Week of 1.12.25

Well, here we are, December already!!

Assessment Week this week and what a fantastic effort from everyone. It has been great to see such maturity from all and, as always, a fantastic growth mindset. Results so far are very positive so this self-belief is translating into great confidence and even better progress.

Amongst all the tests, we started the week with an assembly from Rabbi Yankee, all about Hanukkah and Kenzie was a great assistant! We learnt the history of this important feast and the symbolism of the Menorah. In the same assembly, the Bikeability children received their certificates and badges.

In Maths this week, we managed to cover multiplying and dividing fractions, just in time for the tests!

We have cracked on with our Make £5 Grow initiative and all the children received their £5 notes – there was great excitement and we had a very productive afternoon budgeting and continuing to plan our businesses. Next week will be very busy as we start to make our products and get organised to sell during Christmas week.

We finished the week with our Rudolph Run and raised money for St Clare's Hospice. It was brilliant to see everyone, in their pyjamas, outside and walking or running on a bright and frosty morning.

p.s. Here are the links to our Christmas songs for next week, have fun practising! 

1. Rocking around the Christmas tree 

https://youtu.be/1qYz7rfgLWE?si=wafHVcAKITf83Nxj  

2. The Gift  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD5X1fjW968  

3. Jingle Bells 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CWJNqyub3o&t=4s  

4. 12 Days of Christmas  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEyMjdD2uk&t=64s  

5. Feliz Navidad  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRbLtqbPYjU 

6. Merry Christmas Everyone- Shakin' Stevens  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3dKRVVvL2U&t=175s

7. We wish you a Merry Christmas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-OF7KGyDis 

BSL-We wish you a Merry Christmas 

https://youtu.be/YyD_cNz_IA4?si=im-58luixqIanO3l

Week of 24.11.25

Yet another busy week in Year 6: an assembly with a Pearly Queen and No Pens Day, as well as our regular classes of course!

In Maths this week, we have been adding and subtracting fractions - both are straightforward when the denominators are the same but it gets trickier when we have different denominators. Our work last week helped though with finding the lowest common denominator. This proved invaluable this week! We move onto multiplying and dividing fractions next week - brand new year 6 learning!

We are loving Macbeth this week, what an eventful Shakespearean play. We have all loved the story and our writing focus will be a letter from Lady Macbeth persuading her husband to murder King Duncan! It is a bloodthirsty tale but all have embraced the wonderful symbolism and language within it.

On Wednesday, Pearly Queen Teresa came to deliver an Assembly. She gave us a wonderful history lesson on the Pearly Kings and Queens - more on that later - but the reason for her visit was for her toy appeal. She is collecting toys for Christmas for any children who might not get presents, even though they are on the good list. She spoke about kindness and how we can all do a kind act by bringing a new toy in.

So, the history of the Pearly Queens is that it is the second largest charity in London (after Barnardo's) and is 150 years old this year! Teresa had 36,000 buttons sewn onto her outfit and 30 ostrich feathers in her hat - an ostrich feather is worth £25 for just 1! So many facts and figures and we loved hearing how The Pearly Kings and Queens are the Royal Family for the common people.

After the fascinating assembly, we started our No Pens Day, a day of fun and talk - lots of speaking to improve our oracy skills. We had maths challenges on the playground, Macbeth drama in English and Christmas art in teh afternoon - we created lovely, spiral snowmen, ready for the Main Hall in school.

The week ended with Crazy Hair Day - some amazing hair to be seen - enjoy the photos!

Have a great weekend everyone and see you next month, it'll be December!!!

Week of 17.11.2025

The weather finally does feel like November, brrr, it's been very very cold!

Another busy week, as always. We started with a Butterfly Assembly on Monday - it showed us how we can be the best versions of ourselves and be part of the Butterfly Squad, which is Family and No Kid Left Behind so we look out for each other.

We also dialled into the Living Streets Assembly which was all about walking confidently to school. We have been tracking our mode of transport every morning and it is great to see more walking to school or choosing to park and stride.

In Maths this week, we have started working on fractions, focusing on simplifying and finding common denominators. We have also been converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions as we build up to adding and subtracting fractions next week.

We have been writing our monologues in English and they have turned out very well - formal, with the use of the subjunctive and very persuasive. Some of the children delivered their monologues to the class and were fabulously in character. It's all change next week as we start to look at Macbeth - very exciting! We made a start on the story on Friday and we are looking forward to finishing the story next week! 

Half of Rowan Class had a Forest School experience this week and the other half will have their chance next week. 

Hope you all have a great weekend and see you back here again next week. The children had great fun making fire and whittling sticks. Poplar Class have it all to look forward to!

Have a great weekend all and see you here again, next week.

Week of 10.11.2025

Week 2 and the middle of November, although, the weather doesn't feel like November!

We started the week in Maths by looking at BODMAS - the order of operations. This is new learning in Year 6 and everyone was very excited about it. We created colourful BODMAS posters to help us when faced with a number sentence with more than1 or 2 operations.

We moved on then from BODMAS to divisibility rules in Maths. These are such important nuggets of mathematical knowledge - very useful! Our curiosity and wonder were ignited and there were lots of fantastic questions and hypotheses.

In English, we have continued our learning about The Battle of Hastings and the tumultuous year that was 1066 in British history. We will be writing monologues next week as Harold Godwinson, Harald Hardrada (King of Norway) or William, Duke of Normandy. We have looked at the features of a monologue and looked at Elizabeth's rousing monologue in PIrates of the Caribbean! Everyone is very excited to get cracking on their speeches next week.

Tuesday was of course Armistice Day and, as a school, we marked the 2-minute silence in the playground. This is always a sombre occasion and it was very lovely to see such respect shown by all. We must never forget.

We have started a new topic in PE: dance and we are using the Royal Opera House as our inspiration. We are exploring our identity and also looking at the rights of the child. We did some great movements and motifs as well as some tableaux or freeze frames. 

Another great week and lots to look forward to next week. Have a great weekend everyone.

Week of 3.11.2025

Welcome back to the second half of Autumn term, we hope you all enjoyed a lovely break.

Now that it's November, our first Assembly was all about Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night.

In Maths, we continued to look at number by focusing on prime numbers and square and cube numbers. Do you know why square numbers are called square numbers? 4 is a square number and is made up of 2 x 2 so if we build this with bricks (or draw it with dots), it is the shape of a square.

In English this week, we have continued our work about gladiators and planned and wrote descriptions of our gladiators. Our writing focus has been expanded noun phrases and we are looking forward to continuing this writing next week.

Thanks to the mild (and unseasonal weather!), we had a fabulous Outdoor Learning Day on Thursday. Lots of Maths and English games outside, even in some rain, but that did not stop us. Lots of fun was had by all and we'd love another opportunity to have a day like this again.

Finally, we made our Remebrance poppies, in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe - have a look at the lovely photos below.

Have a great weekend everyone and see you again next week.

Week of 20.10.25

Our final week of our first half term in Year 6 so that means we're 1/6 of the way through the year!

Our fabulous and emotive Windrush poems have made an amazing display.

And just look at how Rowan's display is shaping up:

We have moved on in English to start looking at The Roman Empire and we will be working on descriptive language (in relation to the gladiators) after Half Term.

This week has been huge in Maths - we have all mastered long division! Plenty of practice and lots of perseverance but we got there and even managed some tricky word problems. Prime numbers and BODMAS to look forwrad to when we come back.

In Science, we made our clay heart models - another fun lesson and some really super results. We will paint them after half term. Have a look at the photos!

Have a super weekend and even better Half Term break, see you again in November!

Week of 13.10.2025

In English this week, we continued our work on The Windrush by planning and writing our poems. We used John Agard's The Windrush Child as our inspiration and the poems produced are truly wonderful: full of powerful emotions. They will make a fantastic display...watch out! We also created some freeze frames, putting ourselves into the shoes of the Caribbean people on HMT Empire Windrush. We were in groups as either leaving the Caribbean, on The Windrush or arriving in Great Britain.
In Maths, we have made a start on long division, lots more practice for us next week but it's proving to be better than we thought! 
On Wednesday, Arc Theatre did a brilliant workshop about the dangers of vaping. It was shocking but hopefully the message will get through, knowledge is power. Do you know how many chemicals are in a vape? Would you be shocked to know that it's more than 200!!!!
Our football team played a home game against Alderton on Thursday. It ended 1-1, a great result! There's a great team photo below.
Have a great weekend and see you for parent consultations on Monday and our final week next week! 

Our Vaping Workshop:

Our fabulous football team:

Our Windrush Freeze Frames:

Week of 6.10.2025

A new week and a new month! It's Week 6 already, hard to believe but it's like we've always been in class together!

This week saw our first round of testing in Year 6 - all of the children approached this with great maturity, understanding that we are having a few practice runs to get us ready for next year. It is as much about checking our pace as well as seeing what we are secure in and so what we need to do some work on. There is still lots of exciting new learning ahead in Year 6 so those scores will just continue to grow. As teachers, we have been delighted by the resilience and fantastic positive attitude shown by all - well done guys.

In amongst the tests, we worked on short division in Maths and again, amazing attitude and hard work. We started to look at dividing by 11 or 12 and realised that although these are 2 digit divisors, we don't need to worry about long multiplication - we can use our times tables and carry on with short division! We'll save ourselves for those bigger divisors and long division next week!

We've moved on in English, and tying in with Black History Month, we are studying The Windrush. This has meant some History and some Geography: learning that people from the Caribbean were invited to this country (after WW2) to help rebuild. It was a big change moving from the heat and sunshine to the cold and post-war devastation of this country. The Windrush generation also faced racism and discrimination, and we will be exploring this through poetry next week. Do you know why they are known as the Windrush generation?

Science took a turn this week once we realised it was World Space Week! We had a live lesson about living in space and heard from real astronauts, including Tim Peake! We then had fun thinking about what we would take to space and we filled our suitcases (producing fabulous posters!) - see bleow.

Have a great weekend everyone and see you again next week.

Here's our football team! They took part in a tournament on Friday!

Week of 29.09.2025

We've moved from September into October and the fun has continued in Year 6!

Wednesday was the 1st of October and the start of Black History Month so to celebrate this, we took part in a live zoom called Black Heroes of Maths. We met a mathematician, called Angela Tabiri, a quantum mathematician based in Ghana. She was so engaging and talked to us about the importance of the commutative law in Maths. This relates to the order in which we calculate so 3 x 4 gives the same answer as 4 x 3. But 3 - 4 does not give the same answer as 4 - 3.

We also looked at a magic square and knowing how to arrange the numbers 1-9 so that each row, each column and each diagonal adds to 15!

In Maths, we moved on to look at long multiplication and everyone has done really well. We have all moved on together from short multiplication and worked very hard. So hard, in fact, that we are ready to move on and look at division next week before we do our first round of assessments in Year 6.

We also continued writing our chronological reports and have managed to finish them, edit and uplevel them. Once again, everyone worked hard and really showed great effort. So much so, that we earned ourselves a hot chocolate on Friday because we also all managed to read this week  - a very successful week all round.

Have a great weekend everyone and see you next week.

Week of 22.09.2025

Another busy week for us all. In maths, we have been extending our learning of addition and subtraction to 7 digit numbers. We also had some fun with Roman numerals! We're looking threats to multiplication and division next!

In English, we have begun writing our chronological reports about The Battle of Marathon. A great piece of formal writing, all the facts we have learned are now taking centre stage. 
 

Science has certainly been memorable this week: we have dissected sheep's hearts! It was certainly memorable and exciting all at once. We saw the 2 atria, 2 ventricles and the many heart strings! Enjoy the photos, if you dare!!

Have a great weekend everyone and see you again next week. 

Week of 15.09.2025

It's been a busy week this week with many workshops in amongst our lessons.

The week started with a Cyber Safety workshop and ended with a Knife Crime workshop. Both were delivered by Kirstin from the Fire Service.

In cyber safety, we refreshed our learning about what to do if we see something inappropriate online. We also talked, at length, about only using apps or playing games that are age appropriate! GTA is an 18 for a reason and at 10 and 11, we should not be exposed to adult content. We also looked at a clip about keeping ourselves private in real life so we should be doing the same online.

The knife crime workshop gave us lots of detail about the law around this and we talked about the reasons why people feel the need to carry a knife. It was certainly a hard-hitting but important discussion.

In Maths this week, we carried on with Plave Value by looking at negative numbers and Roman numerals. Next week we will start to look at addition and subtraction.

We continued our History learning about The Battle of Marathon and will begin to plan and write our chronological reports next week. Lots of facts leaned about this important battle from September 490 BC!

Christmas also came to Willingale this week - we made our Chrsitmas cards for our adults to buy!

Have a great weekend everyone and see you again next week for some more news - enjoy our photos from one of the workshops and some pics of Rowan Class enjoying their OTTER time!

Week of 8.09.2025

Parent Information Evening ppt

Here they are, our new Year 6s!

What a busy first full week we have had - it's been straight down to work! In Maths, we have concentrated on place value: reading, writing, ordering and comparing numbers to 10,000,000. We have also been rounding numbers; all of this has been building on the Maths that we have learned in previous years and the numbers have become bigger in Year 6. We are looking forward to negative numbers and Roman numerals next week.

History has been the name of the game this week, looking at punishments from Roman times through to The Anglo-Saxons, TheTudors and The Victorians. What a crazy time it was, particularly bad if you were a woman and poor!! We have also started to look at The Battle of Marathon, a very famous battle because of the legacies we still have: outflanking as a military strategy and the 26 mile marathon race.

In Science, we have started to look at the heart and its function. We now know the 4 chambers of the heart: 2 atria and 2 ventricles as well as knowing about the blood being pumped through the right side of the heart before it goes to the lungs to collect oxygen, then back through the left side of the heart before being pumped through the aorta and all around the body.

We also enjoyed the Attendance Fiesta on Wednesday and in spite of the weather (although not as bad as forecast!), we all had a fabulous time.

Have a great weekend and see you again next week.

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 Week of 1.09.2025

Following on from our Transition Day, we completed some lovely art that will be our first Year 6 displays - watch out for those next week.

We have also talked about our new topic: Conflict, Crime and Punishment and the children have generated lots of questions which will fuel our curiosity as we work through the term. We also have a Connections Display with all of these questions and we will build connections in our learning, as we go.

We have all come back to school with a positive mindset, ready to unlock new learning, keep practising and not giving up.

Well done everyone for a fabulous first week, have a super weekend and see you all next week.