Spring 1
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm…”
Can you guess who said this?
This is a quote taken from a speech by Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the UK from 1940 to 1945, who led Britain to victory in the Second World War. Our Year 6 students will confidently tell you all about him, plus much more about the war, including the causes and effects. Children have had time to independently explore the events of WW2 using: fiction and non-fiction books, videos, the internet and artefacts. They are well on their way to becoming real experts on specific areas of the war, which they will select themselves. These areas may include planes, women, evacuation or rationing. We are all very excited to continue this in Spring 2.
Furthermore, we have incorporated project into our English lessons by reading ‘Friend or Foe’, by Michael Morpurgo. The children have produced a selection of high-quality writing, including a letter and additional scene using the book as their inspiration. Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed their PE lessons where they have welcomed their new Coach. Their football skills have improved through various drills where they have practised passing, dribbling and shooting. In maths, the children are beginning to master their arithmetic learning and have improved drastically since the start of the year. This is something we are very proud of and hope to continue to do across the curriculum. Using Churchill as a role model, we are learning from all of our mistakes in order to reach our full potentials.
Autumn 2
"Shackleton faced a difficult choice- either abandon the expedition or take his chances on the Weddell Sea. Shackleton, the fighter, decided to tackle the Weddell."
Throughout this term, Year 6 have followed in their hero's footsteps by continuously taking on risks and challenges within their learning. It is safe to say, they have been totally immersed within their project (We ARE Antarctic Explorers) and have dived in to many different aspects of the vast, icy continent. A handful of high quality outcomes have been produced during English lessons based on Sir Ernest Shackleton's explorations and we couldn't be more proud of how hard the children have worked. Project has had a huge science focus, where the children have explored the evolution of animals using fossils as a line of enquiry. We were lucky enough to have two amazing experts who came and shared their personal experiences of Antarctica and ice climbing. Furthermore, we also had the pleasure of collaborating with children from a school in China! They came to our school to find out more about English culture and traditions, however this gave our children an excellent opportunity to learn about the Chinese way of life culminating in a huge celebration from KS2.
Autumn 1
Wow!! What a fantastic start to Year 6! The children have settled in beautifully and are showing more and more independence, resilience and determination each day.
We kicked the year off with our project ‘We Are Illustrators’. This involved practising, editing and redrafting pieces of art work relying only on a pencil. Smudging and cross hatching were just two of the techniques we became experts on. The project was closely linked to the intriguing book we have studied in our English lessons, once again using our drafting and redrafting to not only write amazing diary entries, but descriptions AND poems too!
Maths lessons have also been particularly successful, focused mainly on number and place value. In addition, the children have enjoyed the first half term of finance Fridays, thinking about the difference between our ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ and using this to budget.
About half of the year group have also taken the opportunity to go on our Year 6 residential. Have a look at our blog and pictures to see what we've been up to.