***Home Reading Super Stars***
Well done to our pupils who have moved onto the next level of their reading reward charts! Keep up the great work with home reading.
Spring Term Prefects
Congratulations to our new prefects! Our prefects set the expectations for behaviour in and around school, supervising our corridors during the transition to and from assembly to ensure our pupils across school are following our school rules.
Spring 2
The Hobbit
What a treat we had today! As part of the celebrations for World Book Day, Key Stage 2 were treated to a theatrical performance of J.R.R. Tolkin's The Hobbit. Pupils were able to enjoy the story of The Hobbit brought to live in front of their eyes. With fantastic scenery and brilliant acting pupils were completely immersed.
Computing
LO:
This week in Computing we have been thinking about the design of websites. By analysing websites we have been able to understand their audience and purpose. We have then been able to use this to help us think about the design of our own websites that will be creating over the rest of this half term.
Oracy
LO: Structure and organise talk
Using our Geography topic as the stimulus for our Oracy lesson today, pupils prepared a short presentation about an Amazonian tribe. Pupils worked together to plan their presentation and organise the information in a way that would structure their presentation so that it could be easily followed.
Although it felt quite intimidating presenting in front of the class, pupils overcame their initial nerves and presented with confidence. Well done 6R
Computing
LO:
This half term in Computing we are focusing on a media unit with a focus on web design. Today we looked at websites and recapped our learning around networks, browsers and search engines before looking at the structure and layout of websites and their pages.
Pupils explored websites considering how you navigate through them and how easy it is to do so. Pupils were able to pick out features of websites such as home pages, navigation bars, drop down menus and the use of different types of media including images, sounds and movies.
Spring 1
English
LO: Seek information and clarification through questioning
Today 6R have been in the hot seat once again. Today we have been interviewing residents of the town from Tuesday, where the flying frogs and the flying pigs invaded. Pupils have interviewed each other as the residents in preparation for producing their journalistic writing later in the week.
Pupils asked thoughtful questions during the activity which allowed them to create some interesting direct and indirect quotations to include in their journalistic writing.
Science
LO: identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.
Today we have been thinking about plants adapt to survive in their environment. We focused initially on the cactus and thought the features of the plant that allow it to survive in the biome that it exists. Pupils were able to understand why a cactus has no leaves, has a thick stem and why it has such a waxy stem.
Pupils then thought about the features of other interesting plants that are adaptations that allow them to survive in their environment.
Design Technology
LO: select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks [for example, cutting, shaping, joining and finishing], accurately
LO: evaluate their ideas and products against their own design criteria
Take at look at our finished products of our fairground rides unit! Well done to all of the pupils in 6R who have worked collaboratively to create their fairground rides. Pupils have evaluated their fairground rides and thought about the processes that worked well and could be improved if the rides were to be made again.
I think we have some future engineers at Blakehill!
Computing
LO:
To apply the knowledge and skills gained across our unit focusing on Computer Aided Design, pupils have used TinkerCAD to create a 3D model of a structure. Pupils were able to choose whether they would create a 3D model of a Maya temple or a fairground ride.
Well done 6R on using the various tools in order to create your finished product on your workplane.
English
LO: Identify features of journalistic writing
LO: Identify features of journalistic writing
Today we thought about the experiences we have of journalistic writing and used this to help us identify some of the features. After looking more in-depth at the features of journalistic writing pupils explored some tabloid and broadsheet newspapers to find the taught features. Pupils will use this to help them create their own piece of journalistic writing later in the week linked to our book focus Tuesday.
Oracy
LO: Build on the views of others
This week in Oracy we have used our Science topic as a stimulus for conversation and focused on making connections between information in order to build on the views of others. Pupils worked to sort statements and facts linked to adaptation, inheritance and evolution and justified together why they had grouped their information together.
Design Technology
LO: generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches, cross-sectional and exploded diagrams
This week 6R were able to take their observations from their visit to the Pleasure Beach at Blackpool and their learning from their Science unit on changing circuits and design a fair ground of their own. Pupils designed a fairground that uses a mechanism that is powered by electricity to move a component on the ride. 6R worked in groups to design their fairground ride, considering the purpose of the ride, the audience and the functionality.
We can't wait to see how the fairground rides will turn out!
Design Technology
LO: use research and develop design criteria to inform the design of innovative, functional, appealing products that are fit for purpose, aimed at particular individuals or groups
LO: select from and use a wider range of materials and components, including construction materials, according to their functional properties and aesthetic qualities
Before embarking on designing our own fairground ride later on this week we explored the different components of K'Nex as a construction material. Groups discussed their initial design ideas for their fairground rides and chose the materials they would like to use to construct their design: K'Nex or materials such as cardboard and wood.
Computing
E-safety
PCSO Geoff visited us once again in 6R today to talk to the pupils about another aspect of e-safety. This week PC Geoff focused more on the peer on peer abuse he had discussed with pupils in the previous session and pupils looked at online bullying and what this can look like. Pupils were sensitive, empathetic and insightful during the session and used the information given to them by PC Geoff well to solve a cyber bullying case. Well done 6R!
Computing
E-safety
This week PCSO Geoff from the West Yorkshire Police visited 6R to lead a workshop about staying safe online and using the internet responsibility. PC Geoff spoke to 6R about the risks involved with the use of social media and talked about measures that can be put in place in order to keep ourselves safe online. 6R were informed about the increasing levels of peer on peer abuse taking place online and what this can look like. Pupils were reminded by PC Geoff about the age of criminal responsibility in England.
PC Geoff also spoke with pupils about gaming and online gaming, thinking about age and content ratings and how we can keep ourselves safe when gaming, including limiting our screen time.
This was a very informative session and all pupils acted in a mature thoughtful manner throughout the session. Well done 6R we are proud of you!
Independent Learning Projects
Ancient Civilizations
Thank you to all of the pupils who took the time to create a project about an Ancient Civilization. We really appreciate all of the time and effort that pupils have spent on creating their projects and it has been fantastic to see what you have showcased in your learning. We were particularly interested in the projects created to showcase a "new" civilization, where pupils had thought about using what we know of Ancient Civilizations to create their own.
Those pupils who wanted to presented their projects to the rest of the class and it has been a pleasure to have these on display in school!
Well done 6R
English
LO: Seek information and clarification through questioning.
In English we have been further exploring the picture book of Tuesday. This week we have been interviewing eye witnesses of the flying frogs! Using our knowledge of retrieved facts from the illustrations in the book and inferences we have made, 6R hot seated as the elderly lady in her home and gentleman who was sat in his kitchen. We also created some characters who may have witnessed the events in the story by thinking about what the frogs did and hot seated these characters.
The responses given from this activity will be used to help pupils write eye witness statements in a detective report about the incident of the flying frogs! We can't wait to see these reports!
PE
L.O - Uphold the spirit of fair play and respect in all competitive situations.
L.O - Dribble a ball with control, consistency and purpose.
In PE the main purpose of our games was to test our teamwork and our control, every game we participated in revolved around encouragement and support to benefit our peers to give our team a higher chance of success. Our control was challenged when did the basketball game as we only had 1 dribble attempt to try reach a cone to then try win a point for our team.
Oracy
LO: seek information and clarification through questioning.
To consolidate our learning from our Science unit we thought about circuit components in our Oracy task this week.Pupils in 6R had to decided which of the components was the odd one out and question each other about why they thought this. Pupils were required to think carefully about their questions so that they were not given closed answers.
Science
WS LO: Present findings from enquires, including conclusions, relationships and explanations of a degree of trust in results.
Today in Science we used our knowledge from our changing circuits unit to tackle problems that a neighbourhood watch have been struggling with:
- milk theft
- dark neighbourhood
We were able to use our findings from our bulb and voltage investigations to tackle the dark neighbourhood problem but had to experiment how we could stop the problem of milk thefts in the area.
Groups worked together to design and create a device that could sound an alarm when triggered by the milk thief. By creating a pressure switch that closed the circuit and adding one or more buzzers to a circuit an alarm was created. Some groups even added an additional element of a motor that had a visual warning system attached to it! Don't worry local communities! 6R are here to save the day!
Science
K LO: Compare and give reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs.
WS LO: Use test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests
Today we investigated how the voltage of a battery effects the brightness of a bulb in a circuit. We used batteries ranging from 2.5 volts to 9 volts. Before carrying out the investigation we hypothesised and then used the results from the investigation to make conclusions.
Punjabi Roots Workshop
Today we had the privilege of welcoming Punjabi Roots to Blakehill. After meeting Punjabi Roots in assembly in the morning Year 6 took part in a dance workshop with them in the afternoon. It was really interesting to learn about the history behind Bhangra dancing and to have a go at some of the traditional dance moves.
Science
LO: Explain how a circuit operates
To introduce our new Science topic we played a game of pass the buzz. We couldn't understand at first why some people broke our chain and stopped the "buzz" from moving around the circle, however some of us were able to soon realise what was happening - our circuit was being broken and there was no "path" for the buzz to continue much like in an electrical circuit the current can not continue around if the circuit is not complete.
Reading
This week in reading we have been exploring the text The Boy Who Met A Whale. When carrying out our shred reading today we used the finger torches. This alternative way of reading had many pupils engaged in the text and tracking it well.
Spelling
Today was clear the board day! After looking at new spelling focus: the prefixes bi/micro/audi and thinking about the meaning of the roots, we played clear board. As always it was very competitive and there was lots of engagement in practicing our spellings.
English
LO: Make predictions
Today we were introduced our next text focus in English. Our next unit of work is based around a picture book. We made inital predictions about the book by exploring the "brown envelop" task and then looked at the opening few pages of the book. Thinking about the setting, we worked in groups to create word banks that can be used later in the week.
Computing
LO: identify that digital 3D objects can be modified
This week we started our new unit in Computing: 3D modelling. We are using the program Tinker Cad, and we explored the following:
- resizing an object in three dimensions
- lifting and lowering 3D objects
- recolouring a 3D object