Week ending Friday 17th March 2023

This week has been a busy week combining Science Week, Assessment/Progress Week and fitting in a Strike day as well.
 
Assessment Week/Progress Week
This week saw us undertake a ‘mock SATS week’ in school for the children in preparation for their actual SATS in seven week time; as well as measure the progress they have made since the start of the Spring term. This has been an incredibly important week for the children, and one we would like them to take seriously as the end of Year 6 draws near. This is the children’s chance to show off an accumulation of all they have learnt during their time in primary school in maths, reading, spelling punctuation and grammar enabling them to feel very proud of themselves. Any areas, that we feel need revising or reteaching, we will plan into our final few weeks accordingly or group the children together for group work. Our SATS meeting on Tuesday 28th March, will be a great opportunity for us to talk to you about this week and how we use this (as well as previous assessments) to inform our planning, preparation and support. At this time, we also fully appreciate any support you can give your child too. The SATS meeting will include details of SATS week, breakfast club, types of questions the children are asked, how they are scored/assessed, support and logistics. 
 
Science Week
On Monday we took part in a 'Physics Olympics' with Year 5.  There were several challenges including building the tallest tower using newspaper, the longest marble run and constructing a boat from tin foil to float as many coins as possible before sinking.  The children used their scientific and cooperative skills with varying degrees of success!  On Tuesday we had a visit from the 'Don't let Devon go to waste' team who talked to us about recycling in Devon with a focus on composting.  The children had the opportunity to explore the minibeasts that turn organic waste into compost. This week we also learnt about power (the amount of energy transferred per second) and how to calculate it.  We thought about what questions we would like to ask the space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock who we had a live streamed virtual visit from on Friday.

Geography 
This week we looked at the question, "What does globalisation have to do with fashion?" We started off by looking at how the clothes industry has changed in recent years and advantages and disadvantages of these changes. We discussed 'fast fashion' (when clothes are made poorly and cheaply leading to a throw away society) and linked this with sustainability. We investigated the idea that clothes are much cheaper to import and be manufactured in different, often less developed countries and the disadvantages of this on the world but also on people living in these countries and we also read a true story about a clothing factory in Bangladesh that collapsed and killed over 1000 people. From this came discussions of exploitation, inequality and what we can do to change this in the future.  The children were shocked to learn that the average wage for a woman working in a clothes factory for a whole year in Bangladesh , is less than what the average person can earn here in the UK in  a month!
 
French
In French this week we continued with our focus on eating breakfast. We continued with learning about the question, ‘what do you have for breakfast?’ (Qu’est-ce que tu manges au petit déjeuner) and focused on how we might answer, (Au petit dejeuner je mange un croissant parce que c’est tres sucre) giving reasons for our choices. We then played matching games where we had to match the French food to it’s English translation and also label the breakfast foods in French.
 
DT
We have continued with our DT unit with a focus on sewing and the added theme of Easter! We began two weeks ago by designing an Easter Egg, that included the first letter of our name and then designed any added extras! We used this design to begin making a template for drawing around onto felt, which today we  cut out and used a blanket stitch to fasten together. Next week we will finish sewing together and adding any extras on.

​Thank you for reading! Enjoy your weekend.