Welcome to Year 6

As a team we are so excited to teach your children this academic year!

We are passionate about watching them grow, flourish and achieve!

As a teaching team we will give our utmost to nurture them to become resilient leaders of our school, helping us to set the example, to be role models in their conduct, attitude, learning and to access the vast array of extra curricular opportunities available to them this year!

Meet the Team for

2023-24

Key Information 

PE Uniform Days

Indoor PE - Thursdays 

Outdoor PE - Fridays

Trips/Residentials

Kingswood - Dearne Valley - Wednesday 26th June - Friday 28th June 2024

Supporting your child at home

Reading

Y6 children will all have a colour banded reading book which is appropriate for their level as well as a reading for pleasure book.  Please support us by reading and discussing their books at home.  There is an additional sheet stuck in diaries explaining the goals and how to help your child.

Spellings

Each week the children will be given ten spellings, engaging in daily practice using a range of fun and helpful activities. You can support them to practice their weekly spellings as well as the common exception words that you will find stuck in their diaries.

Practising their spellings little and often, making it fun is key to helping your children to become confident and successful spellers.

As a team, we can help the children to become super spellers. 

Maths

Each child has a  Times Table Rock Star account and login details are stuck in diaries.  This can be accessed from home so please encourage your child to have fun and practise their times tables.  Inside diaries there is a copy of the times tables up to 12x and  a 'key instant recall facts' (KIRFs).  Each half term, a KIRF will be focussed on. 

SUMMER TERM 1: MYSTERIOUS MAYANS

IMPORTANT DATES FOR THIS HALF TERM:

SATS WEEK: MONDAY 13TH MAY - THURSDAY 16TH MAY

KINGSWOOD MEETING FOR PARENTS - THURSDAY 23RD MAY 3.30PM IN THE SCHOOL HALL

CHANGE OF PE DAYS

Please note that for Summer 1, Year 6 will have indoor PE on a THURSDAY and outdoor PE on a FRIDAY. We will no longer be swimming on a Thursday.

Please find below our Knowledge Organiser for this half term:

Please find below our optional topic homework for this half term. Due in on Monday 20th May.

WEEK BEGINNING: 22ND APRIL 2024

WOW! Year 6 have made so much progress this week in their 3D Modelling. We were focussing on designing our own name badges and adding decorations that represent us. Our objectives were to edit the rotation, size and colour. All the children have thoroughly enjoyed their learning and we have even had some children creating their own designs at home! Well done Year 6!

WEEK BEGINNING: 15TH APRIL

This week, Year 6 started their learning about 3D Modelling. We used a new programme called Tinkercad and explored ways of moving 3D objects to form different formations. We focussed on moving the objects three dimensionally, changing the colours and size. We began by designing our own buildings. 

We kick started the brand new term today (Monday) with a WOW day to launch our exciting new topic - THE MYSTERIOUS MAYANS!

We invited Simon back into school from the Explorer Academy (it's his 3rd year of visiting OBS) who is a real life jungle explorer and he spent the day teaching the children all about what life is like in the jungle and all about the ancient Mayan civilisation. The children were so enthusiastic and came away with an abundance of new knowledge! They learnt about where in the world the Maya were from and when they lived, what the Mayans would have eaten, what they wore, who they worshipped and the children even had a go at designing their own Mayan god (see the photos below!) They had a go at some Mayan Maths using their number system and they found out all about deadly creatures in the jungle! Some children were even selected to dress up like Mayans! Come and have a look at the photos of our fantastic day!

SPRING TERM 2: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Please see below our knowledge organiser for this term.

CREATIVE TOPIC HOMEWORK

Please see below ideas for your creative topic homework. Due in on Monday 25th March

WEEK BEGINNING: 18TH MARCH

BATTLE OF THE BEAK EXPERIMENT

On Friday, we conducted our very own battle of the beak experiment. We used squeezy scoop tweezers, giant tweezers, pegs and teaspoons to act as beaks and evaluated how effective they were at picking up a range of food (raisins, bird seed, rice and pipe cleaners). 

We evaluated our results and compared our conclusions to Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

MR MEN AND LITTLE MISS!

As part of our 'Survival of the fittest' topic, in Science we have been learning about inheritance and variation. An exciting an unusual way of doing this is by using Mr Men and Little Miss! Firstly, we looked at the different offspring of the Mr Men and the Little Miss and tried to solve who their biological parents were based on the characteristics they had inherited. Then, the fun part came where we got to choose a Mr Man and a Little Miss and we designed what we thought their offspring would look like! Take a look at our marvellous work!

ASSESSMENT WEEK AT SWIMMING!

This week at swimming it was assessment week - every child was assessed to see if they could earn an award. Some children earned their 25m badge for the very first time! A special mention to Aixa in Class 13 who achieved her 25 metre badge even though she didn't realise she could swim that far! Come and look at the photos below of us working hard to swim as far as we possibly could:

WEEK BEGINNING: 11TH MARCH

Please find below the slides from our SATS Parents Meeting

on 12.3.24. Any questions, please come and speak to a member of the Year 6 team.

WEEK BEGINNING: 4TH MARCH

Year 6 have loved World Book Day today! 

We spent the morning sharing our chosen books with a hot chocolate. As well as, following an author and illustrator draw along, supported by our very own artist - Miss Ryan! We created our own comic strips based on our author draw along and decorated some book marks. 

In Maths this week, we have been building upon our understanding of decimals and dividing by recognising fractions as divisions and converting them to decimals. We will be moving on to working with percentages next week. 

In Writing, we have been widening our vocabulary by analysing descriptive texts and magpie-ing ambitious vocabulary. We have been working on our dictionary skills of finding the meaning and then writing our own sentences. 

WEEK BEGINNING: 26TH FEBRUARY

Another busy week this week in Year 6! In Maths, we have been continuing to learn about decimals; we have learnt to multiply and divide them by 10, 100 and 1000 as well as multiply and divide them by integers. In English, we have continued our work on character descriptions and have practised using parenthesis and adverbial openers in our writing. Skellig is our class text for this half term and diving further into the text, we have discovered more about Michael and the mysterious creature in his garage. 

The afternoons this week have been just as busy! We have found out all about how fossils are formed in Science, we learnt about religions in Nottingham in RE, we have improved our tennis skills in Outdoor PE and we improved our swimming techniques on Thursday afternoon. The end of the week was highly charged with emotion as we all found out which secondary school we are going to. Lots of transition work will be coming in the summer term.

WEEK BEGINNING - 19th February 2024

WOW! What a busy first week back in Year 6 for Spring 2 Term! 

We launched our topic of Survival of the Fittest by participating in some survival activities with different abilities. We found it very tricky to complete the feely bag and circles challenges without using our arms, but made adaptations by trying to use our elbows instead! We explored and discovered different fossils and extinct animals. We used our new learning to create fact cards on the app, "LifeCards". 

In English, we started looking at character descriptions of creepy swamp monsters linked to our new class book - Skellig. Miss Ryan drew some fantastic creatures for us to use to create our very own swamp monsters. We then described these as our cold task. 

We have also had a visit from the Mental Health Support Team who spoke to us all about bullying vs banter. We discussed why bullying can occur and how it makes people feel. We also spoke about who we could talk to if we were feeling worried about ourselves or someone else being bullied.

We look forward to finding out more next week! 

SPRING TERM 1: TASTE OF THE CARIBBEAN

PLEASE SEE BELOW OUR KNOWLEDGE ORGANISER FOR THIS HALF TERM!

WEEK BEGINNING: 5TH FEBRUARY 2024

We have been very busy this week in Year 6 as we approach the end of our topic - Taste of the Caribbean.

We have been comparing maps of Jamaica and the United Kingdom and noticing similarities in the place names. We inferred that this was due to the United Kingdom colonising Jamaica and naming towns after established towns and cities in England. 

We also spent Thursday morning preparing and cooking O'mari's Jamaican Vegan Stew. It tasted delicious!

WEEK BEGINNING: 29TH JANUARY 2024

This week, Year 6 have used primary sources from the Empire Windrush to deepen their understanding. We looked at passenger lists, analysed the data to see where was the most population for the passengers to settle and discussed why this might be the case. We discovered that London was the most popular destination of choice and decided that this was because it is the capital city of London and there may have been more jobs available. 

Year 6 also began their screen printing on mixed media with Mrs Maker. We can't wait to see some more finished outcomes next week!

This week was another Year 6 assessment week in preparation for SATs. Miss McCulloch, Miss Jones and Miss Ryan are all SO impressed with all of the Year 6s this week. Their effort and determination is really showing. Well done Year 6!

WEEK BEGINNING: 22ND JANUARY 2024

This week, we have continued our topic work on trade. In Geography, we started the week by looking at Fair Trade products that are available to buy. We then learnt all about Fair Trade and why buying Fair Trade products can help us to be better global citizens. 

The MOST exciting part of the week was when we played the TRADE GAME which the children LOVED! Each team represented a country and the object of the game was to produce as many 2D paper shapes as possible to sell for a profit. Each country had a specific set of resources - some richer countries had LOTS of resources (paper, pencils, scissors, shapes to draw round) whilst other poorer countries had limited resources. It sparked lots of great discussion in Year 6 about what is 'fair' and really helped the children to understand the importance of Fair Trade. Next week, we will we writing persuasive texts persuading people to buy Fair Trade products. 

WEEK BEGINNING: 15TH JANUARY 2024

This week, in Geography, we have been learning about trade links with the UK and what we import and export as a country. We began the week by giving the children objects and items from around the home and they had to work in pairs to work out where they had been imported from. It was fascinating and we found out some red grapes had come all the way from Peru, a jumper had come from China and a tin of tuna had come many miles from the Indian Ocean! Next week, we will continue this by learning about 'Fair Trade'. 

WEEK BEGINNING: 8TH JANUARY 2024

It's been a busy first full week back at school. In Maths, we have been learning about ratio and proportion. In English we have continued to read our text 'Windrush Child' as well as learning about diaries in writing. In our topic work, we researched the history of the British Empire (see examples of some children's presentations below) as well as learning about the countries that the UK currently trades with. In Music, we studied our 'Musician of the Month' David Bowie and in PE, we completed our Spring term bleep test for indoor PE as well as improving our hockey skills in outdoor PE. What a great week Year 6!

WEEK BEGINNING: 1ST JANUARY 2024

Welcome back Year 6 to Spring Term 2024 and HAPPY NEW YEAR! During these first two days back at school, we have launched our TASTE OF THE CARIBBEAN topic! We have started to read our brilliant text for the half term 'Windrush Child' and the children have been learning about Jamaican artist Bernard Hoyes. We studied some of his pieces and then re-created our own versions of 'The Dancing Lady'. Come and have a look at our fabulous work!

World War II Homework

Below is this term's optional World War II project. We hope you enjoy the chance to be creative whilst learning all about World War II.

Autumn 2 Term - World War II

Our topic for this term is World War II so there is a heavy history focus as we look at how the various aspects of this conflict ranging from why the war started, the Blitz, Dunkirk and how life in Britain changed during the war years. World War II will be the focus of our afternoon work alongside regular ICT, PE, Spanish, Art and Music lessons.

In literacy and shared reading, our text will be The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, this is an interesting text looking at the life of Bruno, a small child who moves from Berlin to a big house in a strange place. Gradually he begins to piece together where the new house is and becomes friends with a 'local' boy. Our writing will look at different text types and we will be writing biography and a story containing dialogue.  

In maths, we will be focussing on all things fractions , please see the knowledge organiser below which will show you some of the things we will be learning. We will also continue to develop our arithmetic skills to help the children develop their confidence and fluency in using the four operations.

WEEK BEGINNING: 11th DECEMBER

On Monday 11th December, Key Stage Two visited Christ Church for our annual Christmas Carol service. It was a wonderful, festive afternoon where we sang Christmas carols and some of our Year 6 children told the Christmas story. We were very proud of all of our Year 6's who spoke clearly and confidently in the church - well done children!

WEEK BEGINNING 27th November

ASSESSMENT WEEK - GO YEAR 6!!

We are now 10 weeks into our journey in Year 6 and this week has marked our assessment week - the first one since we did our baselines in September. Miss McCulloch and Mr Hill were blown away by how hard the children worked and the awesome resilience they demonstrated. We are thrilled with the progress the children are making - keep up the hard work guys! 

Children will be bringing home their papers on Friday and check your child's diary so you can see just how well they have done! Below are some children who have really shone this week! YOU SUPERSTARS!!

Glockenspiel Fun

As part of our music lessons, not only have we been learning to sing the song 'My Best Friend' but we have also been learning to play the tune on the glockenspiel. This week the children practised and mastered the first verse and they sounded amazing. We have some very talented musicians in Year 6. 

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas drama

We have continued reading our text 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas' and understanding the text further. We focussed on a particular scene involving a German soldier being particularly unkind to a Jewish servant. The children then acted this out and showed they have real acting talents. Great work everyone.

WEEK BEGINNING 20th November

Maths Parent Workshop 

What a lovely morning we had on Friday at the Year 6 parents maths workshop. The children loved showing their parents all the maths knowledge they have and it gave parents a good insight in to what the children learn and the methods that they are taught.

Disco Fever!

We have been practising different dance styles in PE this term and this week we stepped into the 70s to practise some disco dancing. The children learned a few trademark moves and then choreographed their own dance routine to include some of these. As you can see from the videos below, we might have some future strictly come dancing stars on our hands.    

Fractions, Fractions and more Fractions

We have been working really hard on fractions this week and looking at adding and subtracting mixed numbers. We have also been remembering to simplify fractions.

These clever boys set Miss Ryan a very tricky question which meant changing the denominator in to 5780. Miss Ryan then challenged them to simplify it which they did using long division. Well done boys.

WEEK BEGINNING 13th November

Holocaust Centre Visit

This week Year 6 went to the Holocaust Centre on a visit and to understand what it was like being a Jewish family in the build up to and during World War II. They went on a journey with a boy German boy Leo and his family and got to understand some of the persecution they faced. The children had lots of questions and learned an awful lot about this period of history.

At the end of the day the children got to walk round the remembrance gardens and reflect on what they had learned.

World War II Artefacts

We were very lucky this week as Max and Phoebe both brought in some World War II artefacts from their grandparents.

Max had an under 16 identity card, identification was necessary if families were separated from one another or their house was bombed, and if people were injured.

Phoebe had two gas masks that her grandparents had been given during the World War and had to be carried with them at all times - they were surprisingly heavy.

Thanks you for bringing these in, they really help us to understand what life in Britain was like during World War II.

WEEK BEGINNING 6th November

We kicked off our World War II topic this week with a WOW day. We looked at the Blitz and understood why Germany was bombing Britain then created our own painting depicting a city that had been bombed.

After this we learned all about rationing and how this impacted the people of Britain, thinking about which foods would have been difficult to obtain. We then used a ration recipe to make Carrot Cakes so they children could experience what people during the war would have made and eaten.

Everyone had a great day.

WEEK BEGINNING 16th October

Leon's Legacy

This week we were lucky enough to have visitors from Leon's Legacy, a charity which raises money to buy community defibrillators and provides free CPR training to adults and children. We got to spend the morning with Shannon and Libby who are both technicians for East Midlands Ambulance Service and taught the children CPR and how to use a defibrillator. We had a great morning and the children learned so much.

More information about Leon's legacy can be found at www.leonslegacy.co.uk

Show Racism the Red Card

We all wore something red to show racism the red card. Along with this we learned about what racism is and thought about how we can stop racism. The children made lots anti-racism posters to display around school and encourage children to stand up to against racism.

We also loved Hudson's home made t-shirt to celebrate the day!

WEEK BEGINNING 9th October

Making Blood!

We had a fantastic time looking at what the blood is made of and understanding the role of each part of the blood. To help understand this further we made our own version of blood using different materials to represent each part. The children had lots of fun doing this! 

Ada Lovelace Day 2023

On Monday we were very lucky to be invited to Bio City to celebrate Ava Lovelace day and take part in lots of scientific activities. The children had a fantastic time doing things such as studying fungi under a telescope, designing their own invention, looking at how different materials dissolve and chromatography. 

What a great day!

WEEK BEGINNING 2nd October

Super Scientists

This week we have been continuing our science work about the heart and lungs. We carried out an investigation into which type of exercise increases our heart rate the most and why this was. The children loved getting out on the field to try out different exercises and then compare their resting heart rate with their heart rate after doing an activity.

WEEK BEGINNING 25TH SEPTEMBER

This week marks the end of our 3 week writing unit on SUSPENSE STORIES. For the last few days, the children have been writing their own independent suspense stories using our suspense toolkits. They have worked incredibly hard and we are really looking forward to reading them - fingers crossed we're not too frightened!

This week, we have given out our CREATIVE TOPIC HOMEWORK. This is optional if you would like to complete it and we would like projects to be brought into school on the 16th October. We look forward to seeing your projects!

WEEK BEGINNING 18TH SEPTEMBER

On Fridays, we sometimes have a 'FIGURE IT OUT FRIDAY' in Maths where the children have an investigation or a puzzle to solve. Today (Friday 22nd September) we had lots of fun completing an investigation based on door numbers! The children had to add together different totals and see what patterns they could spot. We definitely saw lots of INQUISITIVE children who were using their wondering and questioning skills. 

Class 13 - School and Eco Council elections

A total of 13 children in Class 13 wanted to run for School Council this year and they all prepared a speech to convince their class mates to vote for them. This week we have listened to their manifestos and conducted a vote to decide who the winners were. 

SCHOOL COUNCIL REPS: CAHMAH AND SAMUEL

ECO COUNCIL REP: NAZIAH

Well done to the successful candidates!

WEEK BEGINNING 11TH SEPTEMBER

We started this week with our WOW day linked to our topic for this term - beats and breaths. We had lots of fun thinking about the human body and how we breathe, we then used old plastic bottles and balloons to try and make our very own model of a working pair of lungs.

After all that hard work we needed some fuel so we looked at what a healthy meal consisted of, designed our own meal which we then got to eat. It was yummy and gave us chance to try lots of different healthy foods.

FIRST WEEK BACK - WEEK BEGINNING 4TH SEPTEMBER

We have had an EXCELLENT first week back and we have started the year on a high. All of our Year 6 students have shown us that they are ready to be the oldest children in our school, be role models to the younger pupils and lead by example. Many students have signed up to roles and responsibilities around school which is extremely POLITE & HELPFUL. We have completed many baseline assessments this week and the children tackled them with drive and resilience. Well done Year 6 - we can't wait to see what you all achieve this year!