Spring Term 1st Half

In Year 6, we have worked extremely hard throughout the spring term and have had a wonderful half term learning all about the Titanic.

Through our Talk for Writing in English, we have been enjoying a new narrative text, ‘Kissing the Railings’ and innovating the text to create our own short story.  It has been a great opportunity to examine and develop characters through appropriate word choices and stage directions. One of our main objectives was to accurately punctuate dialogue and use dialogue effectively to advance the story, which we have worked hard to achieve. To enhance our writing, we completed many interesting short burst writing tasks with the focus on vocabulary. Through learning games, we have improved and developed our language choices and become more creative writers. We have shared ideas through discussion and partner talk to embed and improve our ideas.

Through GPS, we have continued to develop the children’s understanding of tense and complex sentences and this is now transferring to our independent writing.

During whole class reading, we have been introduced to many story extracts which we have enjoyed and examined through comprehension style questions.  Our favourite text, A Place Called Perfect, was chosen through a class vote to become our next whole class story. We are quickly learning that Perfect is complex, unusual and dark… and far from being perfect!

Through our learning in Power Maths, we have built our confidence in using fractions. We are able to apply the four rules of number (add, subtract, multiply and divide) to solve more complex calculations along with solving trickier reasoning problems.  Alongside Power Maths, we have been revising previous learning in preparation for our SATs tests.  Our arithmetic scores are improving week on week which reflects our hard work.

Our main focus in History has been the Titanic. We have enjoyed gathering information about one of the greatest maritime disasters of all time in order to reach our own conclusions. Through analysing and examining evidence (both primary and secondary evidence), we have concluded that there were many factors that contributed to the sinking of the Titanic. We have also examined the social implications of the building the ship. It was interesting learn that social class had a massive impact on a passenger’s chance of survival. We drew the conclusion that if you were a man, of working class status aboard the Titanic, you would be highly unlikely to survive. Mr Pashley, who has a keen interest in history, delivered an interesting talk about the Titanic and what it means to his family. He set us the challenge of producing some wonderful home learning connected to the Titanic.

In science, it has been fascinating learning about evolution and inheritance. We have learnt about how things have changed over time and used the example of fossils to explain changes over time. Relating inheritance to our families has been interesting as we have been able to examine characteristics that have been passed down through the generations, and even some characteristics that have not.

In music, we have been using the theme ‘happy’ to appraise a range of different songs from a variety of musical genres. Our particular favourite was Happy by Pharell Williams. We used games to build our understanding of pulse, rhythm and pitch as well as learning each song.

Due to our children missing the swimming lessons in Year 4 because of lockdown, we have been lucky to have the opportunity to swim on a Thursday afternoon. We have had the opportunity to develop these important life skills and build our confidence.  It was not only fun swimming in pyjamas but also a valuable life lesson. As part of our gymnastic unit, we have thoroughly enjoyed working on the apparatus and the floor to develop gymnastic sequences which demonstrate our improved confidence.

In art, we have developed our understanding of perspective. We began using a single focal point and horizon and developed use of colour, shade and tone.