Year 6 - Autumn 1 - Week 5
Date: 7th Oct 2022 @ 10:22am
A very busy week in Year 6!
Having recovered from our residential at Robinwood, we have began our first History topic, focusing on World War 1. Before being provided with knowledge from their teacher, the children had to make inferences and predictions about The Great War based on artefacts provided and genuine newspaper articles from that period. Once we had summarised our initial thoughts, we also questioned the reliability of newspapers and considered why the sample provided to us may not show us everyone’s perception of the war (e.g. British newspapers’ reporting may differ from Germany’s relaying of information). This was also supported by National Poetry Day on Thursday, where we saw the perception of war through the eyes of a soldier when we read and performed the sarcastic lyrics of ‘Oh! What a Lovely War!’ by Courtland and Jeffries. It will be interesting to compare these words to those in Siegfried Sassoon’s poems next week.
On Friday, we were treated to a virtual workshop led by The National Holocaust Centre and Museum. Following on from our learning about World War 1 and linked to our current unit for writing (which centres around the book, ‘Star of Fear, Star of Hope’), we delved further into the story of World War 2, including how the Jewish community were treated and how this was able to happen. The children’s knowledge of WW2 was certainly developed, particularly their understanding of antisemitism and how the Jews were allowed to be treated so badly in Germany during this time. Thank you to the National Holocaust Centre for providing this opportunity for the children! We particularly enjoyed the final messages around being a courageous advocate and having the courage to stand up for others if we see an injustice or somebody / people being treated unfairly.
We have commenced Maths and Writing lessons in our groups. In Maths, both groups have been learning about place value - reading and writing numbers, ordering, rounding – and this will continue next week. Outside of these lessons, the children also took part in the Sefton Sumdog Contest, where they had one week to answer 1000 questions on the iOs app. After a closely fought battle with Year 4, as well as the four Year 6 classes in Churchtown Primary, our Year 6 pupils managed to finish in…1st place! A terrific effort for our first contest of the year and hopefully all the children can be proud of what they have achieved. We were still in 2nd place at 7pm on Thursday evening, but managed to claim the top of the leaderboard in the final hour due to the children’s work ethic at home. A special ‘well done’ to those pupils who answered the majority of their questions at home, as well as those who answered all 1000 questions in the time frame. Keep up the good work!
Mr King’ writing group has started its first unit, which, as already mentioned, centres around the book, ‘Star of Fear, Star of Hope’ by Jo Hoestlandt. In this story, which is set in France during the Nazi occupation of World War II, a child named Helen recalls the mounting persecution of her Jewish friend. This week, the children read the initial few pages, learned about Hitler and his perception of the Jewish people, and wrote some short extracts that focused on particular grammar and punctuation objectives, such as using inverted commas. Over the course of this unit, the children will be looking at how to write newspaper articles, diary entries and recounts. We can’t wait to see their final piece when they put all their skills together!
Mrs Martin’s group have began their writing journeys by making connections to their experiences at Robinwood. They have been working on sentence structure and writing in first-person narrative to create a recount piece. Once they have completed this task, they too will start on their WW2 ‘Star of Fear, Star of Hope’ unit.
As part of our PSHE curriculum, we took part in a class discussion on the impact of words on our mental health. To begin, we were introduced to two new members of class: Sarah the Apple and Bob the Apple. The children were told to be really kind to Sarah and say nice things to him but were instructed to laugh at Bob and tease him. Unfortunately, when we revealed how they looked on the inside afterwards, Bob was rotten. The children understood the important message of this initial activity: words can hurt.
Our final activity was to anonymously write down some of our insecurities. We acknowledged that sometimes we can tease our friends in a playful manner - believing that everyone is enjoying the joke - but it may be the case that what we are teasing somebody about is actually their biggest insecurity, or an insecurity of somebody else in the group, which could make them feel sad or ashamed. Therefore, it was a chance to share the comments we would not like to be brought up about ourselves at this moment in time. When we shared everyone’s responses, the class was silent. Firstly, we were surprised to see so many of the same insecurities mentioned repeatedly by different pupils. This ended up being rather reassuring to learn that we are not alone in our worries. However, we were also surprised by some of insecurities listed and pointed out a few that we would never have assumed could hurt someone’s feelings. We then agreed that we wouldn’t use any of the words / examples mentioned as we could risk hurting someone’s feelings without realising. Overall, it was a very thoughtful lesson that gave the children lots to think about. As we ran out of time, we will be continuing this session next week and unpicking some of the more common insecurities that the children expressed in more detail.
In PE, we developed our stamina and long-distance running techniques on Tuesday by taking part in a 15m ‘Beep Test’. This was a good opportunity for the children to develop strategies while also providing opportunities for discussions on mindset and setting personal challenges. It was lovely to see that many of the children said they actually enjoyed the test and would like to try and improve on their results next week! While running also forms part of our athletics unit, Tuesday’s lesson helped prepares us for the 2022 Virgin Money Giving Mini London Marathon we have entered. The children need to complete 13 laps of the school field to complete this challenge; we started our journey on Friday by completing a couple of laps with our Reception buddies!
A huge ‘congratulations’ to our UKS2 boys’ football team, who competed in the Formby Schools Tournament this week. The children were able to make it into the final – despite a penalty shootout in the semi-finals – where they finished the tournament in 2nd place. Well done! We cannot wait to see how you perform in future matches and tournaments.
Homework has been set for this week and the children are aware of what this is. Mrs Martin's homework will be completed in exercise books while Mr King's homework will be completed on SATs Companion. Please recall the SATs Companion Guide attached to an earlier blog to support parents and children at home. Weekly spellings can also be found on Google Classroom.
We hope everyone has a lovely weekend. Certificates have been sent home for Robinwood and Sumdog - please celebrate these at home!