2023-24

Computing 

In Computing, we have been exploring how to program Micro:bits - small computers with LED displays, buttons and accelerometers. The classes have built on their previous knowledge of looping and conditional selection to program the Micro:bits buttons to display messages and symbols. 

Science

We have been exploring animals’ natural adaptations to their environments. To examine how blubber protects animals in polar regions, we had a go at covering our hands in different materials, observing how they protect against the chill of ice water.

PE

Today, pro strike came into school with their inflatable goal. Each child has the opportunity to kick the ball into the goal to gain a speed score. Well done to Caleb and Caspian who were the Y6 winners. Thank you to everyone who has raised money for this event. 

Art

Tjis week, we have finished our self portrait Art project. The children worked really hard to crate a piece inspired by our focus artist. Some children went to the next step and photographed their pieces. They used photo editors to create visual effects on their pieces. 

English Partner Editing 

King class spent some time reading through each other's balanced reports, making fixes with their purple pen. Reading their pieces out-loud helped everyone improve their language. All children worked hard to include professional vocabulary, the passive voice and generalised, objective language.

History

The case of Henry Kable and Susannah Holmes, convicted in Thetford for crimes centuries ago.
 

Over the last couple of weeks, the children have been learning about the above case for our history heritage project. The children learnt of these two people, who were convicted in Thetford in the 18th century. The were convicted under ‘The Bloody Code’ which sentenced them to be hung, yet we are learning about how they fell in love, had a baby, were sent to Australia and become celebrities in their own right. Here is some of the work that we have produced. 

Art

In Y6 this week, we have started our new art project based around self portraits. The children initially had a go at drawing individual facial elements before learning about proportion, in order to create a full facial drawing. This took much perseverance. Next week, we are going to be using biros , ink and collage resources to create a final piece. 

English

In world book week, we studied the author of our class text: Abi Elphinstone. The children looked at a range of her books, including a new text, which is going to be released in May. The children read through her Q and A session finding out that she loved to go on an adventure, she is dyslexic and she loves weetabix for breakfast. Here is some of the children’s work.   

Science

This week, we have celebrated British Science Week, where all of the children have attended workshops with children from Y1 to Y6. Some of the activities on offer were building lava lamp, helicopter and paper plane experiments and building spaghetti towers. All of the children really enjoyed the day.

Parent Cafe

Today, Year 6 held a parent cafe to explore our revised online safety rules. The children and parents were thinking ‘smart’ when it came to online safety, while exploring emails that are phishing for information. The children explored the given material for clues to determine what is safe and what is not, when it comes to using emails, to ensure they keep safe online. Well led Mr Fox and thank you to all of the parents that attended. 

World Book Day

Wow! Some amazing costumes of showcase this year. We hope the children enjoyed a jam packed day of learning alongside setting some time aside to read and explore our author focus for this term. Here are few snaps of the day. 

Local Wildlife

In school this week, Sara Star found an injured hedgehog on school grounds. She then took this hedgehog to hedgehospital in Brandon. play council, with Sara’s help, have decided to put some food and water out for the hedgehogs near our wildlife area. 

Computing

In computing, this half term, we are learning about spreadsheets. In Kahlo this week, the children had an introduction to spreadsheets and started to create their own tables to represent data created by rolling dice. The children then edited a template to look at costings to get from home to school. We looked at formatting cells to show particular data types e.g. plain text, dates, currency and duration. Some children started to create graphs using this data. 

Lyfta Lesson (Geography)

In class today, we travelled across the world to explore a desert in northern China. We learnt about a sustainability project that has been started there, where 1 billions trees are being planted in the desert to reduce the rate of desertification. We travelled through the story world, explored a 3D video of the tree planting process and read through an information sheet on how people, animals and plants survive in the desert. In theme books, children have started to compare life in the desert to life in polar regions. 

English

In English today, we had a drama lesson around our new model text: Should Gold E. Locks be reprimanded for breaking into the cottage (a newspaper article). The children took on various roles and reported the events factually and formally, creating speech, thinking carefully about characters voice. Here are a few action shots from the session. 

PE

In the last half term, Y6 were able to develop their volleyball skills to play competitive matches in the final week. The children worked in small teams against each team in a carousel through the session. The children had practiced serving and reviving the ball, using both hands to put the ball back over the net onto their opponents side. Here are a few action shots from their much enjoyed session. 

English: King Class Debates

Today, King Class debated whether teachers or the Internet are better at supporting learning. Once in groups, the children came up with supportive arguments, feeding them to a selected a spokesperson. Opening statements came from each spokesperson before the floor was opened up for debate. Children then wrote a balanced report from the perspective of a journalist overseeing the proceedings.

Ayva, who aspires to be a lawyer, won the case!

Kahlo Class Assembly

This week, Kahlo class produced a class assembly to share with parents, siblings, Y3 and Y4. The children wrote the majority of the script and shared a range of things that we have been learning about. Some children spoke about their future aspirations and routes into their chosen field, some children spoke about their work on polar animals, some shared work on variables in computing and others shared weird and wonderful animals from their work in science. Well done to all of the children. 

D&T

There has been fierce completion in Y6 this week, as each class have commenced in our bridge building contest. The children were given the brief:

- Your bridge must be at least 80cm long

- Use only 50 straws

- Use only 5m of tape

- Use only 15 sheets of paper
 

The children initially designed their bridge in groups on paper, before deciding upon a final design to build. Each bridge was completely unique. The winning bridge was able to hold 900g of weight during the ‘bridge off’ competition. 

Geography 

In Geography this week, the children have been investigating how polar animals have adapted to living in polar conditions. The children were given the brief, in terms of information wanted, but were given autonomy over how that was produced. Some children worked by themselves and others worked in pairs. Here are a few examples of some finished pieces. 

Maths

In Kahlo class, we have been struggling with fractions, so this week we went back to basics using fraction walls to help us. The children found equivalent fractions and used this knowledge to apply it to questions that do not have common denominators. 

RE

Here is a few examples of some beautiful work created in RE this week. The children have been investigating the teachings from the 8 fold path in Buddhism. The children were very reflective in their discussions

RSE

In RSE today, we explored a range of identities and relationships. We defined new terminology, completed a short classroom scavenger quiz and comprised a phone text message conservation that the children may encounter in their lives. 

English

In English today, we used drama to help us recall our model text ‘Kidnapped’. The children created freeze frames for each paragraph, focusing on the key details from the text and how the characters are portrayed 

D&T (Structures)

Bridges are key engineering structures in our world, and in Y6 we have started to explore why. The children have researched bridge types, looked at specific bridges across the world and have started a paper bridge science/D&T investigation. Here is how the children have got on so far. 

English 

Hook Lesson

In English, over the next half term, we are going to be focusing on writing a flashback narrative. This is where clues from the climax are initially introduced at the start of the story, before going back in time to build back up towards this point, before finally concluding how the story will end. The children were made aware that a crime had happened over the Christmas holiday, where all of the technology had been taken. The children had to read the given news reports and find clues on what had happened. The children recorded the given clues on the flip chart, and then had to story map the known elements and the details of the crime before and after it had happened. 

RE

Linking to our work on aspiration, we have been looking at Buddhism and 4 spiritual teachings of the Buddha. We studied a story of the Buddha through childhood into adulthood and the choices he made about his life. He initially lead a life of luxury, and then chose to live in the poorest conditions. He wanted to overcome adversity to live a lifestyle that he chose. 

Values day

this half term, we are focusing on our school value ‘Aspiration’. We started by looking at our own class names and how they have shown aspiration before being aspirational for ourselves. We started to look at future roles and careers and the process of getting there. We spoke about qualifications and choices of paths into their chosen field. The children looked at varying roles in sports, science and STEM to name a few. Here is a few examples of some children’s work. 

- - - SPRING TERM - - - 

History End of Unit Assessment

Some great final pieces of work to end our History unit on WW2. Some great knowledge shown and great layouts to create a beautiful double page spread

Christmas tree decoration competition

There was fierce competition in school over the last couple of weeks, regarding the Christmas tree decorations. Mrs Mulford and Santa came to judge everyone’s Christmas tree decorations across school, with a set list of criteria, to determine a winner. This years winners were KAHLO CLASS. Yay, well done everyone! 3 marbles into the jar for our class! 

Homework

To summarise our work on WW2 this term, the children used the theme of ‘make do and mend’ to inspire their homework this week. The children had many creative options to choose from, incorporating the idea of using something old or broken, and turning it into something new and usable. Here are a couple of photos of air raid shelters that the children made, alongside aboard game and puppets by another student 

Art

Our 3D sculptures have come to life. A beautiful lighthouse stood on a cliff edge, next to a small building, collaged beautifully to show a range of tones. The outcome of these look great! Making stands proved difficult, but one child’s idea of a ‘picture frame’ type stand supported the outcome of all. 

History

In History this week, we have been exploring how the role of men and women differed during the war effort. We also looked at Anne Frank and how she became famous for the diaries she wrote

Art

This half term, Y6 have been working on creating 3D sculptures from 2D drawings. The children studied an artist named ‘Lahaina Himid’ to explore her life sized exhibition, expressing her culture, sense of belonging and her younger life. We looked into her 3D sculptures and how effective these were. The children then applied this learning to our English key text (Letters From the Lighthouse), and have drawn small scale lighthouses that have been enlarged and will be supported by a frame to stand upright. Here is the first stage of the process: artist study, sketching, enlarging and collaging. 

RE

This week, in RE we have been looking at Humanism and what humanists believe. We have also looked into the tragedy of the Uyghurs Muslims to understand how their beliefs affect their lives. The children had so many brilliant questions through this session including questions about the re-education camps and human rights 

Design and Technology

This year, for decoration day, the Y6 children put their sewing skills into action to design, decorate and sew a small Christmas tree. Each finished by stuffing their tree with fiberfill, closing their tree with a whip stitch and then adding a bell as a star on the top. Each child hung their tree on our class Christmas tree. We think the finished result look great!

Music

This afternoon, Y6 have had a run through of their musical Christmas performance, ready to perform to parents next week. The children were able to showcase their work, within their instrument, and really demonstrated their dedication to new and ongoing instruments. We had a range of performances from clarinet, trumpet and violins to ukuleles, steel pans and some samba drumming. 

Science

Here are some examples of some independent science work, competed this morning. The children completed all of the investigation independently, and have produced some great work. Next week, we will work on the reasoning ‘why’ to answer how the bulbs got dimmer, through learning about resistance. 

Science

In our science unit on electricity, the children have been completing their independent fair test experiments to look at the impact on changing components in a circuit. The children have explored changing the number of bulbs and increasing the number of wires, and it’s impact on bulb brightness. 

English

We are coming to the end of of our persuasive letter writing in English and, as a class, we have been writing letters based upon our class text ‘Letters From the Lighthouse’. The children have then applied this learning into their hot writes over the last two days, writing independently on a letter of their choice. The extra challenge this week was to write a second letter from a different viewpoint.

Christmas Lantern Making

In school this week, every child has made a lantern to take to the Christmas light switch on in town. The children had to build pyramid structures, cover them in tissue paper, add blue waves to represent the ocean, before finally adding a light and attaching them onto a willow cane to carry. The children were so great at making these that some of the Y6 children happily went across school to help the younger students make their lanterns too.

Children in need

A day full of challenges, in aid of rasing money for children in need

Science: Bioblitz project

This week, King and Kahlo class started gathering data for our who school Bioblitz project. The children attempted to record any plants, animal or fungi that are growing within our designated area; the large playing field. We then came back into class to record our data on Google sheets, creating graphs to show our findings.

Year 6 Maths Cafe

This week, in the Y6 parent cafe, the children and parents were asked to work through a SATs arithmetic and reasoning paper. It’s fair to say that the parents found this a little daunting but the children soon surprised them with all of their maths knowledge. Thank you to everyone who came and we hope this has been a good insight into the papers, that the children will be sitting in May.

Maths: Table-based addition

To start our unit on addition and subtraction, we reviewed exchanging and regrouping methods using our tables and Base 10 equipment. We then worked to transition from this to pictorial methods on whiteboards to fully-abstracted representations.

Learning the bass guitar

One of our music groups has taken up Mr Fox's favourite instrument: the bass guitar. In this first session, the children explored the different parts of a bass - neck, pickups, bridge, tone/volume control - and began to develop a two-finger playing technique. We also had a go at boosting our sound through an electric bass amplifier. 

English

Should Mr Wolf become a vegetarian?
 

In English this week, the children have been exploring their new model text, which is a letter debating ‘Should Mr Wolf become a vegetarian?’. The children have been acting out some parts of their new text, creating freeze frames and thinking about what would happen after Mr Wolf receives this letter by creating some short scenes to act out.

We quit…

English hook lesson

Disaster struck in Y6 this week as the chairs decided to quit. The chairs ‘wrote’ letters to the children outlining their mistreatment and hurt. The children had to write letters persuading the chairs to come back. Their letters apologised to the chairs and spoke of how they can make it up to them. My personal favourite was ‘When we change talk partners each week, I will ensure to take my chair with me so you don’t get a new owner each week’.

Kahlo English Write up

Here are a few examples of some beautiful work presented by some pupils in Kahlo class

Christmas Cards

We have been using our transferable sewing skills to design and create Christmas cards this week. The children painted a background, two curved baubles using tones and then used thread to sew over them, embellishing each bauble well. Millie’s final piece is in the images below.

Make, Do and Mend

Over the last couple of week, Kahlo class have been completing to a ‘make do and mend’ themed D&T task. The children had to used old clothing, or spare pieces of fabric, and create something new. Each child made a bookmark. The children planned their design, before creating and finally reviewing their finished product. The children showed great resilience through their project as many had difficulties with tying knots or getting in a tangle. 

Science

This half term, we have been exploring light in science. In Year 6, children have started to develop their own independent enquiries to their hypotheses. The children completed 3 mini experiments in this session, exploring how shadows can be affected. 

Mental Health

Today, Y6 were visited by the mental health support team. The children completed a number of activities around their own mental health and well-being and collectively discussed strategies to support their own mental health, when feeling a particular way. Each child came home with an emotions box to decorate and use if they wish. 

Outdoor play

Yay! The cringlecrag is open for the children to use. The Y6 children loved playing on the new outdoor equipment and they enjoyed the new challenges they faced, climbing up to the top. Thank you to all of the children who helped to move the sand.  

On our WW2 day, one student stopped off at the railway station on the way to school. Really effective photos which look like they are from the times. He even had a WW2 inspired lunch!

History: WW2 experience day

The children learnt so much from our visitor about WW2. Many children chose to dress up on this day. The children enjoyed looking at the many artefacts he brought with him, especially when they were able to hold a real gun from WW2