Year 6 welcomed visitors from a local NHS Mental Health team who encouraged us to think about our emotions and personal coping strategies. Although all of the Year 6’s are showing brilliant resilience and rising to the challenges of the year, it was excellent to reflect on our ‘strategies toolkit’ for times when we feel overwhelmed, confused or nervous.
Each class had a fantastic time and came away feeling positive and well-equipped!
Block printing with string is an easy, textured printmaking technique where string is glued onto a block in a specific pattern, to act as a raised, inked surface. The string-covered block is inked with paint and stamped onto paper to create a unique design. Year 6 used their creativity and challenged themselves to incorporate some traditional Maya designs into their block to reflect the ancient civilisation’s culture.
We started by designing a range of prints that we could use and then chose a specific design. The children considered the integrity of the pattern and how difficult it might be to make.
Then, the children chose paint and complementing colours to print their block!
An excellent art project, Year 6. Well done!
Learning about the different inventions of the Ancient Maya civilisation, Year 6 created a visual map filled with lots of important information. We showed curiosity and concentration to find out information about the invention of spicy chocohlaa, their number and letter system and their famous calendar. All of this information will then be used when we begin writing a non-chronological report!
Thank you to the parents who dropped into school on Friday morning to share a reading book with our pupils. We heard some interesting conversations: children speaking about the books they love, retelling stories from picture books and some of our EAL pupils translating stories into their first language. It’s excellent to see Year 6 finding a pleasure in reading!
We look forward to hosting this event again!
Year 6 had a fantastic trip out to Great Yarmouth to visit the Time and Tide Museum. We travelled back to 1941 when Great Yarmouth was in the thick of the action as a ‘front line town’. Year 6 discovered how the war affected people on the home front and met an ARP warden, housewife, shopkeeper and Home Guard soldier. We explored how to stay safe in an air raid and took cover in a Morrison shelter. Children in the year group tried on gas masks, counted rations in the wartime shop and learned how to ‘make-do and mend’.
At school, the children finished off their Second World War unit by creating a double page spread on all of the information that they have learnt. A brilliant term of learning, completed with some excellent presentation!
Year 6 have continued their Light unit in science, learning about how shadows can change in size through changing the distance between the object ad light source. The children were independent in setting up their investigations and showed great teamwork.
Year 6 came together as a year group to learn about diversity, individuality and the impact racism can have. We discussed a range of scenarios and reflected on how this might affect how someone feels- learning how the way we communicate with each other matters. In groups, we worked to create poems on this topic using creativity and teamwork.
Exploring rationing during the war, Year 6 learned about the “Make do” attitude that everyone had to adopt when resources were limited. We look at the books that everyone, even babies, were issued with the amount of food they were allowed each week. Because some items were unable to be imported into the country, due to the Axis targeting vessels and airplanes, people started experimenting and making their own versions of their favourite foods. One of these was “Sweet Potato Mash” which replaced chocolate spread.
We had a fun afternoon recreating this interesting topping; only a few in each class enjoyed it!
We had the privilege of joining an online conference with the London Mathematics Society to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the first Black person in the world to get a PhD in mathematics. Dr Elbert Cox, an African-American, received his PhD on the 26th September 1925 from Cornell University. We were joined by Dr Cox’s grandson who shared his grandfather’s story and his own journey to working as a NASA scientist. We looked at the concept of binary numbers and played an exciting game to show the unpredictability of using zeros and ones!
Year 6 have worked hard to write descriptively about the final scene of Rose Blanche. Using a range of figurative language features, Year 6 focused on creating a strong picture in the reader’s mind and provoke strong emotions.
