Year 6 - Spring 1 - Week 3

Date: 21st Jan 2022 @ 4:23pm

In Writing, we have continued to read Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Selfish Giant’ as our focus text. Towards the end of the week, we discussed how Wilde writes about the weather and seasons as proper nouns and noted how he uses personification for a more powerful effect. We connected our thinking to other examples of where we have seen this in the media, including Marvel characters (e.g. Thor, Storm) and Disney Films. The children are now currently working on creating a short piece of text that personifies a season or weather type(s) of their choice. 

As mathematicians, we have continued to cover key objectives on the Y6 curriculum. Mr King’s group has been learning about ratio and proportion, while Mrs Martin’s group have worked on fractions. Next week both groups will be continuing with these topics, moving into more reasoning based / word problems.

We had a classroom full of scientists this week in our Science lesson as the children carried out and planned their own investigations linked to electric circuits. After learning how electrons flowed through the wires using the energy taken from the battery, some children investigated if the length of wires in the circuit made a difference to how the bulb lit. Other groups investigated how adding a motor to the circuit affected the bulb being lit and discussed and investigated changes they could make to ensure the bulb lit. The children worked brilliantly well together carrying out their investigations and seeing if their predictions matched their findings. 

In PE, we returned to the world of athletics, taking part in a variety of events including: chest push, javelin, speed bounce and sprints. Having practised these in Autumn term, the children were given time to refine their skills and decide on their optimum technique for achieving the best results in each event. The children are aware that there is an Athletics tournament coming up this half-term and so were able to use these lessons as an opportunity to try out for this year’s athletics team; we will be continuing with these sessions next week too and taking part in a few more athletics events before moving onto tag rugby.

To conclude our week, we had an incredible opportunity to ‘Zoom’ with Holocaust survivor, Hedi Argent. Having learned all about the treatment of the Jewish race during WW2 in our Writing and History topics last term – and with it also being Holocaust Memorial Day next week – the children were very excited about the prospect of speaking to somebody who lived during this time and they already had plenty of questions they wanted to ask before the session even started! Hedi was so fantastic in sharing her story, including how life was for her as a Jew in an Austrian school in the 1930s and how her family sought refuge in the UK after Kristallnacht. She also shared life lessons she had learned around inclusion and kindness, which still stand today. 

Children are aware of what their homework is for this week and next week’s spellings are on Google Classroom.

This month's top book picks from 'Love Reading' have also been released today. It shares exciting new story books from a variety of authors for different age ranges. 

Please ensure you have read the letter sent via School Spider regarding swimming lessons next half-term. You should have also received Zoom details for next week’s parent-teacher meetings.

Have a great weekend, everyone!