Year 6 – 10/11/17

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Since half term in Year 6:

  • Writing inspired by the outdoors

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  • A trip to the Wyllyotts to see Hamlet

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  • Working on balances in PE

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  • The Fairtrade Group packing up the Harvest Festival donations to be delivered to the SVP Society

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  • Starting our new Science topic about the human body

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  • Doing Fitter Futures with their Reception partners

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This week, we also had our class Mass. You were a credit to yourselves and to the school in the way you participated so beautifully. I was an extremely proud teacher. Thank you to all the parents who attended the celebration; it was a fantastic turnout.

Home learning for this week – click here.

Enjoy the weekend.

Miss Donatantonio

Year 6 – One World Week 2017

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What a week we’ve had! Year 6 celebrated One World Week by focusing on a particular country – in our case, Poland.

The week kicked off with a geography quiz on Poland, which put Y6’s atlas skills to the test. We learnt that a total of 7 countries border Poland and that it has a coastline on the Baltic Sea.

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Our Polish history learning took us to Auschwitz and the culmination of anti-Semitism in WW2. The children wrote poems to reflect on the atrocities of the Holocaust, and I have to say that I was blown away with the quality of writing from the class.IMG_0176 IMG_0177IMG_0178 IMG_0179 IMG_0180

Following on from this, we learnt about the life and sacrifice of St Maximilian Kolbe in RE. Kolbe was a Polish priest imprisoned in Auschwitz for trying to help the Jews during the war. He volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the death camp, because the stranger had a family. We looked at the Beatitudes that Kolbe lived out through his sacrifice.

With the help of Gloria’s mum and Mrs McDonald, the children all had a go at making Pierogi (Polish dumplings). We filled ours with strawberry jam, but the variations are endless, both sweet and savoury.

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In Art, we used the Polish paper-cutting technique called Wycinanki. Using symmetry, the children cut intricate designs based around nature – particularly trees and roosters, as is traditional. They really took their time to make some fabulous designs.

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We also learnt a Polish song about passing bananas on a ship, which became a real tongue twister as the tempo got faster and faster!

Well done for the wonderful research on Poland that you brought in for your Home Learning this week. You put a lot of effort into those, and it looks like you all learnt a lot through doing it; there are certainly a lot of facts that you’ve taught me! Thank you to Gloria for showing and telling the class about traditional Polish clothes – the embroidery was amazing!

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Finally, we were treated on Friday afternoon to an exciting workshop with the Young Shakespeare Company. The children acted out Hamlet whilst predicting what would happen next. We definitely have some budding actors among us, and we are all really looking forward to going to the Wyllyotts after half term to see the play being acted out by professionals!

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Thank you to all the parents that came along to our Celebration Morning to have a look at the children’s learning from this week and the rest of the half-term. I am so proud of how hard the class have worked over the past seven weeks. Well done for putting so much effort into your learning; you deserve a nice break! Have a great half-term everyone, and I’ll see you all nice and refreshed on Monday 30th.

Miss Donatantonio

Half-term Home Learning letter

 

Year 6 – 13/10/17

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In Maths this week, the children have been using the skill of multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 to solve problems and investigations.

In English, they have drafted a short story based on the poignant film, The Piano. These will be edited next week and added to their writing portfolios.

Our Science learning took us into the playground this week to make a giant human electrical circuit. Using our bodies as conductors and an energy tube that flashes when the circuit is complete, we investigated which materials were conductors or insulators of electricity. We were all intrigued to find that a leaf is a conductor because of the moisture in it, as well as a lemon and a potato! If you come across any objects over the weekend and you’re curious to know if it conducts electricity or not, bring it in on Monday and we’ll put it to the test!

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Our circuit training module in PE came to a close this week with a cardio blast. Well done for pushing yourselves until the end!

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In art, we experimented with a wax-resist technique by using white crayons and black water colours.

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Next week is One World Week, during which we will be learning all about Poland (correction from original letter). For Home Learning this week, all children in the school are asked to carry out a research project on their class’ country and present it how they wish. For more information and ideas, the letter is here.

The week will culminate with Friday’s Celebration Morning, when you have the opportunity to see the children’s projects and everything that they have been learning about and creating related to Poland! I hope to see lots of you then.

Miss Donatantonio

Year 6 – Trip to Bletchley Park

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This week in Year 6, we had our first main class trip of the year. As part of our History topic on WW2, we spent the day at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes. This was the most secret location in England during the war, where female code breakers worked day and night, deciphering the coded German radio transmissions. Ultimately, their monotonous but incredible work won us the war.

Here is a recount of our day, written by Daniel and Jessica:

When we arrived, we watched a brief video of how Bletchley Park affected the war. Then we went to a gallery to have a look at lots of machines and equipment used to crack codes. There were even 2 working Bombe machines! After lunch, we were given a guided tour of the grounds. The tour guide told us that the 54 acres in Bletchley Park only cost £6000! Then we were taken to a big garage where there was a motorbike. The bikes were used to transport different codes to different places. He also took us to a courtyard where a bomb had landed but had never gone off! Some say it’s still there… Finally, we had an Inception and Intelligence workshop, where we decoded and deciphered Morse Code to be able to locate German ships in the Atlantic.

Things we learnt:

“I learnt that the code cracking machine is called the Bombe” – Grace

“I learnt about Morse Code” – Harvey

“I learnt that girls were very important in WW2” – Martyna

“I learnt that Polish mathematicians played a big part in Bletchley Park’s success” – Asti

“I learnt how they chose the girls that came to work at Bletchley Park” – Nathan

“I learnt that code breaking was a big part of the war” – Ben

“I learnt that girls had to do a tough interview to do the code breaking” – Maisy

“I learnt that Bletchley Park was a secret place” – Rory

“I learnt how to make words in Morse Code” – Tom

“I learnt that  the people who worked at Bletchley Park didn’t know what it was for” – Jan

“I learnt how important girls were in WW2” – Meghan

“I learnt that when Germany invaded Poland, some people hid in the sewers” – Deji

“I learnt that the Enigma Machine was worth more money than Bletchley Park itself” – Madeline

“I learnt that the Germans never knew about Bletchley Park during WW2” – James

“I learnt that everyday the Germans changed the code, so the code breakers had to start again” – Krystian

“I learnt that Polish people helped England during the war” – Gloria

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This week’s home learning letter is here.

Have a great weekend.

Miss Donatantonio