Year 6: Blog items

Year 6 Home Practice - 27th November 2020

Date: 27th Nov 2020 @ 3:53pm

For our fourth week back after half term, Year 6  have been working very hard in all areas to improve their learning  with quicker maths strategies, new characters in Room 13, new History topic and even a new artist to inspire their own artwork.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been learning multiples, factors and new ways to divide large numbers.
• Our new novel in English is Room 13, a suspenseful story about a class heading off on a school trip to Whitby where the dreaded room 13 awaits our main characters. This week we have learnt how to describe our impressions of characters and how to create a suspenseful atmosphere.
• We have also begun History but before we can introduce our new topic, we have been learning how to sequence events in chronological order and trying to order the vast history of Britain.
• In our topic in RE, Expectations, we have been using the hymn ‘Maranatha’ to help us understand what advent means to Christians.
• In PE, we have continued to improve our attacking skills in rugby and completed the orienteering competition created by South Ribble. Congratulations to the following teams:
  • First = Aiden
  • Second = Bede
  • Third = Gregory
• In Art, Year 6 have learnt ‘pointillism’ created by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in 1886, and have designed their own tree art using that technique (head to the Year 6 gallery to see our artwork).
• For science, we researched a group of invertebrates and wrote the characteristics in the form of a poem, song or rap.
• Finally in French, we learnt how to use subject pronouns effectively in sentences.

Well done to 88% of you for changing your book this week. We understand some people can have books with a lot of pages so please keep using your Reading Journals to complete your new ‘reading challenges’.

The days when you can change your reading book are:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

These are the tasks to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

You can still use Oxford Owl ebooks, where there are a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Sumdog challenges:
  • Divide by 2 or 3 digit number
    • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.
  • SPAG – Sentences
  • Spellings – 27^th Nov – 4^th Nov  (silent letters)
    • answer, favourite, bruise, actually, build, guarantee, certain, guard, definite, library, difference, muscle, exercise, doubt, environment, comb, February, foreign, gnaw, government

       

Year 6 Home Practice - 20th November 2020

Date: 20th Nov 2020 @ 3:54pm

For our third week back after half term, Year 6 became the stars of the Cross Curricular Orienteering filming which took place on Thursday. As well as learning how to become great orienteers, a film crew came to St Oswald’s to film a video for their new orienteering website, www.crosscurricularorienteering.co.uk. Will Huntington, the founder of Cross Curricular Orienteering, who came to teach and be filmed, said, ‘What a super class you have Mr Mears; you must be proud!’ (Yes I am – well done Year 6!)

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been learning how to solve problems using the bar model and improving our arithmetic with quicker strategies.
• We have finally completed our novel of Private Peaceful which the children really loved and connected with, especially with all the characters. Let’s hope they enjoy the next one.
• In Geography, we completed our topic through researching and creating a biography of Sir Edmund Hillary – the first person to climb the top of Mount Everest.
• In RE, our new topic, Expectations, has created a super debate between ‘what we would like to do’ (with many different scenarios) compared to ‘what I am expected to do’.
• In PE, we have worked hard to improve our tactics in tag rugby and how to orientate maps so we are ready for next week’s orienteering competition created by South Ribble.
• In Art, our new artist, Lola Dupre, has inspired us to use charcoal where we have begun to improve our shading effects.
• Finally in Music (and some lunch times) we have been practicing the ukuleles in preparation for the whole school nativity production in a few weeks.

Well done to 80% of you for changing your book this week. We understand some people can have books with a lot of pages so please keep using your Reading Journals to complete your new ‘reading challenges’.

The days when you can change your reading book are:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

These are the tasks to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

You can still use Oxford Owl ebooks, where there are a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Sumdog challenges:
  • Fluency with division facts
    • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.
  • SPAG – Conjunctions
  • Spellings (ough words)
    • through, although, rough, tough, though, cough, nought, brought, ought, thought, fought, plough, dough, enough, thorough, bought, sought, thoughtful, thoughtless, borough

Year 6 Home Practice - 13th November 2020

Date: 13th Nov 2020 @ 3:37pm

Year 6 have had a great week, celebrating Children in Need Day and being very respectful on Remembrance Day with a two minutes silence and lovely poems written, some of which you can see on our Year 6 gallery.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we are becoming more efficient at written subtraction, multiplying fractions, finding fractions of numbers and percentages of numbers.
• In our novel, Private Peaceful, our two main characters Tommo and Charlie have headed off to war, lived in trenches, rescued a Captain and fought in a few battles. The children have created super action stories involving these scenes.
• For Remembrance Day, Year 6 created their own lovely poems from the perspective of either a soldier, a loved one or even a Poppy.
• In Geography, we have been using our new knowledge of natural disasters: tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to develop an interactive PowerPoint and improve our presentation skills in front of the class.
• In RE, for our Judaism week, we learnt about the Rosh Hashana, the Jewish celebration of the New Year. We also finished our topic on ‘Vocation and Commitment’ with a collective worship delivered by our new School Leaders.
• In PE, we have continued our new topic, Orienteering, and begun to understand orienteering map symbols.
• In Science, we have recapped our knowledge of classifying vertebrates into mammals, fish, bird, amphibians or reptiles.
• Finally, the children had a great time during our Children in Need Day, dressing up in spotty clothes to raise money for charity.

Well done to 100% of you for changing your book this week. A super achievement by all! Remember that the days are when you can change your reading book:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

These are the tasks to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Please write in your Reading Journals often, not just at the end of the book.

Try to use Oxford Owl ebooks once this week, where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Sumdog challenges:
  • X6, x7, x9
    • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.
  • SPAG – Prepositions (this is the area of grammar we will be focusing our learning on next week).
  • Spellings (-ible, -ibly words)
    • horrible, horribly, illegible, illegibly, impossible, impossibly, incredible, incredibly, possible, possibly, sensible, sensibly, terrible, terribly, visible, visibly, invincible, indestructible, legible, edible

Year 6 Home Practice - 6th November 2020

Date: 6th Nov 2020 @ 3:47pm

For our first week back after half term, Year 6 have come back working very hard, keeping to the golden rules and remembering to keep ourselves and each other safe so thank you.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have investigated different subtraction strategies and used them to solve problems. We have also recapped our learning of fractions, rounding and multiplications.
• In English, our main character, Tommo, in Private Peaceful, has finally headed off to war and met some interesting characters. We have used our reading skills to retrieve and infer how these new characters’ words and actions affect others and the main story.
• In Geography, we have been learning how the movement of tectonic plates can create natural disasters: tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
• In PE, we have begun our new topic, Orienteering, and thanks to the Cross Curricular Orienteering Company, we have a new orienteering map to use. This week, we have been improving our mapping and teamwork skills.
• In French, we have been learning to tell the time and linking it to meal times (I eat my breakfast at … Je mange mon petit dej a sept heures moins le quart).
• In Science, following the last lesson’s work on Carl Linnaeus, we have been using the Linnaeus’s classification system to classify many living things.
• Finally, the children had a great time during our Outdoor Classroom Day where natural items (stones, sticks and leaves) were used to create algebraic equations.

Well done to 79% of your for changing your book this week. Remember that the days for when you can change your reading book are:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

These are the tasks to be completed for Home Practice:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Please write in your Reading Journals often.

Try to use Oxford Owl ebooks once this week, where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Sumdog challenges:
  • x9, x11, x12
    • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.
  • SPAG – Quotation Marks
  • Spellings (-able, -ably words)
    • enjoyable, unavailable, available, changeable, noticeable, unbelievable, probably, considerable, irritably, unacceptably, arguably, suitably, adorable, comfortable, respectable, dependable, incapable, miserable, unachievable, uncomfortable
    • Only 15 of these 20 will be on the spelling test next Friday but all 20 will be on the Sumdog challenge for you to practice. 

The Secret Garden Competition

Date: 2nd Nov 2020 @ 3:28pm

 A new film version of  The Sectret Garden has been released. To celebrate this a competition is being run by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and Sky. You can draw, paint, create a collage or model or even plant up a minature garden. If you would like your child to be in the competition the entry needs to be on a single sheet of A4 paper. The entry needs to include the design elements and why they have chosen them.

Please send your child's entry into school by Monday 16th November and we will send them off. 

Good luck!

Click here to find out more.

Year 6 Home Practice - 23rd October 2020

Date: 23rd Oct 2020 @ 4:23pm

For the final blog of this half term, I would like to say a huge thank you to Year 6. You have been brilliant these past 7 weeks and 2 days: working hard in all lessons, respecting the rules and routines we have in place; and completing the Home Practice in time. We hope you all have a great half term doing lots of things you enjoy!

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been learning how to use the grid method effectively, which is one of our formal written strategies, for large multiplication calculations and applying that knowledge to reasoning questions.
• In English, we have researched World War I (The Great War) and found some very interesting facts to help us understand what the main character, Tommo, will be going through as he heads off to war.
• In Geography, Year 6 researched expertly again to create a poster about one of the many famous mountains of the world.
• In PE, we have completed our first Intra Competition and the first ever Virtual Inter Competition – Football. It consists of dribbling around cones in the fastest time possible. The results of Year 6 is as follows:
  • For the girls, the fastest was Erin
  • For the boys, the fastest was Daniel
    • Congratulations to everyone for taking part!
• In French, we have been looking at L’Halloween traditions in France and writing Halloween-themed sentences, ‘I am going to dress up as … I am going to wear…’
• In Science, we learnt about the work of Carl Linnaeus and explored the classification system of living things.
• Finally, the children had a super day dressed in their Halloween outfits and everyone created their own scary story on a Halloween night.

After half term, remember that the days when you can change your book are:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

The Home Practice deadline is still for the Friday we come back after the half term. These are the tasks to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Please write in your Reading Journals often.

As you may know, we have access to Oxford Owl ebooks where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Sumdog challenges:
  • x3, x6, x9, x4, x8
    • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.
  • SPAG – Parts of Speech
  • Spellings (-ent, -ence words)
    • persistent, persistence, violent, violence, intelligent, intelligence, inconvenient, inconvenience, obedient, obedience, conference, difference, conscience, reference, excitement

Year 6 Home Practice - 16th October 2020

Date: 16th Oct 2020 @ 6:07pm

Well done to the whole class for reading this week. We have noticed an improvement already in those who have read every day so please keep it up; little and often will make a huge difference this year. As well as reading, we have introduced the Home Reading Journals where you can add comments, opinions, vocabulary and any thoughts. This helps to show us how much you understand the book you have read. Thank you to those who have written detailed comments about their books. Once again, just to remind you, here are the days when you can change your book:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

Another thank you to those who have completed their Sumdog challenges by Wednesday. All the challenges will be a practice of last week’s learning which will always help when we review it the following week. We will always have a maths, spelling and grammar challenge to practice all week from Friday to the next Friday. This week have had another brilliant response with 87% completing by Wednesday. 

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been learning a range of mental strategies for multiplying large and small numbers.
• In our novel, ‘Private Peaceful’, we have investigated the relationships between Tommo (the main character) and every other character and improved our skill in summarising events. In Mrs Wood’s English lesson, we learnt about the brilliant story of Macbeth and wrote a letter to Lady Macbeth.
• In Geography, we learnt how mountains are formed through two tectonic plates moving towards, away and across each other, which eventually (over millions of years) creates ‘folded’, ‘fault-block’ and ‘dome’ mountains.
• For RE, in our topic of ‘Vocation and Commitment’, we wrote as John the Baptist and the impact that had on many people’s lives as Jesus began his mission.
• In PE, we have been preparing for this year’s first Intra Competition and the first ever Virtual Inter Competition – Football. It consists of dribbling around cones in the fastest time possible. All the schools in South Ribble are taking part so fingers crossed for those in Year 6!
• In French, we have been writing sentences using opinions and negatives, e.g. “I love … I hate …”
• Following last week’s research into non-flowering plants in Science, we have presented our information to the class and are now beginning to classify animals.

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Please write in your Reading Journals often.

As you may know, we have access to Oxford Owl ebooks where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Spellings (-ant, -ance)
  • Just like last week, these spellings will be looked in detail from Monday:
    • assistant, assistance, arrogant, relevant, important, importance, appearance, extravagant, hesitant, reluctant, nuisance, hindrance, ignorance, resistance, restaurant
• Sumdog challenges:
  • x2, x5, x10, x3, x6, x9
  • SPAG – Adverbs
  • Spellings (-ant, -ance words)
    • Once again, I suggest to first write these out on a piece of paper, then play the games. We will look at these spellings in more detail from Monday so the spelling of these words will be easier after we have investigated them.

Year 6 Home Practice - 8th October 2020

Date: 9th Oct 2020 @ 3:51pm

Well done to everyone for completing their Home Practice. We have had 96% changing their Home Reading books this week – let’s keep aiming for 100%. Once again, just to remind you, here are the days when you can change your book:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

This year we are using Sumdog as a great way to practice our learning that has been taught in school that week. We will always have a maths, spelling and grammar challenge to practice all week from Friday to the next Friday. We have had another brilliant response with 90% completing all the challenges by Wednesday – keep this up everyone, as little and often will help our learning for the following week.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been using different strategies to add large numbers together and how to effectively use the written method.
• In our novel, ‘Private Peaceful’, we have developed our understanding of the characters, Tommo, Charlie and Mother and explored the themes that might run through this story.  
• In Geography, we learnt how the world consists of tectonic plates (part of the Earth’s crust) and that they move at an incredibly slow pace – around 100mm a year!
• For RE, we have begun our new topic, ‘Vocation and Commitment’, with some excellent debates on what makes a vocation. We also created some questions and interviewed a firefighter via zoom to understand their commitment to their role.
• In music, boomwhackers have been our focus to create our own unique beats.
• In French, we used the bilingual dictionaries to further understand, ‘le, la and les’.
• In Science, we have continued our research into non-flowering plants with mosses, ferns and conifers, and deciding how to present our research.
• Finally, this Friday, we celebrated our ‘Hello Yellow’ day which helped us to understand resilience and what ‘powers’ we have to improve our resilience.

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – Please keep reading for a minimum of 20 minutes every day.

Most of you are using your Reading Journals really well – just remember to add in any thoughts, vocabulary or any opinions you have of the book at any time, not just after finishing it.

As you may know, we have access to Oxford Owl ebooks where you can read a whole range of books from their library. If you would like to use this great resource, the username is ‘sto56’ with the password ‘1234’.

• Spellings (-sion / -ssion / -cian words)
  • We will be learning the -sion, -ssion spellings again, along with -cian words, which will be looked in detail from Monday:
    • division, television, discussion, session, mission, percussion, profession, politician, magician, electrician, optician, musician, technician, Egyptian, dalmatian
• Sumdog challenges:
  • x2, x5, x10, x4, x8
  • SPAG – More verbs
  • Spellings (-sion / -ssion, -cian words)
    • Once again, I suggest to first write these out on a piece of paper, then play the games. We will look at these spellings in more detail from Monday so the spelling of these words will be easier after we have investigated them.

Year 6 Home Practice - 2nd October 2020

Date: 2nd Oct 2020 @ 1:11pm

Another super week of learning from Year 6. We have started our ‘Daily Mile’ exercise and already we have seen an improvement in our fitness levels. Well done to 90% of you for changing your Home Reading books this week – let’s aim for 100% next week! As another reminder, these groups can change their books on the following days:

Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

This year we are using Sumdog as a great way to practice our learning that has been taught in school that week. We will always have a maths, spelling and grammar challenge to practice all week from Friday to the next Friday. We have had a brilliant response from Year 6 with 85% completing all the challenges by Wednesday – keep this up everyone, as little and often will help our learning for the following week.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we are using our place value knowledge to add large and decimal numbers mentally.
• We have begun our new novel, ‘Private Peaceful’ and investigated themes and predictions from the cover, blurb and first chapter.  
• In Geography, we enjoyed a game of ‘Search, Find and Recover’ where groups had to search for information for the features of mountains and create their own mountain map – check out the pictures on our Year 6 gallery page.
• For RE, we have completed our topic of ‘Unconditional Love’ through creating our own Beatitudes to help make our school a better place.
• In Art, we continued to use Keynote to cleverly focus on one part of our face (eye, mouth, etc) like a ‘view finder’ and then practiced techniques to sketch those in our Sketch book.
• In French, we have been developing our dictionary skills, looking up new words and understanding the abbreviations n/f/s = noun, feminine, singular.
• Also, in Science, we researched non-flowering plants found on the school grounds and investigated the question, how do they reproduce without flowers?

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – In Year 6, we read for a minimum of 20 minutes every day. You still have your new Reading Journal so any opinions, thoughts, discussions or vocabulary you come across, write them in there. We can then discuss these when you bring it into school.

• Spellings (-tion / -sion / -ssion words) which will be looked in detail from Monday:
  • • direction, collection, addition, action, rotation, creation, punctuation, subtraction, division, television, discussion, session, mission, percussion, profession
• Sumdog challenges:
  • Addition – whole numbers
  • SPAG – Verbs
  • Spellings (-tion / -sion / -ssion words)
    • Once again, I suggest to first write these out on a piece of paper, then play the games. We will look at these spellings in more detail from Monday so the spelling of these words will be easier after we have investigated them.

Year 6 Home Practice - 25th September 2020

Date: 24th Sep 2020 @ 2:54pm

Nearly one month has passed in Year 6 and you have all done extremely well. You are now organising yourselves efficiently with handwashing, the morning tasks and working on your individual targets. The past week we have introduced new Home Reading books and to clarify, these are the days each reading group will change their books:
Monday – Roller Coasters

Tuesday – Big Dippers

Wednesday – The Waltzers

We have had an amazing response with 100% of you changing your books this week. Remember, as always, read 20 minutes every day.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• Our place value knowledge has widened as we have ordered, compared, identified, rounded, added and subtracted numbers up to three decimal places.
• Using our novel, ‘Clockwork’, we have improved our reading skill of retrieval and learnt how to describe scenes using exciting vocabulary.
• In Geography, we located the three peaks of the UK (Ben Nevis, Snowdon, Scafell Pike) and compared Ordinance Survey maps to Google maps to help us figure out the best route up Scafell Pike.
• For RE, our topic of ‘Unconditional Love’ continued with the ‘Prodigal Son’ story where the children animated one of the scenes to show their understanding of how the story relates to our lives today.
• In Art, we have used the Apple version of PowerPoint, Keynote, to create some self-portrait art. Check out some of the pictures in our Year 6 gallery.
• In French, we have been practicing our numbers to 100 and learning how to say the different family names. 

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – you have all chosen your second Home Reading book for Year 6 this week so reading every night for 20 minutes is essential. You still have your new Reading Journal so any opinions, thoughts, discussions or vocabulary you come across, write them in there. We can then discuss these when you bring it into school.

• Spellings (-ious and ous words) which will be looked in detail from Monday:
  • • cautious, various, vicious, precious, conscious, conscientious, gracious, suspicious, perilous, hazardous, marvellous, adventurous, dangerous, glamourous, famous
• Sumdog challenges:
  • Decimal Place Value
  • SPAG – More Amazing Adjectives!
  • Spellings (-ious words)
    • I suggest writing these out first three times, then play the games. We will look at these spellings in more detail from Monday so the spelling of these words will be easier after we have investigated them. 

Year 6 Meet the Teacher

Date: 18th Sep 2020 @ 4:45pm

Online Content - 10 tips to keep your children safe online

Date: 16th Sep 2020 @ 6:22pm

Monitor-Talk-Report

"In light of recent distressing content circulating on several popular social media platforms, we're reminding parents how important it is to monitor, support and talk to children about their online activities." - National Online Safety

Here are some top tips from National Online Safety on keeping children safe online when viewing content online.

Year 6 Home Practice - 18th September 2020

Date: 16th Sep 2020 @ 4:39pm

Well done to everyone for completing the first few weeks of year 6. You have all been exceptional in transitioning into the routines and getting used to the expectations of this new year.

This week in Year 6:

• We have improved our place value knowledge in Maths through comparing and rounding numbers to ten million.
• In English we are reading ‘Clockwork’ by Phillip Pullman where we have investigated how to develop the story through dialogue.
• In Geography, we have begun our new topic Mountains, searching atlases and maps to see where the highest mountains are.
• For RE, we have also begun our first topic of ‘Love’ and how God’s unconditional love can affect our lives.
• In PE, invasion games is our theme for the next 5 weeks, focusing on improving our throwing and catching skills and starting to develop advanced tactics to give an advantage for the attacking team.
• In Music, we have been enjoying our new instruments, the Boomwhackers.

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – you have chosen your first Home Reading book for Year 6 so reading every night for 20 minutes is essential. You also have your new Reading Journal so any opinions, thoughts, discussions or vocabulary you come across, write them in there.
  • Spellings (ly words) which will be looked in detail from Monday - test is on Friday:
    • • really, hardly, happily, finally, suddenly, angrily, safely, truly, carefully, frantically, slowly, rapidly, reluctantly, energetically, swiftly
• Sumdog challenges:
  • Times Tables (x4 / x8)
  • SPAG – adjectives
  • Spellings (ly words)