Half term Dog’s Trust workshop
Rachael, from the Dog’s Trust in Leeds, visited all classes last week in our Staying Safe themed week.
She is holding a half term workshop next week and she would like us to share this with our families.
Contact Rachael, by email, if your child is interested in attending.
Discussion Texts
Y6 are aiming to find out the answer to this question:
Is it fair to say the Islamic Golden Age was much more advanced than Viking society?
In order to answer this question and discuss it in a balanced argument, first we needed to practise some writing skills.
We’ve focused on cohesive starters – challenge your child to list five.
Have a look at these great examples of practising these skills at home where they focused on quality over quantity.
Living and Learning: Staying Safe
What an action-packed week we had last week!
We were learning all about staying safe, looking after ourselves and making safe choices, including online.
We had lots of visitors, including Mrs Hill from Dogs’ Trust who taught us about how our behaviour can change how a dog feels and therefore reacts. We can make safe choices around them to help everyone.
“If a dog is eating or sleeping, just leave them. When they’re awake, then you can pet them,” said Evie.
Asthon explained, “When a dog comes near you that you don’t know, you can put your hands across your body and turn away.”
Leeds City Council’s Road Safety Team came to talk to us about the choices we can make to stay safe on the roads. We also looked at what they do in order to protect us.
“I learnt that lots of road safety equipment cost a lot of money!” shared Aadil.
“I enjoyed the lesson – it was a good idea to use a real life situation where we only had a certain amount of money in order to help people,” said Billy.
Go Wise came in to talk to us about the safe choices we can make online. Check out the pictures above for their golden rules plus what to do if you have a problem.
“There can be some weird people on the internet so we can be safe by blocking strangers you don’t know or not accepting random friend requests,” said Harman.
Da’wud simply stated, “Screenshot. Block. Report.”
Lots of our favourite visitors were the fire officers. We discussed fire hazards in the home and had a great chat with them about how they keep us safe in our community.
Khadija learnt that they have to wear a special suit to protect them against the fire and they have a tank filled with air that’s very heavy.
“I liked when they came in because they showed us the fire equipment up close,” said Christina.
“It’s best to close your doors at night because they can stop the fire from spreading around your house,” said Vedant.
We also talked about safe choices when it comes to setting physical boundaries and being in charge of you. The book below is a great way to open up the conversation.
“I liked how it shows real life situations and it made me feel more confident about not just going with it like you’re crossing a road or you don’t always have to hug someone – you can high five them if you prefer!” reassured Sasha.
Finally, we watched a virtual assembly, hosted by some familiar faces, which was all about speaking out to get the help you need in order to stay safe.
Super Scientists
This half term, we’ve been learning about biology. Our topic is evolution and inheritance.
We’ve been finding out how animals and plants have adapted to the environment they live in. If they didn’t change to suit their habitat, their species would eventually die out.
Adaptation is one of our science vocabulary this half term along with:
- natural selection
- variety
- prehistoric
- trait
- inherited
- evolution
- fossil
Challenge your child to define these words!
Check out our fabulous posters below, displaying information about the specific adaptations of some amazing animals.
We won the Choice Cup!
Well done to Y6 for your superb choices. Let’s retain it next week!
Spring term after-school clubs
After-school clubs will be restarting next week and they will run for eight weeks until the Easter break. Places can be booked via Gateway.
Our physical activity clubs continue to be heavily subsidised through the investment of our PE and Sport Premium.
Please contact the office if you have any queries about the clubs or the booking system.
Living & Learning: Identity
This week and last week’s Living and Learning lessons have had a strong thread of respect running through them.
“Respect is important because people have different personalities and like different things like football or make up. You should never say nasty things about what they like. Or at school if you’re playing a game of tig, you should follow the rules and tag them respectfully,” explained Billy.
“Respect is when you treat someone fairly no matter what even if they have different beliefs to you. We should all try and get along,” stated Saahir.
“Respect is understanding why they like something. If you don’t like something, that’s fine but keep rude comments inside. You should support the people around you,” said Christina.
We took part in Identity Day which is an amazing opportunity to show who we are as people by coming into school wearing clothes that show a community we’re a part of.
Take a look at our fantastic choices!
We also explored our own identities in even more detail by creating our own unique identity maps. Take a look at some of the great examples below.
Free White Rose Rugby event for all pupils
Performing (and remembering) poetry
This week’s homework was to memorise the poem From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Y6 performed their poems this afternoon and did so with voice projection, expression and a great pace.
We also had a chat about how we went about learning them. We came up with several different ideas. Some techniques worked for some people but others so it’s important that you try a variety of ways and see which one helps you retain whatever it is that you’re trying to remember!
Other memory techniques could be to come up with actions, make it funny or use the Roman Method of Loci method where you imagine yourself walking around a familiar place and finding items in each section of that place.
Have a discussion at home about what helps you remember something!
Writing: using dialogue to convey action
In recent lessons, we’ve been learning to use speech punctuation to create dialogue.
In this lesson, we’re practising using dialogue to convey character. Working in pairs, children have rolled dice to determine the setting, characters and a character trait for each character. For example, they might be writing about a cheerful teacher and an angry robber in a bank. They’ve then written a short narrative with dialogue to convey their characters.
