Welcome to Miss Hitchen's Year 6 Blog!
W/b 18th July
Wow!! I can't believe I am writing the last blog entry of the year! It has been a very emotional week for Y6. On Wednesday, Year 6 presented their Leaver's Assembly to the whole school and parents. We reflected on our memories of Grange Valley and about moving on to our new schools in September. Mrs Holcroft presented each child with a scroll and recollection book. The children were really excited about their gifts from school and couldn't wait to start filling them with signatures!
It was a very emotional home time on Wednesday. The class were sad to be leaving their friends and school, but excited to start their new High Schools.
Year 6 you have been an absolute pleasure to teach this year, we have enjoyed watching you make lots of progress and grow in confidence. We have made some fantastic memories and we thank Year 6 for an amazing year at Grange Valley. We wish you all the very best of luck and success in High School, we will be thinking about you in September!
Please come back and visit!
Thank you to all parents for your support this year, we were overwhelmed by your kind words and gifts.
Have a lovely summer break. Remember Y6, "If you can dream it, you can achieve it!"
Miss Hitchen
W/b 11th July
Another busy week has flown past in Y6! Thank-you to all parents who came to our performance of 'We Will Rock You!' I'm sure you will all agree, the children did an amazing job! Mrs Holcroft thought it was the best end of year performance to date!! Well done Y6!!
This week, as a special treat to celebrate a fabulous year and the children's hard work, we enjoyed an end of year trip to LA Bowl. As always, the children behaved impeccably and we had a fantastic afternoon! Well done to Kaitlyn, who was the Y6 Bowling Champion!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 4th July
We had a fantastic time at PGL. Have a look at some of the things we got up to!
W/b 13th June
This week Year 6 have been super busy rehearsing for their end of year production of 'We Will Rock You'. Letter have now been sent home informing you of which part your child will be playing and their required costume. We would be very grateful if you could supply some of the items from the list. Tickets will be on sale next week. Make sure you buy them early to avoid disappointment!!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 8th June
We have had a fabulous day celebrating the Queen's 90th Birthday! Thank - you for all of the delicious party food!
W/b 16th May
This week has been filled with riveting rugby activities. We have enjoyed writing a 'Referees Rule Guide to Rugby League' and learning about the super talented Sonny Bill Williams and writing our very own biographies. Year 6 took advantage of the nicer weather at the beginning of the week and enjoyed a game of tag rugby, which we recorded using the IPad's and provided our own commentary. During our Maths lessons, we put our problem solving skills to the test and calculated the distance between Rugby stadiums across the country and how long it would take to travel to each. We ended our week by auditioning for our class performance, 'We Will Rock You!' Children will be given their part and script next week so that they can begin to practise their lines.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 9th May
Well done Year 6! I am so proud of all of you, for how you have approached this tough week of testing with a positive and determined attitude. We have had a fantastic day to celebrate the end of SATs complete with ice cream, fun on the school field and a class party! Thank - you to all parents who brought in party food. Now we can look forward to a term full of fun, complete with lots of new learning experiences to prepare for high school.
W/b 18th April
Reminders: SATs Parent Drop- in Meeting - Wednesday 27th April
Welcome back everyone! I can't believe this is our last school term before the children move on to high school! This week we have had another action packed week. On Tuesday, Matthew, from Children's University, came to Grange Valley to speak all of the children. We were really excited to find out that we could earn rewards for completing different outside learning activities. On Thursday, we learnt all about Queen Elizabeth and had a lovely relaxing afternoon (after lots of SATs practice and revision), learning how to draw a portrait of her for our corridor display. We ended our first week back with a fantastic afternoon of orienteering, on our lovely school field in the gorgeous sunshine!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 28th March
Another hectic week has flown by in Y6. This week we have been learning all about Fairtrade. We used the IPADs to research the importance of Fairtrade and wrote our own informative reports. We have also looked, in great detail, at the countries and people who benefit from Fairtrade. We worked in small groups to create a poster and then held our very own market place. Children from each group 'sold' information to 'buyers' from other groups. We even had some special little visitors from Y1 who all really enjoyed learning lots of facts from Y6!
To end our fabulous week, we attended Haydock High School's Primary School Quiz and came joint first! Well done to all children who took part. As always your behaviour was super and I am very proud of you all!
Have a lovely holiday!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 14th March
Reminders: Booster Groups - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 3.30-4.30
Monday 21st March - Year 6 First Aid in a Day
First of all thank-you to all parents for coming to our Spring Term Parents Evening. It was lovely to see you all and share the success of your child with you. It is a very busy time of year for Y6 leading up to the SATs and the children were over the moon to read your parent comments this morning and find out how proud you are of everything they do. They have certainly given them an extra boost!
We have had a fabulous afternoon at Christ Church, learning all about the Easter story. The children's behaviour was impeccable as always and I was super impressed with their listening skills!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 7th March
Reminders: Booster Groups - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 3.30 -4.30
Parents Evening - Letters have been sent home with the date and time of you appointment
Next week the Book Fayre will be on every day straight after school
Friday 18th March - Y6 Easter Experience - Christ Church
Another wonderful week has flown by in Y6. SATs will be upon us before we know it!! This week the children have worked exceptionally hard to complete their practise assessment papers. All children are making fabulous progress and their eagerness to improve and the amount of time and effort they are willing to put in at home amazes me each day. I feel like the luckiest Y6 teacher in the whole world!! Booster groups have begun this week and will continue until the week before SATs (W/b Monday 9th May). These lessons are a great opportunity for children to share their worries of the tests and gain extra help with areas of the curriculum in which they are less confident. Children will also review their most recent test papers and receive support to ensure the same mistakes are not made twice! Very soon I will be holding a Parents meeting, were I will discuss SATs further with you and answer any questions which you may have. Next week we have our termly Parents Evening were I will discuss your child's progress and next steps with you and provide you with resources to help your children prepare for the assessments at home. I look forward to seeing you all! Children have all received their very own revision guides this week for English and Maths. These are also a useful tool for you and your child to use together to complete homework and revision exercises.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 29th February
We had a great time at Young Voices! Have a listen to our beautiful singing voices and check out our groovy moves!
Thank you to all parents for making an amazing effort this year with World Book Day costumes. The children had a fabulous time and enjoyed creating their very own World Book Day Vlog, which I will post once we have edited and added our music!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 22nd February
Reminders: Monday 29th February- NSPCC workshop
Tuesday 1st March - Young Voices - Please remember your white t-shirts!
Friday 4th March - World Book Day - Come to school dressed as your favourite traditional tales character.
Welcome back everyone! Another fun filled,busy week has flown by in Y6. This week we have been learning all about decimal numbers. We worked closely with our new maths partners, to find out what each digit of a decimal number is worth. We used dienes to help us. Next week we will look at dividing whole numbers.
During our English lessons we have been learning all about newspaper reports. So far we have identified features of tabloid and broadsheet paper; the difference between fact and opinion; the use of impersonal tone and how to use higher level punctuation to emphasise important parts of the news. Next week we will look at the use of formal language and the use of active and passive voice.
As part of out Ancient Egypt topic, we looked in great detail at how the pyramids were built and what was the purpose of the structures. Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed using the ipads to research facts to use in their very own explanation text. I am super impressed with the quality of writing that has been produced. It is very clear children are thinking carefully about their targets and thinking if creative ways to display them in their written work. Keep up the excellent work Y6!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 8th February
Well done Y6 for completing all of your assessments this week! You all should be super proud of yourselves and the progress you are making. Keep up the fabulous work! Although, it hasn't been all doom and gloom and boring tests, we began our week with a visit from a well-known children's author, Steve Hartley. Steve worked with the children, to help them to make their writing sparkle. Steve taught the children lots of tips and techniques to write super stories. Year 6 worked hard to create their own characters and plots, I was very impressed with the quality of writing the children produced.
Our excitement for stories continued on Thursday evening, when we held our very own Harry Potter Reading night. We have began to read the first story from the series, which we will continue with in our English lessons next week. We had great fun participating in a Harry Potter Quiz and designing our own magical invention which could be used in one of the films. It's lovely to see how many children have visited the library/ book shops to find a copy of the books to begin to read.
We ended a very busy week by putting our science skills to the test. Have a look at the experiments we have planned and carried out all by ourselves!
We even had a special treat... a breakdancing session!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 25th January
Reminders: Next week is Assessment Week - Please make sure children arrive to school on time.
Thursday 4th February - Harry Potter Reading Party - 3.30- 5.00pm - Children to bring Pj's or fancy dress in to school
Tuesday 9th February- Safer Internet Day - Please can children bring in to school a plain t-shirt which can be written on.
Wednesday 10th February - Singapore Mathematics Parent Workshop - 2pm -3.30pm
Another fabulous week has been had in Y6! This week we have finished our third chapter of our Singapore maths book which has been all about Fractions! I am so proud of all of Y6 for the perseverance and determination they have shown over the past few weeks. It has been exceptionally tricky and there has been lots of rules to remember all about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions! We can't wait to show you all at our Parent Workshop!
This week we have played the role of a Police Officer during our English lessons. Wednesday morning we came in to school and was faced with a rather strange sight! Lilly pads and toad slime covered our classroom!! We could hear Mrs Gribben shouting in the distance, at first we thought it was because of the mess in our classroom but we later found out that her freshly washed clothes had been ruined, which she had carefully placed on her new washingline and that too had been covered in toad slime!! Y6 decided that these strange happenings needed to be treated as a matter of urgency. Our detective notebooks came out and we set off to look for our evidence! We had great fun interviewing our witnesses and recording them using Easispeak microphones. We then listened carefully to our recordings which then helped us to write our final police reports for the commissioner.
Next week we have an author visit planned. Children will be working with Steve Hartly to learn how to make their writing sparkle! Children have brought home letters which details the cost of his books, if you wish to purchase one.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 18th January
Reminders: Thursday 4th February - Harry Potter Reading Party - 3.30- 5.00pm - Children to bring Pj's or fancy dress in to school - letter to follow.
Wednesday 10th February - Singapore Mathematics Parent Workshop - 2pm -3.30pm - letter to follow
Today we have spent the day as scientists. We have had great fun predicting what we think might happen and conducting our experiments to see if we were right. We have learnt how to ensure our test is fair and are now able to use lots of scientific vocabulary to describe the properties of different materials. We tested each material for magnetism, hardness transparency, flexibility and permeability. Why not ask your child what these terms mean?
We have a very busy end to this half term! Please have a look at the flyers below of some of the fun things we have planned for the children!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 11th January
Another brilliant week, filled with lots of learning, has passed us by in Year 6. This week we continued with our Myths and Legends unit in English. Although we are concentrating on Egyptian stories in our lessons, the children have thoroughly enjoyed reading a wide range of different myths and legends from all over the world and identifying its origin on our class world map. This week we have been planning our own stories, focussing on our use of language and how sentence length and structures can create an effect on the reader. We began by designing our own mythical creatures and used a new sentence type - De:de sentences - to write a description. Next week we will be writing the rest of our stories, looking in detail at how we can create suspense and tension.
During our maths sessions this week, we have continued to look at adding and subtracting fractions. This has been a little tricky as to be able to add and subtract fractions, we need to find a common denominator. In true Y6 style, we persevered until we mastered this tricky skill and we are now able to use and apply our knowledge of adding and subtracting fractions to answer tricky problems. Next week we will be moving on to look at multiplying fractions.
We ended a very busy week, by learning all about the importance of values. Mrs Holcroft set all classes a challenge to change an old cardboard box into a face. This may sound like a very unusual task, but very soon we will have all of our weird and wonderful faces displayed in our main school corridor, to share with each other and visitors to Grange Valley, what our face values are.
Y6 discussed the importance of British Values in great depth. Together we discussed the importance of adhering to these values, both inside and outside of school. As part of our discussion, we thought carefully about the roles and responsibilities of the Royal Family, in particular the Queen.
We learnt that members of the Royal Family support The Queen in her many State and national duties, as well as carrying out important work in the areas of public and charitable service, and helping to strengthen national unity and stability.
Every year, the Royal Family as a whole carries out over 2,000 official engagements throughout the UK and worldwide. The Royal Family also plays an important role in supporting and encouraging the public and charity sectors. About 3,000 organisations list a member of the Royal Family as patron or president.
The huge range of these organisations - covering every subject from education to the environment, hospitals to housing - allows members of the Royal Family to meet people from a wide spectrum of national and local life, and to understand their interests, problems and concerns.
Alongside doing all of these wonderful tasks for our country, Queen Elizabeth is also our longest reigning monarch. In June, she will celebrate her 90th birthday. Y6 thought it would be a good idea to turn our box into a model of our Queen wearing her party clothes!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 4th January
Happy New Year! It was lovely to see 30 happy, smiley faces on Monday, excited to share with each other, what they had been up to over the holidays. I was really impressed that a large group of children had completed additional homework and had been revising their learning from the Autumn Term. Well done!
We began our very busy first week back by setting ourselves two new years resolutions. All children set a reading challenge and a personal challenge. It was lovely to hear the discussions between the children about how they will ensure they achieve the targets and how they could help each other.
During our maths sessions this week, we have been learning all about fractions. We started by asking ourselves what is a fraction? And what do we already know about fractions? Children could explain fractions showed part of a whole and could say which number was the numerator and which was the denominator. We began by using bar models to help use to simplify and compare different fractions. Y6 then moved on to finding a common denominator to help them to compare. Y6 decided that although the bar models helped them to visualise the fractions, finding a common denominator was the most efficient way. Next week we will be moving on to adding and subtracting fractions.
During our English lessons we have been looking at a variety of Egyptian myths and legends. We began the week by reading a variety of stories and deciding if they were a myth or a legend. We then created a checklist of success criteria, which we will use over the next couple of weeks to write our own story. During our creative write session we looked at using well chosen words and phrases in our written work, thinking carefully about the effect it will have on the reader. We have challenged each other to think of 5 ambitious adjectives, over the weekend, which we can add to our 'Wicked Words' display and begin to use in our writing. Please encourage children to look for these words in their reading books and use a dictionary to find its definition! Dojo's will be awarded for the best words!
The children became very excited on Tuesday afternoon when they found a trolley full if brand new laptops to use! This half term during our Computing lessons, we will be learning how to create our own computer game. This week we worked with our coaching partner to plan our game and looked at examples of games that had been created using Scratch software. Next week we will be looking at creating algorithms to programme our computer game character.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 7th December
Reminders: KS2 Christmas X Factor - Wednesday 16th December
Thursday 17th December- KS2 Xmas Party
Excitement filled the air on Wednesday when Y6 received letters from their pen pals all the way from South Korea!! The children can't wait to write their replies next week.
W/b 23rd November
Another fantastic week has flown by in Y6! This week in maths we have been learning how to find common multiples and factors of large numbers. We used our division skills to check our answers were correct. At first we found it tricky to know when all the multiples and factors had been found. Together, we thought of a systematic way to show our working out. We used a table to organise our calculations.
In English this week, we began to read a very famous poem by Alfred Noyes called 'The Highwayman'. We began the week by discussing what a highwayman was. Did you know the origins of modern highwaymen have their roots in the English Civil War? The execution of Charles 1 in 1649 left many Royalist officers without the means of supporting themselves. These men with no trade nor skill other than soldering were forced to take to the road. We are really enjoying this unit so far (especially the boys!) and have wrote some fantastic pieces of writing using ed-ing-ly sentences and lots of figurative language.
During our Creative Writing, we wrote a balanced argument about Black Friday. We split in to two group and debated the points for and against Black Friday in Britain. We looked in detail at the use of personal and impersonal pronouns and when they should be used. I was really impressed with the children's writing and it is lovely to look through their books and see how quickly they are progressing. We have introduced a new 'system' to help us to improve our writing further - Brilliant Blues and Grown it Green . Each week children will find two highlighted blue points, these will show what the children have done well. Each week they will also find one sentence which will be highlighted in green. This sentence will need to be edited and redrafted using the improvements suggested. I can not wait to read the improvements next week and find out who will have the 'Super Sentence of the Week'!
We ended a very busy week by making some beautiful Christmas decorations for our local church. Each class received part of the Christmas story which they needed to represent using tree decorations. In Y6, we each made a stained glass window of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. On Monday, Mrs Morris, our school governor, will collect the decorations and take them to church, were they will be displayed for all to see!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 16th November
This week has been an amazing week in Y6! The progress children have made in Maths is fantastic! It has been exceptionally tricky week,Year 6 have been learning how to use a formal written method for division! We began the week by looking at how we can find the largest multiple 'chunk' we could take away from our number. We found this difficult at first and needed to take away lots of smaller 'chunks' to arrive at our answer. In true Y6 style, we persevered and practised until we cracked it and could carry out the calculations in the fewest steps possible! Below is a video which demonstrates the method we have been using in class. Why not have a practise at home?
To support us with our division we have also completed lots of multiplication practise. We really enjoyed singing our tables to our favourite songs!
During our English sessions, we have continued to look at Explanation Texts. We looked at some examples and discussed them with our talk partner. We noticed the text in both examples was identical, however we enjoyed reading example A the most due to its layout and how the text had been organised! Together, we compiled a list of organisational features which makes an explanation text successful. Using the IPAD's we researched the role of a Plague Doctor and wrote our very own explanation text - Why did a Plague Doctor wear a special uniform? We then used our Y6 writing criteria to peer assess our work, which we later edited and redrafted.
We have also completed another writing assessment this week. We watched a short clip of a well known children's programme - Paw Patrol. We discussed what made the show so exciting to watch e.g. loud music, the characters spoke faster to show excitement etc. We decided that we could create the same amount of excitement in our writing by varying our sentence length, use of speech and level of description. We set to work on our very own plot for a Paw Patrol adventure! Our stories are absolutely fantastic and very soon they will be on display in our school library for you to come and read!
This week we have also put our computing skills to the test! We have been learning all about binary code! I was amazed at how quickly the children picked it up! Not only could Y6 read binary code but we could also write our very own code! Next week we will be looking at QR codes! Why not research QR codes over the weekend?
During our science lessons this week, we investigated gravity. In pairs, the children wrote their very own prediction- Which item would land on the ground first? A football or a tennis ball? Some children thought the football would land first because it was much bigger. Some children thought the tennis ball would land first because they thought it was heavier. In small groups we discussed the variables for the experiment and wrote our very own method. We had great fun experimenting and could not believe it when the balls hit the ground at the same time. We looked at mass and weight and used our knowledge to write up our conclusions.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 9th November
Reminders: Friday 20th November - 'Bring a Bottle' for the Christmas Fayre - Children can come to school in their own clothes!
Another busy week has flown past in Y6! This week we have been learning all about division in maths. We began the week recapping short division and division with remainders. We then used and applied our knowledge to tricky problem solving questions. Next week we will be moving on to look at efficient strategies for dividing much larger numbers - formal written method of division.
In English, we began our new topic - Instructions and Explanations. We started the week looking at the features of instructions. We worked together in small groups to follow a set of instructions to play a game, however, we found this exceptionally tricky because the instruction were not very good! We had to work together to rewrite them using our success criteria. Thankfully, our written instruction were much better and we enjoyed playing each others games during wet play.
Later in the week, we compared instruction texts to an explanation text. We divided the class in to two groups. Half of the class needed to write instructions for how to make a Plague Doctors mask whilst the other half had to write an explanation why the doctors wore the masks. We then held a gallery so we could compare and contrast the two pieces of writing.
We ended our week by inventing our own items of clothing for a Plague Doctor and held our own Dragon's Den. Each group prepared a pitch to present in front of the Dragons to explain their invention and persuade them to invest. Next week we will be peer assessing our explanations and creating our own written explanations about a Plague Doctor.
On Wednesday, we taught the whole school about the importance of Remembrance through a very moving assembly. It was lovely to receive so many lovely comments from the parents who came to watch. The children were extremely proud of themselves! We thought our singing was so good that we tweeted Gary Barlow to see what he thought. We also spent a little bit of time writing him a letter to invite him to Grange Valley so that he could hear us sing in person!
We ended our busy but brilliant week with a fantastic Parents Evening. It was lovely to see you all and share with you the achievements and progress your child has made. I am really lucky to have a class full of fantastic children and supportive parents!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 2nd November
Reminders : Parents Evening appointments have been sent out - I look forward to seeing you all next week to discuss your child's progress!
Remembrance Assembly - Wednesday 11th November - 10.30 - It would be lovely if you could attend!
Welcome back everyone! I hope you had a restful half term in preparation for the busy one ahead! Year 6 got off to a very busy start! This week in maths we have been finding multiple ways of multiplying 4 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers. We began the week looking at partitioning the number, before moving on to a more formal written method for long multiplication. We met a very peculiar character called 'Zero the Hero' who helped us a lot! Why not ask your child what his job is?
This week we also completed a writing assessment. We have really enjoyed our recount topic all about UFO's, so there was no better piece of writing than to write our own recount of a UFO sighting! The children had great fun interviewing each other, using adventurous vocabulary to describe what they had seen! I was so impressed with the children's writing, everybody is trying so hard to include the features off our Y6 success criteria checklist! The progress children are making is amazing! Keep up the good work Y6!
We were absolutely outraged during our History lesson, when a secret video revealed Miss Kelly and Mrs Sharrocks plotting to take over Grange Valley and overthrow Mrs Holcroft! Thankfully Mrs Threlkeld came to the rescue and punished the unruly teachers! We later found out that this happened to someone else a very long time ago, King James 1. We enjoyed learning all about the Gunpowder Plot and during our creative write session, we retold the events in role as Will Danby - Robert Catesby's servant! We are very excited to continue our new history topic next week, learning more about King James 1!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 12th October
Reminders: Tuesday 20th October - Y6 Final Swimming Lesson
Tuesday 20th October - Halloween Disco - 3.30 - 5.30pm - Children are to bring their party clothes in to school.
Thursday 22nd October - School closes for half term
This week has been Assessment Week in Y6, I am so pleased with the children's attitudes towards their learning. I have been amazed at how many children have been asking for extra homework, activities to practise at playtime and children completing their own work at home. All the children are doing fabulously, at this point in the year, with lots more learning to look forward to. Your child's attainment will be discussed with you at Parents Evening, which is scheduled for after the half term.
To get our brains working, we began the week with a challenging maths lesson. As you know, over the past few weeks, Y6 have been refining their written methods for all four number operations. We used CUBES to help us to use our efficient methods to answer some very tricky multi step worded problems. Why not ask your child what CUBES stands for and how it helps them with maths?
It was really important that we worked in table teams to solve the problems. In the centre of the table was a treasure chest, however, it was surrounded by deadly Yellow Spotted Lizards, just like the one belonging to Kissing Kate Barlow from our class novel! Each word problem revealed part of the secret code to deactivate the Yellow Spotted Lizards ... one incorrect code could have had serious consequences! Thankfully we have a class full of 'clever clogs' and the Lizards were deactivated without a problem!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 5th October
Reminders : Next week is assessment week in Y6.
Tuesday 13th October - Swimming
Did you know this week has been National Space Week? Year 6 have learnt lots of amazing facts and produced excellent pieces of work, including a newspaper report on the moon landings, a poem about taking the moon for a walk and a report to decide if they think the moon landings actually happened!! Our classroom looks fabulous with all the wonderful writing on display. Please come in and take a look!
We started our National Space Week off with a WOW with our trip to Jodrell Bank. Although the weather wasn't brilliant, we still had a fantastic time. Have a look at some of the things we got up to!
W/b 28th September
Reminders: Monday 5th October - Trip to Jodrell Bank - Please ensure your child brings a packed lunch to school!
Wednesday 7th October - Girls Football
Wednesday 7th October - Parent Workshop
Thursday 8th October - Byrchall High School
Another busy week has flown by in Year 6! This week in Maths we have been refining our written methods for subtraction. We have been looking at missing box SATs style questions and also introduced the use of brackets in to our calculations. Very soon we will be sitting our first assessments, were children will be sitting an Arithmetic test and two Problem Solving papers. Next week we will be moving on to written methods for multiplication and division. It would benefit your child greatly, if you could practise the written methods for all four number operations, as much as possible at home. Today children have brought home letters to invite you to a Parent Workshop next Wednesday, were you will have the opportunity to see these methods being modelled and given tips and techniques on how to support your child at home.
This week during our Creative Write session we put on our pretend capes, rode our imaginary brooms and wrote a letter of complaint in role as Neville Longbottom! We watched a short video clip of Neville's first flying lesson and compiled a list of complaints about our defected brooms to inform the Ministry of Magic about. We looked in detail at the features of a formal letter and thought carefully about our vocabulary. Next week we will use our End of Year Expectation checklist to set ourselves a personal writing target!
Today we calculated the average Dojo points we needed to be able to participate in today's Golden Time treat! Thankfully, over the past four weeks we have all behaved impeccably and tried very hard and was able to join in the fun on the apparatus.
Next week is National Space Week, which we will kick start with our trip to Jodrell Bank! We have planned lots of fun activities for the children to learn about the Sun, Earth and Moon! We will also be learning about a very famous astronaut .... Neil Armstrong, and his famous 'landing' on the moon!
Have a lovely weekend I hope to see you all next week at the Maths Workshop!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 21st September
Reminders: Tuesday 29th September - Swimming
Wednesday 30th September - Kick Boxing taster session
Wednesday 30th September - Mixed football competition
Monday 5th October- Class trip to Jodrell Bank - Please ensure permission slips are returned ASAP
I cannot believe another week has passed by! This week we completed our first piece of assessed writing. We put ourselves in Charlie Bucket's shoes and wrote our own versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from Charlie's point of view. We began by discussing our checklist for writing, to make sure we were all clear on what is expected in our writing in Year 6. We played lots of exciting games to get our vocabulary flowing and practise our SPaG skills. Once we had completed our writing, we turned our classroom into our very own chocolate factory and created our own chocolate lollypops and biscuits to support Dahlicious Day! It was lots of fun!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 14th September
Reminders: Tuesday 22nd September - Swimming
PE - Y6 will have PE on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Please ensure your child's full PE kit is in school.
Monday 5th October - Class trip to Jodrell Bank - Please ensure you return your permission slip ASAP
Another brilliant week has been had in Y6. This week we received a very interesting letter from Mrs Holcroft! Mrs Holcroft needed our help! The council have proposed to open a SeaWorld entertainment park in the North West! Mrs Holcroft was very interested to hear if Y6 thought this would be a good or bad idea. Year 6 set to work reading about the other Parks that have been opened in the USA. Year 6 could not believe the amount of news articles surrounding this topic! Some children thought these centres were a brilliant idea as they have animal rehabilitation units to help sick animals while other children thought it was a bad idea due to the tanks being too small for the animals and wild animals should not be made to perform solely for our entertainment. We held a debate in class before writing our letters to Mrs Holcroft explaining our view points. We hope you enjoy reading our responses Mrs H!
During our Maths sessions we have been focusing on our problem solving skills. This time it was Mrs Lyon who required Y6's skills! This week we have been using the price lists for all of the theme parks in Orlando. Mrs Lyon has been planning to take her family on holiday in the summer but has a strict budget. Y6 have been practising their mental strategies for addition and subtraction to calculate the cost of the entrance to the different parks to help Mrs Lyon. The children had to take into account various offers which were available at different times of the day, to put together the best itinerary for The Lyon family! I was super impressed with how much the children had remembered about calculating fractions and percentages of amounts! Well done children!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 7th September
Reminders: Tuesday 15th September - Swimming
Thursday 17th September - 2.45pm - CSE Awareness meeting for parents
PE - Y6 will have PE on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Please ensure your child's full PE kit is in school.
Monday 5th October - Class trip to Jodrell Bank - Please ensure you return your permission slip ASAP
I cannot believe our first week in Year 6 is over! This week we began our new book 'Holes' which we will be reading in our English lessons for the next few weeks. The children are thoroughly enjoying the story and are intrigued to find out why Stanley Yelnats has been sent to Camp Green Lake! We looked closely at the narrative hooks and devices Louis Sachar uses in the opening chapters of the story. We wrote some fantastic PEE (Point, Explanation and Evidence) paragraphs to illustrate the impact they have on the story and the reader. We really enjoyed experimenting with our writing and tried to write an alternative opening to the story in the style of Louis Sachar. During our SPaG sessions this week, we looked at expanded noun phrases and wrote some fabulous character descriptions!
In Maths we have been revising our knowledge of Place Value. We have been reading, writing and ordering numbers up to a million, including decimals. We used dienes blocks to help us learn the value of each number! It was very tricky when trying to calculate how much more was needed to be added to a two place decimal, to reach the next whole number. This would be a great activity to practise at home!
This week we began our new Computing unit. This half term, Year 6 will be building their own websites. We used the Ipad's to look at a range of websites: BBC, Grange Valley, Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin. The children discussed with their partners the similarities and differences of these sites, as well as the use of graphics, content and target audience. Later in the session, the children worked in small groups to plan their own USA themed website and thought carefully about the content they would like to include. Next week, we will be looking at the different ways children can add content to their sites such as, embedding an image or inserting an RSS feed. We will also be discussing Copyright!
Have a great weekend!
Miss Hitchen
W/b 3rd September
Reminders: Class Dojo invitations were sent out earlier this week. Please download the free app to receive daily updates about your child's progress and behaviour. If your experiencing any problems, please pop in and see me!
PE - Children will have PE on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Please ensure your child's FULL PE kit is in school on these days.
Swimming Lessons - Tuesday 8th September - Please ensure children bring to school an appropriate swimming costume, towel and goggles if needed. All jewellery must be removed and long hair tied back.
Parent Year Ahead Meeting - Thursday 10th September - 5pm
Welcome back!! It was lovely to see the children again on Wednesday, after a long six weeks, they look so much more grown up and prepared for the challenges Year 6 will bring. I was over the moon to be greeted by 29 smiley faces, bursting with excitement to tell me and their friends all about their fun filled holidays and share with us the work they had completed over the summer. It was great to see the children had been practising their maths and literacy skills! I was particularly impressed with Kean's book, which included lots of exciting chapters, amazing illustrations and eye catching covers! Mrs Holcroft was also very impressed! All of the children looked absolutely fabulous and very smart in their new school uniform! I am sure they will be fantastic role models for the younger children at Grange Valley.
We began our first week by setting ourselves some short term goals. In small groups we discussed the importance of setting realistic and measurable goals. We set to work on writing down our 5 personal short term goals, which are now on display in our new classroom. This week we have also completed a Maths quiz and a short writing task about our holidays, to highlight our next steps in our learning, to ensure we all make rapid progress and become the best mathematicians and writers we can be!
We ended a great week with a thrilling theme day all about America. We created dream catchers, photo frames, fast fact booklets, looked at different Americanisms and even learnt how to line dance! The children really enjoyed their parents coming in to school to share all of the new facts they had learnt! Thank you to all the parents who came ... and an extra special thanks to those who joined in with the dancing!!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Hitchen and Year 6 team.
