Living and Learning – Internet Safety
Our focus in Living and Learning at the moment is all about recognising how we can stay safe online. Class 5/6A were joined this week by Hazel from d:side, who are an education programme aimed at providing young people with the tools they need to skilfully manage sensitive situations with peers.
Hazel spoke to our group about the various forms of social media that exist, what people should be using these for, and how to make your profile safe and secure. We had a look at what we can do to ensure we only interact online with people we know and trust, spot suspicious profiles, and watched a video about the dangers of not posting securely online.
The pupils were full of good tips for how to recognise genuine profiles and connection requests, knew who to speak to if they were subjected to anything negative online, and understood age-appropriate content.
Help at home by talking to your child about how they use the internet at home, and how they can keep themselves safe. 
Topic: we’re geographers
The children have continued to think like geographers and have been looking at the Holderness coastline this week. They had the opportunity to use Digi-maps to compare the rate of erosion over time caused by the sea. We looked at two locations, Skipsea and Hornsea. They were able to use tools within the map to plot out the changing cliff lines and measure the amount of erosion. Hornsea had coastal defences installed in the early 1900s. Can your child name a type of coastal defence? This has limited the amount of erosion over time. The children could clearly see the differences between the locations.
Help at home by continuing to help your child learn our geography vocabulary. Play Pictionary or read some definitions and your child has to identify the word.
Year 6 Football club
At the beginning of this half-term we started to run an after-school football club for Year 6 pupils. So far we have had a great turn out, with around 12-13 players turning up each week for training.
After half-term we hope to begin training towards playing competitive matches against other schools in the area.
New players are always welcome. Please speak to the school office for details on how to sign up.
Class 5/6A News
A huge thank you to all parents, grandparents and family members who attended our ‘Watch us while we work!’ session on Thursday morning. It gave parents a chance to see our work on the 6 times table, get to grips with “im” and “in” prefixes and discuss the impact of climate change on Greenland, the Solomon Islands and the East Yorkshire coast.
Daily use of Times Table Rockstars is really beginning to pay off for our students. Year 5 are currently working on 4-digit by 2-digit multiplication in Maths, and rapid recall of these calculations helps to make these problems much easier to solve.
Writing has seen us begin to prepare for writing a persuasive letter to the UK Climate Minister, Graham Stuart, to get the government to do more to prevent the effects of climate change impacting our lives. We have explored techniques such as rhetorical questions, emotive language and exaggeration to help the writer put across a strong argument.
Copernicus and Galileo are our featured scientists this half-term, and we have researched key facts about the two astronomers how they came to the conclusion that the Solar System is heliocentric (has the Sun at its centre, whilst all other planets orbit around it). We also held a lively in-class debate as to whether the Earth was spherical or flat.
In Topic, we have been looking at the impact of coastal erosion on the East Yorkshire coast over the past 13o years. Using an online mapping tool we have been able to measure the impact of erosion on locations such as Skipsea, Hornsea and Great Cowden between 1890 and present day; as well as how the use of defence mechanisms such as groynes aim to slow down the impact of erosion.
In Latin, we have revisited masculine and feminine nouns, and can identify these by their endings. Nouns which end in an ‘a’ are feminine, with those ending in “us” being masculine. We could then use this knowledge to make expanded noun phrases and describe objects. For example ‘hortus magnus est‘ would translate as ‘the garden is big‘.
P.E saw us take on a circuit training session, including skipping, basketball, hockey dribbling, shuttle runs and fitness equipment.
Finally, a huge well done to everyone in Class 5/6A who were crowned the Times Table Rockstars Battle of the Bands competition. It was a close run contest between ourselves and 5/6C, but we just managed to edge them out in the end. We amassed over 150,000 correct answers over the course of one week which is truly outstanding!
Have a great weekend!
Mr. Robson
Living and Learning: Speak out, Stay safe!
Our living and learning lessons this week have been about staying safe and knowing how to ask for help. This has tied in with the NSPCC programme of ‘Speak out Stay safe’ which is a programme that promotes safeguarding. The children have discussed that there are various reasons why they might ask someone for help, but that it is their right to ask for, and receive help. Of even greater importance is the fact that abuse is never a child’s fault.. The children were confident at identifying who their own trusted adults are and felt comfortable that they could ask for help. We also talked about how to start a conversation with a trusted adult, as this can sometimes be the hardest part. To conclude we created lists of people, places and objects that make us feel happy and safe.
Help at home: talk to your child and find out who their trusted adults are. Do they know who to go to if they need help or support? Ask them about the video. Can they remember who the NSPCC mascot is? What were the main points?
Living and learning: I know how to seek help.
Our living and learning lessons this week have been about being safe – this follows on well from our previous learning about assessing risks. The NSPCC promote the idea of ‘Speak out Stay safe’ which is a programme that promotes safeguarding. The children have understood the forms of abuse that can take place, how abuse is never a child’s fault and where to get help if needed. It also talked about big and small worries and how these can build up and cause a child to feel worried, upset or anxious. The children were confident at identifying who their own trusted adults are and felt comfortable that they could ask for help. We also talked about how to start a conversation with a trusted adult, as this can sometimes be the hardest part.
Below is the link to the NSPCC website if you would like any further information.
Help at home: talk to your child and find out who their trusted adults are. Do they know who to go to if they need help or support? Ask them about the video. Can they remember who the NSPCC mascot is? What were the main points?
Science: Out of this world!
As part of our Science topic of Space, we have been looking at the planets which make up our system and exploring the idea that the solar system is heliocentric (that the sun is at the centre of the solar system).
To help us understand this more easily we can use models to bring these concepts to life. To show the sizes of the planets in relation to one another, we have used various fruit to make a model of the solar system. In terms of the distance of each planet from the sun, we used a roll of toilet paper to measure each planet’s distance from the sun, and used differing number of pupils to show their size. Understanding the position of each planet in relation to the sun helped with our final model where we replicated each planet’s orbit speed. The key learning point from this model was that the closer the planet is to the sun, the quicker its orbit speed due to an increased gravitational pull.
Our pupils have had a lot of fun this week bringing the solar system to life in various ways!
PE: moving
We were very excited this week to get the apparatus out for PE. The children set up stations in which they would have to use different moving skills. They were using balance and coordination to move safely across the apparatus and even thought of creative ways to move across the equipment. The most popular activities were the rope ladders and ropes. These both require a lot of upper body strength to get to the top. The 8 Rs for learning were definitely applied in this lesson! Some children faced their fears too – overcoming their fear of heights to tackle the activities. An important part of the lesson was also talking about how to be safe on the equipment so no-one got injured – the children knew how to safely move the equipment.
Leeds United Positive Choices Workshop
This morning, year 6 had a visit from Vicky at Leeds United. During the session we discussed a range of topics: anti social behaviour, legal ages, making positive choices, using social media safely and consequences for our actions.
Class 5/6A News
A whirlwind week in Class 5/6A has seen us travel all around the world and beyond, plan to rob a train, and get to grips with multiplication. Let’s take a closer look.
In Maths, Year 5 have begun to look at multiplying four digit numbers by a one digit number. Having a solid knowledge of times tables will be essential for our pupils to succeed with this learning. How to help: Support your child’s learning by encouraging use of Times Tables Rockstars at home on a daily basis. The Soundcheck option allows pupils to test all of their times table knowledge, or they can choose to focus on a particular number.
Our Writing focus has been on using speech to convey a character’s personality and advance the plot of a story. The pupils have been using the short silent-film ‘Ruckus’, based on two thieves looking to rob a train to steal a jewel, to come up with a script to develop their skills in advancing the plot. They then acted this out in front of the rest of the class. I was really impressed with the quality of their dialogue, mix of colloquial expressions, and variety of ways to convey feeling.
In Topic we have looked at the effects of climate change on two separate parts of the world; Greenland and the Solomon Islands. The concept of interdependence, and how events in one part of the world can affect another, was our focus, as the melting ice caps in Greenland, are contributing to the rising sea levels which puts island nations such as the Solomon Islands at risk.
During our circle time as part of Living and Learning, we have been continuing our discussions around understanding what a drug is, and providing strategies to handle peer pressure. We had a very enthusiastic and thought-provoking discussion around how young people can be influenced by many different parties when it comes to drugs, and role-played being able to make good choices around our health.
Science saw us explore the planets within our solar system, and come up with memorable mnemonics to help us remember the order. My personal favourite is My Very Elderly Mother Just Served Us Nachos (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune).
There’s just time to congratulate our certificate winners this week.
Great Learning – Gene. Consistently showing a great attitude to learning, and excellent presentation.
P.E – Esme. A real team player. Gives 100% in each task, and wowed with her basketball dribbling.
Living and Learning – Bethenny. Mature, composed and considerate, she is a valuable contributor to each of our group discussions.
Have a great weekend!
Mr. Robson
P.S below are two incredible pieces of artwork by Esme Clarke in Year 5. She has drawn some superb pictures of Wednesday and Tyler from the film “Wednesday”.
