Author: Mrs Gallaher

The children in the Chaplaincy Team this week have been run off their feet! Not only did they have the Stations of the Cross to prepare and perform in but a RE art competition to judge and an Easter parade to organise!

The Stations of the Cross was a beautifully reflective liturgy where the music, singing and performance of each of the station helped the children, staff and parents remember the significance of what Jesus, God’s Son went through on our behalf.

Thankfully, the story of Jesus didn’t end with the events of Good Friday. Three days later He rose again which is why we celebrate Easter and His promise to us for New Life. We experienced the wonderment of new life this week, when we visited the chicks in the Nursery. With careful handling of such small creatures, Year 6 enjoyed the opportunity to see the the new chicks.

The RE artwork that came into school across the school was wonderful and demonstrated the time and effort the children put into this project.

Here are just a few examples, including the winning entry by Dylan O’Leary from our class.

Finally, after weeks of doing maths, English and then more maths and English in preparation for our SATs, we got creative with our DT Project: Designing and Making Playground Structures. After researching some playground equipment the children would enjoy themselves, they then worked in partners to design a playground to the specific design brief:

• It had to be safe
• It had to be fun
• Have something to climb up
• Have something to hide in

Some children added a few other apparatus such as swings, which are of course fun to play on. The best thing about a project like this is to witness the children’s team spirit and creative energy.

As it is the end of term, I would like to thank the children and their parents for all their hard work with their homework, classwork, their willingness to help, their polite manners and their ‘I will give it a try’ attitude.

I wish you all a very Happy Easter and a well deserved break.

Mother’s Day preparation and amazing miracles

This week has been Mocks week, which was a practice run for SATs week in May. The children coped remarkably well with the changes to routine and we are very proud of them all.

However, we found time to prepare for Mothers Day- after all we recognise the amazing impact all our Mums have on our lives. We each made 3d Mother’s Day cards in art and another one in French.

We have also been practicing for our performance at the Mother’s Day assembly. The children worked together to write their own lyrics for their own version of Mamma Mia. We think our Mums will be pleased with the result when they see us perform it at Friday’s assembly.

In RE, we read and analysed the amazing miracle Jesus performed when he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. We looked at how the Holy Spirit helped Jesus and what it must have been like for witnesses to this spectacular event. Some members of the class imagined they were characters from the story and we interviewed them by putting them in the Hot Seat. 

Ultimately, we realised that Jesus, and only He, could have performed such a miracle. Through this miracle we learn about God’s power over death and His promise of eternal life for us. Jesus said, “ I am the resurrection, He who believes in me will live.” 

So despite all our hard work, we have much to celebrate: our successes, our mothers and our faith.

The news about the Ukrainian war has been upsetting and the children in Y6 felt that they needed to speak up to urge the Prime Minister and his government to act more decisively.

The children felt that developing peace between Russia and Ukraine and offering assistance to the people of Ukraine during their terrible ordeal was of the utmost importance.

So a couple of weeks ago the children wrote letter to either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, Rht Hon Liz Truss MP, to express their views.

Earlier this week, we received a reply from the Prime Minister’s correspondence officer with a very detailed reply. Not only was the Prime Minister and his team very impressed with the children’s letters but they agreed that peace was very important and that the Prime Minister was doing his best to broker this. The letter went on to say how the people of Britain would be able to welcome Ukrainian refugees into their homes. This news has now been released in the press for the country- but we heard it first in our letter from him.

From this experience, the children have learned that speaking up for what is right and letting their voices be heard is so important.

Well done children- you are the future of our country. 

Who knows- maybe one day you will be in government and you will have the chance to make a real positive difference in our world!

The week started with us being invited to the Wellbeing Workshop where we explored the 5 steps to well-being. We learned lots of useful tips about how we can help ourselves and each other take care of our mental health as well as our physical health. 

On Tuesday, we spent the morning being very dramatic as Fiona from The Young Shakespeare Company introduced us to William Shakespeare’s tragic play: Romeo and Juliet. The class was split in half with one half being the Capulets and the other half were the Montagues. Using our acting skills, the Capulets and Montagues squared up to each other and made it clear the feud was far from over!

As Romeo saw Juliet across the crowded masked ballroom, the pair were doomed to cross their parents’ wishes. It didn’t end well for them- nor their closest friends. 

Exploring this play, we reflected how Shakespeare wrote about the human themes of love, struggles and how when humans try to outdo each other, it rarely ends well- how apt this message is right now.

During our science lessons. We investigated how light travels in straight lines for the light source (the incident rays) and how mirrors reflect them (reflected rays).

Amongst all of the workshops and active science learning, we have developed descriptive writing, worked on our vocabulary detective skills whilst reading and explored the properties of shapes in maths. 

What will next week bring?

In Year 6 we have begun exploring our new class book called:

We found out that women have not always been allowed to have equal rights, a voice or have a vote as to who should lead our country.

We began by exploring what it would be like if only boys were allowed to be on the school council and make laws. The majority of boys thought this could benefit them whilst the girls felt discriminated against and that it was unfair. Some boys also recognize that a person’s gender should not determine whether or not they should be allowed to contribute to the life of the school. 

Writing with formal language can be difficult as it is not something we are used to doing. However, through the course of the week the Year 6 children planned and wrote formal letters to the Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone trying to persuade him to allow there to be a law passed in parliament to allow all women to be able to vote and have legal rights.

Through using thesauruses to help find formal language and synonyms, through careful editing and improving the children wrote some very powerful letters. 

The overall message of what we have learned is that discrimination against gender, race, religion or monetary status is something that should be challenged and never accepted as right. 

Well-being week and Internet Safety Day

Well-being has been the theme for the week. We spent time thinking and acknowledging the people who are in our support group- the people such as our friends, family and even pets who are there for us whenever we need it.

We then practised some mediation techniques  to help us relax when we may feel a little stressed or overwhelmed. Calm breathing and listening to relaxing music can really help. 

Finally, we spent time recognising our gifts and talents. We are all different- we help the world be more interesting in this way. We can use our gifts and talents to help others. We should celebrate our differences and not knock each other for them. 

In addition to learning about our well-being, we had Internet Safety Day on Tuesday. We looked at possible scenarios which we may find ourselves in, where we may feel pressure to make the wrong choices online or react to others in a negative way. We created role-plays, wrote stories and even made board games to help advise others if they ever find themselves in this situation.

We have had such a busy half term. We all deserve a nice rest and some fun for the half term break. 

I wish you all a lovely alarm-free week and I look forward to seeing you on 21st February!

Year 6 came into school dressed in their own clothes with a numbers theme. Some children had customised their clothes to be as numerate as possible.

We then combined our Numbers Day with science.

The children set up investigations to find out which forms of exercise increase their heart rates the most.

To begin with the children took their pulse rates whilst they were resting and then compared their heart rates after they did a variety of exercises.

Once the children had collated their results, they produced graphs to represent their data.

We will discuss next week, what these results show us about how our heart responds to different exercises.

Y6 have begun their art unit on Human- learning how different artists have portrayed the human form in a variety of art mediums.

This week, the children researched what the Renaissance period was and explored some of the Renaissance art which is famous today. 

We looked at paintings such as the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci and the paintings Michaelangleo did on the Sistine Chapel such as the painting of The Creation of Adam.

We critiqued the colours, perspective and tones the artists used.

The artist the children focused on was the life and works of Michelangelo.

We learned how Michelangelo used different forms of art such as sculpture. We did some observational drawings of David, one of Michelangelo’s masterpieces.

This week we developed our observational skills a little more by learning observational and shading techniques to draw an eye. We are rather pleased with the results.

We came into school, ready and eager to make the most of the first school day of 2022. This is a big year for Year 6 and we are ready for the challenges which lay before us.

We began the day by looking at the arrival of the three wise men who arrived to see the baby Jesus. We learned how the Wise Men are significant as they are symbolic to the fact that Jesus came for everyone- wherever we may be from, whatever our culture or status- Jesus is for everyone.

We then learned about the symbolic meanings for the gifts the wise men brought:

Gold -for a King

Frankincense – for a high priest

Myrrh- to heal the wounds they would be inflicted upon him when he would die for us.

The children then wrote up the information about the religious symbolism in the Epiphany and began to design Epiphany cards

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the kind cards and gifts you gave me and other members of the Y6 staff team for Christmas. We very much appreciate your kindness and support.

I wish you all a very happy new year and a happy Epiphany!

Best wishes,

Mrs Gallaher