Welcome back Class 5/6A
Hello and a big welcome back to all of Class 5/6A pupils after what I hope was an enjoyable half-term break. It’s great to see everyone again. Let’s catch up on what we have been doing this week.
Our Topic focus for this half-term is Art, in particular the works of William Morris and Orla Kiely. We are building up towards creating our own printed floral picture. To provide us with inspiration, we have been comparing examples of Morris’ work, looking at their colours and patterns; and ended the week with some direct observational drawing of leaves. These leaves will form the basis for our printing work later in the term.
In Writing, we have begun to look at figurative writing; using similes, metaphors, expanded noun phrases and alliteration to help engage the reader. The pupils were like a walking dictionary with all of the different figurative vocabulary they used, and I was as pleased as punch to be able to read their work.
We have had a couple of visitors into class this week as part of our Community themed week. On Wednesday we were joined by a member of West Yorkshire Police Force to speak to us about hate crimes, and what we can do to be more aware of and respect the various members of our community. Thursday saw two guests from Selective Silhouettes join us to talk about the LGBTQ+ community.
Year 5 pupils will have brought home a new reading book this week: Kensuke’s Kingdom. This half-term we will be reading the same text in class, and homework will be set based on this. It is very important that pupils are keeping up to date with their reading targets, homework, and bringing their reading records to Book Club on a Friday.
There’s just time to check out our certificate winners this week:
Great Learning – Esme. Always ready to learn. Calm, collected and organised, she sets a great example for our class.
Living & Learning – Louis W. Louis provided some very mature and insightful comments during our Community discussions this week. Well done Louis!
P.E – Ella. Full of energy, and with a smile on her face, Ella is always looking for fun and innovative ways to make P.E fun for her peers and herself.
Have a very happy and healthy bonfire weekend!
Mr. Robson
Topic: art
This week, we have started our new art topic – printing. The first lesson focused on the history of art and we were introduced to William Morris who was an artist and designer. The children had the opportunity to look at some examples of wallpaper designs by Morris and explain their likes and dislikes. The children had to comment on the use of colour and shade. Was there a repeated pattern or any symmetry? The children all identified that William Morris took his inspiration from nature and his wallpapers depict flowers, leaves and birds. They did a great job of applying some artistic vocabulary such as figurative and abstract.
New Junior Leadership Team
During the last week of term, our classes cast their votes for who they would like to represent their class on the JLT. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the number of children that wrote speeches – these were well written, full of ideas and very persuasive!
The votes were counted and the new members were announced in assembly – each child received their shiny JLT badge.
Here are our new members:
5,6A – Sam
5,6B – Olive
5,6C – Layla
3,4A – Archie
3,4B – Olivia
3,4C – Archie
2C – Abby
1,2B – Faith
1A – Eti
Well done to each of you. I’m looking forward to working with you this year and can’t wait to get started.
Class News 5/6A
Well, that is the first half-term of the new school year over with! It doesn’t feel like two minutes since children were arriving on the first day of term, bursting of stories about their holidays. Let’s take a look at what we have been up to this week.
Our writing focus has been on creating our own recount of visiting an Ancient Egyptian tomb, and retelling all of the adventures along the way. We have used a variety of resources to help us plan our writing, to ensure we could get the reader hooked on our Egyptian adventure.
Tuesday saw us host a Drop-Down Morning, where we recapped our Geography learnings from the previous year. Hemispheres, Biomes, Grid references and fact files on Venice were just some of the topics we looked at. Year 5 particularly enjoyed using Ordinance Survey maps to try and locate our school.
Ancient Egypt was our Topic focus again this week, and this time it was looking at pyramids. Our pupils could not believe just how big they were. Each stone weighed 2.5 tonnes (that’s the equivalent of 765 chickens!) We measured objects out in the playground to compare how these measured up against the size of the tallest pyramid (146m high).
A huge well done to the 17 pupils who put themselves forward to be the class representative on the Junior Leadership Team. I was blown away by the quality and maturity of the speeches you gave. After a very tight vote, I can confirm that Samuel Beevers has been elected as our Class Representative. Well done Sam!
There’s just time to catch up on our certificate winners.
Living and Learning – Freddie. Gave an excellent candidate speech to be class representative. Honest, humorous and genuine, his speech was representative of who he is as a person!
Sports – Bethenny. Always comes up with ways to make games imaginative and fun. A great partner to be teamed up with, she always puts others first before herself.
Learning – Archie. A superb attitude all week across all subjects. Your commitment to producing a detailed recount in Writing has been great to see!
The very best of luck to Hope who is sadly leaving us to join a new school. She will be a big miss to the class, and we wish her all of the best.
Have a happy and healthy half-term holiday!
Mr. Robson
JLT voting
56C had a tremendous time deciding who would be our class representative. With 16 pupils dreaming of taking the top prize it was always going to be a difficult decision.
The speeches were fantastic. There were so many original ideas. In the end, our democratic voting system elected Layla as our JLT member. Many congratulations. Perhaps those pictures of cats will help elect the next Prime Minister too.
Class 5/6 A News
This time next week we will all be settling into a week of holiday. Cannot believe that our first half-term is nearly over. Let’s quickly recap the goings-on in 5/6A this week.
Firstly, I would like to say a huge thank you to all parents, grandparents and family members for coming to watch our Class Assembly yesterday. We really appreciate the support. I am absolutely bursting with pride for the pupils’ efforts. They all smashed it!
In Writing we have begun building up to writing a piece of work around being in an Ancient Egyptian tomb, and all of the secrets and surprises that we discover within it. Maths has seen our Year 5s continuing their work on column addition and subtraction, as well as using our rounding skills to perform quick calculations. Year 6 have been working extremely hard in test week with lots of SATS paper practice.
A big thank you to everyone who brought in donations for the Harvest Festival earlier in the week!
In the last week of term students will have the opportunity to put themselves forward to be the class representative for the Junior Leadership Team. If you would like to do this, get your thinking caps on and write a speech which shows you would be the ideal candidate to represent Class 5/6A.
Certificate winners will be announced on Monday.
Have a great weekend!
Mr. Robson
Junior Leadership Team Elections
It’s that time of year again where we vote for new members of the Junior Leadership Team. Do you fancy being the representative for your class? Can you listen well to other people’s ideas and opinions? Do you want to make a difference in our school? Then this is the role for you.
Make sure you take a look at this weeks homework – you will need to get writing a speech. It will need to convince others that you are the best candidate – there will be lots of competition! Make sure you mention your strengths, qualities, what you’d like to change in school and any other useful skills you might have.
Good luck!
5/6A Class Assembly
Just a quick reminder that Class 5/6A will be hosting our Class Assembly this coming Friday afternoon, and we can’t wait to welcome parents, grandparents and family members into school. The pupils have been working really hard in putting the assembly together to showcase all of their learning over the past 6 weeks.
Class 5/6A News
Hard to believe that we only have two weeks of this half-term left! Let’s catch up on what Class 5/6A have been getting up to this week.
A big thank you to everyone who came to see us in our Watch Us While We Work session earlier this week. It was great to be able to welcome you into our classrooms, and we hope you came away from the session with some useful tools to support your child’s learning at home.
Ancient Egypt has been the focus for the majority of our learning this week. In Reading, we held a debate on whether Howard Carter (who discovered the intact tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922) was a positive figure in history. Our pupils used a variety of resources to build a case for their argument, and then practiced their debating, reasoning and listening skills to discuss the question.
In Topic, we have looked at how the Ancient Egyptians used the River Nile to survive and prosper, and wrote our names on papyrus in hieroglyphics. Science saw us delve into the murky world of bacteria and microbes, and building on our learning from earlier in the term, use Carl Linnaeus’ classification system to create a key for various microbes.
Good luck to all of our Year 6 pupils who will be competing in the cross-country competition at Brigshaw High School on Monday. We wish you the best of luck! Next Friday sees Class 5/6A hosting their class assembly. We look forward to welcoming the parents and families of Class 5/6A into school for our performance.
Just time to look back on our certificate winners for this week.
Living and Learning – Gene. Showing real maturity with his answers in class discussions, providing thoughtful responses and always showing respect to his classmates.
Sport – Bethany C. Gave 110% in our circuit training this week. Tackled every exercise with enthusiasm and a huge smile on her face.
Great learning – Amelia. Constantly produces well-presented work in all subjects, a willingness to learn and makes the right choice first time, every time!
Have a lovely weekend!
Living and Learning: I respect others
During our Living and Learning and Circle Time sessions this week, we have been focusing on what respect means to us, and how we can show respect to others. Here’s what some of our pupils have said about what respect means to them:
Helping my friend if they have hurt themselves in the playground
Looking at someone when they are speaking to you
Treating others how we want to be treated
Being kind and saying please
Not leaving people out in games
Respect comes in many different shapes and forms. To show respect, we have to understand that we are all different. We all possess characteristics, traits and values which make us unique. Our discussions this week have seen us explore the idea of our Protected Characteristics (Age, Disability, Race, Religion/Belief, Sex (Gender), Pregnancy and Maternity, Sexual Orientation, Gender Reassignment and Maternity and Pregnancy); how the law prevents discrimination against us for these reasons, and look at real-life case studies to understand this in more detail.
Our pupils now have a greater understanding of the wider world around them, a stronger appreciation of an individual’s unique characteristics, and can demonstrate respect in many different ways.