Our recent adventure to Seven Arches Aqueduct on Meanwood Valley Trail was an educational trip filled with fun and discovery. Armed with maps, we set off on the walk to the trail using our ACE Geographer map skills to help us.

Upon reaching the aqueduct, the children immersed themselves in nature by completing their activity sheet. They showcased their artistic talents by drawing scenery around them. They also collected leaves from trees they had identified through observation and took rubbings of them, capturing their intricate structure. Importantly, they gathered information about the history and significance of the aqueduct in preparation for our upcoming writing lessons.

It was a day filled with hands-on learning, teamwork and the joy of exploring the great outdoors.

Miss Coope

So, we have reached the final school day before SATs week! Year 6 staff are especially proud of all the hard work the children have put into their learning. It has been quite the rollercoaster and now is their opportunity to shine bright and show what they know. Below are some posters you can save or even print to keep motivated over the bank holiday weekend. The words are an important reminder of the importance of a positive mindset:

• Progress over perfection
• You can do hard things
• Mistakes help you grow
• It may not be easy but it will be worth it
• Don’t stop until you are proud

Good luck, Year 6! You’ll be fantastic.

Here is a sneak peek at our Kandinsky inspired art – a work in progress!

Wassily Kandinsky was an artist who could see sound as colours and shapes (known as synesthesia). We started by listening to a piece of classical music by Schubert and used a range of mediums to express the music using line, shape and colour.

With a view finder, we explored our art and focused on our favourite part. This was then cut out and used to create a collagraph printing plate on cardboard.

See on some of the examples below how we have used materials like string and card to recreate the shapes and lines in a 3D form ready to print next time.

Our World War Two exhibition was a huge success! Thank you to all who came to view, discuss and explore our learning journey. It was an incredible educational and social occasion.

Over the past months, we have: learned an immense amount across various subject areas from history to art; listened to guest speakers; had an unforgettable trip to Eden Camp and much more! Some children chose to create a shoebox project over the holidays; these were also on display and took pride of place on the centre table. A special mention must go to the fab five children who put together a fantastic WWII presentation in their own time which played on loop throughout the exhibition. Thank you for your commitment and passion for the topic!

If you couldn’t make it to the exhibition, do not worry: check out all the photo highlights below.

For the Spring 2 term, the Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) are all about equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages. To practise this, we have started some of our maths lessons with a board game which we played in pairs. The rules were to roll the dice, move your counter around the board and find a fraction equivalent to match the space landed on. We had a lot of fun racing to be the first to cover all the fractions!

KIRFs are designed to support the development of the mental skills that are building blocks for maths. Each half term, children will be assessed on a new set of KIRFs which children must practise at home as well as in school. The purpose is for children to be able to recall these facts instantly. Games and activities like this equivalents board game are posted on Google Classroom for further practise at home. See the leaflet below for more details.

We visited Allerton High School this week for the first of three science lessons we will be doing as part of a high school transition opportunity. This time, the children got to explore the science lab, consider lab safety, and carry out a mini experiment. We are looking forward to our next visit!

We have been creating stencils over a series of lessons to print out own WW2 slogans. First, we looked at the difference between fonts and typeface, then researched the fonts we thought would work best for a WW2 style print, inspired by propaganda posters. After inventing our slogan, we began carefully drawing the individual letters in our font style. Once ready, we prepared our collage background and started to print using red or black paint. It was important to dab the paint and not brush it! Have a look through the slideshow to see the process.

For the last few weeks, the children have paired up to create their own Collective Worship sessions to lead in front of the class. Collective Worship is based on certain values – this time, the value has been love. The children have enjoyed creating their slides and creating new and thought provoking ways to talk about the meaning of love. See some highlights below.

We were extremely fortunate this week to welcome a guest to speak with us about her mother, a Kinderstransport refugee. During World War II, her mother escaped the Nazis in Germany by travelling across Europe to the UK, where she stayed with a host family. This gave her the opportunity to have an education, stay safe and learn English fluently. The children had some fantastic, insightful questions for our guest speaker.

This week, we finished off our autumn term science unit all about light. This involved doing a series of investigations, one of which looked at how light reflects and travels in straight lines. To do this, we gathered our equipment and worked in groups to mimic how a periscope allows us to see an object over an obstacle. It took some trial and error to get the mirrors at the right angle, but all groups were successful in the end!

Another experiment we carried out was on light refraction. We learned that light travels slower when passing through dense objects, causing it to bend or change direction, almost creating an illusion. We were fascinated to see how a horizontal arrow appeared to point in the opposite direction when we looked at it through the beaker of water.