Autumn Term 2nd Half

We've had another exciting half term in Year 6 and the children have continued to work extremely hard.

At the beginning of November, we were lucky enough to be able to visit Eden Camp, a World War Two war museum in North Yorkshire, that used to be a prisoner of war camp. The children thoroughly enjoyed examining artefacts from the war and feeling as though they had been transported back in time to WW2!

During our topic learning, we have continued to investigate the impact that World War Two had on our local area. The children enjoyed researching about The Blitz in Sheffield and wrote dramatic newspaper reports to recount the events of that fateful night. We have now finished reading 'Letters From the Lighthouse.' The children engaged well with the story and used amazing inference and prediction skills through our reading sessions. Ask them to tell you what the story was about!

In maths, we have continued to secure our understanding of the four operations for calculations. The children can now confidently use long division and multiplication to solve complex calculations and can apply these skills to problem solving. We have also been looking at calculating areas and perimeters of different shapes. Every week, we continue to practise our arithmetic skills by completing and discussing an arithmetic paper and children are improving their scores week-by-week.

In art, we have been practising our watercolour skills to produce some excellent wreath artwork for our Christmas cards. The children experimented with colour mixing to create shades of green for the greenery and developed brushstroke techniques to show the texture of the foliage. We have also been studying Japanese Notan art for our calendars, looking at the shapes and images that can be created just by using a 15cm square piece of black paper and an A4 piece of cartridge paper. The results were amazing!

We have now completed our ukulele course with Rotherham Music Service. The children have become competent in reading musical notation to perform songs and enjoyed creating final performance videos of songs they have learnt recently.

Recently, the children have started their swimming lessons at Rotherham Leisure Centre and have impressed us so far with their resilience and maturity during these sessions. We will continue with these sessions in the spring term and look forward to seeing them develop further into competent swimmers.

At the start of December, we began our homework programme with all the children and we are pleased with the effort that they are putting into the tasks set at home each week. We will continue to do 'Homework Help' sessions every Tuesday lunchtime for anyone who is finding the learning a bit tricky.

Autumn Term 1st Half

What a great start we have made in Year 6 and we are looking forward to a more settled year. We launched our new topic, World War Two, with an investigation day. Using a variety of primary sources, we found out how war affected the lives of people in Britain. We then worked hard to produce some superb non-chronological reports about important areas of the war such as evacuation, rationing and air raids and blackouts.  Alongside non-fiction, we wrote first person diaries, letters and descriptions from different points of view. We impressed our teachers with use of empathy and emotion in our writing.

For us to gain an understanding of the sacrifices made during World War Two, our house point challenge was to measure and weigh food items that were rationed during the war. We were astonished to learn that weekly rations of cheese, butter, lard, bacon, tea and sweets were extremely small and it made us realise how lucky we are today. The winning team members earned a weekly ration of sweets (which was not very many!)

Through history lessons, we have gained a deeper understanding of the reasons why and how the war began and identified the countries involved in the conflict on a world map.

We have been thoroughly enjoying our class text, Letters from the Lighthouse, which is the story of an evacuee who becomes involved in a mysterious but daring mission.  We cannot wait to find out how the story ends!

As a school, we are using the Power Maths scheme. Our first unit, Place Value, has helped us to become more confident using numbers to 10 million and recognising the place value of each digit. We have spent time applying our knowledge to a range of different word problems.  Our current unit involves consolidating our understanding of the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and applying this knowledge to solve a variety of word problems.

In October, we were invited to visit the Lifewise Centre, Hellaby, where we were presented with different real life scenarios from road safety to fire safety. We even learned how to cope in some medical emergencies.

We have continued to learn the ukulele with specialist music teachers from Rotherham Music Service.  Since September, we have mastered a number of new chords and are perfecting new, exciting songs.

We are extremely fortunate to have Miss Priestly, from Wingfield Academy, who is delivering high quality dance and drama lessons. It has been lovely to watch our self-confidence grow throughout the weeks.

In PE, we have been following the imoves scheme where we have completed a number of active challenges to aid team building, independent thinking and problem solving. To aid relaxation and promote wellbeing, we have enjoyed yoga lessons.