This week, we started our new Talk for Writing topic. We practiced our new model text which is all about two children who are warned not to leave their air raid shelter during the Blitz. Through drama, we internalised the story and recapped some of our previous writing skills such as relative clauses, fronted adverbials and semicolons. It was really great to see the children link this learning to our new class novel ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll. The book is about two children who are evacuated from Blitz ravaged London to the Devon coast.

In Maths, we looked at comparing and rounding numbers up to 10,000,000. We used a variety of methods to illustrate these numbers such as using place value charts, place value counters and base ten. It was great to see the children support one another in their learning.

On Friday, we celebrated European Languages Day by recapping different ways to greet people in French and then performed a song to help us. We also looked at French artist Henri Matisse. We learnt about his life and his conversion from traditional painting to collage work. We looked at some of his most famous pieces and discussed different aspects about them. During our art session, we imitated Matisse’s style to create some incredibly vibrant collages.

Our learner’s of the week are Zuhaib from 6A for being such a great role model by always moving sensibly around school and Leo from 6K for being 100% committed to his learning. He does not always find tasks easy, but has worked extremely hard since starting Year 6.

We had another fantastic week of learning in Year 6!

We spent our English sessions imitating the style of Dionne Brand’s Wind. The children wrote some incredibly profound lines that personified a tree as it moved through the seasons. We made sure to up level our vocabulary choices to improve our work. Here are some great examples:

I watched over the earth like a hawk as it aged with me (Nihal)

I stood, transfixed, gazing at the life around me (Zara)

I felt a sudden burst of joy as my green companions began to burst through (Gia)

I trembled incessantly as I envied the humans who were cuddled up by a warm fire (Mehuli)

We continued to develop our map reading skills working on finding out 6-figure grid references. Although we initially found it quite challenging; we persevered to ensure that we could identify different parts of our local area using an ordnance survey map.

In French, we learnt different ways to introduce ourselves and to explain how we were feeling. We used this knowledge to help us sing a funny song with Mr Ash.

Our learner’s of the week are Nura in 6A due to her constant willingness to contribute to discussion and Tommy in 6K for establishing great relationships with those he works with in lessons.

We enjoyed starting our Woodlands topic this week, being ACE Readers learning all about trees from around the world. We then became ACE Scientists learning about classification and how to sort living things. In writing, we looked at ‘Wind’, a poem by Dionne Brand. This focuses on personification – please quiz your child on this!

In the coming weeks, we hope to explore our school grounds to look at the Woodlands in more depth.

This week, some of us got to meet our reception buddies and over the next couple of weeks everyone will get that opportunity. It was brilliant to receive several positive comments and emails from EYFS staff who highlighted just how amazing the Year 6 children had been in supporting their younger counterparts.

It is too difficult this week to pick out a learner of the week as all the children’s behaviour was exemplary and they all threw themselves wholeheartedly into their new learning.