Last Friday, Year 6 went on an exciting trip to The Forbidden Corner in North Yorkshire. When we arrived, we were amazed by the strange statues, twisting tunnels, and hidden doors everywhere we looked. We split into small groups and started exploring the maze-like gardens, trying to find all the hidden clues and secret paths without getting lost. Some of us were surprised by the water sprays that suddenly shot out as we passed, making us laugh and scream. The giant stone animals and talking statues made the whole place feel like a magical world. We stopped for lunch under the trees, sharing snacks and talking about our favourite parts so far. Everyone loved the stepping stones across the water, even though some of us nearly fell in! Unfortunately, we were so busy having fun that we didn’t take many photos! But please enjoy the small selection below.

This week, amidst graduation rehearsals and t-shirt printing, we began a new writing piece: suspense fiction! Take a look at some of the fantastic work that was produced in our first drafting session… What writing features can you spot?

Well done to all of 6D for their fantastic athleticism this week. Points were scored throughout the day for best attitude, good team players and resilient spirits. Please see some of our highlights below!

This week, we have begun our Arts Fortnight and have loved exploring new printing techniques and artist styles. On Monday, we were lucky to have a gifted, local artist (Mr Sestini) come in to show us some example wood cut prints and collagraph prints using Tetra Pak! He explained how to create indentations in the Tetra Pak and then allowed us to try using this technique on our own templates. The templates themselves were inspired by the artist Keith Haring – our focus for the next two weeks. Haring uses a variety of playful figures to create artworks. As you will also see below, we incorporated these figures in our next pieces – a Keith Haring inspired art work. We loved using a variety of colours and ‘doodles’ in our pieces!

This week in our Reading lessons, we have learned about Billy Collins’s poem ‘Snow Day’. Before we read the poem, we discussed some of the trickier vocabulary and broke down some of the key symbolism in the poem. As part of this process, we thought deeply about the meaning of each line and organised strips from the poem to create our own poetry! It was fantastic seeing how each poem evolved a new meaning!

Today, we ventured out into the community to do some litter picking. Students enthusiastically gathered up a huge amount of rubbish very close to the vicinity of the school. Well done Year 6 for going the extra mile to make sure that our local community stays tidy!

After a fun evening, students gathered for breakfast and enjoyed some bacon and egg butties to start the day! We then commenced with our next round of activities. We faced fears together (especially during the abseiling!) and the children enjoyed making special memories.

Although the spiders were rather large, the caving was an enjoyable and unusual experience…

We want to say a massive well done to all the children. Although we were all very sad to leave How Stean Gorge, we will all remember this special time spent together. Hopefully they all manage to get a good rest in over the holidays.

Today has been such an adventure! We loved getting settled into the cabins, climbing, caving. When we arrived, we unpacked and then were straight into our first activities. Mr Ash’s group was rock climbing, Miss Davies’s group was caving and Miss Patchett and Miss Cooke’s groups were orienteering around the site.

In the evening, we enjoyed some delicious sausages and chips and then took part in a rounders match.

It has been a busy start to the Summer term. The students are hard at work with final SATs preparations and excitement for the residential trip is brewing… We have also been lucky to host two major authors and a virtual reality session over the past two weeks!

Last week began with an author visit from Dermot O’Leary. Dermot entertained us all as he described his new action adventure novel: Spy Fox and Agent Feathers. The story follows a crafty fox and his chicken companion on an epic rescue mission during World War 2.

We then had the pleasure of the Mayan virtual reality workshop. We got to fly high above some ancient temple ruins in South America, discussed how Mayans spent their free time (including an intriguing discussion about pok-ta-pok – their version of football!). Following the workshop, we discussed how virtual reality may be used in the future in schools and debated whether this would be beneficial or harmful to education (or both!).

Sam and Rowan presented their interactive clay sculpture of the three different types of volcanoes.

Ella and Nicoleta showcased ‘Ooblek’ – a fascinating substance made out of cornflour and water which can change between a solid and liquid!

Ellie and Murewa presented a fantastic interactive sculpture of the human digestive system.

Sameer and his brother produced a fantastic piece of work all about circuits!

Benji and Henry produced a fantastic, explosive series of experiments!

Well done 6D for all your fantastic creations! We certainly didn’t want to leave!