Year 6 Newsletter

 AMAZING! A word that sums up everything in year 6 this past fortnight.  Firstly, the pupils were amazing during SATs week.  They acted like professionals, set out to do their best and made us proud!  Well done Year 6!  You could not have given it more.  

This last week has been amazing too as we got stuck into our new geography topic, 'Amazing Places'.  We have zoomed into Iceland, land of ice and fire, learning about its unusual geography and geology resulting in it having both glaciers and active volcanoes.  Many of us were unsure about stepping into a natural hot pool but we thought that the idea of geothermal energy was a genius one!  We were also intrigued by the unusual geography of Iran, that not only borders the Caspian sea but also has a salt desert.  We were able to compare and contrast the landscapes, both of which are influenced by their proximity to tectonic plate boundaries. As for Canada, we were amazed by the inhospitable nature of the landscape and its vast size. 

When looking closely at all locations, we also had the opportunity to explore the people and cultures thereon, including languages and customs which sparked our excitement and curiosity.  

The week ended as it began, with a trip to Crucial Crew.  Children learnt some important lessons on how to keep themselves safe as they start secondary school and the freedoms that it affords. All pupils acted as ambassadors of Windhill21 as they walked to the Barnabas Centre and conducted themselves on site with impeccable manners and enthusiasm.  Year 6 - you have been AMAZING!

Year 6 Newsletter

The children have made us proud yet again this fortnight. Not only have they been busy practising for SATs but they have also transported us into the world of weird and wonderful in their writing.  Entering through different portals, the norm has been well and truly disrupted! We have witnessed everything from jars of twitching fingers, bottles of unicorn tears and even fruit with faces! 

In science, we have been learning about evolution and natural selection. Fascinated by Darwin’s finches, we conducted our own ‘Battle of the Beaks’ investigations exploring how different beak types are suited to different food sources.  We were so impressed with the Woodpecker finches who used tools to pick up larvae from trees. 

Our fortnight has been rounded off by a memorable trip to the O2 where we were part of the Young Voices choir. The children were real professionals and brought the house down (while also raising the roof!) singing everything from classic Beatles tracks to The Lion King soundtrack. We couldn’t have been more impressed with their singing, dancing, camaraderie and behaviour. A night to remember for us all!

As we head into SATs week, we want to recognise just how hard the children have worked, the excellent progress they have made and their wonderfully positive attitudes to all they do. Well done, Kahlo and Da Vinci - you are all fantastic.

Year 6 Newsletter

 Year 6 have come back to school energised, positive and ready for their final term at Windhill21.

We have started a new unit of work in English, looking at 'Disruption of the Norm'. Using everything from Orwell's famous opening line to 1984, "It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen...," to Lucy disappearing into an ordinary wardrobe - and ending up in Narnia - as inspiration, we are thoroughly enjoying describing our portals to another mysterious, fantastical place and taking our readers on quite the journey! 

In Science, we have begun to investigate Evolution. This week, we began to understand Darwin's work on this subject, and are really looking forward to further investigating the concept of 'inheritance' - and understanding which features our parents have passed onto us.

Our French lessons are preparing the year group for both our trip to France in a few weeks, and for the French Week those staying in school will enjoy. The children are becoming very proficient in ordering different foods for different meals, and understanding French grammar to make their sentences longer and more sophisticated. We also have some very adventurous eaters, who are looking forward to try lots of different French cuisine - and certainly plenty of French cheese!

We have also continued to sing our hearts out as we prepare for the 02 trip next Thursday - we are confident we will be the most melodious school in the building!

Of course, all the children are also preparing for their SATs - and in a calm, positive atmosphere. This work is also excellent preparation for the next step in their academic journey, as they ready themselves for secondary school.

Well done to year 6 - as always, so hard working, so positive and so enthusiastic about all you do.

Year 6 newsletter

Year 6 have had another busy week, as we have immersed ourselves in the trenches - quite literally! We recreated life in the trenches, re-enacting trench warfare in the Immersion Room, to understand both the futility and horror of the World War I. We were particularly shocked by the endless noise, the fact that you could be shot by friendly fire and even killed for desertion. We were all very reflective as we made our way back to class.

In English, we have been studying the works of famous World War I poets including Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. We emulated their techniques including collective noun, personification, onomatopoeia and alliteration. We also embraced the impact of short sentences for effective endings to these poems. Reading them aloud made us all understand the distress, frustration and shock experienced by the young men at the time.

In RE we have been considering the concept of privilege, and whether it is right to lead a privileged life. Many of us concluded that although it is not right to have too much, we don't want to have too little, either. In a similar way to Buddhists, we would look to follow a 'Middle Way'. 

Year 6 newsletter

 Year 6 have had another very busy week, starting with a visit from Retune who have helped us to focus on our mental health and wellbeing, through a series of enriching and fun activities.

We have transported ourselves back in time to 1914, as the Great War broke out - and England began to call for volunteers to sign up for their country. We had little idea how much of an impact this had locally...and how many young men were so keen to sign up as quickly as they could. We also learned how to write rallying and inspiring speeches to call such young men to action! Mrs Moore and Mrs Wood were absolutely captivated by our rousing, patriotic language - and we are sure these would have been used by Captains and Generals to recruit soldiers. 

In science, we have been learning about the circulatory system -even having an interesting debate about whether we would rather be red blood cell or a white blood cell! One of the highlights, however, was forming a human circulatory system. We discovered the heart has the hardest role, because it has to pump in two directions, at the same time! 24 hours a day, 7 days a week....for a lifetime.

We are so impressed with the hard work, effort and enthusiasm from all the children - here's to another exciting week in year 6!

I'm fuming with fury....!!!!

 ...is just one of the many lines from the Year 6 production that have become imprinted on all our minds as we have been spending a lot of time rehearsing over the last fortnight!  The children have all made us really proud of their effort and professionalism, whether they be backstage, front stage, part of the choir or the dance troupe.  Likewise, all three classes put on terrific performances for the performance poetry last week. Somehow, we have also managed to do continue with lessons in between rehearsals and performances! We were totally fascinated when we created line graphs and bar charts from climate data in various locations around the world. This information also highlighted to use why many people are desperate to go to Spain on holiday rather than having staycations in England! We have also continued to study our class novel, A Monster Calls and the diverse themes related to the text.  in particular, we enjoyed looking into the history of fairy tales and examinng how forests can be regenerated around the world!   Well done year 6 for keeping on track right up to the end!

We rate debate!

 Wow, what a treat for year 6! We had The Bishop’s Stortford High School winning debate team in to model an outstanding debate to our club. The motion, ‘This House would introduce  compulsory parenting classes’ was delivered with skill, passion and flair - and certainly captured our year 6 audience. So many questions, so many ideas and so many opinions were shared. I couldn’t be more proud of our Debate Club and how they’ve evolved - and much look forward to hearing how they progress with their public speaking at secondary school.

I am excited to re-start Debate Club in September, and look forward to working the Boy’s High in the future - perhaps we can emulate some of their success at primary level very soon! Thank you so much to the the participants for a wonderful afternoon.

Year 6 Newsletter

Year 6 has been getting stuck into production rehearsals and the whole year group has made us proud by giving it their all and demonstrating their true spirit that 'the show must go on!'  In between rehearsals, we have been doing more rehearsing...of our performance poetry...and we cannot wait to perform our poems next week. We have also been getting stuck into our class novel, "Monster Calls", exploring new vocabulary and themes related to the book.  These lessons have stimulated some really interesting discussions in class and have proved a springboard to many deeper questions.  In maths, we set up a 'bakery', bringing together many of the areas of maths that we have studied this year to scale up recipes, to calculate profits and to design packaging.  However, not all of us were convinced that saving a few pence on buying butter was worth a trip to a different supermarket... Perhaps the highlight of the last fortnight was learning about famous Greeks. So far we have explored the inventions of Archimedes, studied the maths of Pythagoras and debated using the questioning techniques of Socrates!   The Ancient Greeks were certainly a brilliant bunch...if a little quirky!!!! 

Well done Hockney class!

During World History Week, Hockney Class in Year 6 learnt about Cecil Rhodes and Janet Shepherd from the Bishops Stortford Museum spent the day with the class to explain the facts surrounding the controversial historical figure.  At the end of the week, the children wrote discussion texts and produced some striking artwork linked to the topic. Janet was so impressed with the children's work and their ability to articulate, discuss and debate the contentious issues surrounding Cecil Rhodes that the museum invested in a display case to present the children's work to the public.  Please look out for it when you are next in the South Mil Arts Complex.  Well done Hockney Class!

Year 6 Newsletter

"Poetry is a load of old nonsense!" exclaimed Year 6 as they were immersed into the world of Edward Lear (and his nonsense poems). As well as getting started with production rehearsals and meeting our new secondary schools, we are immersing ourselves in all things poetry over the next few weeks as part of poetry fortnight.   What better place to start than with limericks! It was certainly fun to write our own and make each other laugh.  We have also enjoyed our teachers bursting into random poetry performances or reading poetry from their own chidhoods (and we have been finding poetry in unusual places all around school). In guided reading, we have dived into classical poetry, critically examining three very different poems: "Colonel Fazackerly Butterworth Toast" by Charles Causley, "Night Mail" by W H Auden and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  Each year 6 class will perform one of these poems at the KS2 poetry slam at the end of the month.  Finally, after discovering that poetry is a form of rap with unusual patterns of rhythm and rhyme, we have begun our writing unit, preparing leavers' raps.  Whilst they are bound to reflect emotion, they will nowhere near the length of the Ancient Greek poems, The Illiad or The Odyssey which spanned several books! Look out for more poetry-related works over the next coupld of weeks.

Charge of the Light Brigade

W H Auden

Charles Causley

Year 6 turn back time....

 ....and spend a day in Ancient Greece!

What a day we have had in year 6, celebrating the Ancient Greeks and some of their biggest achievements. The children enjoyed making their own pitta breads, investigating the Greek alphabet, creating  ‘Brilliant or Brutal’ board games and even re-enacting the infamous Battle of Marathon!

We couldn’t have been more impressed with the wonderful array of costumes...we were greeted by Greek gods, goddesses, warriors, Athenians and villains. What a surprise!

Well done, year 6, what a fabulous day we have had - and what a fantastic group of historians you are.

Year 6 Newsletter

 Over the last fortnight, as well as achieving proficiency in cycling through their bikeability course, Year 6 have been busy investigating the controversy surrounding the Elgin marbles.  Each pupil wrote an interesting discussion text on whether the ancient antiquities that have been housed for the last two hundred years in the British Museum should be returned to Athens.  While most people concluded that they thought they should be returned, others made a strong case as to why they should remain in the British Museum.  In English, we have started a new writing unit retelling the opening to Patrick Ness' 'A Monster Calls' and have immersed themselves in powerful imagery, vocabulary and emotion.  Next week, we will combine all our learning into our independent writing.

Our journey into evolution has continued in science lessons, as we have looked further into how species evolve, mutate and develop - we have even discovered the mutation of a black fox patrolling the streets of London; a true marker of how species mutate to suit their settings....although, many thousands of years could elapse before we see this animal become a dominant species!

Topic lessons have seen us continue to examine the differing city states of Sparta and Athens, and we have enjoyed using the evidence and clues the Ancient Greeks have left us as a tool to learn more about these two very different places.

We have also created a Greek god and goddess family tree....and even made some Greek myth 'Top Trumps'....Zeus proved hard to beat!

The children have solidified their knowledge of volume, measure, shape and time in maths - we have been so impressed with how they have applied their knowledge and skills to a variety of problems.

Well done, year 6, another cracking fortnight of learning!