Year 6

What a busy first full week back it’s been in Year 6!

In Humanities this week, we’ve been learning how to place historical dates in their correct centuries (which turned out to be trickier than we expected!). We then began exploring some of the world’s earliest civilisations, comparing their architecture, hierarchical structures, religions, and arts and crafts to see what we could discover about how life changed when humans stopped living nomadically and began settling in one place. In Geography, we turned our attention to the sky, investigating what clouds are and learning to identify the main types. Using our understanding of temperature and moisture levels, we practised predicting the kind of weather each cloud might signal. 

The first week of English Accelerate Programme was based on creative writing, we wrote a wonderful story based on a picture and it was wonderful to see all the boys blending clarity, complexity and imagination. We have also enjoyed reading Holes this week, learning all about the characters at the Juvenile Detention camp and about Stanley's family history. In Maths, we’ve tackled an 11+ paper and discussed the general feedback from it, thinking carefully about how to build on our strengths. We’ve also begun revising calculations with both whole numbers and decimals, sharpening our confidence and accuracy.

In PSHCEE, we started the term with an introduction to this year’s topics and expectations. We also designed personal shields to share our goals for the year and highlight any subjects we’d like to explore in future lessons. In Drama, we continued working on our radio play projects. This week, we finalised our scripts and began read-throughs, focusing particularly on planning sound effects. We challenged ourselves to create every sound effect using only objects or our own bodies - no digital sounds allowed! - which really encouraged creativity and collaboration.

In French, we have been learning how to talk about where people live, using the je and tu forms of the verb habiter in the present tense. We have also practised naming and recognising some French towns and cities on the map, linking our language learning to real places in France. Finally, in Science this week, we focused on hazard symbols. We matched real life scenarios with the correct hazard symbols, before going through the safety rules for using Bunsen burners. This is to prepare us for our first practical next week. In computing, 6 explored the LEGO Spike Prime kits and tackled our first coding challenge. Meanwhile, 6Alpha worked hard on understanding profit and loss, learning how to use spreadsheets to build a simple financial model, which we hope to use at the end of the year.

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Year 6 Team

THE WEEK AHEAD:  

Monday 15th September:  

• U11 vs Fulham School (A). Please check SOCS for details. 

Thursday 18th September:

• Seasonal Flu Vaccine. Please see email from Ms Jackson dated 5.9.25.

• Oates afternoon: Krypton Factor at Drax playing fields. Attend school wearing school uniform and bring your PE kit with you to change into at Drax. See SOCS for details.