Summer 2 Week 5

We have had a very busy week of rehearsals this week. We can't wait to perform our production and show you how hard we have been working! 

As well as a lot of practising, we have started to look at Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in English. We started off by looking at the key events of the plot and using drama to act them out in groups. The plot is quite complicated so this helped us to remember it! We also enjoyed acting out part of the play in our workshop!  Then, we focused on Helena's dilemma - Should she tell Demetrius that Hermia and Lysander are trying to run away? We thought about what Helena would think and then we wrote a letter to a problem page to ask for advice. 

In Science, we have been looking at the effects that drugs can have on our bodies. We discussed different examples of drugs such as caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes. Some of us were surprised that drinks like tea and coffee and coke have caffeine in them! Then we researched the effects that these things can have on our bodies. We have made posters to encourage the public to be more aware of these things. 

In French, we have been using our speaking skills to take part in a café role play. We had a waiter and customers in our scene. The waiter had to take the order by asking the customers what they would like. Then the customers had to order their foods and drinks, using the correct determiners. We had to remember to use our manners! Once we had finished, we had to ask for the bill and use Euros to pay. 

Summer 2 Week 4 
 

We have had a very quiet week in Year 6! We hope everyone has enjoyed their transition days this week! 

At the start of the week, we continued with our learning about our classic narrative poem The Lion and Albert. We have written a newspaper report about the event of Albert being eaten by Wallace the lion, including a recount of the event and eye-witness statements. We thought carefully about when we needed to use formal language in our writing. We then enjoyed reading The Return of Albert!

In Science, we conducted an investigation into lung capacity. We cam up with some great ideas about what could affect lung capacity such as age, gender, height, weight, whether people smoked, fitness levels and whether people had asthma. We then chose members of the class to test out our hypothesis. We had to blow into a tube which was inside a bottle of water to measure how much air our lungs were holding. We found some interesting results! 

While most of the class have been at their high schools, the children who have been at school have enjoyed learning about the depths of the ocean! We have looked at the Mariana Trench and what the conditions are like down there. We have used our knowledge to create a survival guide for creatures that want to live there and we have also designed our own sea monsters. 

We have also enjoyed learning about the discovery of the Titanic and we have written a newspaper report about this historic event. 

Summer 2 Week 3

 We have had another busy week this week. 

In English, we have continued to look at the poem The Lion and Albert. We have written a variety of text types about the events including a police incident report and a newspaper report. We focused on the use of formal language and cohesive devices to make our writing flow well. 

In DT, we have been researching the ingredients needed to make Greek dishes. We then researched where some of the ingredients traditionally used in Greek cooking come from including where they are sources and how they are processed. 

In Geography, we have been thinking about the housing in Hoddlesden. We have created our own plans for housing developments in the area that can meet the needs of the community in the future. 

We have enjoyed playing rounders this week in PE. We have worked on our fielding technique and teamwork skills. 

In French, we have been creating our own menus. We have thought about the determiners that we are using with the food and drink items. We are going to be using our menus in the coming weeks to practise our speaking skills. 

We have really enjoyed our final outdoor adventure session. We worked in groups on various activities, including making a fairy garden, performing in an outdoor theatre and an obstacle course. We enjoyed watching each other’s performances with some popcorn cooked in the fire pit! 

Summer 2 Week 2

We have had a lovely week this week in Year 6! 

In English, we have started to look at the classic narrative poem The Lion and Albert. We have analysed the poem, thinking about the key events and written our own narrative. We have also written a recount of the main event (Albert being eaten) from the perspective of different characters. 

In Maths, we have started a mini project about a bakery. First, we used a recipe for 6 cupcakes to work out the ingredients to make 34 cupcakes. We had to use different methods to calculate. We also worked how much the ingredients would cost at two different supermarkets, taking offers into account to work out which shop would be the most cost effective.

In Computing, we have been using formulae to work out calculations on a spreadsheet. We worked out that using the cell reference was more effective than typing in the numbers because we can then repeat the formula for other cells. 

In Geography, we have been doing some fieldwork in Hoddlesden. We have been thinking about whether our village meets the needs of the community. First, we marked out a route on our map. Then we walked the route, looking for key features. We have labelled the features on our map with the specific human need that they relate to and thought about things that may need to be preserved or developed to benefit the community. 

We really enjoyed our CPR event and learned lots in our session! We were really impressed with the children’s effort and mature attitude. 

Summer 2 Week 1

We have had a fantastic week celebrating the platinum jubilee in Year 6! We have really enjoyed learning about the Queen and her family and looking at the 1950s. 

We started the week by sharing how we celebrated the Jubilee over the bank holiday weekend. It sounds like we all had a great time taking part in street parties and watching the beacon lighting at Darwen tower! We have created a scrapbook page to remember the special event. 

Then, we looked at the Queen’s life. We have created a chronological time line of the key events that have happened in her lifetime including the birth of her children, her marriage, becoming Queen and important events for the country including the war. 

Once we had learned more information about the Queen and her life, we started to look at her family in more detail to create a Royal family tree. We found it really interesting to see how the line of succession works and who will be monarchs in the future. The family tree was a little bit complicated as the Queen has a big family but we did a super job! 

We have enjoyed learning about life in the 50s. We discussed the in the 50s, the Queen experiences the most significant event in her life - becoming Queen! We looked at what happened in the coronation service and the symbolism of the orb and the sceptre that the Queen was given by the archbishop. We also watched videos to see how the country celebrated and what London was like at the time. We have written our own newspaper reports about the spectacular event. We have also been busy learning about food, fashion, technology, music and dance in the 50s. 

In French, we discussed that France does not have a King or a Queen. We learned about the reason behind this and re-enacted the French Revolution! 

It has been a jam-packed week but we have loved it! Watch our video here https://stpaulshoddlesden.primarysite.media/media/y6-platinum-jubilee-celebrations  🇬🇧

Summer 1 Week 6

We have had another busy week this week. 

In English, we have finished writing our narratives including a flashback. We thought about what could happen to end the flashback and how Willie would feel and react afterwards. Then, we created our own independent flashback narratives from Tom’s point of view.

In Maths, we have been focusing on area and perimeter. We have found the area and perimeter of compound rectilinear shapes and also worked out missing dimensions. 

In Art, we have been looking at a piece of artwork called The Scream by Edvard Munch. We have discuss this artwork and thought about how it made us feel and we have used it as inspiration to create our own piece of art. We used oil pastels to create a background, thinking about the colours and lines that could represent a battlefield. Then, we combined this with our photography skills by taking portraits displaying a distressed or scared expression. 

In History, we have been very lucky to hear about some first-hand experiences of World War II. Last week, we came up with questions that we would like to ask people who lived through the wars. Miss Holt took our questions to interview her grandma and grandad who were 7 years old when the war ended. We loved hearing about their memories and experiences, we found it really interesting. We have used our knowledge to create information texts about the impact of war. 

We really enjoyed taking part in Sports Day this week. We showed lots of sporting values throughout the morning and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! 

We have also enjoyed Music day on Friday! We have learnt about the work of Hans Zimmer, a film score composer. We played ukuleles, tambours and glockenspiels in groups to one of his famous pieces of music, Marimba.

Summer 1 Week 5

We have had a great week in Year 6! In English, we have been looking at how flashbacks are used in narratives. We looked at film clips that included flashbacks to understand how they are used to help tell a story by providing information about past events. We planned our own short narrative based on our focus text Goodnight Mr Tom. We have started to write our narratives, thinking about using a variety of sentence starters and descriptive techniques. 

In Maths, we have been looking at translating and rotating shapes on a co-ordinate grid. We used our knowledge to solve problems and showed our reasoning skills when describing where the co-ordinates of particular vertices would end up on the grid. 

In Science, we have conducted an investigation to answer our enquiry question Does exercise impact our heart rate? We measured our resting heart rate by finding our pulse. We then completed the daily mile and recorded our heart rates after exercise. We recorded our results in a table and also presented them in a bar graph. 

In Art, we have been learning about macro photography. We looked at examples by an artist called Edward Weston and discussed the features of this type of photography. We have taken our own photographs of various fruits and vegetables and used the editing feature on the iPads to desaturate the images so that they had grey tones. 

In Music, we have been creating our own compositions for a performance of the poem In Flanders Fields. We used the A minor scale on glockenspiels and accompanied these with djembes and ukuleles in small groups. 

We have been lucky to have some wonderful curriculum enhancements this week. We really enjoyed our outdoor learning on Wednesday! First, we used maps of Hoddlesden to plan a safe route to walk to the Millennium Green. Once we arrived, we created freeze frames of soldiers in battle using natural resources to make our props. We also had a battle re-enactment on the green. We thought about strategies that would make our army successful. We also enjoyed a History workshop about the impact of war on Monday. 

Summer 1 Week 4

We have had a very busy week this week in Year 6!

This week has been SATs week and the children have been great! They have worked very hard and handled it brilliantly. To celebrate all of our hard work, we celebrated by having dodgeball and bench ball tournaments! We are very proud of you, Year 6! 

Our afternoons have been busy as usual! In PE, we have worked on being able to find space to help our team mates make effective passes. We played a game where we had to have 5 passes in our team before we could shoot. We loved it! 

In PSHE, we have been busy making a documentary about well-being. We are looking forward to sharing it once it has been edited! 

In History, we have been thinking about the impact that the war would have had on the children in our local area. We discussed the things that may have affected the children when the war has ended and what their thoughts and feelings might be. We used our discussion to write a recount from the point of view of a child living in Hoddlesden at the time. 

In French, we have played lots of games to practise using the new vocabulary, along with the correct determiners. 

Summer 1 Week 3

We have had another busy week in Year 6. In English, we have continued to read our focus text, Goodnight Mr Tom. We have been thinking about key events for Tom and Willie in the text and inferring their thoughts to write a recount in the form of a diary entry from their point of view. 

In Maths, we have been recapping the properties of 3d shapes and identifying them from their nets. 

In Science, we have been learning about how the circulatory system works and the process that happens inside our bodies to move our blood around.  We created a detailed, labelled diagram of the process. 

In History, we visited our local war memorial to see if we could find out anything about how the wars impacted our local area. We looked at the names and dates on the memorial, as well as other features and came up with some interesting hypotheses. We discussed the importance of showing our respect when we were looking at this source. We also looked at a simple timeline to develop our chronology skills. We added both World War I and II on to it as well as the year we were born to see how long ago these time periods were. We also discussed the length of time between the wars and since they ended. 

In French, we have been practising our speaking skills to order food and drink items politely. We had to think carefully about which determiner was required before the noun, thinking about whether the noun was masculine or feminine. 

On Thursday, we took part in a transition live stream with some of our local high schools. This was a great opportunity for us to share our feelings about our transition to secondary school and we even got to ask some of the current Year 7s some of our questions, which we found really helpful! 

Summer 1 Week 2

We have been working very hard this week in Year 6. We have has a mock SATs week and we have been so impressed with the children’s effort! 

In English, we have been looking at the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae. We have analysed the poem, investigating new vocabulary to think about the meaning behind it. We have then written our own chinquapin poems about an aspect of war. They were really effective!

In Maths, we have been finding missing angles in triangles and quadrilaterals. Miss Holt has given us some tricky problems; we have had to apply all of our knowledge on angles to solve them! 

In Science, we have started to look at the circulatory system. We identified the four main parts (blood, heart, lungs and blood vessels) and learnt about their basic functions. 

In Computing, we have been using our programming skills to create our own maze games. We included variables and used various sensing blocks in our code. 

In Art, we have started our photography unit. This week, we looked at the work of Hannah Höch, a photomontage artist. We used photos from magazines and newspapers to create our own photo montages, thinking about the composition of the images on our page. 

In PE, we enjoyed playing dodgeball. We practised techniques to dodge and trick our opponents before playing a game. 

In Music, we have created our own compositions to perform alongside the poem that we have looked at in English. We thought about how to create an appropriate effect for war poetry and saying the poem rhythmically to a steady beat. 

Summer 1 Week 1

Even though it has been a short first week back, we have packed a lot in! 

In Maths, we have been using fractions and percentages to interpret pie charts. We have also started to look at angles. We have used the protractors to measure angles and we have also been working our missing angles that are on a straight line, around a pint and vertically opposite. 

In English, we have started to read our focus text, Goodnight Mr Tom. We have thought about the characters, Willie and Tom, and made inferences, using evidence from the text to support our ideas. 

In History, we have been finishing off our learning about Ancient Greece and we have thought about our enquiry question, what did the Ancient Greeks do for us? We have thought about the legacy that has been left by Ancient Greece and the things that we still have in modern times thanks to them. We discussed things such as myths that are still enjoyed today, democracy, architecture, the olympics and mathematical and scientific theories. 

In PE, we have started our unit on invasion games. This week, we work on how we can move around to create space to help our team mates pass the ball. We also thought about how the defending team would need to respond to this. 

In Computing, we have started to learn about micro bits. We used an online simulator to experiment with coding to create different outputs on a micro bit. We created different patterns of lights and even made some music! 

In French we have started our new topic Le café. We have looked at new vocabulary relating to foods and drinks and discussed how we can use cognates and borrowed words to wok out the meaning of new vocabulary. 

Spring 2 week 6
 

We have had a great week this week! 

In Maths, we have started a new topic, statistics. We have been looking at line graphs. We have talked about how line graphs present continuous data and we have been interpreting them to solve comparison, sum and difference problems. We have also drawn our own line graph to present information in a table.

In English, we have been looking at persuasion. We looked at a persuasive letter to identify the conventions of this text type. We then used our knowledge to write a letter to King Minos from Theseus to persuade him to let him enter the labyrinth. 

In Science, we have been creating our own resistors. We have conducted an investigation to test of the length of resistance wire affected the circuit. We found that the longer the wire, the dimmer the light bulb. This is because there was more resistance in the circuit. 

In PE, we have been looking at triple jump. We started by focusing on the technique and then tried to increase our jump distance once we were more confident. We had some fantastic jumps! 

We have had a very busy week finishing off our automata toys in DT! We secured our cams in position on the dowel using the glue gun. We then created our characters and decorated the top of our toys that cover the frame. The characters didn’t move quite as we expected so we have carefully evaluated our project but we think they look fantastic! 

Spring 2 Week 5

We have had a great week in this lovely weather! 

In Maths, we have continued to learn about ratio, using our knowledge to solve problems in real-life contexts.

In English, we have finished writing our own Greek myths. We have particularly focused on punctuating our speech correctly. We have tried to use our reporting clauses in various places in our sentences. 

In Gymnastics, we created our own sequences including methods of travelling, rolls, a spin and a counter balance. We worked really well together in our groups and our sequences were brilliant! We worked hard on our presentation this week! 

In Music, we made the most of the beautiful weather and had our lesson outdoors. This week, we focused on the work of the composer Prokofiev.  We listened to Dance of the Knights and discussed the dramatic effects that the music creates. We then used percussion instruments to create our own compositions in small groups in this style. We used the glockenspiels, djembes and ukuleles, focusing on the A major scale to create a dramatic piece of music. 

We were so excited to take part in the Lancashire Commonwealth baton relay on Thursday! We completed the ‘legs’ in our groups to successfully pass on the baton to Lower Darwen Primary school. Thank you to all of the parent helpers and spectators who joined us along the way! 

Spring 2 Week 4

We have had a great week this week! 

In Maths, we have started to learn about ratio. We have used ratio to describe the relationship between two values. We have then started to use ratio to work out missing values. 

In English, we have started to develop ideas for our own innovated myth. We have been thinking about our characters,including a mythical monster, and the plot of our myth. Miss Holt can’t wait to read them next week! 

This week has been British Science Week and he theme has been Growth. We have been thinking about the key question, How can we encourage growth in the amount of people that travel in an environmentally friendly way? We gathered some data from our class about how we travel to school. We then discussed the reasons behind our choice of transport and the issues in our local area that stop us from walking or cycling instead of using the car. We have created posters to show our action plan for our local area. 

In PE, we took part in a speed walking relay. We used our speed walking techniques and then assed the baton onto our team mates. Then, we had a go at javelin throwing. We discussed our technique and we will be continuing with this next week to try to improve our throwing distance! We have also been creating our own gymnastics sequences including, different ways of travelling, rolls, spins and a counter balance. 

In History, we have been looking at various sources to see what we can find out about the Ancient Olympics. We then made comparisons between the games in Ancient Greece and the modern games. 

In French, we have been creating sentences to say what our favourite subjects are and explaining why using basic opinions. 

Spring 2 Week 3

We have had a very busy week this week! Year 6 have been working super hard on their practice assessments. They have tried so hard and we are so proud of them!

In Maths, we have been calculating the area of different triangles. We have used the formula and applied this to solve problems. 

In English, we have been working on our inference skills. We have done some hot seating to complete think, say, feel bubbles from King Minos’ point of view about when he discovered that the minotaur had died. We then used our ideas to write a short narrative of the event in third person. 

In Science, we have been looking at circuit diagram to make predictions about whether the circuit would work. We made our predictions and then we used the components to test the circuits. 

We enjoyed our workshop with West End in Schools about the book Where the Wild things are. We created freeze frames from various events in the story and performed them with an expressive dance routine. 

We have also loved our outdoor adventure afternoon. We learned how to carry rope on our adventure. We also helped each other climb the hill using the rope and guided each other through a tunnel using the rope like Theseus used in the labyrinth. Finally, we enjoyed trying garlic mushrooms by the fire pit. 

Spring 2 Week 2

We have had another busy week his week. In Maths, we have started to look at area and perimeter of rectilinear shapes. We have explored that shapes with the shame perimeter can have different areas and vice versa. 

In English, we have started to explore the Greek myths Theseus and the Minotaur and Daedalus and Icarus. We have investigated new and unfamiliar vocabulary from the myth and summarised the key events. 

In PE, we have enjoyed taking part in the daily mile! We persevered really well to complete it. Miss Holt was so impressed with how we encouraged each other to keep going! 

In Computing, we have been exploring a different game on Scratch. We discussed the problems with the game and then we improved it by adding variables and debugging to code to fix the problems that we identified. 

In Design and Technology, we have started to prepare the materials that we need to build a frame for the automata toys that we are going to make. We worked in pairs to accurately measure and cut the wood. 

In Music, we have been learning how to play the G chord on the glockenspiels and ukuleles. We sang the track Let’s Rock, incorporating the instruments into the performance. 

We have all enjoyed dressing up to celebrate World Book Day. We looked great! 

Spring 2 Week 1

We have had a great first week back in Year 6! 

In English, we have been looking at Andy Tooze’s poem Our Dragon Bruce. We were really inspired by Andy’s visit and we have written some fantastic poems about a mythical creature, the Minotaur! 

In Maths, we have been learning about converting various units of measurements including time, money, weight length and capacity. Miss Holt has given us some challenging problems to solve but we have persevered really well. 

In Science, we have started to look at Electricity. Miss Holt asked us to make the same circuit as the one that she had drawn on the board. We realised that this was difficult as we couldn’t be sure what the components were. We have discussed the importance of using symbols in Science. We had fun making circuits our of sweets, making a key so that it was easy for our partner to replicate with the electronic components. 

In PE, we have looked at the Olympic event of speed walking. We had a go, thinking about the technique of rotating our hips and using our arms. We have also started our gymnastics unit. We thought of different ways to travel and worked in groups to create a sequence.

In Computing, we have started to look at variables that are used in games. We used Scratch to create our own variable - a score that changed when we clicked on different sprites. 

In French, we have recapped our knowledge of verbs to say what we do in certain places around school. We worked with a partner to create a sentence using actions and practised our speaking skills in front of the class. 

In Music, we have started to look at a new track called Let’s Rock! We played along with the pulse of the track using glockenspiels and ukuleles. 

Spring 1 Week 6

We have had another very busy week in Year 6! 

In Maths, we have been continuing to use algebra. We have been solving two step equations and working logically to find the possible values of two unknowns. 

In English, we have used the skills that we worked really hard on last week to write an independent discursive text about whether zoos should be banned. We have also looked at the poem Kaa’s Hunting and discussed its meaning. We then worked in groups to perform the poem. 

In Science, we have been learning about Charles Darwin and his theory of Natural Selection. We have talked about Darwin’s trip to the Galápagos Islands where he discovered different finches. He realised that the species had adapted to suit its surroundings. We conducted an experiment to see which type of beak would be the best adapted to pick up seeds. We used tweezers, a bulldog clip and a knitting needle to represent the beaks and recorded how many seeds we could pickup in a minute. We found that the shorter the beak, the more effective it was. 

In PE, we have practised the overarm serve in tennis. We then has some 2v2 games.

In Art, we have been using our knowledge on expression to create our own clay sculptures. We thought about the portraits that we sketched in the style of Käthe Kollwitz and how we conveyed the expression on the faces. We did a great job! 

In Computing, we have created our own websites to showcase our Geography learning. We started off by creating our homepage, thinking about the design features that would make it clear and easy to use for our audience. Then, we created webpages for the information, using hyperlinks to attach them to the homepage. 

Spring 1 Week 5

We have had a lovely week in Year 6. In English, we have been writing a discursive text to discuss whether Mowgli should leave the jungle. We have written an introduction to give the audience some background information, detailed for and against arguments and a conclusion to share our opinion. We have included a variety of cohesive devices and we have written in a formal tone. 

In Maths, we have begun to look at algebra. We have used letters to substitute numbers in simple calculations. We have also been solving one step equations. 

In Science, we have been researching the famous scientist, Charles Darwin. We have researched the theory that he developed about natural selection and survival of the fittest. We also discussed why his theory was not accepted by a lot of people. 

In Art, we have been painting our Guernica-inspired artwork. We have used black and white paint and also mixed these to make different tones of grey. We thought about the areas on our sketches that we wanted to be dark and the areas that should be light. We also used the lines that we sketched last week to make sure our painting was neat. 

In Music, we have been using the C major scale to improvise rhythms to accompany a track called Change. We enjoyed exploring the different rhythms that we can make on the glockenspiels in preparation for next week when we will use notation to record our ideas. 

We enjoyed our outdoor adventure learning session this week. First, we did a trust exercise where we had to guide our blindfolded partner to a tree. Then, we did some team building work before we began our journey through the Amazon rainforest! On our journey, we found some animals that were injured. To bring the animals back base, we made stretchers by lashing sticks together. We ended the session with some marshmallow toasting. We loved it! 

Spring 1 Week 4

We have had another busy week in Year 6! 

In English, we have been learning about discursive texts. We have related this non fiction text type to our focus text by thinking about the question Should Mowgli leave the jungle? We came up with arguments for and against and used them in a class debate. We then thought about what detail we could use to support our points for each side to create a plan. We will be writing our texts next week. 

In Maths, we have been continuing to learn about percentages and we have worked on using different strategies to find percentages of amounts. 

In Science, we have been learning about adaptation. We have looked at various animals that live in different habitats and thought about what traits they have and how they have adapted to suit their environment. We then talked about the process of natural selection. 

In PE, we have been using our badminton skills that we have been working on to have some 2v2 games in a mini tournament. We were all really pleased with our progress! We had some great rallies and smash shots! 

In Art, we have been looking at Picasso’s Guernica. We have started to sketch our own abstract art work to represent deforestation in the rainforests. We are going to add paint to these next week.

In French, we have been solving a tangled translation about a typical day at school. This was a challenge but we really enjoyed it and learned lots of new vocabulary! 

Spring 1 Week 3

We have had another busy week this week. 

In English, we have been focusing on the event of Mowgli leaving the jungle and saying goodbye to his family. We have thought about the emotions and feelings of the different characters and how they would react to the event. We used the descriptosaurus to create a vocabulary bank to show these feelings, then write a first person narrative to describe the event from Mowgli’s point of view. We included some wonderful description! 

In Maths, we have started to look at percentages and the relationship that they have with fractions and decimals. We are going to continue with our learning next week and begin to convert decimals to fractions and percentages. 

In Science, we have started to look at inheritance. We discussed features that we think we have inherited from our parents. Then, we have thought about how inheritance can be used to create different breeds of dogs. Miss Holt gave us scenarios of different people who were saying what features they would want a dog to have to be suitable for their lifestyle. We created our own breeds, thinking about what parents would be best due to their features. 

In Computing, we have been looking at the law of copyright and the importance of fair use when using resources from the internet. 

In Art, we have looked at the work of Käthe Kollwitz and created our own portraits based on her work using charcoal. We drew the features f the face then used shading to create light and dark tones in our artwork. Our portraits look fantastic! 

In Music, we have listened to a Mexican track called La Bamba. We did very well singing in Spanish! Then, we developed our skills using musical notation to create our own improvisations to play during the instrumental. 

Spring 1 Week 2 

We have had a very busy week this week! 

In Maths, we have been learning about the relationship between decimals and fractions. We have used our knowledge of equivalent fractions to convert fractions to decimals. We then learned that fractions can represent division and used the method of short division to convert them. 

In English, we have been doing lots of writing. We have written a recount of when Mowgli arrived in the jungle and we have also written a formal letter from Baloo to apply for the job of training the wolf cubs. In the text, Shere Khan turns the wolf pack against Mowgli and he confronts the animals with the red flower (fire). We have written planned and written a paragraph about this event including action, dialogue and description. 

In Science, we have been learning about fossils and what they can tell us about creatures that inhabited the Earth long before humans. We used the iPads to research fossils that have been found and what they can tell us about the creatures that once lived on Earth! 

In Computing, we have been exploring a website an evaluating its effectiveness. We discussed important features such as layout, appearance and the organisation of web pages. 

In Art, we have been looking at the Graffiti style of Artwork. We have looked at examples of Graffiti that have been used to express a message to the audience and discussed the features of it. Then, we created our own tags using our names and nicknames. We started by sketching the letters and doubling up the lines to make the letters big and bold. Then, we added serifs and colours that we felt represented our personalities. We loved getting creative with these! 

In Music, we have continued to listen to the song Disco Fever. We practised singing the song and then we used the notes from the D minor scale that we practised last week to create our own improvisations. We recorded our ideas using musical notation on a stave. Then, we performed our work in groups to the music. 

Spring 1 Week 1

We have had a lovely few days back in school this week. 

In English, we have started to look at our new focus text, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. We have thought about the key events of the plot, using actions to perform a summary. We have discovered some tricky vocabulary in the text so we have spent some time investigating it to improve our understanding. We have also looked at the main character, Mowgli, and described his personality, using evidence from the text to support our ideas.

In Maths, we have started our new topic on decimals. We have recapped our place value knowledge to multiply and divide decimals numbers by powers of 10. We have also used partitioning to multiply decimals by integers. 

We have enjoyed PE this week. We took part in some circuit training to improve our fitness levels and we have also begun to look at serving and passing in volleyball. 

In Geography, we started to look at the Amazon rainforest and where it is located. We looked at South Africa and labelled the features that we could find in the atlas on a map, making comparisons to Asia.

We have enjoyed Music this week. We listened to a track called Disco Fever and shared our thoughts about it. We then practised signing the song and performed using the glockenspiels during the instrumental! 

Autumn 2 Week 6
 

We have had a very busy week this week! 

In English, we have started to plan our own chapter of Letters from the Lighthouse. We have read up to the part when Olive arrives in Devon. We have been thinking about what Devon would be like to describe the setting. We have also thought about who is going to look after her and what their personalities are going to be like. 

In Maths, we have been multiplying and dividing fractions. We have used bar models to help us understand what happens when we multiply and divide the fraction. These were quite tricky but we persevered really well. 

In Science, we have conducted our enquiry into which material would make the most effective shadow. We tested card, paper, laminated paper, sponge, felt, sandpaper, cling film and tinfoil. We made sure that our variable (the material) was the only thing to change to make it a fair test! 

In French, we have enjoyed learning about Christmas traditions in the French culture. We have played some lovely games and taken part in a quiz. 

We have been working on our enterprise project this week. First, we created prototypes of different shaped boxes to decide on which shape we are going to make. We cut the nets out and assembled them to see which one would be the most suitable to hold sweets. We decided to make pillow boxes for our product and we have done a 3D design using Tinkercad. We will be very busy making the boxes next week! 

Autumn 2 Week 5 

We have had a great week in Year 6. 

In English, we have continued to read Letters from the Lighthouse; we are really enjoying this book! In the chapter that we read, there was an air raid and the main character, Olive, was caught up in it. We thought about her thoughts and feelings at the time to write a recount of the traumatic event. After the air raid, the characters got evacuated to Devon to be safe. We have written an informal letter from Olive to her mum, thinking about what information we might include to reassure her. 

In Science, we have planned an enquiry. We want to investigate which material would make the most effective shadow. We decided on the materials we were going to test and then thought about how we are going to ensure that it is a fair test. We also made our predictions before we conduct the investigation next week. 

In Computing, we have been researching existing products for our Elf Enterprise project. We are going to be making Christmas boxes so we have researched different shapes and patterns to inform our own designs. 

In French, we have written some amazing postcards about am imaginary visit to a planet. We used our sentences from last week and the knowledge that we have gained over the term to put together our piece of writing. Madame Wardle and Miss Holt were so impressed! 

Autumn 2 Week 4

We have had another busy week in Year 6. 

In Maths, we have been adding and subtracting factions and mixed numbers. We have converted the fractions to make sure they have the same denominator in order to add or subtract them. 

In English, we have started to look at our new text Letters from the Lighthouse. First, we read the first couple of pages and then used the front cover of the book to make predictions. We have also written a newspaper report about an air raid during WWII. 

In Geography, we have been looking at the change in temperature in the UK over the last 20 years. We have drawn a line graph to show this geographical change and discussed what the data shows. 

In Computing, we have continued to use our skills on Tinkercad. We have finalised the structure of our houses and then we moved onto designing a room, thinking about realistic dimensions when adding furniture. 

In PE, we have been focusing on conveying emotion in our dance. We listened to different pieces of music and worked in groups to create sequences to show feelings linked to WWII. 

In French, we have been writing fictional sentences about the planets in preparation for writing a postcard next week. We used a sentence builder to help us structure our complex sentences. We had to be very imaginative! 

What have we enjoyed most this week? 

Katie - I enjoyed designing the inside of my house in Computing

Logan - I enjoyed dance because I liked putting emotions to music

James and Lisa - we enjoyed writing the newspaper report about the air raid from the story

Maddie - I have enjoyed learning about fractions in Maths. I liked the challenge! 

Lily - I liked making predictions about Letters to the Lighthouse 

Ellen - I enjoyed subtracting mixed numbers 

Max - I enjoyed drawing my graph in Geography

Kayleigh - I enjoyed our first worship with Rev Rebecca 

Autumn 2 Week 3

We have had another great week in Year 6!

In Maths, we have started learning about fractions. We have been using highest common factors to simplify them and we have also been converting fractions to have the same denominator to order and compare them.

In English, we have finished writing our biographies about Harriet Tubman. We have focused on using a variety of cohesive devices to link our information. We have also written a biography about Anne Frank independently.

As we have been discussing WWII in our Geography and English lessons, Lucas brought in a Russian gas mask to show us!  

In Science, we have been investigating how light reflects. We used the torches as our light source and directed them towards a mirror to observe the incident ray and the reflective ray. We noticed that the reflective ray was at the same angle as the incident ray, which proved the law of reflection! 

In PE, we have listened to Churchill’s speech from WWII and choreographed actions to incorporate into our dance. 

In Computing, we have been using our skills on Tinkercad to design a building. We had to lift the shapes and place them on top of others, using the different viewpoints to make sure that they were in the correct position. 

We have enjoyed taking part in Children in Need on Friday. We had lots of entries to our creative competition. Well done to Megan who won the prize with her fantastic Pudsey cake and poem! 

Autumn 2 Week 2

We have had another busy week in Year 6! In Maths, we have enjoyed taking part in the Maths England Maths week activities. We took part in Numberella’s escape room, which involved solving problems and using various mathematical skills. We particularly enjoyed the cryptogram which was very tricky! We showed great perseverance to crack the code.

In English, we have been researching information about Harriet Tubman ready to write our biographies. We thought about questions that we would like to research and then used the iPads to find the relevant information. We also used talk for writing to rehearse an introduction. We came up with actions to help us remember it. 

In Science, we have started to learn all about light. This week, we have been learning about how objects reflect light to allow us to see them. We worked in groups using wool to show how the light travels from a light source. We then thought about how mirrors allows us to see objects that are behind us. 

In Computing, we enjoyed using the program Tinkercad for our new topic about 3D modelling. We explored the program and learnt how to create, duplicate, re-size and rotate shapes. We are looking forward to developing our skills further next week! 

In French, we have continued to work with larger numbers. This week, we looked at multiples of 5 to 100 and used our knowledge to play bingo.

In Geography, we have been making comparisons between countries using geographical vocabulary to describe their position. We used the atlases to locate the countries and describe the latitude, longitude and what features they were close to. 

Autumn 2 Week 1

We have had a lovely first week back in Year 6. 

In Maths we have been looking at prime, squared and cubed numbers. We have also been learning about the rule of order of operations when there is more than one operation involved in a calculation. 

In English, we have started to learn about biographies for non-fiction November. We have looked at various examples of biographies and thought about their features to make a checklist for us to use next week when we write our own. We have also arranged paragraphs of a biography into chronological order and generated suitable subheadings to summarise the information in them. 

In Science, we have been thinking about different ways to classify plants. We have used this to create a classification key to sort different types of plants. 

In PE, this half term, we are very lucky to have a specialist sports teacher from DACA to come in and teach us some hockey skills. This week, we have practised holding the stick correctly and dribbling, keeping control of the ball. 

We have also enjoyed starting our new dance unit which is based on WWII. We have started to look at the Jitterbug dance and practised our twisting! 

In French, we have been learning how to say numbers up to 100. We have used clues in the words and our prior knowledge of numbers to 20 to help us. These will help us to generate larger numbers to use in our writing about the planets! 

Autumn 1 Week 8 

We have had a very busy final week of the half term in Year 6. 

In Maths, we have been using the written method of chunking to divide 4 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers. We have used this method to solve problems and interpret remainders. 

In English, we have been learning about hybrid texts for our Non-fiction unit. We have written our own hybrid text linked to our learning in History, including a non-chronological report about The Kingdom of Benin, instructions on how to create a Batik design and an explanation text about how trading was used in Benin. 

In Design and Technology, we have been using our sewing skills to attach our Batik artwork to a T-shirt. First, we had to hem our artwork using the running stitch to create neat edges. Then, we used the back stitch to attach our artwork to a t-shirt, creating a pocket. Our finished designs look fantastic!

In Music, we have been composing our own piece of music using the djembes. We have created different rhythms using the food beats. Then, we worked in groups to combine our rhythms and we have also layered them to create polyrhythms! To watch our outcome, follow the link https://stpaulshoddlesden.primarysite.media/media/year-6-music-autumn-1-2021

We loved the behaviour treat this half term! We had lots of fun on the bouncy castle!

Autumn 1 Week 7

We have had a busy week in Year 6! 

In Maths, we have been looking at various methods to multiply numbers including decimals. We have discussed that we can sometimes use mental methods such as using known facts or partitioning. We have also been looking at the grid method to multiply larger numbers. 

In English, we have been finishing our own versions of William’s story from The Boy who Harnessed the Wind. We have focused on using a variety of sentence openers, describing the character’s feelings and correctly punctuating our dialogue. 

We have all really enjoyed Science this week. First, we combined the characteristics of different living things to design our own creatures. We sketched our creatures and labelled their features. Then, we swapped our designs with our partners and they classified them, giving reasons for their decision. We sketched some very interesting creatures! 

In Art, we have washed the glue (which we used to resist the dye) off our fabric. We used warm water mixed with salt to do this. The salt acted as a fixative so that all of the dye didn’t run or fade too much. It was a bit of a messy process but we all loved it and our designs look amazing! 

In Music, we have been listening to different pieces of African music that is played at different occasions. We listened to the music and described it using appropriate vocabulary such as tempo, pitch, volume, texture, crescendo and diminuendo. We then thought about what occasions we thought they might be used for and why eg: celebrations, rituals, etc. 

In PE, we have worked in groups to create our own attacking and defending games. We had to work together collaboratively to make sure our games were effective. 

In French, we have been using our word banks from last week and bilingual dictionaries to write our own factual sentences about the planets. You can hear some of our sentences in the video below. 

Autumn 1 Week 6 

We have had a lovely week in Year 6. In Maths, we have been solving multi step problems involving addition and subtraction. We used the column method to complete our calculations. We have also started to look at factors and multiples. We have been finding common factors and multiples between numbers and we have used them to solve problems. 

In English, we have started our writing phase. We are writing our own version of William’s story from The Boy who Harnessed the Wind as a first person narrative. We have focused on using descriptive techniques to introduce the setting and also including a combination of action, dialogue and description. 

In Science, we have been using our knowledge of the characteristics of various living things and the groups that they had be classified into to create our own classification keys. 

In Computing, we have been thinking about how we can tell if websites are reliable. We discussed things to look for such as layout, the date it was published, who published it and where it is ranked by the search engine. We have also discussed that sometimes we need to use our common sense to decide whether the information is true! Miss Holt gave us three websites to look at and decide whether they were reliable or not. 

In French, we have watched and listened to a story about space. We used our deduction skills to identify the meaning of new vocabulary to create our own vocabulary bank. We will use this for our own writing next week. 

In Art, we have loved adding the dye to our Batik designs! We used red, blue and yellow dye and we also mixed them to create more colours. We applied the dye to our fabric using a paintbrush. We think they look fantastic! 

In Design and Technology, we have been practising using the running stitch. We are going to be using our textiles skills to create a product, using our wonderful artwork! We practised tying a knot in the thread and ensuring that our stitch was in a neat, straight line. We did a great job! 

This month is Black History Month. In Year 6, we have chosen to focus on Harriet Tubman, who is remembered for her work and determination to free slaves in America. We have done some research ready to create our own poems about her life next week. 
 

Ellen says, “I enjoyed doing the Batik dye. I really liked mixing the colours.”

Kayleigh says, “I enjoyed looking at the websites in Computing and finding out whether they were false or reliable.”

Momina says, “I enjoyed sewing in DT because I like learning new skills.”

Autumn 1 Week 5

What an amazing week we have had! We have absolutely loved getting stuck in to all of the wonderful activities at Robinwood. Miss Holt, Mrs Walker and Miss Sivill were really impressed with the children while we were away! Everyone approached all of the activities with great enthusiasm and some people definitely faced their fears! Pictures will be uploaded to our class page very soon.

Before we left, we were busy working on our poetry skills in English. We have been looking at a poem called The Playground by Hussain Manawer. We analysed the poem and thought about why the poet wrote it. We then wrote our own poem based on our novel The Boy who Harnessed the Wind. Once we had written our own poems, we worked on our performance skills. We thought about important performance techniques such as varying intonation and volume, body language and eye contact with the audience. 

We have also been busy in Art as we have started to create our Batik designs. We have worked with Ms Dixon, using glue to create a pattern on our fabric. Once our designs are dry, they will be ready to dye next week! We think they will look amazing! 

Autumn 1 Week 4

We have had another great week in Year 6. In Maths, we have been focusing on using  mental methods to solve addition and subtraction calculations. We have worked hard to look at the numbers and digits involved in a calculation to decide which is the most appropriate method. 

In English, we have continued to read our text, The Boy who Harnessed the the Wind. In the text, William (the narrator of the story) tells us about the drought that the country experienced. This left the people of Wimbe with very little food and money. In order to get some emergency maize, William travelled for 12 miles to the government store. We have recounted this event, thinking about how we can start our sentences with a variety of opening clauses. 

We have enjoyed basketball in PE this week with Miss Tapp and we have also continued to develop our street dance routine with Mrs Walker. 

In PSHE, we had a visit from the Life Education bus! We talked about different decisions that we have to make in our lives and what can sometimes help us. 

In Computing, we have been learning about search engines and talked about useful strategies to use to help us find what we want to. We have discussed strategies such as using Boolean operators and using key words in our searches. We then used these strategies to find out lots of information about Africa. 

In MFL, we have recapped the French words for the planets. This week, we have used our knowledge of the colours to create sentences to describe the planets. We had to think carefully about the word order of our sentences because the adjective comes after the noun! 

Autumn 1 Week 3

We have had another great week in Year 6. In English, we have continued to look at our new text The Boy who Harnessed the Wind. We have focused on a particular part of the text (when William goes hunting) and written our own recounts including action, dialogue and description. 

In Maths, we have continued with our Place Value topic. We have been rounding decimals to the nearest whole number, one and two decimal places. We have also been identifying values on a number line by working out the value of the intervals. 

In Art, we have begun to learn about Batik. We discussed the process of how the patterns are made. Traditionally, wax is used to resist the dye on fabric, leaving a beautiful pattern. We have started to design our own patterns to create a Batik design. 

In Music, we have listened to different types of African music and shared our thoughts and feelings about it. We used musical vocabulary such as tempo, pitch and volume to describe it. 

On Wednesday, Ms Lewis from DACA came to visit us. We had the opportunity to ask lots of questions about secondary school, which we found really useful! Thank you Ms Lewis! 

Autumn 1 Week 2 

We have had a busy week in Year 6 this week! In English, we have started to look at our new text The Boy who Harnessed the Wind. We have been thinking about how we would describe the narrator of the story, William, using evidence from the text to justify our ideas. We have also inferred his thoughts and feelings about an event in the book in preparation for our writing next week.

In History, we have begun to research The Kingdom of Benin. We thought about what information we thought would be useful for us to know and then we used the internet to research, taking care to find reliable sources.

In Art, we have discussed the artwork from the Kingdom of Benin. We have talked about how animals feature a lot in the art work and discussed the significance of the animals that were commonly used. They were chosen based on their qualities to represent the Kings. We have chosen an animal that we think would represent a king or leader and sketched it using various techniques to create tone and texture. 

We have also enjoyed our PE lessons this week. On Monday, we started to learn our street dance routine. We started by practising our facial expressions and body language to show attitude. Then, we learned three moves and put them together. We have also continued with our netball, practising passing to a partner and intercepting the ball. 

Autumn 1 Week 1
 

We have had a great first couple of days back in Year 6! We have spent some time getting to know each other and setting goals for the year. We have talked about what we want to achieve in Year 6 and also what we want to do in the future!🚀 We also enjoyed our first French lesson with Madame Wardle. 🇫🇷

Summer 2 - Hoddlesden Globe

Week 6

What a fun-filled and emotional week we have had in Year 6! We made sure that our last week together in primary school was a super one. As part of our theme learning (Design & Technology), we created our set for a scene from Romeo and Juliet, using appropriate tools and materials (we made sure that we were using the tools in a VERY safe way!) The finished sets looked fantastic! In English, we filmed our Romeo and Juliet performance. In groups, the children were given a main event from the story and they used drama to create their scene (some additional bits may have been added by the children!) You can watch the performance here (please note: this is the full story so may not be suitable for younger brothers and sisters). 

We enjoyed our Year 6 Leavers' Worship together on Tuesday (Mrs Scholes and Mr Dugdale were both a bit emotional!) and some of the children went to DACA in the afternoon for a transition session.

We LOVED making our music video for you all to enjoy...we have certainly got some rising stars in our class!

On Thursday, we spent the morning at the park in the sunshine, relaxing and playing games with each other. We then had a wonderful lunch, thanks to Mr Dugdale...the pizza van arrived and the pizza was AMAZING! 

Friday was an emotional day for us all as we walked out of our primary school for the very last time. We have had a fantastic 7 years together and we will miss each other very much 

Week 5

We have had another exciting and creative week in Year 6! We have joined in with an online transition session with the other schools in the area to discuss the move to secondary school and we enjoyed the online Diocese Leavers' Service. We welcomed the staff from DACA who came to do some t-shirt printing with us; we used fabric pens to add colourful designs to the print! The t-shirts look super and they will be a wonderful keepsake to remind us of our time at primary school.

In Art, we used music as a stimulus for our artwork, listening to contrasting music from adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. We thought about what the music made us feel and what shapes we thought the music created. We used our sketch books to record our ideas. We then used these ideas to design and paint a backdrop for our set for a scene from Romeo and Juliet, using acrylic paint on canvas.

We have also enjoyed our Sports Day! Even though it wasn’t how we would normally do Sports Day, we made the best of it and had lots of fun! We took part in races such as Beanbag Balance (balancing the beanbag on our head!), ball dribbling, sprinting and javelin throwing. The main attraction was our ultimate assault course – Mrs Scholes spotted the space hoppers in the shed so we thought we would add those in for a bit of entertainment! Watch the video here.

We have really enjoyed our week 

Week 4

We have been glad to be back together in the classroom this week after a period of remote learning! In English, we have continued with our Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare unit. We have enjoyed looking at some of the original language of the text and including it in our own writing (we are considering using it in our everyday lives, too!) We have written the narrative for the famous balcony scene from the text, blending action, dialogue and description within our sentences and paragraphs.

In our theme learning, we have continued our Design & Technology and Computing elements by choosing a scene from Romeo and Juliet and designing a set for it. We have used Computer-Aided design (CAD) to support the planning stage of our project. Next week, we will be making the sets, practising our measuring, cutting and joining skills. We will also be including a circuit to enhance the set, using the knowledge that we have gained during our Electricity unit in Science.

We have also been practising for Sports Day next week! We love to get outside and do P.E. 

Week 2

This week, we have mainly been out and about in Blackburn with Darwen, doing some ‘adventuring’! We started our week in the usual way, learning the main events in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in our English lessons. We then thought about words that we could apply to the story, such as tragedy, rivalry, enemies and heartbreak, and sorted them into word classes. In History, we looked at the past and present day transport links around Darwen and discussed how and why they had changed.

We had the perfect weather conditions for our outdoor adventures from Wednesday to Friday! We did three different activity days: water sports, canalside activities and hill walking.

Water Sports:

We loved spending our day on the water! We did some canoeing together, including trickier things like doing actions whilst standing up in the boat and dipping our heads back into the water. We also had a turn on the Mega SUP – a huge, stand-up paddle board! We had to inflate it first before we could take it out onto the water. We started off gently by sitting down and paddling but then we stood up!

Canalside:

It was an action-packed day of outdoor adventuring! We did a variety of activities, including building fires, cooking bananas, using throwing angels (a type of throwing knife) to hit targets, archery and pond dipping. Afterwards, we felt like we could follow in Bear Grylls’ footsteps and do some real adventuring!

Hill Walking:

We enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Blackburn with Darwen on our walk up to Jubilee Tower. We went through the woods, around the reservoirs and up the hills. We spent some time whittling in the woods, making mini shelters using the natural materials we could find around us, playing team games or just rolling down hills! We all particularly enjoyed the ice cream stop at a local café!

Take a look at the photographs of our adventures here:

https://www.stpaulshoddlesden.org.uk/oaa-days/

Artie says:

"I enjoyed hiking and making the houses for little wooden people."

Lissy says:

"I thought it was a great break from work and I really enjoyed spending time with my friends before high school. I loved the water sports because we all got to work together and let loose."

Grace says:

"When we did the OAA days, I really enjoyed the water sports. My favourite part was everyone on the giant paddleboard and when we all ended up falling over and we nearly fell into the water."

Oscar says:

"I really enjoyed doing the water sports at Fishmoor reservoir because I love doing water activities so doing canoeing and giant paddle boarding is so much fun for me. The best part was when I jumped in by accident because it was a bit of a surprise and it was fun trying to catch up to the paddle board and then Jack, the instructor, came and got me."

Louaia says:

"The thing I’ve enjoyed most about the OAA days is paddle boarding because it was something I’ve never done before."

Jack says:

"I enjoyed the water activity day because I liked being on the water for the whole day, especially on the giant paddle board. It was quite hard to keep on your feet seeing as when one person moves the whole thing moves with them."

Sadie says:

"My favourite part of the three day trip was when we were at Fishmoor and we jumped in the water. It is my favourite part because I was with my friends and we had so much fun."

Oliver says:

"I enjoyed doing the water sports the most because I love doing canoeing and the paddle board and jumping in at the end."

Caelan says:

"The thing I enjoyed the most was when we went canoeing because of all the fun games we did."

Week 1

This week marked the start of our very last half term at St Paul’s Primary School! We are going to make our last few weeks count and we have been working really hard, as usual. We started our week with a trip up to the park at Blacksnape to have a look at our local area from a good vantage point. We were identifying the physical and human geographical features of the area for the Geography part of our Hoddlesden Globe theme learning. We then created a sketch map (a simple drawing of the landscape, showing things that are sometimes hidden in other maps) drawn from a bird's-eye view.

In Maths, we have been finding missing angles in a triangle. We have used our knowledge of the properties of a triangle, such as the different types of triangle and the sum of the interior angles (they add up to 180°).  Our Computing for this half term is Computer-Aided Design (CAD). We will be using an online 3D modelling program to design a theatre set for a scene from Romeo and Juliet (linked to our English learning) and then making it in the Design & Technology part of our theme learning.

Blackburn Rovers Football Club came in to deliver our Move & Learn session for P.E. and we also practised our teamwork skills in our Outdoor Adventure unit.

It has been a super start to our half term!

Oliver says:

"I really enjoyed going to Blacksnape to sketch the landscape. We were looking for the human and physical features. The moors around Darwen Tower are physical and Darwen Tower is human geography. I have enjoyed doing the 3D modelling on the computers and learning how to use Computer-Aided Design technology."

Summer 1 - Amazing Asia

Week 7

The last week of this half term has been jam-packed, as always! We completed our Electricity project in Science by putting our useful circuit for Mulan into action - we created a simple model to show how the circuit would work. We had to do some problem solving to fix issues that we encountered with the components and set-up of our circuits but, eventually, there was a lot of buzzing and bulb flashing in our classroom! In Art, Mrs Dixon brought us our glazed and fired clay masks, based on the animals of the Chinese zodiac. They look fantastic! We then selected one of the characteristics of the animals we had chosen.

Our English learning, based around the story of Mulan, has ended with our own version of the story. We started our writing at the end of the story and then included a flashback to explain how the character had reached that point. We have focused on angles this week in Maths, measuring and drawing them and calculating missing angles on a straight line and around a point. We love using the protractors! In our R.E. lesson, we focused on the Holy Trinity. We thought about the concept of one God in three parts: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We designed our own image to show this concept. We practised our triple jump skills in our first P.E. lesson and then played a fantastic game of rounders in our second lesson…it was a very close match!

We are now all ready for a well-earned break next week. FANTASTIC work this half term, Year 6 

Week 6

We can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying by! We have worked very hard again this week in Year 6. In Maths, we have continued our Statistics unit. We have drawn pie charts, using a pair of compasses and a protractor. We found that it is harder than it looks! We then learnt how to find the mean (average) of a set of data. In English, we started looking at stories with flashbacks, in preparation for writing a version of our focus text, Mulan, using a flashback. We used drama to help us to remember the main events. We also used descriptive and figurative language for effect when we wrote setting descriptions for the story; we included similes, metaphors and personification.

Using the research from our Geography lesson last week about air pollution in China, we continued our discussion text on whether China has done enough to combat the problem of air pollution. Our Electricity learning continued in Science, where we investigated the best type of switch to use in the useful circuits we have designed for the character Mulan. In this week’s R.E. lesson, we used a Venn diagram to compare aspects of Christianity and Islam, thinking about the similarities and differences in the faiths’ understanding of God. We painted our animal masks in Art, using a variety of pastel colours.

Sadie says,

"I have enjoyed painting my clay animal mask in Art and I enjoyed writing a discussion text in Geography. I liked drawing pie charts in Maths because we got to use a pair of compasses and a protractor!"

Week 5

This week has been Mental Health Awareness Week and this year’s theme is nature. Watch this video to see how connecting with nature can help our mental health: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDioDtjkis&t=119s

We thought about the many benefits to connecting with nature for our mental health, which include feeling happier, feeling less stressed or angry, having more and better-quality sleep and improving our attention and concentration. We spent some time outside so that we could enjoy the nature around us; we listened and observed, sketching the nature that we could see or thinking about how we would describe what we could see and hear. Oscar even wrote a poem! You can read his poem below.

In English, we read a text about another strong female character, The Warrior Queen. We used a Venn diagram to compare the character to Mulan, finding lots of similarities and differences between them. Also linked to our Amazing Asia theme learning, we took part in a martial arts session. We learnt all sorts of moves, including the horse stance, sparring stance and crane stance!

In the Geography part of our theme learning, we focused on human geography; we looked at the geographical reasons why the cities in China are located where they are. We also researched the problems that the large cities in China have caused, including air pollution, plus the solutions that the country has put in place to solve the issues. We wrote a discussion text on whether China has done enough to combat the problem of air pollution.

We completed our clay animal masks in Art that are based on the animals of the Chinese zodiac. We then learnt some techniques for making 3D clay models: you have to mould the clay in a certain way so that it doesn’t explode in the kiln!

Nature by Oscar:

The tweets of birds in the blue sky

Soaring and flying in the calm wind

The spring weather and the breeze around

Calm and quiet in the shade

Chloe says:

"I have really enjoyed going outside to connect with nature. I sketched a daisy. I also enjoyed doing the Chinese martial arts on Tuesday because it meant I could learn new things about China."

Week 4

After enjoying an extra day off this week, we came back into school at full speed ahead! We wrote our weighted discussion text in English about whether or not Mulan should take her father’s place in the army, including a greater number of arguments in favour of our view point. We used the features of a discussion text, such as devices for cohesion. In Maths, we were introduced to the parts of circles, including radius, diameter and circumference. We learnt that the diameter is twice the length of the radius.

In our R.E. lesson, we used extracts from the Bible to discover the different names that are given to God. These include Elohim, meaning ‘strong creator’, and El Shaddai - ‘God Almighty’. We used these names to create some graffiti art. We continued our Geography learning by using maps to locate the physical and human geography of China, marking the features on a map and creating a key to show what the features are. In Computing this week, we used the email function to send an email with an attachment. We wrote a message to explain what we had learnt about China so far and we then attached a PowerPoint with further information on it. We are really enjoying our French lessons with Madame Wardle - we have learnt the names of the planets and we are beginning to describe them in French. In Music, we managed to get outside into the fresh air and sunshine (it rained last week!) in order to compose our own music using pentatonic scales. Our Chinese zodiac animal masks are really coming along in our Art lessons!

Week 3

We have had another action-packed week in the Year 6 classroom! In Maths, we have moved on from ratio and we have been learning about enlarging shapes using a scale factor (when you enlarge a shape and each side is multiplied by the same number). Our English learning, based on the text Mulan, included holding a debate about whether the main character should take her father’s place in the army, in preparation for writing a weighted discussion text. We thought about the arguments for and against Mulan going to war and used them in our debate, listening to each other’s points and responding appropriately. Mr Dugdale even popped in to hear our arguments!

In Science, we used the components of a circuit to investigate the effects of adding more cells or more bulbs. We also continued creating our Chinese animal masks out of clay in Art, layering up the clay to create a 3D effect. We continued to practise our javelin skills in P.E. and began to learn how to do an effective baton pass in a relay. In our French lesson with Madame Wardle, we learnt the names of the planets in French and linked them with the days of the week, as they are named after the planets. We used lots of actions to help us to remember the vocabulary!

We ended our week with some Forest School outdoor learning based on Mulan. We loved our journey through the woods as warriors…we tackled a tunnel, did some heavy lifting and waded through a wild river! We then whittled some bows to fire arrows and relaxed by the fire, toasting a marshmallow or two. What a fantastic way to end the week!

Lissy says,

"I have really enjoyed this week! Especially in Art and Forest School - it is a great way to learn new things. I learnt how to keep trying in Forest School as me and Evie-Mai kept failing at making a bow out of willow!"

Week 2

This week, we have had a very ‘hands-on’ week in Year 6! In Science, we started our Electricity unit by revising our existing knowledge on the components in a circuit; we investigated various circuits and used the correct symbols to draw the circuits that we had created. In Art, we used clay to begin to create the masks we have designed based on the animals of the Chinese zodiac. We used different tools and techniques to mould and shape the clay. In our P.E. lessons, we have practised our speed walking, our javelin throwing and our rounders skills!

In our English lessons, we have continued to focus on the text Mulan. We have written in role as the main characters, created a Top Trumps cards for one of the villains and written a free verse poem using vocabulary linked to the themes of the text. Our Geography lesson involved finding out about the physical geography of China; we used the Tier 3 vocabulary we have previously learnt to describe the location of the country, including terms such as longitude, latitude, equator, hemispheres etc. We finished off our week with more Music and French with our curriculum specialists!

Week 1

This week in Year 6, we have enjoyed a busy week that included some curriculum enhancements and curriculum specialists. As part of our Amazing Asia topic, we took part in a Chinese lion dance workshop where we learnt how to operate the Chinese dragon and make it ‘dance’! We also enjoyed a very active cricket session with LCF.

In English, our focus text is Mulan, based on the Disney live action adaptation. We started our unit by looking at the original ballad that is believed to be the inspiration for the story. We summarised the story, looked at the vocabulary and learnt a section of the text for performance. Our Maths learning has included some new Year 6 learning on the topic of ratio. We have started using the language of ratio so that we can calculate ratios in next week’s lessons.

We are very fortunate to have a curriculum specialist in Art to support us with this half term’s theme learning. We will be creating a clay mask based on one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. This week, we sketched our designs, ready for starting the masks next week. We also had a French lesson with our new curriculum specialist for MFL, Madame Wardle. It has been a great start to the Summer Term!

George says,

"This week, I have enjoyed the lion dance because it is not something that we would usually do. I liked being in the head of the lion - I got to make it look like the lion was dancing around! I have also enjoyed the acting we did in English because it was a fun way to learn about the story."

Spring 2 - Blended Learning

Week 5

We have had a very active week in Year 6! We investigated the effects of exercise on our bodies in Science, we have practised our volleyball skills in P.E. and we did a triathlon to round off the week!

Our Science involved designing an investigation that would allow us to measure the effects of exercise on our bodies. We did a set of exercises and then took our pulse to see what had happened to our heart rate. We made sure that we made it a fair investigation and worked out the mean (average) of our data.

In English, we continued with our chosen topic, The Deep. This week, we looked at the discovery of the wreck of Titanic in 1985 and wrote a report about the event. We also looked at some of the artefacts that were found in the wreckage. Later in the week, we learnt about the sunken city Pavlopetri, linking our learning to our last History topic about the Ancient Greeks. We wrote a diary entry in role, created a travel brochure to inform people about the discovery and did a live news report!

In Maths, we have extended our work on area by using formulae to calculate the area of triangles and parallelograms. We mixed Art and R.E. by looking at the significance of the cross in the Easter story and then creating an artistic Easter card using pastels.

The triathlon was great fun but very tiring...we rode bikes, 'swam' and did laps around the field and playground!

We have definitely earned our Easter holidays! 

Week 4

In Year 6, we have enjoyed a week of deep sea creatures, Shakespeare and dressing up!

We decided to choose our own topic for our English learning in the last two weeks of term and we agreed on The Deep…we are doing a combination of non-fiction, fiction and poetry about the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean! Our focus has been the Mariana Trench - the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. We have loved learning about the weird and wonderful creatures that live in the trench, writing a survival guide for them (the living conditions are pretty tricky), writing the voiceover narrative for a video clip (just like David Attenborough) and a free verse poem about the submarine volcanoes (you can get volcanoes under the sea!)

As it is Shakespeare Week, we have dipped into the story of Macbeth in our Guided Reading sessions. We have discovered a bit about the main characters and the reasons for their actions, as well as trying to understand the original text!

In Maths, we have continued our topic on perimeter and area; we have started some new learning about how to find the area of triangles. In Science, we discovered what is in our blood and how it helps our body. In our P.E. lessons, we practised our volleyball skills and learnt the technique for speed walking in our Athletics session!

On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day again now that we are all back in school together. The dressing up was fantastic…there was a wonderful array of costumes based on all sorts of books! We have really enjoyed our week 

Week 3

We are SO pleased to be back together as a class this week! After a few days of settling in, it is like we have never been away. We have eased ourselves in gently this week and we have enjoyed spending time together again.

Our Maths lessons this week involved converting between standard units of measure, including imperial units which aren’t used as much now. In our English lessons, we have focused on the legend of the Trojan horse, linked to our History learning about the Ancient Greeks. We have discussed that there may be different versions of the same legend because the story has been passed down over the years and may only partly be based on the truth. We enjoyed retelling a section of the story in pairs, adding actions and making our performance interesting to watch! Watch our performance here: https://stpaulshoddlesden.primarysite.media/media/the-legend-of-the-trojan-horse

We also interviewed each other in role as the Greek soldiers hiding in the wooden horse.

In Science, we learnt about the different sections of the heart, including ventricles and atria. We enjoyed the return of Mr Richards in Music and used the djembe drums and percussion to perform a range of call and response rhythms.

Toby says,

“I have enjoyed the fact that we are all back together! I especially enjoyed P.E. because it was very energetic! It has been quite fun learning about the imperial measurements in Maths. I liked writing in the 1^st person in English, writing from the perspective of a soldier in the Trojan horse. Music was good because we haven’t done it in a while!”

Week 2

This week has flown by! We have had another great week of remote and in-school learning, including celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 4th March. In Year 6, we decided that we wanted to re-live our childhood and enjoy books that we read when we were younger! Our focus text was The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. A boy’s crayons have quit their jobs as crayons because they aren’t happy with what he uses them for. For example, Red Crayon complains because he is worked too hard – he’s always being used for things like fire engines and strawberries and even has to work during the holidays, colouring in Father Christmas or love hearts! We used the text as a stimulus to write our own letters in role from objects that feel like they aren’t being used properly…we had some fantastic ideas!

In Science, we started our Exercise, Health and the Circulatory System unit by learning about the human circulatory system. We learnt that the heart is a pump and that it sends blood to the lungs to get oxygen before sending it around the body. Our Computing task this week was to create a quiz on Purple Mash, using a variety of question types.

Orla says:

"I have really enjoyed doing Mrs Winward's gymnastics workout videos and it has been really fun playing games outside this week. I liked learning about the heart this week because it was really interesting to delve deeper into your body. I really enjoyed writing the letter based on the story The Day the Crayons Quit on World Book Day and I liked listening to Mrs Bullen reading Hairy Maclairy because I enjoyed the rhyming!"

Week 1

We have made a super start to the new half term in Year 6, both at school and at home! Remote learning has continued and the work has been fantastic.

This week in English, we have continued to focus on Letters From the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll, a story set during World War II. We have used similes and metaphors to describe what it would be like during an air raid, found synonyms for a character’s feelings and emotions and thought about the pros and cons of evacuation. Maths has become very ‘Year 6ish’ this week as we have progressed through our algebra topic! We have been writing and solving equations.

In Art, we used art and design techniques to add collage to a drawing (with Mrs Clitheroe’s help!) In our Science lesson, we thought about traits that are inherited by offspring from their parents. We then decided which biscuits could be the ‘parents’ of the ‘offspring’ biscuits! Our Computing lesson involved using Purple Mash to create a multiple choice quiz about a topic of our choice…there were some weird and wonderful questions to answer! In the R.E. lesson, we used Bible verses to discover some of the names that are used for Jesus in the Bible and then created an acrostic poem, using those names. In History, we continued our learning about Ancient Greece; we learnt about the gods and goddesses that were worshipped by the Greeks and used the information for a quiz. We have really enjoyed our week 🙂

Harry Ba says:

"I have enjoyed P.E. this week as it was quite intense when we were playing a game together! I have enjoyed doing algebra this week because we have learnt things that we haven't learnt before. I enjoyed PSHE as we were thinking about how we could make things environmentally sustainable."

Week 6

In Year 6, we can't believe how quickly this half term has gone! We have been SO busy, both at school and remotely, that the time has whizzed by...we have definitely all earned a break next week!

This week, we continued our Robots theme in English. We have thought about how robots are used and then we created our own robot! We wrote instructions for the functions of our robot creations. Later in the week, we looked at an extract from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by by L. Frank Baum about the Tin Man, thinking about what he wanted from the wizard (a heart). We then wrote in role as our robots, describing what we wanted (e.g. a heart or a brain). Our final task was to write a story opening about our robot, blending action, dialogue and description.

In Maths, we have done some brand new Year 6 learning about algebra! We started gently by looking at one- and two-step function machines and then moved on to using letters to represent numbers in expressions.

Our Science lesson this week involved a Bird Beak Buffet! We used different utensils to represent the different types of beaks that birds have and then tried using them to pick up a variety of foods. We thought about natural selection and what would happen to the birds that were not suited to a particular food type. In History, we learnt more about the impact the Ancient Greeks have had on how we do things today; we learnt about the Olympic Games and about some of the 'thinkers' (philosophers) that were making discoveries during Ancient Greek times.

Have a well-deserved break next week, everyone 😊

Cole says:

"I have enjoyed writing about robots and making our own robot in English. I liked doing beach ball volleyball in P.E. and learning the passes. The game was very energetic and fun!"

Week 5

We have come to the end of another action-packed week in Year 6! Our English work has been based around the topic Robots. We have used video clips from some wonderful Disney films to give us inspiration for our writing; we have produced fantastic adverts, postcards and persuasive arguments! We have continued our fractions, decimals and percentages work in Maths, comparing them and finding percentages of amounts.

As it is Children's Mental Health Week, we have focused on the theme of Express Yourself. We have considered self-expression - what it means and how we can express ourselves. In our R.E. lesson, we continued to think about freedom and historical figures who have fought for freedom in different ways. In Computing, we also focused on influential people, thinking about the people who have had an impact on the history of computing. Our Science lesson was based on fossil records; fossils provide evidence for how living things and the environment have changed over time. We can look at them to see what the earlier types of animals were like. In Art, we continued to look at landscape drawing, this time using paint (if we had some!) We were very ambitious in our P.E. lesson this week, practising some tricky volleyball skills (using the beach balls!) I think we are all ready for a rest!

Week 4

We can't believe that another week is over already! As usual, this week has been packed full of learning. Our Maths topic has involved converting fractions to percentages. In English, we have focused on non-fiction texts about famous explorers! Amongst other things, we created a fact file about the polar regions, wrote and performed a film trailer about Ernest Shackleton and wrote a description of what we think it would be like to stand on top of Mount Everest. In Computing, we used https://wordart.com/ to create a word cloud about kindness, using synonyms that we had collected. Our R.E. lesson involved thinking about freedom and what it means to be free. We collected synonyms and antonyms for the word free and created a free verse poem (Mrs Scholes loves poetry!) The poems are incredible! In Art, we practised the sketching skills that Mrs Clitheroe has taught us and we drew a landscape. We used softer pencils to help with our shading.

Evie-Mai says:

"I really enjoyed doing the word art because I liked doing the different styles of font. I also enjoyed doing both P.E. lessons because it is good to have fun with the class while learning routines in Street Dance and different skills in volleyball."

Week 3

The children have all worked incredibly hard this week in Year 6, whether at school or remotely! In English, we have continued to use Wonder as our focus text. We have thought about the theme of the text and what we think the different characters would be thinking and feeling. Maths this week has involved multiplying and dividing decimal numbers, using both mental and written methods.

In Art, Mrs Clitheroe showed us (via video!) how to develop our drawing skills, using techniques such as cross hatching and shading. Our R.E. focus was the story of Passover in Judaism; we explored the significance of a Seder plate and what each item represents. We then designed our own plate of memories and explained why we had chosen those items of food. In one of our P.E. lessons, we continued to develop our volleyball skills…either at school with a beach ball or at home with a balloon! It has been a busy but fun week.

Kian says:

"I have enjoyed working from home because the work I have been set has been challenging and Mrs Scholes has been there to help if I need it."

Louaia says:

"I have really enjoyed reading the book Wonder with the class and I’m thinking of getting the book to read at home because I’m really enjoying it."

Grace says:

"I have liked the art that Miss Clitheroe has posted on the school website because we have still managed to do those things at home and I enjoy it."

Harry says:

"I have enjoyed online learning because it can get you more used to technology. I have been enjoying Science, as always, but recently it has been my favourite because it has been about animals and how they have adapted to the environments. It's good that I can put a note on Seesaw and that Mrs. Scholes answers my questions really quickly. I like that I get feedback on everything that I have done so that I know that I have done everything well or if I need to re-do some areas of learning."

Oliver says:

"I have enjoyed doing Zoom and Art."

Week 2

This week has flown by! We have now got used to our blended learning and we tried our first live lesson! The children at home are fantastic at doing their remote learning and the children in school are continuing to work hard.

In English, our focus text has been Wonder by RJ Palacio. The story is about a boy who is starting school for the first time at the age of ten (our age!) The main character, Auggie, has a rare facial abnormality. We have thought about how he would feel about starting school and we have found synonyms for the words unique and kind, using them to write a poem and create some word art.

We started our Volleyball unit in P.E. and we learnt how to do an underhand serve and a bump pass (perhaps a little more tricky to practise at home!) We made HUGE progress in our first lesson and we were much better at controlling the ball by the end of the session.

In R.E., we looked at the significant events in the life of Moses. We imagined we were Moses when God spoke to him through the burning bush and sent a message to our friends to tell them what had happened.

Indiah says:

"It is quite strange having only half the class in but it is really fun at break time because we play together. We miss the other half of our class! I have enjoyed learning the street dance and how to play volleyball. I have enjoyed looking at the book Wonder and I liked thinking about the character Auggie's hopes and fears about starting school."

Week 1

Well...what a week! Closing again due to COVID-19 wasn't exciting enough for us at St Paul's so we threw a snow day into our first week back, too! Despite the challenging circumstances, the children have (once again) taken the new routine in their stride. Part of our Year 6 team has been in the classroom and the other part has been remote learning...every single child has continued to work their socks off and the Year 6 staff team is incredibly proud of each and every one of the children 

This week, we have learnt about coordinates and translation in Maths. In English, we looked at the lyrics of songs as poetry. We responded to the lyrics of a couple of songs, saying what we thought the message of the song is and how the lyrics make us feel. In R.E., we considered significant events in history and why they were significant. We then thought about a significant event in our own life. For our Computing lesson, we did some coding on the Hour of Code website.

Ben says:

"This has been a very fun week because we have come back to see our friends and we are in contact with our teachers. I liked P.E. because we did Street Dance."

Week 7

Our final week of this half term has been full of Geography! We have focused on the physical geography of Tanzania, linked to our Non-Fiction November focus person, Jane Goodall. Our key vocabulary was climate (the weather conditions which are typical of a place), biome (a large region of Earth that has a certain climate and certain types of living things) and vegetation belt (plant life as a whole within a certain area). We used the internet to research the climate, biome and vegetation belt of Tanzania.

In English, we wrote a free verse poem using the vocabulary we identified in the text Letters from the Lighthouse to describe an air raid. We used language effects, such as onomatopoeia, alliteration and repetition, to make our poems effective. Our R.E. lesson focused on the fourth candle of the Advent wreath, remembering Mary the Mother of Jesus and her role in the Christmas story.

What a fantastic term it has been! The children have worked very hard and they have enjoyed all of our topics and projects. Well done, everyone 🙂

Week 6

What a busy week! When we haven’t been learning how to multiply and divide fractions in Maths, we have been working on our Design & Technology production line for Elf Enterprise! Following on from our planning, designing and preparation last week, we have moved onto the making stage of our Santa’s Sweet Sleigh project. It really has been a full team effort; everyone has been measuring, cutting, sawing, joining, reinforcing, painting and decorating! We are really pleased with the outcome and our product sold out before the end of the week!

In R.E., we have been learning about Advent, which means ‘coming’ and is a time of preparation. We have looked at the meaning of the candles on an Advent wreath and who they remind us of. One tradition surrounding the meaning of the candles includes the candle of hope (God’s people), the candle of peace (the Old Testament prophets), the candle of love (John the Baptist) and the candle of joy (Mary the mother of Jesus). In Science, we are learning about light and investigated the angles of incidence and reflection. When light is reflected from a surface, the angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of reflection.

Oscar says,

"Elf Enterprise has been really fun! I enjoyed making the base of the sleigh. We measured the lolly sticks and then cut them with a saw. Once we had cut them, we stuck them onto three other lolly sticks to strengthen and reinforce them. I also enjoyed decorating the sides of the sleigh using glitter paint. We hope that people are going to like them!"

Week 5

In English this week, we have finished and presented our magazine pages about Jane Goodall. We focused on her impact on our planet. We thought about the organisation and presentation of our magazine page, making it bright, colourful and full of facts for the younger reader! In PSHE, we talked about diversity, prejudice and discrimination and how to help people who are treated badly because of their differences.

A large part of our week has been spent on our Elf Enterprise project for Design & Technology! We have made a fantastic start; we have investigated existing products, created designs and worked out the costings for our own product. The focus for our product is joining materials and stiffening and strengthening the structure of it. We had fun experimenting with different structural ideas to make sure that our product won’t fall apart! We then explained our choices to the class, talking about the structure and how we would join the parts of the product. Watch this space for our finished product…

Week 4

This week in English, we have been researching Jane Goodall as part of Non-Fiction November's theme, The Planet We Share. We are writing a non-fiction magazine page for children to explain who Jane Goodall is and the impact that she has had on our planet. During our Geography lessons, we have started looking at geographical terms such as latitude, longitude, equator, northern/southern hemispheres, tropics of Cancer/Capricorn and Arctic/Antarctic circles. We used an atlas to identify these features. We are also pleased to announce that we have persevered and finished our bags for Design & Technology! Our sewing skills have really progressed and we are very proud of the results. In MindUP this week, we have been practising Mindful Seeing - we looked at things in detail to help us to observe the things around us. Another busy week!

Week 3

This week, we have started our fractions unit in Maths...the children either love them or hate them! We have started with equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions, making good use of our knowledge of factors. In English, we have started our Non-Fiction November topic, linked to the theme The Planet We Share. Our focus environmentalist is Jane Goodall, who is an expert on chimpanzees! We will be looking at the work she has done towards helping our planet.

In our other lessons this week, we have mainly been making our bags in Design & Technology...our project is coming together! We have sewn on the pocket on which we did a design using a batik technique (based on African patterns) and we have joined our material using either a running stitch or an overstitch. The bags are looking great!

Week 2

We have been very productive in Year 6 this week! In English, we have started writing our own version of an extract of our focus text, The Girl of Ink and Stars. We have been practising blending action, dialogue and description to make our writing exciting to read and to create suspense. In Maths, we have started looking at the order of operations (BODMAS) to allow us to solve calculations correctly. We have been developing our cricket skills in P.E. and we practised our batting skills this week.

Our Art work has linked to African patterns and we have designed a simple pattern that we are creating using a batik process. We have improvised our technique...we are not using hot wax but we have experimented with glue and candle wax! These act as a resist to stop the dye going onto the material underneath. The patterns we have created will then be sewn onto the bag we are making in Design & Technology, using our joining skills! We are upcycling - we are going to use old clothing or material and make it into something even better!

Week 1

We have settled back into our routine after a well earned rest during the half term break! This week in English, we have gathered the content for our own version of part of our focus text, The Girl of Ink and Stars. We also used a picture prompt to help us to focus on Remembrance Day. We thought about how the picture made us feel and what the soldiers in the picture would have been thinking and feeling. In Computing, we started a programming unit with Mrs Wardman, writing and debugging algorithms. Our new P.E. topic is Tag Rugby and started off by practising our skills relating to holding, throwing and catching the ball. 

We also visited the war memorial at the top of Bayne Street. We put our painted rocks on the steps and learnt a bit about the names on the memorial from Mrs Robinson.

Week 8

It has been an exciting week in Year 6! We had a Life Education session on Monday where we discussed making decisions, including difficult choices that we may have to make as we get older. We were also happy (and a little bit sad) to see Harold the giraffe for the last time in our primary school career!

Later in the week, we got our bike helmets and high visibility vests on and took to the streets of Hoddlesden! The Bikeability course developed our skills when riding our bikes on the road. We practised in the school playground before applying our skills out on the roads. Despite the rain on the second day, we finished the course and were still smiling when we got back to school! Everyone did really well - the instructors were very impressed.

On Friday afternoon, we had our behaviour treat for this half term…an online visit from Jasper Cherry! The Britain’s Got Talent magician showed us some amazing tricks and we asked some questions about what he does. What a fantastic way to end the half term 

Week 7

The weeks are flying by in Year 6 and we have had another fantastic week of learning! In English, we thought about a character’s feelings and collected synonyms to develop our vocabulary. We also wrote a monologue as a character, using rhetorical questions and short sentences for effect.

In Maths, we have been developing our multiplication skills, using both mental and written methods to solve multiplication calculations. Our PSHE lesson focused on healthy, positive friendships. We imagined we were radio presenters and gave advice to people who were having problems with their friendships. As always, our drama was very entertaining! In History, we researched other kingdoms so that we could compare them to the Kingdom of Benin, thinking about time periods, trading and achievements.

Carl Linnaeus and the Linnaean classification system were the focus of our Science lesson. We discovered the impact that Carl Linnaeus had on Science and the way that the world classifies living things.

We have been continuing our MindUP sessions, focusing on mindful smelling and tasting. We do Core Practice after playtimes and lunchtimes to help us to refocus our brains, concentrating on our breathing rather than the noises around us.

As part of our British Values worship about Individual Liberty last week, we designed and created a structure with a partner so that we could practise expressing our ideas and listening to the views of others.

Week 6

This week, we have enjoyed starting to learn about batik (a dye technique using a wax resist) in Art. We practised the technique by using oil pastels and watercolours; we used the oil pastels as the resist to stop the paint getting to the paper, like the wax stops the dye getting to the material during the batik process.

In French, we learnt the French vocabulary for clothing. In our R.E. lesson, we discovered what a pilgrimage is (a journey made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion) and we researched the religious pilgrimages that the followers of Christianity, Judaism and Islam undertake throughout their lives.

Throughout the week, we have been learning more about Black History Month. Our person of interest is Harriet Tubman, a slave who escaped and led other enslaved people to freedom. In English, we wrote a ‘Wanted’ poster with a twist and described all of her positive traits.

Week 5

This week has flown by! In English, we have produced a fantastic hybrid text about the Kingdom of Benin, including a non-chronological report and an explanation text. We were going to do a recount but then we were inspired to write a discussion text! In Design & Technology, we applied the skills we learnt last week and joined two pieces of material using a running stitch and an overstitch. In Science, we created our own new animal that we could classify using a classification key. There were some weird and wonderful creatures! In Art, we looked at African patterns, using them to inspire our own patterns.

It was National Poetry Day on Thursday and this year’s theme was vision. We read some poems together and then wrote our own versions, based on those models. We learnt and performed our poems…performing in front of the camera always gets a mixed response! Watch some of our performances here.

Week 4

We have had another busy week in Year 6, laughing and having fun along the way! In English, we have started looking at non-fiction texts in preparation for writing our own hybrid text. We have chosen to include a non-chronological report, a recount and an explanation in our text about the Kingdom of Benin (linked to our History learning).

In Science, we used a classification key to sort invertebrates before putting our scientist hats on and designing our own! We created a classification key to sort the different types of vertebrates (mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles). We were very impressed with our scientific brains!

In Design & Technology, we have been practising our stitching so that we will be able to join materials.

Week 3

We have had another great week in Year 6…it’s like we have never been away! In English, we have enjoyed reading and analysing a poem by a Nigerian poet called Niyi Osundare. The poem is about the rain and contains lots of similes, metaphors and personification. We have written our own version of the poem, changing the tone of the poem to a more positive view of the rain.

We also watched a session of the Blackburn Virtual Children's Literature Festival where we enjoyed a poet sharing his own poems...he was very entertaining!

Our Art learning involved looking at the significance of animals in the Kingdom of Benin. The Obas (the kings) were compared to animals such as crocodiles and leopards to demonstrate their position as king. We decided which animal we thought best represented the Oba and sketched a picture of it, using the skills we have learnt in previous Art lessons.

As part of our Science learning, we spent a bit of time in the great outdoors! We looked for living things in the local wooded area so that we can classify them (group them) in our next Science lesson. We think the noise we were making scared most of the bigger animals off but we saw plenty of minibeasts!

We have also spent lots of time reading this week…we love to read together!

Week 2

We have had a FANTASTIC first full week back in Year 6! The children really have got back into the swing of things and we have enjoyed our learning.

In History, we looked at a timeline and placed the time periods that we have learnt about on it, including the Kingdom of Benin. By doing this, we could see that some of the different time periods happened at the same time, and not one after the other!

In R.E., we started to look at our own life journey so far. We thought about events that were significant to us, such as losing our first tooth, starting school etc.

We were really pleased to be able to start Music lessons with Mr Richards again and Gymnastics with Miss Crewe! Mrs Scholes managed to get some super action shots of balances and jumps during Gymnastics.

Watch our video here.

Year 6 is BACK!

What a fantastic few days we have had - the fun, laughter (and a bit of work) have returned to St Paul's! In Year 6, we have spent a lot of time discussing our time away from school, the pros and cons of lockdown and what we have enjoyed most about returning to school. The overwhelming response was related to being back with our friends and school staff...it is so good to be with each other again. We have particularly loved playing together as a class at playtime and lunchtime (it made Mrs Scholes feel all warm and fuzzy inside). 

Welcome back and well done, everyone 

(Apologies for the lack of photographs from these first few days - we have been too busy catching up with each other! Mrs Scholes will take more next week)