Category: Year 6 – St Paul

The bank holiday meant we enjoyed a four day school week this week. The week began with a whole school celebration of the crowning of Mary, the Blessed Mother of Jesus. The assembly focused on the many facets of Mary.  Year 6 made a beautiful display of pictures celebrating the many facets of Mary Mary the Mother of the Most Holy Rosary. The children who are in the Chaplaincy Team helped Mrs Porter ensure the celebration ran smoothly and reverently.

This week has been mainly focused on revision of maths, grammar, spelling and reading as we get ready to show off all the children know in their SATs next week. We know the children have worked so hard and are going to do themselves proud. We are very proud of them. 

Each Year 6 child has many different gifts and talents which are not measured by tests and all of the combined make the class a very special community to belong to.

Let’s pray for them through the weekend and over the next week and ask God to bless the children with His peace, courage and strength so they can be determined, resilient and maintain their self-belief that they can reach their full potentials.

You’ve got this Year 6!

Amidst a hard working week, we had some light relief with a visit from Kate Grey, a Paralympic swimmer, who is now retired. She currently presents disability sport for the BBC.

Kate gave an inspirational assembly about her life in sport, overcoming her barriers and how she has used them to make her stronger. She then called up and praised the Sports Ambassadors to thank them for the contributions they make to the sport in our school. Mr Creaton also had a special mention as our school’s PE Subject Leader.

To begin with, Kate did a warm up with the whole school in the hall and then we all did the daily mile, followed by a photo opportunity with her. 

Kate’s key messages were about resilience and being the best we can be. This is such an important message for Year 6 as they are currently working so hard on their SATs preparation. They are learning to learn and rise from their mistakes and to use them to make them stronger.

However, it is important for the children to remember that they have so many talents which are not measured but make them the wonderful young people they are.

So, we will learn from Kate’s example: if we have our eyes set on our goals, put in the hard work and ‘Go for It’ we will achieve our dreams!

The children have come back to school with a positive attitude for making the most of their final term at St Adrian’s. As well as working hard on their SATS preparations the children have had some lighter moments.

St George’s Day

In honour of the Patron Saint of England, St George, the children came to school in their finest red and white clothes.

Earth Day 2022

The class had a great discussion about the impact of our carbon footprint. We analysed all of the activities which we did this morning from when we woke up until we arrived at school: from the electric alarm, electric toast, the cereal packaging, the journey of the milk and production of the cereals and bread for out breakfasts and then our journeys to school. We soon realised that a lot of what we do and eat can have a negative impact on our carbon footprint.

To rectify this, we then thought about positive steps we could take to reduce our impact and be more kind to our beautiful planet. So, we will aim to walk more, use manual toothbrushes,  to buy locally sourced food and maybe even have our own chickens for our eggs!

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?