Welcome to the Year 6 blog!

Each week, we hope to share with you some of the learning that has taken place in our busy Year 6 classrooms. Maybe you could talk about what the children have been doing at school when you are at home with them?

Friday 26th April

This week, we have had the road safety officer talking to us about avoiding distractions as we travel from place to place. In the 6C English set we have had a drama lesson this week as part of our pirate diary project and we developed a performance of ‘The Pirate Song’ poem by David Harmer.  In the other English sets we have also continued our Odysseus stories by using our plans to help us develop our ideas in more detail. In maths, we have continued our SATS preparation by looking angles and practising our use of protractors to measure those angles.

Friday 19th April

We have had a jam-packed first week back here in year 6! The children have begun their new Evolution and Adaptation science and Ancient Greece history topics. Mr Neve has also put up a special end of year performance display board which shows the children all the roles they could audition for. There is also a small post box attached to the display where the children can put their name forward to audition for the cast or to offer their services for the backdrop/ prop making and crew.  Auditions will be held towards the end of term.

Thursday 28th March 

Our environment assemblies went well this week and the children have spoken to every year group (bar year R). Another success story this week has been our cam toys which look magnificent. In other news, we have been taking part in our end of term reading for pleasure activity and we clapped on the Rock Steady band as they took part in their final performance of the year.

Friday 22nd March

This week, we have worked incredibly hard on our final practice SATS. For this set of tests, we have relocated to the rooms that we will be sitting in for our actual tests. In the afternoons, we have been working incredibly hard on trying to complete our cam toys and it was a pleasure to welcome so many parents to the come and see. Next week, we have 8 children who will be representing the year group in assemblies to present all our new-found knowledge on environmental issues which we will be explaining in 3 separate assemblies. (Assembly posters to follow in the next blog.)

Friday 15th March

This week in English we have been exploring the structural features of formal letters in preparation to send out some very special thank you letters. In maths, we have been finding the area of triangles and the volume of cuboids. In our wider curriculum lessons, we have been completing our California double page spread where we summarise and display all the facts we have learned in our topic. Finally, we have ended the week with lots of extreme hair dos being sported and a fantastic sea of red being seen in our singing assembly!

Friday 8th March

We have had a World Book Week extravaganza! This included, having some lovely sixth form visitors from Royal Harbour and a teacher from King Ethelbert come in and read to us. We have also paid a visit to Y1 and YR to read their favourite picture book to them. In addition, Mrs Mills made a special version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar for 6M to read and enjoy in class assembly time. Also, Mrs Mayhew took some lucky children from each year group to The Margate Bookshop. In other news, we have begun learning our production songs in singing assembly ready for our end of Year 6 production.

Friday 1st March

This week, we have had a plethora of visitors in to see us! We experienced Kent Fire and Rescue talking about keeping safe in and around fires. We also have had our wonderful career day where we kept our eyes and ears open to all the interesting job roles and skills that are out there waiting for us when we finish our education. We are also looking forward to our Year 6 Reading Ambassadors taking a starring role in book week next week and are very proud of all their fun ideas.

Friday 23rd February

What a busy first week back! We have had a fabulous time both swimming and going on our "Safety in Action" trip to Dreamland. Furthermore, we have begun a new unit non-chronological reports in English and continued our hard work in our algebra maths topics. Today, we have started to research our DT cams project. We are hoping they will be completed for our "Come and See" at the end of term.

Thursday 8th February

This week in English, we have finished our creation stories using our language through colour plans. In maths, we have enjoyed puzzling with our year 3 colleagues: we played our own version of battle ships! It was great to be able to set an example to them and work with another class in our same house. We have been thinking about internet safety this week and had a visit from PCSO Prentice who spoke to us about keeping safe online. We have also had 4 student teacher visitors who are on their ITAB PGCE placement, and we have experienced a lesson taught by them and represented the school superbly. What a busy time! Happy holidays from the whole of the year 6 team.

Have a look at the amazing things happening next day when we will be celebrating World Book Day.

Friday 2nd February

This week, we have continued our creation stories. We have been preparing for our hot writes and we have been using our language through colour to help us with our plans. In maths, we have been undertaking our practice SATS papers and we have been focusing on where we could improve. In our science lessons we have been investigating push and pulling forces and we have been out and about testing our theories with our force meters.

Friday 26th January

This week, we have started our next English genre: creation stories. We have been looking at common features and how they are structured and why. In maths, we have been finding percentages of amounts, and answering word problems on percentages. In our geography lessons we have been exploring the effects of climate change and what that could mean in the years to come.

Friday 19th January

This week has been hot write week for our newspaper reports and we have been working hard to include all of our stylistic features. We have had lots of visitors in our lessons this week and some of them were secondary school teachers and they were especially pleased with our problem solving in our maths lessons. This week in PSHE we have been exploring the changes in our emotions which we will experience during puberty and how they may impact our thoughts and behaviour. Furthermore, in science we are beginning to explore the concept of how a force affects an objects movement.

Friday 12th January

Last week, we had a very busy week of preparation for our newspaper hot writes and we have been gathering recycled wrappers ready for our reclaimed art project ‘art for change’. Please feel free to donate any clean sweet/chocolate wrappers as they will be used to make our pieces. In geography we have been continuing to work hard on our ‘Americas’ topic and we have been thinking about Biomes, what they are and which ones feature in the Californian landscape. In science, we have been investigating gravity, the results of which will be used next week to help us with our discussions into how gravity affects weight and mass in different parts of our solar system.

Friday 5th January

What a wet and windy start to term! Despite this, we were lucky enough to catch a break in the weather and we used it to work on our rugby passing skills in PE. We also started out new geography unit all about the Americas and specifically this week we were looking at lines of longitude and latitude. In addition, we have hit our SATS preparation hard with our new top up interventions and these have launched very successfully with lots of people feeling more confident about SATS style questions. Finally, we particularly enjoyed Mrs Spackman’s KS2 assembly on The Big Bird Watch and we hope to be taking part in it when we are in receipt of the activity pack.

Friday 15th December

What a fun and busy last week we have had. Our space mobiles have been completed and many of you enjoyed them at our ‘Come and see our DT’. Our voices were raised loud and proud in song at the church and many year 6 children showed off their maturity through helping to hand out certificates, walking with the KS1 children or leading in the choir.  During our first end of term immersive reading morning, the library has been busy with children getting fresh books to read over the holidays. We have also had lots of discussions about our favourite books and why, as well as what we enjoy in books. This week, our classrooms have also been full of smiles and laughter during our class parties. What a lovely end to a bustling term.

Friday 8th December

This week has zoomed along! We have had our first trip of the year to the church for our Christmas Unwrapped session where we took part in quizzes and had interesting discussions. We have also been building our space mobiles in our DT lessons. In English we are completing our preparations for our final hot write of the term and getting to grips with our new spelling programme. History this week used some of our writing skills to create our persuasive speeches to encourage a Victorian holidaymaker to visit Margate. Finally, in maths we are coming to the end of our fraction unit.

Friday 1st December

Thanks to all of those parents who visited us this parents' evening. It was wonderful to share such lovely comments and work with you. We have been working exceptionally hard this week on our practice SATS so an extra large well done to all of the Year 6 pupils. Lots of us also took part in the Christmas card competition this week, winners to be announced soon. Another exciting addition to our week was the book fair help by Mrs Mayhew - what a fantastic Christmas present a book makes. Finally, all of our DT resources arrived this afternoon so from next week we will be building our space mobiles!

Friday 24th November

What a windy end to the week! This week we have been really busy in our wider curriculum lessons and have been looking at time zones across the world. We have been prepping our DT space mobile designs and gathering resources ready to do some making days at the end of term. Maths and English lessons next week will be jam packed as we are doing our second round of practice SATS. These will give us a clear indication on what we need more work on and how the sets are going. We have had our second Christmas singing assembly today as we get our voices ready to fill up the church at the end of term with our wonderful melodies.

Friday 17th November

We have worked extremely hard this week despite so many of us feeling full of cold. It was exciting to start our new sets and this will be preparing us well for year 7 next year. Another Children In Need has come by and lots of lovely spotty outfits were worn.  In English, this week we have been polishing up our hot writes and finishing our editing. In maths we have been deepening our knowledge of fractions. In our earth and space topic we have begun looking at time zones and how this links to the Earth’s rotation.

Friday 10th November

Such a busy week for us this week! Mr Neve has taken over our singing assemblies and we are getting ready to fill the church at the end of term with our cheerful Christmas songs. In English, we have been completing our hot writes on our Mr Hyde character descriptions. In maths, we are continuing to work on our fractions topic as well as speed up our arithmetic skills. In addition, we have been exploring and enjoying the new and improved library in the afternoons.

Friday 3rd November

What a wet and windy start to term! Despite the weather we have been very busy with our learning. In English we have been starting to learn about character descriptions ready for our hot writes. In maths, we have begun our fractions topic with simplifying fractions. In our Earth and Space topic we are learning about what the lunar cycle is and how we can follow its progress. Once again a busy week.

Friday 20th October

What a busy term we have had! We have completed our first set of practice SATS which the children tried hard in. We have made some beautiful prints for our William Morris project which are up on our walls, and you can view them at the come and see next term. In English, we have been beavering away at our writing and we have been writing explanation texts for our wacky machines. We also wowed Year 5 and their teachers in singing assembly when we used the boom wackers to perform 2 songs in front of the audience. Finally, as shout out to Mrs Mills who has also been hard at work creating our eco display. We will be thinking about environmental issues throughout this year but particularly in our Americas topic. We had to work as a team, keep time and follow the rhythm. All the year 6 teachers wish you a happy and safe half term!

Friday 29th September

Another jam-packed week for us! We completed our diary hot writes and are now moving onto our next English unit; explanation texts. We are also becoming more confident with using language for colour to help us remember word types in our vocabulary sessions and are beginning to apply this in our SPaG questions.

We have looked at lots of skills in maths this week from multi step problems to column multiplication including decimals. Once again we are using our consolidation lesson to great effect to either boost our maths whizz, re-cap work or solve a variety of puzzles.

In our history topic we have been delving deeper into the positive and negative elements of the industrial revolution and in PSHE we have been continuing our discussion on substance misuse and what substances are healthy and unhealthy for us.

Friday 22nd September

Where has the time disappeared to this week! In maths we are moving onto applying our place value knowledge to subtracting both whole and decimal numbers through using our formal written method. Then we challenged ourselves to apply this knowledge to word problems.

In English, it has been Hot Write week and we have been focusing on including our structural features within our independent diaries as well as the stylistic devices like short snappy sentences and colloquial language. In addition, we promoted our efforts in reading during our year group assembly and our challenge before Monday is to read as many words as we can for our class.

In history this week, we explored the British Empire by analysing a variety of sources and in science we discussed and debated the ‘flat earth’ theory.

Friday 15th September

This week has absolutely flown by! In maths we are moving onto applying our place value knowledge to rounding numbers. We have taken this one step further this year by rounding decimal numbers.

Our writing this week has been focused on including our character’s emotions in our diary entries. 6N edited and improved some basic sentences to include our diary features such as: brackets, rhetorical questions, and a range of sentence types.

We began our Victorian history topic this week by thinking about the key concept of chronology. We then, discussed the wealth of social and economical changes during the period and the many inventions that were discovered.

Friday 8th September 2023

What a busy week it has been for us in Year 6!

In English, we have started to look at our focus poem for our diaries unit ‘The Highway Man’ then we have been applying our knowledge in a comprehension. Each day we have also been expanding our vocabulary with inspirational words from our challenging story ‘A Wrinkle Through Time’.

In maths, we have been consolidating our place value skills and working with numbers up to 10,000,000. In addition to this, we have been solving some spicy puzzles.

Furthermore, in science we thought about and categorised all the things we want to find out about in our Earth and Space unit. Finally, in our art lessons we have been looking at the works of our artist in focus, William Morris, and discussing his style and inspirations.

Friday 12th May

SATS

The whole of the year 6 team would like to wish our year 6 children a huge congratulations! They have worked tirelessly and shown superb grit and determination this week. Each child who was served at the breakfast club showed beautiful manners and it was wonderful to see how mature the children have become. We are very proud of each of them. We wish them a very relaxing and restful weekend ahead. Well done children!  

Friday 5th May

English:

This week in English we have been very busy doing our last push in our SATS preparation. We have worked hard, and we feel ready to go! We are also starting our next how write topic, debates. We have been discussing and researching our motions in preparation for writing and delivering our speeches.

Maths:

In maths this week we have been calculating various angles increasing in complexity. In addition, we have then been applying that knowledge to answer word problems. We have also been solving a range of puzzles as well as trying to get as many people in the Maths Whizz Hall of Fame as possible. 

Wider curriculum:

This week in DT we have begun our work on our Ugly Dolls topic. This has included learning basic sewing techniques and thinking about the health and safety measures required in our project. During PSHE we have been discussing and exploring our thoughts about the SATS and sharing any anxieties we may have.

Friday 10th March

English:

This week in English we have been very busy doing our hot wites for our Miptor explanation text. We have worked hard to include all the features from our checklist. We are also continuing to learn new vocabulary; many of our new words link to our class demanding text ‘Darwin’s Dragons’. 

Maths:

In maths this week we have been calculating area and perimeter including that of triangles. In addition, we have then been applying that knowledge to answer word problems. We have also been solving a range of puzzles as well as trying to get as many people in the Maths Whizz Hall of Fame as possible.   

Wider curriculum:

This week in French we have continued our work on irregular verbs. In DT we have been analysing and comparing cams as well as planning our own design for a toy using cams, carefully considering the way in which it will move.  

Friday 3rd March

English:

This week in English we have been very busy doing our shared wites for our Miptor explanation text, in preparation for our ‘hot writes’ next week. We also wrote pen pal letters to our counterparts in Newington Primary as part of our new letter writing project.

Maths:

In maths this week in 6C, we have continued building upon our knowledge of fractions and we are starting to look at improper fractions. We have also been solving a range of puzzles as well as trying to get as many people in the Maths Whizz Hall of Fame as possible. 

Wider curriculum:

This week, we were lucky enough to have a variety of secondary school teachers visiting us to read to us for world book day. We also got a chance to ask them some questions about secondary life in general. We also continued to work on our rugby skills and our passes are becoming more accurate.

Friday 24th February

English:

This week in English we have been very busy doing our cold writes for our non-chronological reports. We also took our star tests and many of us have new ZPDs which have improved the range of books we can choose from.

Maths:

In maths this week we have continued our algebra topic. We have also completed our KIRF (Key Instant Recall Facts) entry quizzes and our termly TTRS gigs. Furthermore, we have been working hard to gain our 3 Maths Whizz progressions. 

Wider curriculum:

This week, we were lucky enough to have PCSO Nathan Prentice visiting us, and he discussed the implications of social media and the law.

We have all begun our new science topic and have started to think about what inheritance is and how/why we inherit characteristics from our parents. 

Finally, Miss Carpenter saw some super rugby skills being developed in PE with some children even building up to mis-passes.

Thursday 9th February

English:  

This week in English we have been completing our creation story hot writes. Within this hot write we have been aiming to include a range of hyphenated words and inverted commas for our dialogue.  In addition, as always, we continue to work on our vocabulary with our M.O.E (model of excellence) words. Lastly, we have taken part in our AR treat by watching the film version of our ambitious text ‘Holes’.  

Maths:

In maths this week we have started our journey into algebra, and we have begun to write expressions. We have also completed our KIRF (key instant recall) exit quizzes. Furthermore, we have been working hard to gain our 3 Maths Whizz progressions. Well done 6W for getting the most people with 3+ progressions!  

Wider curriculum:  

This week in art we are finishing our pieces using reclaimed recycling and natural materials and then we are evaluating them. Furthermore, we are taking part in our topic sharing afternoon with our partner year 4 class. We will share our topic work and discuss our home projects. This is a chance for us to mentor and set a good example to younger pupils.  

Friday 3rd February

English:  

This week in English we have been very busy with our grammar and spelling practice SATS papers. We have also been having some grammar consolidation lessons and as always, working hard on our AR.   

In maths this week we have enjoyed some super dot to dot puzzles to celebrate number day. These required us to use our patience and observation skills. We have also been designing a Maths Villain as part of Mr Michael’s number day competition.   

Wider curriculum:  

This week in art we are starting to assemble our pieces using reclaimed recycling and natural materials. Furthermore, we are exploring body image in the media in PSHE and in geography we are building on our knowledge of earthquakes which we began exploring in year 5.  

Friday 27th January

English:

This week in English we have been exploring creation stories from both Mayan and Sioux cultures. We then completed a shared write of our own. In 6C we based ours on an African tribal story.

Maths:

In maths this week, in 6C we have been using our problem solving, resilience and spatial awareness skills to complete a variety of puzzles including mazes and tangrams. Next week, we are going to try and complete some more complicated animal themed tangrams, now that we have had some practice.

Wider curriculum:

As always, our work in our wider curriculum lessons has been very varied: from working on our balances and reaction speeds in PE to playing the violin in music. We are still researching and exploring our ICT key question ‘What makes a good app?’ in preparation for designing our own. Furthermore, to help us get ready for secondary school, we have been discussing and recognising a range of emotional changes due to our developing hormones.