Year Six have got straight back into the swing of things following the half-term break.
On Wednesday, we headed to St Bartholomew’s for the All Saints where our chaplaincy team helped lead the worship. Everyone in year six excelled, shepherding our friends in year two and guiding them through the mass. It is lovely to see how well the children take care of the younger members of our school community.
There has also been plenty to learn as we have embarked on new topics in many areas of the curriculum: in English, our writing is inspired by Nicola Davies’ thought-provoking ‘The Promise’, whilst in reading, we are sharing Kate DaCamillo’s ‘The Tiger Rising’. We are also looking forward to learning more about the impact of the Tudors in history and our visit to Hampton Court Palace.
Today marks the end of the first half-term in year six: it has been a busy time for all of the children.
We have written several books, ranging from poetry to biographies…
We’ve celebrated the harvest, whilst remembering to share our gifts with the local community and beyond…
We’ve also enjoyed the chance to be creative, as can be seen in some of the work completed for our grid homework – an imagined transitional form, linked to our learning in science and a really impressive natural dye – can you guess what vegetables created this colour?
As we look forward to all there is to learn in the next half-term, I’ll wish you a happy and restful holiday.
This week, we have been working hard in year six to prepare for our class assembly. We celebrated our learning from this first half-term with our parents and the rest of the school.
In our assembly, we shared some of our work inspired by Oliver Jeffers’ book, ‘Here We Are’; we enjoyed using Oliver Jeffer’s voice and style to write about how we work together to make our school a great place.
Our assembly also echoed our learning in RE and our calling to show love in all that we do. We found a good example of this idea lived in the life of Harriet Tubman, who we learnt about as part of Black History Month. Eloise Greenfield’s poem is a powerful celebration of Harriet Tubman’s life, and we enjoyed performing this in our assembly.
In geography, we have learnt about the challenges of a growing world population. We remembered in our assembly that, as well as being part of the St Adrian’s community, we are also part of a global family. This made us appreciate the privileges we enjoy alongside our social responsibility to others – an idea we will explore further in our Harvest celebrations next week.
A big ‘thank you’ to all of the parents who came to share our celebration with us, and for support that you gave to the children in preparing for their roles.
We had a fantastic day at the St Michael’s Junior School Sports Competition. The sun shone and everyone enjoyed the challenge, playing in either the boys 7-a-side, girls 6-a-side, or the mixed netball competition. The children conducted themselves admirably and were rewarded with runners-up medal in the girls football and winning the mixed netball competition, playing against some much larger schools. Well done to everyone and thanks to all of the parents who ferried the children to and from St Michael’s.
To mark National Poetry Day on Thursday, we enjoyed sharing our performances of poems. Our approach to sharing poetry is to treat the poem as a poem: letting its verbal magic work through the enjoyment of its sound. Reading the poem aloud. Hearing its sound in the air, feeling its shape in our mouths, seeing which lines draw us in. Noticing, and thinking about what we like and are reminded of in our reading and experience.
We looked more carefully at Eleanor Farjeon’s Cottage and used this as the starting point for writing our own poetry.
Cottage (1942) When I live in a Cottage I shall keep in my Cottage Two different Dogs, Three creamy Cows, Four giddy Goats, Five Pewter Pots, Six silver Spoons, Seven busy Beehives, Eight ancient Appletrees, Nine red Rosebushes, Ten teeming Teapots, Eleven chirping Chickens, Twelve cosy Cats with their kittenish Kittens and One blessed Baby in a Basket. That’s what I’ll have when I live in my Cottage.
Eleanor Farjeon
Later in the year, we will be sharing details of the national Poetry by Heart competition, so watch this space.
An enormous ‘thank you’ to all of the Year Six parents who organised our cake sale and to the children who advertised it: we raised over £180, which the class are now busy planning how to spend. We are looking to get some ‘quality of life’ items that will make our final year together even better!
It seems that every week in year six is a busy week, but the children have shone through once again.
They were fantastic in supporting their younger school-mates during the key stage one sports practice and during the actual event itself. Several teachers asked me to pass on their thanks – both to the whole class and to individuals who stood out for the care and good sense with which they carried out the responsibilities assigned to them.
The children also excelled themselves during our own key stage two sports: both in demonstrating a positive sporting attitude and in helping run the event smoothly.
And of course, when we haven’t been supporting around the school, this week has been full of rehearsals – the children are really looking forward to sharing our end of year production and I have been delighted with the effort that they are all putting in. They are going to be great!
You cannot be in year six and not be aware of the clock is ticking – the end of our time in primary school is fast approaching and with it, the mix of emotions that endings and new beginnings bring. In the week ahead, we get to share some more of what we have achieved with our parents, whilst heading out to visit our new secondary schools. When I look at the class, I know that they will do themselves proud!
It has been another exciting week for Year Six as we have enjoyed three workshops: firstly, we met a paralympian, who led a workshop on handball and wheelchair basketball…
On Tuesday, we enjoyed ‘Dancing through the Decades’, exploring some of the iconic dance moves from the fifties through to the present day…
And then a jazz workshop on Wednesday…
And if that wasn’t enough, we enjoyed the grand final of St Adrian’s Got Talent on Friday! And amongst all of that, we still found time lessons and rehearsals of our year six production!
We didn’t let the weather rain on our parade. We may have had four seasons in one day on Friday, but we still enjoyed our coronation picnic together . Plan B swung into operation and we sat down together in our classroom for festive feast.
In other exciting news this week, Year 6 became (possible) record breakers when four children lost a tooth in a single day. This achievement smashes the previous record in my class, set in ’03. Well done everyone! (Now please stop wobbling your molars).
Next week, our year six children will be completing the key stage two assessments (SATs). It is really important that the children are able to prepare for this in the way that suits them best – whether this means taking another look at revision books or simply taking the time to relax. The children have all worked really hard, learnt lots, and should know that we are proud of what they can acheive. Next week will fly past in the blink of an eye and I hope they enjoy the chance to ‘show off’ their learning.
Enjoy the long weekend and the coronation, however you choose to celebrate.
We were delighted to welcome the mayor of St Albans, Cllr Geoff Harrison and the mace-bearer to our assembly today. As well as sharing the background to this historic role in our city, we learnt what happens at the mayor-making meeting of the City and Distric Council.
Our head boy and girl were elevated to new roles before joining with the school council to share refresments with our guests.
This week, as part of our science topic, Light, Year 6 have learnt about the work of Sir Isaac Newton.
In 1666, Newton made a discovery about light that led him to develop his Theory of Colour, a theory that still informs our understanding of light today. He placed a prism in front of ray of light, and his observations were incredible.
We worked together to replicate Newton’s discoveries in class. Isaac Newton realised that although light looks white, it is actually made up of all the colours of the rainbow. When these colours merge together, it looks white to our eyes, but we can use a prism to separate the different colours of the spectrum using refraction.
