Year 6 - Purple Class and Turquoise Class
Autumn term 2024/25
Our new Year 6 children have settled brilliantly into their learning and are enjoying getting to know their buddies in Reception class. They have stepped up to take on the additional responsibilities in Year 6, such as being library monitors and setting up the benches for assembly.
They will also soon be voting for who they want to represent their class as a school councillor, a food ambassador, a wellbeing ambassador, an eco warrior and a sports leader.
Take a look at all of the exciting learning that took place in Year 6 in 2023/24!
Residential 2024!
The children made so many amazing memories on their residential! From canoeing to orienteering, rock climbing to the terrifying "leap of faith", they pushed themselves outside of their comfort zones and learned how amazing it feels to face their fears!
They developed their teamwork, communication and organisational skills to prepare them for their next stage at secondary school! Their behaviour was impeccable and there were lots of incredible memories made!
Fantastic effort team 2024! We will miss you!
Summer 1
This half term has flown by in Year 6!
In English, the children have been writing persuasive letters about plastic in our oceans; a subject that many of the children are passionate about. Judging by their writing, I think many could be the next Greta Thunberg! Their knowledge and use of persuasive devices such as rhetorical questions, effective repetition, use of statistics and quotes from well-respected experts was fantastic and made their work very engaging!
The children have worked extremely hard in the build-up to the SATS and took part in lots of different activities to help them prepare. The highlight for many was planning and delivering maths reasoning lessons to Year 5 children and solving maths and grammar problems dotted around the school grounds during our orienteering sessions.
When the time came, we were all incredibly proud of the children's mature attitude and positivity during test week. They had a feast every morning (thanks to our star chef, Mrs Miliopoulos) and were energised and focused after a daily active burst led by Mrs Wharton and Miss Adair!
As a reward for all of their hard work during SATs week, both classes were awarded their leavers' hoodies and spent an afternoon with their buddies in Red and Orange classes which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.
In the final week of the term some of the children in Year 6 got to take part in a triathlon. They swam, cycled and ran their hearts out! Well done to all those who took part and represented our school so brilliantly.
Spring 2
This half term our theme was 'Evolution and Revolution'. In our history lessons we learnt about the effect the industrial revolution had on Britain. We studied the role that new technology played in shaping the country as a whole but also got to explore how our local area changed when we visited Armley Mills in Leeds. During the trip, the children stepped back in time and became mill workers for the day which included learning about how tough the working day was. Both classes also got to experience a real Victorian school lesson complete with a very strict teacher who was not afraid to punish those who stepped out of line!
In our science work we studied how plants and animals evolve over time to better suit their environment which included a task using the school's brand new orienteering course where the children were asked to match creatures to their adaptations which were cunningly hidden around the grounds. The children really enjoyed sharing their experience of this topic when their parents came in as part of our 'fantastic finish' at the end of science week.
The children also combined their science and English work when writing a biography of the famous naturalist Charles Darwin who was famed for his role in proving evolutionary theory. In our second piece of writing, we stayed in the time period of the industrial revolution and created setting descriptions using the novel Oliver Twist. First, we analysed a scene from the original Dickensian text and then wrote our own version of the famous dining hall scene through the eyes of Oliver himself.
Spring 1
This term Year 6 got to grips with their cookery challenge in DT called 'Come Dine with Me'. Different groups had to research, plan and prepare either a starter, main or dessert ready for judging at the end of the day. The children worked really hard and produced some excellent dishes using a wide range of skills and techniques. Feel free to have a look through the photos below to see what the children managed to create.
In their history work, the children set out to answer the question: who was the most blood thirsty Tudor monarch? Using a range of different sources, children compiled evidence for each monarch which helped them reach their final conclusion of who they believed was the most barbaric king or queen. The children also used this historical knowledge in their English lessons as they completed a Tudor style portal story which saw their character sent back to the court of Elizabeth I in 1588.
Autumn 2
This half term saw Year 6 tackle our Geography topic called 'Our restless Earth' which took an in depth look into the world of tectonic plates and volcanoes. The children really enjoyed keeping an eye on all of the developments in Iceland as the volcanic activity progressed through the term.
The children also loved getting stuck into this term's class novel 'Holes' by Louis Sachar and spent time creating newspaper reports detailing the arrest and sentencing of the book's main character - Stanley Yelnats.
The children had a special treat this term as local author Tom Palmer dropped by to share some top tips on how to really get stuck in to reading and writing. Tom spoke about how his love of sport got him into writing and so finished off his talk with a penalty shoot-out!
Another highlight was dissecting hearts as part of our science topic: the circulatory system, have a look at the photos if you dare!
We then finished the term in festive style with our Year 5 and 6 Christmas concert at St Oswald's Church.
Autumn 1
What an incredibly busy and eventful start to the year in Year 6!
In the first Autumn term our topic was World War II. In English we used our class novel 'Code cracking for beginners' as our inspiration when writing a story set in the London blitz. Following on from that, we tried to imagine what it was like to be an evacuee and created our own diary entries describing being sent far away from home to a strange new home in the countryside.
As well as Art week (see the blog post below), the children also spent time with their buddies in Reception class and performed for them in our Harvest celebration assembly.
In our history lessons we had a more in depth look at the causes of the Second World War and then moved on to looking at what life was like on the home front. Our 'fantastic finish' gave the children a chance to become evacuees as we held a World War II activity day in school. The children and staff came to school in period costume and instead of learning maths and English had lessons in code breaking, ration book cooking, 1940s music and blitz first aid instead.
Art week 2023
Year 6 studied the work of architect Edwin Lutyens, who is famous for building war memorials. The children used oil pastels and charcoal to create effective silhouette artwork of his memorials. They also used wax to create Henry Moore-style pictures of the London air raid shelters, and collage to create striking pictures of the Blitz. As homework, they also created stunning models of air raid shelters including some made out of cake, which were absolutely delicious!