Year 6 - Spring 1 - Week 1

Date: 5th Jan 2023 @ 9:02pm

Happy New Year, everyone!

Although only a short school week, we still managed to pack in a lot of learning and opportunities for discussion.

Once we had completed our 4-a-day Maths calculations and shared our holiday news, we began the new term by discussing our goals for the new year. We reflected on how we only have two terms left at Trinity St. Peter’s and how – as a class – we should strive to make these memorable and fun for all. We highlighted the word ‘legacy’ and how we should all aim to leave with a positive legacy whereby we can move to secondary school with all our peers remembering us being kind and caring. We watched the BBC firework display from New Year’s Eve and listened closely to the words said during the tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. We discussed how it is important to try hard in lessons and do well academically, but it is perhaps even more important to be respectful and to have an understanding of everyone’s differences. We were given time to reflect as we watched the result of the firework display and then asked to come up with our targets for this term: at least one academic target to achieve in lessons and one personal target linked to self-development.  We hope all the children are able to achieve their goals over the upcoming months.

Before commencing any new work, we had the opportunity to consolidate our learning from last term. The children were excited to participate in a 40+ question Blooket game, testing their knowledge and memory of several topics in History, Science, PSHE and Computing. After the initial game, we then went through the answers as a class and reminded ourselves of additional facts linked to some of the questions. To conclude, we then took part in another Blooket game using the same questions – thus giving ourselves an opportunity for overlearning.

This week, we commenced our new Geography topic, ‘How do we compare with Africa?’ Initially, we learned about Africa as a whole continent, which included following directions to locate all 54 countries on a map. We learned how diverse Africa is and how it can also be divided into five regions, which we were given time to research. We then started to focus on one particular country: Uganda. The children could recall our link to this country – and the town, Kalule, in particular – with the project set up by St. Peter’s Church and local community. As part of our initial investigation into what Kalule is like, we used pictures taken by Rev. Anne, Mrs Grayson and other TSP teachers on their visits to see what we could deduce about aspects such as climate, wealth, culture and landscape. Over the coming weeks, we will be focusing on the physical and human geographical features of Uganda and Kalule and comparing them with England and Formby.

On Friday we began our new Science topic, 'Electrifying' and what a great start it was too! The children recapped on their previous learning of this topic before starting to complete challenges linked to making different circuits. The children made predictions as to what would happen when more bulbs were added to a circuit and how they could increase the speed of the motor. They then learnt the symbols for the different components enabling them to draw their own. The children then took on the job of 'electrican repairs' as they worked out which circuits would have bulbs that would and wouldn't light. The children were so impressive with their learning; their knowledge and their eagerness!

A particular highlight for the children was the brief return of a former pupil, who moved to Australia when the children were in Year 2. It was lovely to see her again after all this time; a class photo can be seen on our Twitter page. 

Maths and SPaG / Reading homework will recommence next week. Spellings for next Thursday have been set on Google Classroom.

Have a great weekend, everyone!