Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome back after the half term break. We hope you are all rested and well. Here is a round up of our week in Year 6!

​English/History
We have been using our English lessons this week to write an essay about the civil rights movement in America in the 1950s (our history topic from last half term).  We began with a debate on the question: “Civil disobedience was more important than legal decisions during the civil rights movement.” Do you agree? Quite a lofty and challenging essay title but the children have really risen to the challenge and have been really enthusiastic about writing their essays.

Maths
We have made a great start to our new unit focusing on decimals. This week the children have learnt how to  order and compare decimals within 1, order and compare decimals with integers (whole numbers), round decimals and add and subtract decimals. They have had a great week with this, using resources such as place value charts, counters and part whole models to support their workings. Their resilience is definitely improving and they are becoming more confident when solving problems. We have all been really impressed with their attitudes to maths this week. 

Geography
Our new unit this half term is 'Globalisation'. Within this topic we will be looking at the definition of globalisation, how globalisation has changed the way we communicate, how globalisation has affected trade, what globalisation has to do with fashion and food and where globalisation could lead us. This week, we began by discovering that globalisation is the increasing connections between places and people across the planet, established through trade, politics and cultural exchanges, and helped by technology and transport. The children really got into learning about when globalisation began (different views from historians, see if the children can tell you the three keys times in history this could have been), what it looks like now and identifying famous companies/logos that have had a huge impact on economy and trade. 

Computing
Our new unit of learning is about using Spreadsheets.  Our first lesson was an introduction to spreadsheets.  At school we use Google Sheets but this is very similar to Excel which some children said their parents use in their work.  If you do, why not show/explain to your child how it assists you in your work?

Science
We started a new unit of science which this half term is all about Energy.  We were very surprised to learn that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred.  We were able to see energy transformation when we transformed elastic potential energy in a rubber band to kinetic energy by launching rubber bands across the classroom.  We will be investigating this a little more next week.

Life Skills
We discussed a story about a child who wrote something in the steam on a bus window which kept coming back even when he rubbed it off.  We made a connection to how when something is posted on the internet it is there forever and cannot be removed again.  We also spoke about the exponential nature of the way posts on the internet can spread.

PE
Friday mornings will now be tag rugby. Please make sure the children come in with spare kit/uniform to change into if necessary as we will be playing on the field regardless of the weather and conditions underfoot!

French
This half term we will continue with our theme of food, but progressing to look at what we have for breakfast. Today we learnt and asked the question, "Qu-est-ce que tu manges au petit dejeuner? " ... see if the children can tell you what this means! We played games with the globe and ordering sentences as part of the lesson. 

A great start to the second half of the Spring term! Well done Sycamore class! Enjoy your weekend.
​Mrs Ware and Miss Ruby.

Good afternoon everyone, we hope this weekly blog finds you well. Here is a round up of our week in Sycamore class.

Maths
This week we completed our unit focusing on ratio and concluded with lessons about proportion and recipes. We then completed our end of unit assessment to look at how much progress we have made within this area. the children have made great progress! We are now moving onto a unit all about decimals, which in turn will lead onto learning about percentages. The children are working hard in their mathematics and getting to grips with lots of new information. Well done Year 6!

​Science
This week we completed our science unit about heat with an investigation.  the children had to find out which material would prevent an ice-cube from melting the longest.  So that this was  a 'fair test', the children had to consider variables:  Independent variable (the thing they changed) dependent variable(the thing they measured) and control variables(the things they had to keep the same.  After completing their investigation and writing it up, some of them considered what application in real life this investigation would be relevant for.  They suggested clothes manufacturers, lunch box materials and even fridges!

English
The children have produced some superb writing this half term.  They have worked really hard to plan and write a chronological report about a mountain environment using some very powerful vocabulary, as well making sure their writing has cohesion (flow).  They spent a lot of time proof-reading, editing and improving and redrafting their work before writing their final draft.  

Computing
We had our final lesson on creating our websites.  This week we learnt how to create a navigation path by creating links between pages on our website.  This is something that children can complete at home if they have access to a device which has Google Chrome.

French
This week we learn about the Island of Martinique in the Caribbean. As a French speaking country, we looked at some of their traditions involving carnivals. The children learnt about Fat Sunday, Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday and how this festival is celebrated very differently to how might expect.  

History
This week we concluded our learning about 'Civil Rights in America during the 1950s and 1960s' by learning about the Black Lives Matter Movement and what it is. The Civil Rights movement in America is usually understood to have ended in 1968, when another Civil Rights Act law was passed, guaranteeing equal opportunity to housing. However, attitudes did not change overnight in the US, and African-Americans regularly faced discrimination. This discrimination continues today, and has led to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Dress To Express/Children's Mental Health Week/Art
Each of these three things combined today (Friday) and resulted in a collaborative piece of artwork on the theme of 'well being'. The children worked on creating a 'top 10 tips for wellbeing poster' - each child picked and wrote one wellbeing 'tip' and drew a matching illustration - e.g, eat fresh fruit everyday, take a walk. The best ones were compiled onto an A3 poster. 

​Please see our gallery of photos for some exciting P.E. photos and some examples of the children's writing.

We wish you a restful half term and will see you all on Monday 20th February for the second half of the Spring term, where I hope we will start to see some signs of Spring coming! Thank you again, for your continued support.

Mrs Ware and Miss Ruby​
​

Good afternoon everyone,

We hope this blog finds you well, here is a brief round up of our week!

English
We have begun writing our first draft of our report about a day in a mountain environment.  The children have made a great start using some superb vocabulary in their expanded noun phrases and creating cohesion in their report with adverbials and good use of pronouns and synonyms.  We will be spending time to carefully proofread edit, improve and redraft our writing until it is the best we can make it! 

Science
Our science lesson this week was all about conductors and insulators.  We learnt what these are, the materials that are good conductors or insulators and everyday uses of them such as metal saucepans for cooking with plastic handles to stop us burning our hands.  We observed the difference between a metal spoon and a wooden spoon in a hot pan.  We carried out a class investigation into conductors and insulators.  We wanted to know in which bowl an ice cube would melt the quickest, metal or plastic.  The children made a prediction and considered the variables in a fair test.  Next we will be doing more investigating of conductors and insulators.

Maths
The children have continued learning about scale factor, ratio, similar shapes and solving problems involving ratio. They built on previous steps to enlarge shapes and describe enlargements, to explore similar shapes  (defined as shapes where corresponding sides are in the same proportion and the corresponding angles are equal, so if one shape is an enlargement of the other, the two shapes are similar) and the children used representations from earlier steps to help them see the multiplicative relationships between ratios. They recognised that when they multiply or divide from one amount to another, they do the same for the other value to keep the ratios equivalent. They were able to see that this method is similar to finding equivalent fractions.

Life Skills
We began thinking about the meaning of identity and prejudice this week.  We will be using our oracy skills next week to further discuss prejudice within a community.

History-Civil Rights in 1950s and 1960s America.
This week, the children's learning took them to Montgomery in Alabama, America, where we learnt about the reasons behind the famous Selma to Montgomery march. During this lesson, they learnt about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how, even though this meant a change in the law, it actually proved that people's attitudes had not changed. They were horrified to learn about a 'literacy test' you had to pass to vote (to pass you could only get 1 question wrong) and how this lead to people trying to protest peacefully in Alabama. However, the peaceful protest ended up being named, 'bloody Sunday' due to the violence that occurred there as a result of police behaviour towards the activists and the world media. As a class they listened with intent and asked questions to deepen their understanding and explained their opinions and reasons very well.  

French
We undertook a listening activity this week that involved many of the skills we have learnt over the past year including, the French alphabet, counting, opinions on food and animals, nationalities, likes and dislikes and meal times. 

PE
Coach Edwards took the children for a gymnastic lesson where they worked in small groups to perform sequences using apparatus and a focus group at a time, worked with her to practise jumping from a high bench onto a crash mat. 

Art
This week the children focused on 'street art' and the different styles this can be represented as, such as graffiti, murals and guerrilla art. They looked at the similarities and difference between the different types, forming their own opinions and justifying their ideas. They created a '9 choice diamond' where they places statements about art in order of importance, according to their own opinions. This then led onto discussions about their next peace of art work.

The children have had a wonderful week, hard working, focused and very productive. We have both been so pleased with everyone's attitude to learning. . Well done Sycamore class.