Year 6 Amber Class

Mrs Perkins	Mrs Blanchard	Mrs Ayres	Mrs Tedder
Class Teacher	Teaching Assistant (AM)	Teaching Assistant	Teaching Assistant (PM)

At the end of September, Year 6 spent a day at Calshot Activity Centre in Southampton. They had an amazing experience! They started the day by climbing a range of different climbing walls which were designed to challenge all ability levels. They even had to try to navigate obstacles. From there, they tried their hand at archery and it was really clear to see how they progressed their skills during this activity. After lunch and a orienteering game, the grand finale of the day was ringos. They all loved sliding down the dry ski slope in inflatable rings and really revelled in the fact that they could do it solo or in groups of up to five. Of course, the adults all had a go too! After all the excitement, we returned to school tired but happy and ready for an early night.

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What a busy few weeks we have had! The children have continued to settle into Year 6 and have been superb role models for the rest of the school. They have been working hard across all areas of the curriculum and they were thrilled to be able to share their hard work with their parents at our recent Celebration Evening.

Year 6 are keen scientists and have enjoyed their topics of ‘Living Things’ and more recently, ‘Electricity’. They photographed plants and used our online platform, Seesaw, to produce classification trees. They have also learnt how to use symbols when drawing diagrams of series circuits and have investigated what happens when you make variations within a circuit.

In early November, the children joined members of the Junior Citizen Programme at Thorpe Park where they spent the morning learning about health and wellbeing, railway and water safety and healthy eating. In addition, they were taught some basic first aid and how to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle. The children thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to interact with some of the emergency services and came back with lots of ideas.

We now look forward to the Spring Term and continuing our learning journey together.

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At the start of term, Year 6 took part in the schoolwide Science Week and Science Fair. The theme of the week was ‘Women in Science’ and they researched a number of women who had pivotal roles in STEM disciplines. This included Hertha Ayrton, Katherine Johson and Ada Lovelace. The children then wrote biographies based on their chosen scientist/mathematician.

During the week, they also applied their skills that they had learnt during our topic of ‘Electricity’ and created their own games. We had such fun! The games ranged from question and answers where motors spun, or lights lit up to games requiring a steady hand to prevent a buzzer from sounding. It was great to see so many parents and children from other year groups playing our games at the fair and it was amazing to listen to our year 6 children explain how the games worked and what their inspiration had been.

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As our second term together ends, we can reflect on the remarkably busy few weeks we have shared. The children have learnt so much since September and many have made superb progress across all areas of the curriculum.

In Science, the children have developed their understanding of ‘light’ and conducted experiments to find out how the size of shadows are altered by the distance between an object and a light source. They have begun to explore the circulatory system which has included close observation of blood cells which they then recreated using clay.

Much of our learning has also been linked to our History topic of World War 2 this term and our class reading book, ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll. The children have written diary entries, letters home and persuasive texts in English and have learnt about the beginning of World War 2 and who were the significant leaders of the countries involved at the time. They have researched Winston Churchill, the RAF and what life was like during The Blitz. As the topic draws to a close, the children have considered life on the home front, including the Home Guard, rationing and the Dig for Victory campaign. Following on from their learning, they have created posters which highlight the message that everyone needed to ‘do their bit’ during the war.

The summer term brings many more exciting challenges, including SATs, residential trips and the end of year production so now we are looking forward to the last few weeks in Year 6 as the children bring their time in primary school to a close.