Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Summer Term
Week of 9th June 2025
This week was all about our residential in Danbury! What a great time: from kayaking to canoeing, bridge building to an obstacle course and zip wire to climbing! Non stop fun!
Those back at school also had a great time, watching a movie and baking for a Bake Off!
Danbury!
Week of 2.06.25
And here we are, back for our final half term in Year 6! The week started with Rowan having their football session with the Spurs coach.
Work has continued with the focus on our final piece of assessed writing, a diary entry as Guy Fawkes on November 5th, 1605. Having learned the history of The Gunpowder Plot, the children then had to imagine themselves as one of the plotters and write a diary from their point of view. We started planning the writing this week and got writing on Friday. We aim to finish on Monday and then have some time to edit and improve.
We have also started full on rehearsals for our Production: Ready to Rock. We have been learning the songs and reading through the script and got to the Hall for our first rehearsal (on stage) on Friday. The next few weeks will be bust, busy, busy!
A real treat on Thursday, we had a Breakdancing and Beatboxing assembly followed by a fabulous workshop - super fun - enjoy the photos!
So that's it, first week done and so much to look forward to, not least our residential next week, let's hope the sun shines for us!
Spurs football for Rowan
Beatboxing and breakdancing
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Week of 19.05.2025
And here we are, end of another week and it's also the end of term! Another busy week, SATs may be over but we still have work to do in Year 6. Our focus this week was our writing and we enjoyed writing our non-chronological reports about the witch trials of the 17th century. We are so impressed with what the children have produced.
On Monday, Poplar Class had their football session with Adam, a coach from Tottenham Hotspur. The children did keepie uppies but using the inside of their feet, outside of their feet and their thighs. There was super effort and great control from all.
On Tuesday, parents were invited to Stay and Play - they got to see OPAL play in action and we all got extra playtime! The sun shone and we all had great fun.
By Thursday, we had finished our writing so out next major focus is the Year 6 Production!! We shared the title with the children last week, it's Ready to Rock! and it's based on the fabulous film, School of Rock. Auditions were held on Thursday, all were invited and some chose to audition. Speaking parts were then allocated based on those auditions and we hope everyone is happy with their part. Some children have either chosen not to audition or do not have a speaking part, there will be plenty of acting roles and lots of singing for everyone.
It's been a very sporty week, on Friday morning, Year 6 were helpers for the KS1 Sports Day and then we had the KS2 Sports Day in the afternoon - again, so lucky with the weather and great determination and resilience from all.
Oh, nearly forgot, did the children mention those strange stacks of stones that were appearing everywhere? And did they tell you that they are hoebbles? We have been learning all about these little nature creatures, building hoebble homes and writing information leaflets all about them!
Have a wonderful half term break everyone and see you, back here, on Monday, June 2nd!
Football session ⚽️ ⚽️
Stay and Play
Sports Day
Hoebbles!
Week of 12.5.2025
What an incredibly busy couple of weeks it has been. Last week was all about revision and getting through as much as we could so that we were ready for SATs.
This week has been SATs week and we are at the right end of it now! What a great week, full of positive energy and effort, resilience and perspective. We are so proud of all of the children and whatever the results, we know that everyone has tried their very best - they should all be very proud of themselves. An added excitement was the SATs breakfast of course - an earlier start that nobody seemed to mind! It was great to meet in the hall, enjoy a bacon or sausage roll and generally allay any fears!
Once the SATs ended on Thursday, we enjoyed some free time on the field and free time in class. We also watched the movie School of Rock today in preparation for our production: Ready to Rock!
Next week, we will invite the children to audition for parts - how exciting!
Writing will also be a focus next week as we still have some of our independent pieces to finish. Remember a few weeks ago when we were learning about the witch trials? Well, now is the time for us to get writing those non-chronological reports.
To finish the week off nicely, we have the Summer Bounce. Which Teacher will end up wettest from the stocks? How many times will you bounce? And how much ice cream can you manage? Lots to look forward to!
Oh, but a strange thing happened today, a little stack of stones appeared in class and word is, that there are more around the school? Nobody seems to know what is going on!!
Have a great weekend and see you next week for our final week of term!
Post SATs Fun!
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Week of 28.04.2025
Week 2 and we're into the month of May. Beautiful sunshine all week and fabulous attitudes to learning in Year 6.
This week was Mock SATs week - our final round of testing before the SATs - in two weeks' time. All of the children had a fantastic growth mindset and have seen each testing week as an opportunity to improve. Results so far are looking very good and we look forward to sharing the results with the children and going through the papers next week.
In English, we looked at another question about the witch trials - why was there such a craze in the 16th and 17th centuries? James 1 and his book: Demonologie has a lot to answer for!
In Science, we looked at understanding the randomness of inherited characteristics and why we are not identical to our parents or our siblings. Next week, we will move on to look at adaptation and why plants and animals have adapted over time.
We finished the week with some rounders on the field and free time after such a busy week.
Have a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend and see you next week!
Week of 21.04.25
What a lovely first week back, although it's hard to believe that we are already in Summer Term!
In English, we have been preparing for our next piece of writing which will be a recount of the witch hunt craze of the 17th Century. This has been a fantastic historical topic that fits in with our work on Beliefs. We have looked at the following questions:
Why did people in the 17th Century believe that people were witches?
Why was the 17th Century such a busy time for witch hunts?
Were the witch trials fair?
As well as researching all of these questions, we did some drama and freeze frames of the Ordeals by Water and the Ordeals by Fire - truly a gruesome time to be a woman and worse if you were old and poor! Enjoy the photos!
In Maths, we looked at area of composite shapes and also the last of our new learning: area of triangles and parallelograms. We have used this time to check back on any learning that we are unsure of so we are revising as much as we can and having a practice. Everyone worked hard on their homework over Easter and can see how this consolidates our class learning.
We finished the week with a fun PE lesson of rounders - healthy competition and great fun. Thankfully the sun was shining and we're looking forward to more sun and heat next week.
Next week is Mocks Week, our final round of tests before the SATs in May. we know that the children will try their very best, stay positive and have a growth mindset.
Have a great weekend everyone and see you next week.
Freeze frames
Rounders!
