Welcome to the year 6 blog! 

What a busy week we have had! The children have settled in so well to year 6. There is going to be a lot of hardwork this year but also lots and lots of fun!

We have been sitting some Mock Sats papers this week to give a baseline of where the children are and the areas we need to focus on.  The children have approached these with an excellent attitude and should be proud of themselves! 

In English we have started our new unit based on the book Here We Are. We have explored creating our own expanded noun phrases and using them to write our own non narrative poems. 

In maths  we have started the first unit on place value by focusing on numbers to ten million! In history we have started the unit on the Industrial Revolution by looking at what life was like in Victorian society. 

The past few afternoons we have been busy designing our Christmas cards ready to be sent off. I can't believe we are already thinking about Christmas! 
Next week we will be getting into proper routine and getting started in all aspects of the curriculum. We also will be going on a trip to Mortonhampstead School for the Whiddon Autumn Festival. The songs are sounding beautiful. 

Have a great weekend, 
Miss Collins :)

What a busy couple of weeks we've had! Last Friday, we celebrated Rainbow Day and the joy of everybody being different, together. In class, we learnt about the protected characteristics and explored the meaning of discrimination, equality and respect. We made some beautiful, bright coloured kites and flew these on Thursday (when we had dry and windy weather!) These are now displayed all around school and look wonderful.

This week, we've performed our Year 5 and Year 6 play: Aladdin Trouble. Both performances were fantastic and that's thanks to the hard work, dedication and enthusiasm of the children involved. Lines were spoken clearly, songs were sung loudly and the whole play was a lot of fun from start to end! A huge well done.

Next week, we head into the last week of term. We've got the Leavers' BBQ to look forward to, along with the Leavers' Assembly on the last day of term (Friday 19th). I can't quite believe how quickly this year has gone but I'm looking  forward to celebrations and a really fun week next week.

This week, our highlight in Sycamore Class was our visit from the MED theatre group. Abby and Evie came along with their filming equipment to help the children create a film all about transitioning to secondary school. We used our learning from our Finch Foundry trip, and our inspiration from the characters in that story and history, to create drama pieces around some key values. Take a look at the photos below.

Hello,

Summer term 2 has started in full swing! Last week, Year 6 went on the residential to Normandy. Please read the offical blog to see what we got up to (our trip was Week 1 so please go back through the pages).
Trust Normandy Residential Archives | Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust (dartmoormat.org.uk)

Rehearsals for Aladdin Trouble are going well and children are beginning to be more confident at delivering their lines on stage. The songs are sounding fab too!

In other areas of learning, we are starting a transition unit of writing which relates to the Year 6's upcoming move to secondary school. During this unit, children will have the opportunity to write about things that are important to them and what makes them 'them' etc. 

Next week,  we are going to Finch Foundry for the day to take part in a MED Theatre project all around transition. We also have OCRA coming in to do a Quad Kids morning so lots to look forward to!

We've reached half term!

This week has been busy. We were really excited to start rehearsals for our Year 5 and 6 pantomime: Aladdin Trouble. We've already learnt some of the songs, we've been practising lines and read through the play several times. Please please please make sure that children are practising and learning their lines during half term - we want them to feel confident when it comes to performing.

On Tuesday, we were very lucky to have Mr Geoff Fox visit us for the afternoon. Geoff is a fantastic storyteller who shared the tale of growing up during WW2 and his experience of surviving a plane crash into his house. The children were wholly engaged and you could hear a pin drop in there - it was brilliant. We made him a lovely thank you card in which they shared their appreciation and were able to tell Geoff their favourite parts.

We were also visited by some 'Tudors' on Thursday afternoon! The local historians taught us all about the Prayer Book Rebellion which happened just down the road in Sampford Courtenay. It was great to learn more about the history of our local area.

On Wednesday, children watched an assembly about Normandy to share some final key messages and go over the itinerary, expectations, packing lists etc. If you have any questions at all then please Dojo me.

Have a lovely half term break and I'll see you afterwards!

Well, how else can I start this blog post off except for a huge WELL DONE to all of our lovely Year 6s for completing their KS2 SATs! I'm genuinely so proud of each and every one of them for their effort, dedication, resilience and amazingly positive attitude this week. They sat a total of 6 test papers beginning on Monday with Grammar questions followed by spellings; then Tuesday a reading paper; on Wednesday Maths arithmetic and reasoning 1 and finally, on Thursday, Maths reasoning 2. Every child was calm, composed and took it all in their stride. They were the model of Year 6 students. The results from the tests will be shared with us in July, so we have a bit of a wait for those.

Something that I think was enjoyed by everyone this week was our breakfast club which we ran each day before SATs. There was a slight air of nervousness on Monday as children arrived but this soon disappeared as they tucked into their toast, cereal and (later in the week) brioche and crumpets! Thank you FONTs for contributing to the costs of this.

Aside from SATs, we've spent time this week checking in and making sure our mental health was a priority. We've had lots of fun, particularly playing online quizzes as a class - a firm favourite with these children!

Today, we have told the children what the Year 5 and 6 play is going to be... it's Aladdin! Miss Collins and I are so excited to get this underway and we've already begun learning the songs.

Next week, we have so many exciting things to look forward to. We've got a visitor coming in to tell a story of an experience he had as a child during WW2; we are also logging onto an online assembly with a WW2 veteran. All of this is in preparation for our Normandy trip after half term. We'll be brushing up on our French conversation too! 

​Have a lovely weekend.

Hello,

This week in Sycamore Class we've been hard at work revising for the upcoming SATs tests which are next week! In Maths, we've recapped aspects of geometry, measurement, algebra and problem-solving skills. We've also been practising some reading comprehension questions and some SPaG questions too. 
Most importantly, we've had fun! There have been Kahoot quizzes, games and also the chance to spend as much time outdoors in this lovely sunshine as possible. Yesterday, we all went out to listen to the story sitting in the sun, then today, we took part in a joint rounders game with Year 5. It was great! 
Enjoy some photos from our sunny afternoon yesterday. 
Make sure to have a lovely weekend with plenty of rest ready for the big week next week.

All the best,
Miss Radbourne

We are heading into a bank holiday weekend so I'll start off this week's blog by wishing you a great one and fingers crossed for dry weather! 

This week in Sycamore Class, we've been hard at work with our SATs revision. Just 4 school days left until SATs week! Once again, I reiterate how proud I am of all the children for their dedication and effort in the run up to the assessments. Everyone has a really positive attitude and that's a great position to be in.

In Maths, our lessons have focussed on revising key areas including place value, addition & subtraction, multiplication & division, fractions, decimals and percentages. We will continue with remaining core revision areas next week. In English, the children have been writing their own non-chronological reports about their own evil plants! They have been ensuring to use key year 6 skills throughout.
In History, we learnt about the end of World War I and the Treat of Versailles. We discussed how this led to unrest in Germany and we will move on to learn how this ultimately contributed to World War II.

Sycamore Class enjoyed their P.E. session with our new coach Miss Jordan and they were able to practise their cricket skills in between rain showers! 

In Art, we've been thinking about how sculpture can represent ourselves. Today, we started work on creating cardboard Assemblages featuring symbols or images which represent important things or aspects. 

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Another week passes by!...

This week, we've been really knuckling down and working hard with our pre-SATs revision, particularly in Maths. We've recapped statistics including different types of graphs, plus revised place value including comparing numbers, rounding and negative numbers. We'll continue with this type of revision for the next couple of weeks, making sure to focus on those key areas which children need to understand, notably: calculations, fractions, decimals and percentages.
In English, we've delved further into our book 'The Boy in the Tower'. We've discovered that it's a mysterious and somewhat sinister plant-like being which is causing the buildings to collapse (in the book!) Based on this, we have written a class non-chronological report in the style of a fact file to educate people about these dangerous plants. Next week, the children will be creating their own imaginary plants and producing their own factfile about these. I hope that they will have chance to publish them with illustrations as well as wonderful writing.
We finished our letters home from the trenches in History this week. These were brilliant to read and show a clear understanding of life in the trenches and what it was like for soldiers in WWI. We will move on to learn about the end of WWI next week, and then the lead up to WWII after this.
In Science, we continued our 'cells' topic by learning about organ systems. I was very impressed with the recall of organs and their functions (as I remember teaching the class this when we were together in Year 4)! We went on to develop this learning by understanding that organs often don't work alone and work as part of a bigger system e.g. the digestive system or the circulatory system.
We've been outside again this week and enjoyed some rounders in P.E. A particular highlight was 'throwing rounders' where we had no bats! It definitely made them think about aiming for the space without any fielders.

Have a read of some our letters from the trenches below, and have a lovely weekend.

Hi everyone,

Welcome back! I can't quite believe the summer term is starting. The last term of primary school for Sycamore Class! We've got a lot of things to get through this half term. There are 3 weeks until SATs so they are approaching quickly. We have started plenty of revision in class, focusing on our reading comprehension skills, our knowledge of spelling and grammar, and revising all of the key areas in Maths. We complete a revision sheet for early work every day, followed by further activities within lessons. Homework is an important part of revision so please keep up with this at home.

In Maths this week, we have been finishing off our learning about shape. We recapped the names and properties of 3D shapes and looked at their 3D nets. In English, we've started a new text called 'A Boy in the Tower'. It's proving very thought-provoking and mysterious, leaving us all wondering what might happen next. A highlight of the week was History where we began learning about WW1. We discussed the many factors that led to the war and we have learnt what life in the trenches was like. Science involved learning the acronym 'MRS GREN' and the 7 life processes.

​Lots more to come next week! Have a great weekend.