Happy Half Term everyone! Here is a roundup of the children's learning this week.

​Computing
The children enjoyed our Kahoot! online quiz that we did at the end of our computing unit about using the internet to communicate.  They have learnt how to use search engines effectively; how to communicate using the internet safely and appropriately; which methods of communication are public or private and they were all surprised to learn that some of the applications they regularly use, like WhatsApp, actually have an age limit of 13!

Science
We completed our science unit by planning an investigation into dissolving.  The children learnt about variables (independent, dependent and control variables) and identified how they would use them in a fair test.  They also completed an end of unit quiz which showed their knowledge and understanding about chemical reactions and particles has greatly increased.  We were treated to a volcanic eruption using the chemical reaction that takes place when bicarbonate of soda is mixed with vinegar.  Sophie created a great homework project and brought it in to show the class.  We were really impressed with Sophie's homework and I was impressed that the class could say how they knew they had observed a chemical reaction referring to the 5 indicators they learnt about in previous weeks.

English
We hope you enjoyed hearing some snippets of the fantastic writing the children have been doing this half term.  We have been really impressed with some of the creative writing produced using metaphors, similes, hyphenated adjectives, expanded noun phrases, effective synonyms, the power of three.  The children have shown real awareness of their reader and have tried and succeeded to create powerful imagery through their use of figurative language.  Their composition skills are very good but we will need to work on their transcriptional skills of spelling, handwriting and punctuation over the coming weeks.  As we have alluded to in our letter about home learning, regular reading, practising spellings and practising joined handwriting at home will accelerate the progress they can make in this area and we appreciate your support in this.

History
We have also finished learning about the Industrial Revolution; this week we learnt about the political changes that took place at this time.  We learnt one peculiar fact about voting: at the time the right to vote could depend on the size of the fireplace in your home! It had to be big enough to fit a large cooking pot, this being a sign of how wealthy you were!!  When we return from the half term holiday we will plan and the children will write an essay to demonstrate their learning about this topic.

Maths
This week in maths we have continued with our unit on the four operations, really focusing on multiplication methods learnt last week but also refining their short division skills too.  We have made sure to spend sufficient time on this to ensure all the children have been given the chance to use the skills independently and when problem solving. As per our homework letter this week, knowing the times tables up to 12x 12 is incredibly beneficial to this as calculation accuracy is key to getting this method correct. If anyone would like to see the method the children have been taught this week, I will attach the PowerPoint to this blog as well!

French
In French this week which took place on a Friday afternoon due to the Sharing assembly we focused on the learning question, “I can understand others introducing themselves” and “I can recognise and understand introductory questions,” and we assessed where the children are by listening to them having conversations with each other, using the knowledge they have been learning,
 
P.E.
We had our third swimming session, and it was a much smaller session due to having so many absent children today! The children who swim independently in the deeper end of the pool, where given the opportunity to learn some lifesaving skills with their instructor. Some of the children were able to ‘rescue a human dummy’ from the bottom of the pool and were shown how to administer CPR. We also continued to build up some miles towards our ‘mini marathon’ inspired by the London marathon. We have signed up to complete this challenge and will total up our mile shortly! Netball took place on Friday morning and we are excited to learn that we will be hosting the OCRA netball tournament on Friday 4th November: which is a tradition here at North Tawton. It will be great to see our teams competing on ‘home soil’.

Assemblies
On Friday we had our first ‘live’ parents sharing assembly since pre-covid days! Year 6 shared examples of their wonderful poetry (referred to earlier on) and also took part in our weekly in-house team competition to announce the team point winners: Taw, Creedy, Dart or Okement.  We look forwards to sharing more of our learning with you as the year progresses.

Dates to take note of:
Wednesday 2nd November – School photos
Friday 4 November netball tournament here
Friday 4th November-FONTS Fireworks Sparkler & Sweet Sale
Friday 11th November – Remembrance .
Monday 14th November Anti Bullying week
Friday 18th November – odd socks day!
Week of November 21st – Parent meetings
Friday 2 December Father Christmas visiting and FONTS Christmas Market
Monday 12th December 2pm Magic Martin treat from FONTS for whole school in hall
Wednesday 7th Dec –Christmas Jumpers and Christmas dinner (changed from Thursday 8th)
Friday 9th December – 2pm Carol Service at the church
Tuesday 13th December 2pm – Christingle at church
Nativity performances: Wednesday 14th December at 2pm and 4pm and Thursday 15th Dec at 5pm

Maths
This week in maths we have continued with our unit on the four operations, focusing on the rules of divisibility, prime numbers to 100, identifying and investigating square and cubed numbers and multiplication of a 3- or 4-digit number by a 2- or 3-digit number (we did recap multiplying a 3- or 4-digit number by a 1-digit number first!)  For this the children need to be secure with their times tables but also how to lay out a multiplication calculation in columns.  Again, it is beneficial if the children can be secure with their times tables before they get to Year 6 in order to be able to understand this. As a result, maths homework this week will be putting these skills into practise.

French
In French this week (which took place on a Friday afternoon due to the Harvest festival) we focused on the learning question, “I can understand others introducing themselves” and “I can recognise and understand introductory questions.” For this they had to recap much of the previous language taught with regards to introductions/feelings and nationalities.

P.E. 
We had our second swimming session, and it was great to have all the children in the pool together in two groups. Again, they have almost an hour in the pool with their instructors and as per the first session this was full of smiles. We also began to build up some miles towards our ‘mini marathon’ inspired by the London marathon. We have signed up to complete this challenge over the next few weeks and will be totalling the miles as we go!

Harvest Festival
Our Harvest festival and Dingle Dangle Scarecrow day took place today and it was a poignant occasion, thinking it will be the children’s last harvest in primary School. The children joined in with singing and carefully and maturely helped our Reception children walking to church. they were each paired up and held hands together so they felt safe. It was a very touching moment. Well done Year 6. The children also looked brilliant, dressed up in their outfits! We had scarecrows, farmers, farm cats and cows! Thank you for your kind donation which will be distributed to families in our town. 

​English:
We have begun our 'practice writing' and we are writing poetry about hares in the style of Jackie Morris 'I am cat'.  The children have written creatively and with quite some flair using hyphenated adjectives, similes and metaphors as well as the power of three.  We hope to share some of their writing with you in our parents assembly next week.

Science
We had fun investigating chemical changes this week in science.  We found that when you mix bicarbonate of soda with vinegar the results are quite explosive.  The children learnt that this is because a chemical reaction is taking place in which new substances are formed and a gas is produced (hence all the bubbles).

History
We turned to our local area this week to think about the impact of the Industrial Revolution on Devon.  We learnt how the mining and export of copper and tin increased the economy of the area.  We also realised that it was around this time that Okehampton railway station opened and created a link between London and Okehampton and Plymouth changing the lives of people in the South West.

Life Skills
Miss Penny led the class in an exploration of friendship this week.  The children thought about what makes a 'good friend' and the children then used drama to create a video about friendship.

​ Thank you all for your continued support. Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you next week. 

Welcome to our Year 6 blog. Please find a roundup of our week here.

English
We started the week by summarising the story of the Snow Leopard by Jackie Morris, this included identifying and summarising the story by pulling main ideas from the text. We then wrote our own stories using a variety of sentence openers and favourite ideas from the book to write the story of the raid on the village from the perspective of one of the villagers. After this we learnt and remembered the text by drawing a story map which we used to retell it. Then we looked at devices Jackie Morris uses in her writing such as hyphenated adjectives and nouns like: flame-cat of the forest, sharp-eyed running cat, resin-scented forests and sun-scorched. this led us onto metaphors, similes and the power of three.

Science
This week we used the processes of sieving, filtration and evaporation to separate sand, salt and nuggets and drew particle diagrams to represent the changes. 

History
In history, we investigated the inventions and inventors that revolutionised factories, towns, cities and work life in Britain during the industrial revolution.  As this is black history month, we recognised that all the inventors were white men and wondered if black people had been inventing too. Of course, they had - we found out a little about those inventions too. We decided that we don’t hear about those inventions so much as history was most probably written by white men too.

​Maths
This week in maths we have started our new unit on the four operations, starting with addition and subtraction, factors, and multiples. For this the children need to be secure with their number bonds and their times table. There will be a big emphasis on this as the year goes on, to check the children can recall these things quickly, starting with our maths homework this week! Well done to all the children who have really persevered with their reasoning.

Art
This week in Art we continued with our focus on Monet and impressionism, by looking at a wider range of paintings and attempting to replicate them.

French 
In French this week we continued with Nationalities asking the questions “what nationality are you?”, “what nationality is he?”, “what nationality is she?” and answering by saying “I am/he is/she is”. Our knowledge of flags also came in useful here! We played different games with the phrases including rock, paper, scissors, battle ships and the intruder!  I have met with Mrs Jordan this week to discuss the French residential, so if there are any outstanding forms, please can we have them in.

PE
We had our first swimming session, and it was great to have all the children in the pool together in two groups. They children have almost an hour in the pool with their instructors and the first session was full of smiles. We also began to build up some miles towards our ‘mini marathon’ inspired by the London marathon. We have signed up to complete this challenge over the next few weeks and will be totalling the miles as we go! A group of children from Year 6 took part in the OCRA football tournament today! Both teams did amazingly well and came second and third place receiving medals as recognition of their achievements. We are so proud of them! Well done!

Look out for more information on our Harvest festival next Friday 14th, that coincides with Dingle Dangle Scarecrow Day and also our sharing assembly that will take place at 2:30 on Friday 21st October.
Thank you all for your continued support. Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you next week. 
Mrs Ware and Miss Ruby