We have had a whirlwind first two weeks in Year 6! We have enjoyed getting to know eachother and reminding ourselves of school routines after the long break. In Maths, we have been revisiting place value, while in Writing we have begun our new poetry unit about the wind! We loved using our new knowledge from Geography (on grid references and coordinates) on our trip today to the Meanwood Valley Trail. We also used our classification knowledge to identify various plant and animal life in the clearing. A special shout out to Matas from Miss Davies’ group for finding a wide range of unusual creatures and even some treasure!

We have also had the pleasure of meeting our buddies this week. Although some were feeling a little shy, they soon warmed up to their Year 6 buddy. Some read with their buddies, while others did some arts and crafts. (Photos to follow in the next post…)

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.