Friday 26th May 2023
During Diversity Week this week, we have been learning about stereotypes in PSHE. We learned how society has led us to believe there are girls' and boys’ jobs. We discussed how this is wrong and how we must challenge this.
We looked at how advertising leads us to believe some toys are for boys and some are only for girls, for example Lego advertise toys differently for boys and girls - pale pastel colours with pink and purple bricks for girls as opposed to bright colours with a greater variety of brick colours and characters for boys. There were also more exciting jobs for the lego characters such as police officers, fire fighters and doctors in the marketing for boys. The set pitched at girls only showed girls doing leisure activities such as baking and getting their hair done. We wrote persuasive letters to Lego asking them to reconsider how they are advertising their toys as the stereotyping is problematic.
In English we read the poem Refugees by Brian Bilston. We learned that it had two very different meanings depending on if you read the poem forwards or backwards. We used this a stimulus to write our own poems from the perspective of a child refugee, describing how we would feel having to pack our bags and leave our home countries in search of safety in a different country. Here is some of our work from the week.
Thursday 9th February
Friday 18th November
This week the students in Year 6 have been hard at work completing assessments. It's the second set of mock SATs assessments which they have undertaken this year and the progress they have already made is really clear to see. If they continue to progress in the same way between now and May, they're going to find the actual SATs week a doddle!
Each morning, after assessments have been completed, our learning has been centred around Anti-Bullying Week. Having discussed what bullying is and isn't, we have created our own posters to demonstrate our understanding. We have also discussed what prejudice means and how this ultimately can lead to bullying and discrimination. We discussed a range of scenarios in which prejudice was a key factor and came up with our own advice and solutions. We've been so impressed by the maturity and resilience shown by everyone this week. Have a great weekend everybody!
Monday 17th October
Welcome to the first Year 6 blog post of the year! We are sorry that it's taken us so long to post a message but it's been an incredibly busy start to the year with so much learning having already taken place, as well as, of course, our residential trip to Grafham Water. While there, we had an opportunity to participate in several exciting activities including mountain biking, bush craft, wall climbing, high ropes and sailing. Many of these activities provided us with big challenges to overcome but with the help and encouragement of our friends, we were able to try our best and overcome our fears. As you can see from the photo below, we had a great time and made some memories that will stay with us for life.
Thursday 30th June 2022
This week, Year 6 have been learning about the amazing journey of Greta Thunberg in her journey to becoming an environmental activist. We have been inspired by Greta and have undergone our own research into an area of climate change that we feel passionate about. We have created placards and prepared speeches to share with others. This afternoon, we took to the field and took part in our own Shirley protest, fighting for climate change! Here are some photos of us in action:
Friday 24th June 2022
This week, we have been making posters, programmes and activity booklets for our play Star Warts for the rest of the school to purchase! (Nomy)
As we are in Year 6, we are doing an end of Shirley production. The production is a parody of Star Wars and is fun to act. We are taken out for rehearsals if we are main characters (Elena.S).
Since we have received our lines, Year 6 have been practising non-stop and we have even learnt some dances along the way for our play. (Joana)
Friday 10th June 2022
This week, we enjoyed performing to the whole school with a jubilee dance to the song, "Rock Around the Clock" which was a jive and involved lots of jive kicks, twirls and even a few cartwheels! We also sang Three Little Birds by Bob Marley.
We went to look at some artefacts from the 1950s - 1970s which included an old cashier with some receipts still in there and an old teddy bear and an old telephone (Joana).
There was also an old scrapbook and some games and comics (Reese).
Julia brought in some pictures of her family in the 1950s and told us about how people lived back then and we discussed how some photos were not in colour because colour would have been expensive to purchase at the time. (Elena.S).
Friday 27th May 2022
This week in Year 6, we have been celebrating the diversity in our school and in our world. We have been learning about tolerance and accepting all individuals from all walks of life and we enjoyed reading 'My Shadow is Pink' which celebrates being unique. We have also been discussing gender stereotypes and took part in discussions and activities relating to how these stereotypes can have an impact on people's interests and their future careers. Here is a PowerPoint about our week which we created in computing and shared in our whole school sharing assembly.
Friday 6th May 2022
This week in Year 6, we have been revising for our SATs (next week). We looked at our previous tests and thought how we could improve. We were also given revision sheets instead of home work. (Elena.S)
In guided reading, I have been focusing on different questions at different texts e.g. Little Red Riding Hood. (Lily)
In English, we have been learning about parenthesis and how it is used to add extra information within brackets, comma and dashes. (Manha)
Friday 29th April 2022
This week in Year 6, we attempted to save the Grammatacus Galaxy and win a great battle against the Subordinating Conjunction Empire! To do that, we needed to take control of the secret weapon, "The White Bus". We finished the questions and found the password to A White Bus which was, "I SAW A WABABUB!". We learnt about conjunctions and their differences with a bit of Star Wars (Elena.S).
We also wrote a formal letter and learnt some of the rules for example no contractions e.g. You are instead of you're (Tonya).
In Maths, some of us have been revisiting the names of 2D and 3D shapes and how to count the number of vertices and sides (Lily).
Friday 25th March 2022
This week in maths, we have been working on area and volume. We worked out how to calculate the area of a triangle and the volume of a cuboid. Today we had particularly tricky questions including volume. (Elena.S)
Some of us also completed some challenges from the Nrich website which we really enjoyed especially the Tangram activity. (Julia)
In computing, we were doing our own stories and adding some choice for example, "Would you rather invite Tom or Lyla?" (Tonya)
In English, we have been writing about the Mayans who were the most intelligent tribe known to man. Anyway, we have been studying hard to write an analytical essay with the top 3 categories we wanted such as Glyphs, Astronomy/Calendar and Food. (Joana)
Friday 18th March 2022
This week in maths, we have been looking at time, length and weight and converting between them (Kayden).
In maths, I have been measuring in centimeters and meters (Lily).
In computing, we have been making a story where you can pick the route where the character goes like Red Riding Hood you can choose to play in the woods or go to Nana's house (Grace).
In music, we learnt the chord F and we strummed to Roar by Katy Perry (Tonya).
Today has been Red Nose Day =. Everyone brought in donations and raised money for Comic Relief, wearing non-uniform. We had an assembly where Mrs Wernham shared the joke, "What is green but not heavy?........LIGHT GREEN!" (Elena.S)
Friday 11th March 2022
This week in maths, we have been finding possible values using algebraic equations and some of us have been learning about money adding different pounds and pence. (Lily)
As part of Science week, we went on a trip to Cripps Court and some of us helped to demonstrate using a laser microscope to cut through a piece of tissue from a mouse's liver. (Reese).
We also got to have a closer look at a sample of a mouse's liver on a special glass slide. (Jacob).
I was inspired by the trip to continue with Science - I loved it! We were talking about DNA and mixing them with other animals and we also talked about mixing them with humans however this would be very dangerous as this has not been done before. (Orrin)
In English, we wrote a diary acting like Pik before the game. We wrote things such as, "I am honored to meet Chac but at the same time I am shaking in my boots." (Grace)
Friday 4th March 2022
As it was World Book Day we read the book The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse. We wrote some lovely letters to people who are scared or having a hard time and they almost made Miss Ullmann cry! (Tonya).
In English this week we have been writing our own stories without help. It has been challenging but fun at the same time (Grace).
In PE, we have been working on our team building skills and we played End Zone which is game where you need to get into someone else's semi-circle and the first team to get all their players into the other team's semi-circle is the winner (Lily and Joana).
In computing, we wrote a story using a theme of our choice for World Book Day e.g. the seaside, World War 2 and the Mayans (Nomy).
Friday 25th February 2022
This week in Year 6, we have started reading The Rain Player. Today we were pretending to be Pik and we wrote some dialogue to his friends, asking them to join his team (Lily)
In maths, we have been doing algebra and we have been using big blocks and giving them different names such as 'x' and we have added them to a table to figure out the value so at the end you could have x + 10 = 15 (Grace)
In PE, we played team games to build up our communication games skills and working with other people we wouldn't usually work with. We played Chain Tag, Cross the River and Castle Tag which all included communication and team work. (Natalia)
We enjoyed learning about the amazing Mayan culture in history and in English. We wrote down the rules of the game Pok-a-Tok. It was invented by two twins battling the gods of the underworld. (Orrin)
Friday 11th February 2022
This week has been Safety Week and we have been talking about the law and the differences between legal and illegal drugs (Lily)
Last week in DT, we have been making our own little structures and today we will be building these to scale (Tonya)
In English, we have been writing discussion texts about saving endangered animals. and we had to write a very powerful text with emotive language, the power of 3 and short sentences. Did you know that baby chimpanzees are called infants just like humans.
Friday 4th February 2022
In maths, we have been learning about percentages - it was so hard (Ronnie). We have also been converting fractions and decimals to percentages and we then ordered then (Manha).
In DT, we have been planning our own designs using our knowledge of structures. Most of us are designing models for a kite and others are challenging ourselves to build large structures e.g. tall buildings (Tonya).
In music, we have been focusing on our ukulele playing. We all get our own ukuleles which is so much fun. We learnt a new song called the Thumb, Brush, Strum. (There once was a man from Tennessee (Nicole).
Friday 28th January 2022
This week in Year 6, we have been measuring our pulse after doing specific activities like running, walking, star jumps and laying down. I realised that my heart beat is lower than usual when I am lying down - Maryam.
In English, we have been writing a sequel to the novel 'The Promise'. Many people had completely different ideas despite the stories being about the same text. In maths, we have been practicing converting fractions to decimals and vice versa - Elena.S
In pe, we have been playing netball and practicing our shoulder, bounce and chest passes - Nomy
Friday 14th January 2022
This half term in Geography, we are learning about South America. We stuck tissue paper, cardboard and paper strips onto a map to create 3D models of the different biomes (Julia)
In PE, we have started Netball and we took part in some challenges such as shooting. (Edward)
I enjoyed learning how to play the ukulele and we learnt that the notes are G, C, E, A - Goats can't eat apes. (Arifa).
In English, we have written Aladdin Pantomime reviews and have top copied them to send them to the theatre. (Nomy)
Friday 7th January 2022
This week in Year 6, we have been preparing for our trip to see Aladdin at the theatre by writing a letter to the genie asking for our 3 wishes and we have also designed an advert for our very own magic lamp!
Today, we went to the Cambridge Arts Theatre and experienced the Aladdin panto! It was hilarious. My favourite character was the evil wizard (Elena.S). My favourite part was the ending because there were lots of songs (Nomy). I enjoyed seeing all the funny moments and serious ones and my favourite song was 'Never gonna give you up!" (Joana).
In PSHE, we have been discussing what makes a good learner as well as looking back at times in our education when we have been proud of our learning as well as times where we have found something difficult and how they might have impacted our learning experiences.
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Friday 10th December
experiences.