PE lessons, we battled against other houses in our year group. It made for a great afternoon of competition. 

Friday 24th March - Music

We have been exploring dynamics, pitch and texture in our music lessons this half term. We listened to Fingal's Cave by Felix Mendelsshon and tried to create music that sounded like a storm.

English - Non-Chronological Reports

In English we have been researching animals that live in Antarctica. We have produced non-chronological reports about these animals making sure we have used key features of this text type such as subheadings, bullet points and scientific language. We had the pleasure of looking at a beautiful book about Antarctica and decided to produce some of our work in a similar way.

World Book Day 2023

What a great day we had on Thursday! We loved being able to share stories with the Year R children - they had some great costumes. 

The Barnabus Project - WOW! Such a fantastic story, which sparked some great discussion, and amazing pieces of writing. We really enjoyed writing a letter in the viewpoint of Barnabus. The book also gave us the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon of art, where we were able to create our own 'failed pets' and place them in a gallery. 

It really was an enjoyable day! 

A Trip Across Antarctica

In our new English Learning Journey we are learning about a journey  across the vast South Pole (1800 miles). We took our learning to the playground to compare the size of this journey with the size of the UK (600 miles), England (300 miles) and A303 (100 miles). Using our Maths skills, we discovered that this is equivalent to 18000 laps around the junior playground. We used chalk, metre sticks and a very long tape measure. What a long journey Shackleton and his crew made! 

PGL

Thank you so much for letting us have your incredible children this week! We have been so impressed by their manners, their kindness and they have lived and demonstrated our Balksbury values to a T!

They have all had a brilliant time (even if homesickness sometimes made them look sad!) and they have lots of stories to tell you - ask them what the best shop in Wakey is, or ask them to sing you the Milk song!

Your children are amazing and they should be so proud of their achievements this week - whether they climbed to the top of the climbing wall, or just got a harness on and thought about it - they have pushed themselves to new limits, tried new things and shown what wonderful young people they are. Archie and Hugh (our group leaders) commented on their amazing behaviour and said that they were amongst the best groups they had ever worked with - what stars you are, Year 6!

Enjoy the half term rest (sorry about the washing!) and we look forward to welcoming them back on Tuesday 21st February.

From the Team of 2023 x

Art

Irina Richards has been our focus artist this half term and we have been learning to create graphic novels. We have tried our hand at sketching faces and combining our Maths knowledge of proportion to understand how to balance our drawings of people. The teachers have been so impressed by the drawing skills of Year 6!

Science

We have been exploring the animal kingdom in Science and looking at the way living things are classified. We have learned some great new vocabulary (ask your child what oviparous and viviparous mean!) and have tried to classify animals ourselves. 

We created sorting diagrams - which was trickier than we thought it would be - and tested them with different animals to see if they ended up being sorted into the correct category.

Computing

The children have really enjoyed being the teachers in our Computing topic recently - they know so much about Scratch and have been able to collaborate to help each other. We have been so proud of their perseverance to programme the Sprites to start a game that scores when you click on different Sprites. We have learnt how to control variables and to consider choosing appropriate Sprites for our games. 

Geography

Our Geography topic this half term is Poles Apart and we are considering the question "What effect is human activity having on the poles?". We have investigated what makes Antarctica different to the Arctic and were surprised to find out that Antarctica is a land mass covered in ice and therefore a continent. 

We have begun to explore what makes Antarctica such a special place - from being a desert to having a Burger King! Through studying maps and aerial photographs, we are gaining a fuller understanding of this amazing place.

Pumpkins!

Our Longitudinal Study continues - the pumpkins are really decomposing "nicely"! The temperature means they were frozen solid today, which we were glad of as it seemed to reduce the smell of them! 

After we had looked at the pumpkins, we added to our diaries recording the process and considered what was happening to them in a scientific way.

Heart Dissection

We had the exciting opportunity to explore the workings of the heart with Ollie (who is studying medical science at university). Some of the children felt a bit anxious about taking part but we were all so pleased that so many children did take part in the end - it was such a fun and educational experience. We labelled the chambers, ventricles and valves and really enjoyed our first experience of dissection.

History Day

On Wednesday, we launched our World War 2 History topic with a brilliant history day.

Open Box came and helped us understand what it must have felt like to be an evacuee and to begin to question our understanding of images from that time. We will be looking at how propaganda was used to influence decisions and compared this to messages the children had seen during lockdowns in 2020. The children also had the opportunity to explore some interesting artefacts from World War 2. We are feeling very enthusiastic about learning more about this topic!

Ask your child if they can remember what these key words mean: allies, enemies, propaganda.

Longitudinal Study

This week, Year 6 have begun their Longitudinal Study. We are investigating whether a plant can decompose and then grow another plant from the seeds within it.

We carved pumpkins, but left the seeds inside. Over the next few weeks, we will keep a close eye on how they change and start decomposing. When they are too smelly to be in our classrooms, we will move them to 'Poly' (the polytunel!) and continue our observations.

This investigation and observation will help develop our understanding of how plants grow and what they need to survive.

VR Headsets

Today we used the Virtual Reality Headsets to explore how earthquakes are formed.  In order to investigate the famous earthquakes, we used the computers to research and the headsets to venture into the science behind earthquakes. It was truly fascinating to discover the Earth's crust and how earthquakes are measured. Did you know that the 2004 Indian Earthquake reached Alaska, which is 6400 miles away.  

Problem Solving Week

Year 6 focused on solving different types of word problems in Maths this week. Great discussion was had by all the classes and we demonstrated our Federated values of collaboration and perseverance. We used mathematical vocabulary and skills and had a chance to showcase and share their strategies. We found it interesting that there are only seven types of reasoning questions; children had a chance to explore the different types of problems and attempt to categorise them.  

An Earthquake at Balksbury!

Our Geography learning this half term has been On Dangerous Ground and we have been investigating tornadoes and earthquakes. 

This week, we investigated how buildings are adapted in areas that experience earthquakes to try and withstand the force of them. We created our own buildings using spaghetti and plasticine and then... the earthquake struck! (Well, we wobbled them around a bit!)

The final part of this was to look at how engineers and architects have designed buildings and all the clever features they have used.

Netball

This half term in PE, our focus is netball. We enjoyed showing off our throwing techniques and intercepting skills during our PE session this week. We were really excited to practise shooting. 

Le français

Year 6 have been studying how to ask questions about the subjects that they study at school.  This dialogue exercises the skills of speaking and listening as pupils are asking each other what subject they like.

Can you work out which subjects these children like?

Welcome Back!

We have had such a brilliant first week in Year 6. The children have worked really hard to settle into their new classes and get used to their new adults.

Today we had great fun trying out the new underwater cameras in the swimming pool. We will keep trying to get the perfect video, but we had a lot of fun trying!

Wonderland the Musical

We are so proud of how brilliantly Year 6 worked as a team to create the most wonderful production. Our school values shone throughout the process with the children's perseverance, collaboration and respect. Well done Year 6!

Our Final Trip as Year Six!

We visited Trinley Estate and had a great time! We found out about the different machinery and crops on the farm and went on a tractor and trailer ride to visit the sheep. We also had lots of fun discovering bugs and trees and revisiting our learning on plant reproduction. 

Tree Identification

We hunted around the arboretum for different trees and identified them by their leaves.

Painting

Exploring tints, tones and shades by painting some of the leaves and flowers we discovered...

Bug Hunting!

We discovered lots of bugs including: ringlet butterflies, mirid bugs, comma butterflies, garden bumblebees, dagger flies, buff tailored bumblebees, vestal cuckoo bees, marbled white butterflies, common pill-bugs and black slugs...

Relief Maps

We created relief maps of Great Britain so that we could see which areas would be flooded if the ice caps melt.

PGL Day 3 - Wednesday 16th February

Despite it being a very wet and windy day, the children have been amazing at getting stuck into their activities and challenges! Children have been covered in mud in the sensory trail and buggy building and have climbed heights in the vertical challenge and rock climbing to name just a few of the activities that have taken place today. The teachers and staff have been so impressed with the perseverance, collaboration and team work going on - they really are working together to achieve which is so brilliant to see. We can't wait for our last full day of activities tomorrow and look forward to updating you tomorrow with more photos!

PGL Day 2 - Tuesday 15th February

We have had the best first day - albeit a little wet and cold! We spent the day in our day groups, completing various challenges, including: vertical challenge, the trapeze, survivor, orienteering, crate stacking, problem solving, archery and Jacob's Ladder. The number of children who pushed themselves out of their comfort zone today has made us all really proud! We're all looking forward to going to bed tonight and enjoying a little lie in tomorrow morning, ready for more fun activities and hopefully less rain. More updates tomorrow :) 

PGL Day 1 - Monday 14th February.

Good evening everyone! We arrived safe and sound this morning, just before lunch time. We got some time to unpack and settle into our new bedrooms for the week - some have already been asking to test out the showers and get into their pyjamas! The afternoon was spent on the field (or in the barn) playing games and by dinner time everyone was hungry! Tonight's meal ended with a DELICIOUS chocolate fudge cake and ice cream (this went down really well!). We're all looking forward to waking up early tomorrow for breakfast to start our first full day of activities. Fingers crossed everyone sleeps well.  More updates tomorrow!

In geography this half term we are looking at The Poles. In order to help us explore the physical and human features of Antarctica, we used a range of maps, such as atlas, Google Earth and the VR Headsets to create our own giant map. The children found it interesting that although there is a population of 0 in Antarctica they still found an airport. We then used a coloured key to identify the ice shelves and pack ice across the continent. We had great fun working in groups to create our maps. 

To complete our English learning journey this week, year 6 wrote letters to Christian Jacobsen in the view point of Ernest Shackleton. Christian Jacobsen built the ship, Endurance, this enabled Shackleton and his crew to sail from South Georgia to Antarctica. In year 6 we wrote a letter to Jacobsen, to bring to his attention the loss of the ship. The children loved being able to publish their letters on to parchment paper. 

VR Headsets!

In order to investigate the question 'Did the government lie in the WWI propaganda posters?', Year 6 were lucky enough to be the first to use the VR headsets! We explored propaganda posters from WWI which encouraged men to enlist alongside the poem Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. We then explored the trenches in virtual reality. The children were amazed to discover the conditions and there were lots of squeals about the rats! It was fascinating to move through the trenches and into bunkers interacting with soldiers as we went. Our teachers had fun too as we looked a little bizarre walking around the classroom and waving at things which were not there!

Open Box

Here are a few snippets from our Open Box visit. We explored how the government used propaganda to encourage people to evacuate their children to the countryside during WWII. The children used role play to consider how the experiences of individual evacuees would be very different. 

Macbeth!

We have begun an exciting new reading learning journey on Macbeth. In order to understand the historical context of the play, we found out about people’s beliefs about witches in Shakespeare’s England. The children identified that Shakespeare set the play in Scotland and included some terrifying witches because James I, who was Scottish and obsessed with witches, had just become king. After we had explored the language and inferred the meaning of the witches’ chant from Act VI, we rewrote some of the lines which do not fit with our values today. Using the trochaic tetrameter pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, ensured that the new lines rhymed with its corresponding couplet. We were particularly pleased with the new line ‘Human bones from sunken ships’. Once we were happy with our chant, we dressed up and performed around the fire pit using a drum to keep the rhythm. 

RE

We used the book 'The Viewer' by Shaun Tan to explore our understanding of the mental state verb 'exist' in preparation for our learning journey on the concept of incarnation. Click the audio files to hear some of the points made during our discussion. 

Free Reading Friday

The Year 6 children and the Year 2 children loved reading together this week!

Planning Writing

Next week, we will begin writing our diary entries for our text ‘The Princess’ Blankets’. We used colour to plan the emotions we will depict in each entry.

The Heart

This week, in Science, we used resources around the classroom to create a model of a human heart. We used classroom trays for the different chambers of the heart and twisted tissue paper to represent the vessels going in and out of the heart. 

The Princess' Blankets

We have begin an exciting new writing learning journey using the book The Princess' Blankets for inspiration. To pique our interest we created creepy blankets using words and images. 

Mental Multiplication

We demonstrated incredible understanding and knowledge when we explored different methods for making mental calculations involving the multiplication of larger numbers today!

A Pinch of Magic

Today, we turned a key moment in the story into a playscript! We worked hard to interpret the text and decide what each of the characters was doing throughout the scene. Using the dialogue tags, we wrote stage directions and decided how to use intonation and expression to convey the characters' feelings. Finally, we performed our plays to the rest of the class. 

Geography

This week, in Geography, we investigated the fieldwork question 'To what extent can the human geography of a place be adapted to reduce the risks posed by the physical geography?'.

We built structures out of spaghetti and playdoh considering how we might make them as earthquake resistant as possible. It was interesting that the structures with triangular elevations were able to withstand earthquakes of higher magnitudes. We concluded that a building can be made earthquake resistant but not necessarily earthquake proof.  

A Pinch of Magic

In our whole class reading, we are currently exploring 'A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison. Today, the children worked collaboratively to explore the map at the front of the book in order to create a presentation answering the question, 'Which three places do you think will be the most significant in the story and why?'. We had already examined the prologue in depth and the children built on their knowledge of the places that they have encountered in order to make predictions. 

Free Reading Friday

Each week, on Friday mornings the whole federation celebrates our love of reading reading through Free Reading Friday. This week, Year 6 welcomed the new Year 3 to the junior school by partnering up with them and hearing them read. The children had a great time and we were so proud of how the Year 6 children supported their younger peers. So many wonderful interactions were overheard, including the older children showing the younger children how to find words in bold in the glossary and encouraging them to imagine what the events in stories would be like to experience in real life. 

Week One!

We have had such a great week. The children have been fantastic and we are so proud of how they have settled in to their new year group. In Geography, we are learning about earthquakes and volcanoes. We discovered a message in a bottle which turned out to be coordinates for a place where a natural disaster had occurred. Using Google Earth and atlases, we explored the location and then read news reports to find out more about what happened. 

In Science, we are learning about the heart and circulation this half term. To begin this learning journey, we created life-sized drawings to show where we thought the internal organs are located. The children's knowledge was excellent and they were very creative - some even added three-dimensional, lift-up ribs! We then spent time developing our knowledge further about the internal organs and different systems in the body. 

In Maths, we explored the place value of numbers up to 10,000,000 by building them with Dienes and place value counters. In order to visualise the relative size of numbers as the places increase, we represented different numbers as periods of time. We were fascinated to discover that 100,000 seconds is nearly 28 hours and 1,000,000 seconds is 11 days 1,000,000,000 seconds is 31 years!