The whole school have made an exceptional start to online learning in 2021, we have so much exciting news to report. We kickstarted our news bulletins last week with an update from Pre-School- Year 4, and now move onto hearing about what Year 5 -6 have been up to.
Year 5 have shown a positive can-do attitude on Google Classroom and they should be very proud of all their hard work! However, what impresses me the most, is the jovial, kind and supportive environment they have created in their classroom streams and during video meetings. This shines a light on the importance of the social side of the school day when children praise each other for a job well done, ask questions about a task, offer advice to a classmate, share jokes and news of birthdays or events at home. Though we can’t be together physically in the classroom, we can still make our learning a journey a collaborative one that we take together. Year 5 have been busy writers in English, describing settings such as spooky islands and a moment in time to capture the phenomenal beauty of the Northern Lights. This week, they are embarking on a journey through an audio book to explore the experiences of a young boy evacuated from Blitz-struck London to the countryside in World War 2. In RE, they have designed leaflets for a Hajj travel agent, a menu for the iftar meal to break the fast during Ramadan, whilst in our Debate and Philosophy lessons, they have made videos, powerpoints and even written and performed a song and poem to show their responses to a range of questions such as should zoos be banned; if we can find facts on the internet why go to school and what can adults learn from kids…and in answer to this last question, going by what I’ve seen from Year 5 these last few weeks is…they can teach us adults a lot! Well done to you all and thank you for making our learning fun and inspiring!
Y6 have been working hard this term, despite their 11+ exams being over. In Maths they have spent time looking into regular and semi-regular tessellations and experimenting with creating their own irregular tessellating shapes. They have investigated different pentominoes and hexominoes and found that some of them will tessellate. But how many of them will? Could you work this out? Y6 did! Last week they began working on a variety of number and diagrammatic sequences, looking at the difference between linear and non-linear sequences, and developing rules to identify the nth term. Excellent work from our Y6 mathematicians! In Computing this term the boys have started to make their own websites. They were given a project to design a restaurant. They designed their restaurant name, decor, plan for the layout of the restaurant, menu, adverts for the restaurant and even a job description for their waiters. They have then used these ideas in the creation of a website, designing their front page with links to sub-pages containing all the information potential customers will need. In English, Year 6 have been exploring the ingredients of the folk-lore / fairy tale genre. They have dissected a lesser-known example of the genre to identify what makes it the type of story it is and then used this as a template to create their own tale featuring an everyday object that just happens to be a bit magic! This week, they have travelled back in time to ancient Greece to explore some of their myths. They created an instruction manual to advise potential heroes on the best ways to kill a Minotaur, and have been intrepid reporters outside the gates of Troy to report on the spectacle of a great wooden horse – beware the Greeks and the gifts they offer I think is the lesson the Trojans can take from that one! In Geography, the class have zipped over to South America and have identified countries and their capitals, whilst also researching their own South American county of choice. They’ve been doing all this – and more – whilst also coping with lockdown and separation from their friends and exams and interviews. Well done boys!
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