Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Summer Term
Final day and a half
Pizza party
leavers’ assembly
tears and goodbyes
pics and waves
off they go
prom and pool party
that’s a wrap year 6
goodbye and good luck!
Week of 15.07.2024
Our last full week in Year 6! After a late start on Monday, because of the football, we went to swimming and had our final, fun session. It really was great fun with all the floats, balls etc.
Then, it was back to school for our dress rehearsal for the Production - we did 2 - the first to KS2 and the second to KS2 and then the actual Production to the parents. It was phenomenal - the children were absolutely amazing and so many adults in school have said that it was the best yet! Well done Mrs Bartels - your final one was a good 'un!
We have had some Science to finish off this week, once the excitement of the Production was over! We finished our topic on Evolution and Inheritance and made fantastic progress, across the board.
We also enjoyed some leaf art as we leave - watch out for an art installation coming soon!
On a sunny Friday, we enjoyed Rounders on the field as well as celebrating the children who represented us at the Essex Athletics competition - the first time that Thomas Willingale have qualified for this! Well done everyone.
Have a great weekend everyone and see you on Monday for our last day and a half in Year 6!
Week of 8.07.2024
What an exciting week of life skills this week, interspersed with rehearsals for our performance!
The week began with lifesaving at swimming and we learned the reach method of lifesaving as well as the throw method.
We finished the week with Emergency First Aid! Year 6 had a fabulous session with Danny this learning the essential skills. We learned DR ABC, the helpful acronym that helps us to remember such vital information. Well done to everyone for such maturity and focus - Danny commented on it.
We had our final session with Darren from Ignition Arts - continuing the focus on transition and the big changes ahead. The children performed some fantastic freeze frames of what some of their negative perceptions might be of secondary school and then they turned them into really powerful positive ones!
Speaking of changes, our Relationship and Sex Education lessons continued with conception and pregnancy and birth. Again, fantastic maturity in Year 6.
Oh, and we finished our cushions, take a look, they're fab!!
Have a fabulous weekend everyone and enjoy the football - let's hope for an England win (and that's coming from an Irish woman!!).
Our cushions!
Emergency First Aid
Transition Workshop
Week of 1.07.2024
July already! The busyness continues with Aspirations Day, production rehearsals and more transition workshops.
On Monday, after swimming, we enjoyed hearing about each other’s aspirations and for the afternoon, we heard about a variety of careers: software engineer for the legal sector, prison officer, doggy daycare and a policy writer for The Ministry of Justice! Each speaker was very interesting and we all learned so much. A big lesson was that the children might have no real idea as yet what they want to do but it is so important that they study subjects they love and perhaps change job so that they find something they love.
Daily rehearsals are now part of the timetable and everyone is working so hard! Ms Kentea and Mrs Dobson are busy making props while the rest of us sing, dance and hone our acting skills.
We had a second session with Darren from Ignition Arts about transition and we enjoyed being in groups of 3 and finding 5 things we had in common. This will be such a great tool to have once we start to make friends in secondary school.
Amongst all of this, we’ve been making cushions in DT. Cross stitching to our heart’s content, we have been busy with Binca and getting ready to attach that to material, for the cushion.
Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the football!
Transition workshop
Aspirations Day
Cross Stitch!
Week of 24.06.2024
A shorter week for us all this week after our long weekend.
We began our DT project and found out that we will be making some cushions. We began to design our products and sketched them in our books. We are looking forward to beginning to stitch next week.
It was also full steam ahead with our Production and lots of rehearsals - it is really taking shape already - the children are working hard to learn their lines and we look forward to lots more practice next week.
We had a Transition session with Darren from Ignition Arts - another great opportunity to think about how we are feeling about the big move to Year 7. And then, it was Transition Day on Friday when we got to go to our new secondary school - exciting!
Have a great weekend everyone and see you on Monday for swimming and Aspirations Day!
Week of 17.06.24
Well it finally feels like summer term now that the sun is shining! ☀️ Another busy week in Year 6, finishing our diary writing as Guy Fawkes or Robert Catesby, two of the gunpowder plotters. The children have really enjoyed this topic of Beliefs.
Production rehearsals got underway with Mrs Bartels. Parts were given and we’ve had our first read through of the script, lots more rehearsals planned for next week.
On Tuesday, we took part in a Positive Action Roadshow with Essex Police, on teams. The different sessions covered anti-social behaviour, knife crime, county lines, mental health and a session on joining the police. It was a very informative day.
Thanks to the sun, the rescheduled Sports Day went ahead on Thursday and it was hot out there! Great fun was had by all and the Debden Park volunteers were a fabulous help!
Enjoy the photos and our extra long weekend, see you next week.
Sports Day
Week of 10.06.2024
This week has been all about RESIDENTIAL! We left school on Wednesday and arrived in Danbury at lunchtime. A quick packed lunch, dumped our stuff in the cabins and it was straight to activities!
It’s been like that ever since, non-stop activities like: Climbing Wall, Aerial Trekking, Canoeing, Kayaking, Caving, Bridge Building, Mountain Biking and Archery! Wow, so busy and such great growth mindsets, so many fears have been conquered this week, it’s been a joy for us adults to see.
Food has played a big part too! Cooked breakfasts, hot lunches and hot dinners and of course, those ‘midnight’ feasts!!!
Once the activities finished, we enjoyed long evenings of free time to play football, skipping and fun in the cabins. What an amazing time was had by all!
Meanwhile back in school:
Year 6 have been having a fantastic time, filled with crafting, baking and sporting activities.
We have made delicious pizzas, quote from Nadiia “This is the best pizza I have ever eaten, better than any pizzeria!!”
Massive well done to all of the children who not only beautifully decorated the Reception book shed using their creative flair, but also worked exceptionally hard to reorganise and tidy all of the book cases around the school and the literacy shed. We are so impressed at how amazing it all looks.
Great fun had by all, here in school.
Enjoy all the photos, have a great weekend and see you next week when we’ll be full steam ahead with our Y6 Production!
Residential Pics!
Back at School
Week of 3.06.2024
Back after half-term and our final stretch in Year 6! First day back and Mme Buisson visited from Debden Park. She is Head of Year 7 and met the children and told them how excited she was to welcome them there soon.
More transition work and MIND came in to conduct a transition workshop. The children were given a range of strategies to help when feeling worried: lemon squeezing and mindful breathing, to name a few.
In Maths, we undertook further preparation for secondary school by learning how to use calculators, particularly to calculate percentages. The children loved it and you could hear a pin drop in the room (or just the gentle tapping of fingers on calculators!).
The Gunpowder Plot is the latest part of History that we’ve been looking at in English as we come to the end of our Beliefs topic. Having done some research of our own, we ended the week with some firework art and drama freeze frames.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, we did a QR Code Hunt in Computing! Our new topic is Big Data and we looked at barcodes and QR codes. QR codes were placed around the school and by scanning one, it gave a clue as to the location of the next one…great fun!
Thankfully, the rescheduled Summer Bounce was able to take place on Thursday. Bouncy castles, teachers in the stocks, sweets and treats and so much fun…another great event from the PTA.
Have a great weekend everyone and we look forward to our residential in Danbury next week.
Friday=Rounders!
QR code hunt!
Summer Bounce!
Week of 20.05.24
Our final week of this half term and what a week: Shakespeare Day, National Numeracy Day and Wellbeing Day too!
The week started with Shakespeare Day, a wonderful celebration of the famous bard. We focused on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as we read through the play, we paused to act out some parts and then did a conscience alley. Mrs Holland was King Oberon and half the class were angels, the other half were devils trying to persuade the King towards revenge or forgiveness! Enjoy the photos.
In English this week, we’ve been learning about The Stone Age and The Bronze Age, fascinating periods of pre-history. We have done some independent research, learned about Stonehenge and The Amesbury Archer-the richest burial site ever discovered in this country.
Wednesday was National Numeracy Day so we joined a live lesson, dancing and learning about so many different jobs that are all about maths. We also wrote maths raps, great fun!
On Thursday, for Wellbeing Day, we joined another live lesson about finding our personal places. Through poetry, we explored calm and peace.
Finally, Friday and a post SATs treat, Year 6 helped to support the KS1 Sports Day…what a lovely morning. KS1 loved looking up to the Year 6s and Year 6 loved helping out the little ones-it was great!
Phew, what a week, I think we’ve all earned a break!
Let’s hope the sun shines and we all enjoy the half term.
Shakespeare Day!
Numeracy Day
KS1 Sports Day
SATs Week!
We did it - we've made it to the end of SATs Week! A great relief all round on this sunny Friday. The children showed amazing resilience and incredible effort this week - we are all so proud of them.
SATs do not define them but it was just something we had to go through and actually, we made the best of it, challenged ourselves and had a good go. As teachers, we could not have asked for more.
Post SATs fun has included a movie, treats, free time (an incredible treat for us all!) and Rounders on the field. Oh, ice creams too and more.
Enjoy the photos, have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week.
Movie time! 🎥
Free Time in Year 6...post SATs of course!
Week of 6.05.24
A 4 day week thanks to the Bank Holiday but what a wonderful sunny few days we have had!
Plenty of revision this week and everyone is ready for SATs week next week.
It wasn't all revision though, in English, we wrote our non-chronological reports about the witch craze of the 17th century. The children have loved this area of History and we know that that their reports will make for a great read.
In PE this week we have had a tennis session with Mrs Watkins - we practised forehand, backhand and how to control the ball. We look forward to more tennis sessions in our regular PE classes.
Enjoy the tennis photos and a Maths revision pic too!
Have a wonderful weekend, enjoy this gorgeous weather, do not think about the SATs and see you next week for our breakfasts together!
Week of 29.04.24
Another busy week in Year 6 as we looked at the test papers from last week. This is such a useful exercise for us to see how well we are doing and to also see how we can improve. What evidence can I provide to justify an answer in the reading comprehension? Have I answered the question that is being asked in Maths? Am I using the testing time wisely and checking at the end?
Once we got through the papers, we spent the rest of the week doing some revision in Maths - looking at symmetry, pie charts and line graphs and anything else that came to mind! We have a list ready for next week so that we can continue with revision.
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!
Netball continues to be a firm favourite in PE - the rain prevented us from going outside again this week but we had great fun in the activity hall - some super players in Year 6!
Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the Bank Holiday - might the weather improve?
Freeze Frames-Witch Hunts!
Week of 22.04.25
End of our second week already! Mocks Week this week, our final practice before the SATs. GPS, Comprehension and Maths…all done. We look forward to seeing the results next week and going through all the papers to see how we’ve done and work out what we need to revise in the coming weeks.
The week started with a great treat on Monday, watching the Y3/4 performance of Mary Poppins, we loved it!
The week ended with some sunshine, which allowed us to get outside for PE and a netball match, great fun. Let’s hope this is the start of warmer weather, have a great weekend everyone.
Week of 15.04.24
What a lovely first week back, although it's hard to belive that we are already in Summer Term! This week saw a real emphasis on Geography as we finished off our topic on North America and South America. The focus in North America was on topographical features: the Missouri river, mountain ranges and deserts. We then looked at South America and learned the countries that make up this continent and learned their capital cities. The children have really enjoyed this topic but are equally looking forwrad to our next topic: Beliefs.
In Maths, we looked at 2D and 3D shapes and also Statistics, and how we represent data using pie charts, line graphs and bar charts. We will continue to work on this area of Maths next week, deepening our problem solving skills.
We have come to the end of our Science topic on Light and looked at reflection and how this can help us see objects that we might not otherwise be able to see, for example, how soldiers were able to see above the trenches in WW1. They used periscopes and we made our own and could stay in the classroom, and using a periscope, see what was happening in the corridor!
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.
