year 6 – Hazeldown Primary School

Year 6 – Grenville in the Sunshine!! 21.03.2022

Year 6 have had a fantastic first day at Grenville House Activity Centre in the glorious sunshine. The children have demonstrated some amazing resilience, risk taking and collaboration already; everyone is smiling and having fun.

We cannot wait for tomorrow!!

Well done to Gisella. Gisella has really challenged herself with her reading and is getting much better quiz results. Keep it up Gisella!

Congratulations to Lola. Lola is really focussed with her reading and is getting great quiz results. Keep reading Lola!

Congratulations to Patience. Patience really enjoys reading and is very focussed and organised when she visits the library to choose her books. Well done Patience!

Well done to Teagan. Teagan is an avid reader and enjoys visiting the library to change her books. Teagan also recommends books to her friends. Keep reading Teagan!

Year 6 continue to astound us with their reflective learning. Over the last two weeks, we have been building our knowledge of decimals. It has been fantastic to see the progress and to see our pupils thinking like mathematicians, looking for efficient methods rather than just the answer.

What a busy term we’ve had in Spanish lessons in KS2! We have been using all of our Hazeldown Values to learn how to greet people, say how we’re feeling and ask others, ask for school equipment and talk about our personalities and those of our friends plus key vocabulary such as numbers and days of the week. We have begun to learn about Spanish phonics and are acquiring bilingual dictionary skills. We have also really enjoyed using our online platform to play vocabulary games to support our learning.

Congratulations to this half term’s Star Readers.

Year 3

Well done to Oscar who is trying really hard with his reading and is reading every day in school. Brilliant, keep it up Oscar!

Year 4

Ellie is now enjoying reading and finds the books she is choosing interesting. Great news Ellie!

Year 5

Jet is challenging himself by reading longer books. Fantastic Jet!

Year 6

Aussie has gone from being a reluctant reader to a very confident reader and in his own words, “I really enjoy reading now”. That is great news Aussie!

It might have been the first day back of the new term but Year 6 were raring to go when set with the challenge of Barvember. This opened up quite a discussion about how to tackle today’s questions but with resilience and collaboration we got there!

Well done to this half term’s Star Readers!

Year 6

Izzy has really focussed on aiming for her reading target challenge this half term. Well done Izzy!

Year 5

Joe who is doing well with his quizzes. Keep it up Joe!

Year 4

Max who is really enjoying reading his books. Keep reading Max!

Year 3

Austin who is enjoying reading his books from the library. Keep reading Austin!

This week in Year 6, we have been getting stuck in to our new Maths unit – Four Operations.

We worked as a class to remind ourselves of the addition/subtraction column method and look at how we could represent these calculations using bar models and part-whole models.

At first, we were confused when we attempted the first question because we put our answer as our whole, in our part-whole model, but then we realised that our answer wasn’t the biggest number.

We were able to help each other our of the learning pit by understanding that we had to use the inverse operation to solve our calculation meaning that our largest number was the number we needed to calculate.

Well done Year 6 for being so resilient!

This week, Year 6 have been focusing on the geographical features of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, in our learning journey – Frozen Kingdom.

In one session, we looked at climate change and the impact it is having on our planet.

The children then chose 3 ways in which they, or others, could help reduce their carbon footprint.

Today, Year 6 have been working extremely hard on ensuring the skills learnt in their most recent literacy unit can be embedded into their writing.

Right back from their very first lesson where they were feature detectives, the children have built on prior knowledge to successfully write some fantastic stories based on our learning journey – Frozen Kingdom.

Using their learning values, the children were resourceful and collaborated well when they were stuck in the learning pit. Well done Year 6!

In literacy today, Year 6 have been learning about figurative language. There are many different types of figurative language including: alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor and personification.

Figurative language helps the author to paint a picture in the reader’s mind, so they feel like they are inside the story.

In our lesson, we collected some examples of figurative language.

Some of the ones that stood out included:

The wind howled at the boy’s ears. (personification)

The iceberg calved from the glacier and shivered at the touch of the cold water. (personificiation)

The ice crackled like fire. (simile)

The snow ate the warmth. (personification)

The brave bear bellowed. (alliteration)

The polar bear reared up as large as a mountain. (simile)

Which do you think paint the best picture?

It has been so lovely to have us all back together again after a much needed Summer break. Holly Class have adjusted to their new classroom and displayed so many of our Learning Values in doing so.

We have discussed and updated our Zones of Regulation board, spoken about our Growth Mindsets and Metacognition Phases and have shared ways in which we displayed our Learning Values during the Summer break and the first week at school.

As a reward for all of their hard work and to celebrate their time at Hazeldown, Year 6 went on a trip to Crealy Adventure Park. They had a brilliant time on the rides and in the play zones. Thank you to Hazeldown PTA for funding the entry into Crealy – Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed it!

This year we have made a sculpture for the art trail in Teignmouth. The sculpture features a piece of artwork from each class, Forest school, breakfast and after school club, and Little Acorns. Each class had a school value to represent on their piece and we are sure you will agree they did a fantastic job! All the children and staff, joined in by leaving their own mark or fingerprint on the artwork. Please pop down to the seafront and take a look, the sculpture is in the flower bed close to the pier. Please remember to vote for our sculpture once the voting opens. As soon as we get the voting information, we will pass it on to you.

Holly Class have enjoyed their final day at Grenville House. They have had an amazing 2 and a half days and we are very proud of them! They will soon be heading back to school on the coach.

Holly Class have had another brilliant day full of three different activities! They have been as amazing as Ebony, shining as individuals, as well as a whole class. In all of the activities, the pupils have challenged and pushed themselves to overcome fears and challenges. In addition, they have been incredibly supportive of each other and have also been very helpful around the house. Thursday’s activities included: coasteering, caving, paddle boarding and high ropes. Here are just a few photos to capture the day.

Holly Class have arrived safely and enthusiastically at Grenville House for their residential. They started the afternoon with one of two activities: coasteering or canoeing. The coasteering group walked, swam and jumped along the Brixham coastline. Whereas, the canoeing group explored the Brixham Marina on their canoes, playing games along the way.

Ebony Class enjoyed their final morning at Grenville House with canoeing, paddle boarding and caving. They have had an amazing two and a half days!

Ebony Class have had another amazing, fun-filled day of three activities including coasteering, high ropes, caving and paddle boarding. The sun has still been shining and the pupils have continued to overcome fears, achieving things they never thought they could. In addition, they have shown how caring and kind they are towards one another. Many of them have encouraged each other to jump off the cliffs at coasteering, cheered a friend on for the leap of faith or supported someone through the caves. Well done Year 6!

Ebony Class arrived in a beautiful, sunny Brixham today! After making their own beds and unpacking their suitcases, the children took part in a variety of activities. Some enjoyed exploring the harbour whilst canoeing and others had a great time jumping off the cliffs during coasteering. Our favourite quote from today was “I came here not liking the ocean, and now after coasteering, I love it!”

Today, Year 6 experienced what it was like to be a camper at Camp Green Lake. This half term, our focused text has been ‘Holes’ as part of our ‘Hola Mexico’ topic. In the book, the campers are forced to dig a 5ft x 5ft hole each day so our Year 6s took part in some drama on the beach and had to dig their own holes. They worked well in teams, even though it was quite hard work!

Here are some pictures of our tired campers!

This afternoon, Year 6 were able to experience some Mexican food in a DT lesson. We focused on the taste, smell and appearance of tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa, sour cream and cheese and chilli sauce and then rated each one. Lots of us were able to try something we have never tried before!

This week in Holly Class, we have been practising our personalised spellings. We used the metacognition cycle to plan how we were going to do this, then we monitored throughout the lesson. Finally, we evaluated at the end to see if our strategy was effective, or if we need to use a different strategy next time. Here are some of the excellent strategies the pupils used.

This week in Ebony class, we were learning about some new vocabulary for our ‘Holes’ topic. We introduce these words using CIP (Communicate in Print) which is an approach that matches symbols to words to help us remember them better.

Usually, when it comes time for showing our understanding, we write sentences.

This time, we decided to think about, and plan, our learning.

The class were given time to plan what they would do. Once they had done the work, the class were given time to look back at their approach and evaluate it. When using the metacognition cycle, it is important to give the time to evaluate so that we know if an approach works for us or not.

To celebrate the end of our WW2 unit of work, Year 6 enjoyed a street party in the glorious sunshine this afternoon. We made decorations yesterday to prepare and enjoyed getting into the festive mood with squash, biscuits and crisps!

Year 6 have been enjoying Science Week this week! At the beginning of the week, we tried an ‘Odd One Out’ activity. We had to look at the similarities and differences between three pictures and then discuss which one we thought was the odd one out and why. Another activity we tried was ‘Zoom In, Zoom Out’ in which we saw a picture of something zoomed in and after each ‘zooming out’, we had another guess as to what it might be thinking carefully about the appearance, texture, colour etc. Here are some of the guesses we had:

Our final activity for Science Week was to create a ‘Robo-bug’. We had to think very carefully about the ‘why’, or the purpose, of the robot and then design it focusing on the features it would need to achieve its goal. Here are some of the designs.

Here are some great photos from the children who were at home learning on World Book Day.

It looks like you all had a great World Book Day!

Well done to everyone in Year 6 for the last eight weeks. We have been so proud of all of you for your resilience and determination. You have worked so hard even when times have been a bit tricky. To celebrate all of the fantastic learning that has happened over the last eight weeks, and to look back on what we have achieved, we watched a short video in our final Zoom session this afternoon.

Year 6 have been enjoying World Book Day today! During our Zoom sessions, we dressed up as our favourite book characters and listened to a small part of one of Miss Tapp’s favourite childhood books. We shared some of our own favourite stories and books and had a go at a book emoji quiz!

Around the School in 13 Bubbles!

I was lucky enough to take a socially distanced journey around the school to take some photos of the children dressed up for World Book Day. There were some fantastic costumes from all year groups. Thank you to everyone who joined in both at school and at home. Photos of the children who are currently home learning will be added to the blog at a later date.

This week, Year 6 have started their new topic – A Child’s War – learning all about WW2. The hook to the topic was to try and experience what it was like to be in an air raid. The children at home found a space where they could create a mock bomb shelter, for example, by putting a blanket over the top of a table and some cushions underneath. To add to the experience, they hid in the air raid shelter whilst the air raid siren was sounding. Here are some pictures of their experiences, along with reflections about how the experience made them feel.

This week, Year 6 have been fantastic as always!

As part of children’s mental health week, we discussed the ’10 a day’, thinking about which ones we are doing really well at home and maybe some that we need to think a bit more about. In maths, we have been focusing on percentages, and towards the end of the week, have looked at how we convert between fractions, decimals and percentages. Our literacy has continued to work towards our final piece of writing: a narrative piece based on the Golden Compass. Year 6 have thought carefully about their vocabulary choices and how we can develop this for our final scene.

Finally, in SOLE, we have continued our ‘Darwin’s Delights’ topic. This week, we have learnt how to sketch shells in detail, researched Mary Anning and used this to write a biography about her and planned or recreated Charles Darwin’s plant investigation. Here are just a few pieces of the fantastic work from this week, including two videos of the plant experiment being carried out.

Some children have also been doing lots of other exciting activities. Ben had a go at the PE Plank Challenge with his sister and Lucas has been cooking for his family.

Year 6 have been amazing once again this week. They have continued to be resilient and approach their home learning and Zoom sessions with a positive attitude. This week in year 6, we have been exploring decimals further in maths, focusing on the past, present and future progressive tense in grammar and practising our ‘shun’ suffixes in our spelling lessons. As part of our literacy, we have written another scene for our story. This scene was written as a diary entry so we have learnt about the features and skills for this throughout the week, eventually building up to writing the diary entry today.

Here are some examples of the fantastic paragraphs that were written and the grammar work.

In SOLE, we have continued to work on our ‘Darwin’s Delights’ topic. This week, we have learnt about how birds’ beaks have evolved by carrying out investigations and how animals have adapted to their environment in the Galapagos Islands. We also wrote poems and created bar and line graphs to show our results of the experiments.

Here is a video to show all of the excellent SOLE work from this week.

Well done year 6, we are really proud of your efforts!

Year 6 have continued to be brilliant with their remote learning this week. They have taken walks outside to collect a range of natural items, just like Darwin did, and then grouped their findings in different ways. They also collected data about Darwin’s voyage and tracked the distances that he travelled. Year 6 pupils then presented this data using a range of ways including Excel and creating their own line graphs. Finally, Year 6 carried out a sample investigation to learn about a variety of plants.

Not only this, they have continued to be amazing with their core subjects: Literacy, Maths and SPaG. We have been learning about decimals in our maths, a range of punctuation in grammar, using the -ial suffix in spelling and working towards writing another scene for our ‘Golden Compass’ narrative in Literacy. Well done to everyone – you have continued to show how resilient you are!

Here is a video to show off all of the amazing SOLE work from this week:

Here is a video showing all of the SOLE learning from Year 6. They have been learning all about the Galapagos Islands and learning how to sketch flowers and plants in detail, as well as continuing their research on Charles Darwin. Even though they are working at home, they have still demonstrated many of the school learning values. Keep this up Year 6 – we are very proud of you!

Year 6 have been fantastic with their remote learning this week. I am really proud of them for how resilient they have been!

As part of our SOLE this week, we started a new topic: Darwin’s Delights. Here is a video to show all of their learning so far!

Dora has also made her own video about Charles Darwin:

Year 6 Jacob

Jacob is an avid reader and at every opportunity spends time reading. I had to interrupt Jacob reading to award him with his Star Reader bookmark. Keep reading Jacob!

Year 5 Isobel

Isobel loves reading and frequently visits the library to choose another book by Jacqueline Wilson. Brilliant Isobel!

Year 4 Cameron

Cameron is an avid reader who enjoys both reading and quizzing on his books. Keep it up Cameron!

Year 3 Evie

Evie enjoys a visit to the library to choose her next book. Well done Evie!

Year 6 Maisie

Maisie has recently increased her reading range and thoroughly enjoys sitting reading a good book. Brilliant Maisie!

Year 5 Alex

Alex is such an avid reader that I had to interrupt him reading a book to award him his Star Reader bookmark. Fantastic Alex!

Year 4 Evie

Evie enjoys a wide variety of genres and loves visiting the library to choose her next book. Keep it up Evie!

Year 3 Harry

Harry enjoys reading and is always happy to tell you about the latest book he has read. Brilliant Harry!

In Holly Class, we have been working really hard on our spellings. At the beginning of the term, we were tested on our year 5/6 spelling words which created our own personalised spelling list. We then used a range of strategies to practise our personal spellings. This week, we have tested on these spellings again. We used metacognition (thinking about thinking) to reflect on and evaluate the strategies that helped us, or didn’t help us, to make progress.

Here are a couple of examples of the progress made:

Year 6 Isla

Isla is really enjoying reading at the moment and is getting amazing quiz results. Keep it up Isla!

Year 5 Saffy

Saffy is an avid reader and chooses lots of different genres to read. Fantastic Saffy!

Year 4 Amelia

Amelia is achieving fantastic results on all her book quizzes and enjoys coming to the library to change her books. Amazing Amelia!

Year 3 Josie

Josie is an avid reader and enjoys visiting the library regularly to change her books. Keep reading Josie!

Year 6 have been using two new VR headsets as part of our topic ‘Tomorrow’s World’. Some pupils have been able to have a go over the last few days, with everyone else being able to use it in the next couple of weeks. The experience they are playing is called ‘Turning Forests’.

Year 6 Mia

Mia has discovered she loves reading. Brilliant Mia, keep it up!

Year 5 Kitty

Kitty is achieving fantastic results in her reading quizzes. Amazing work Kitty!

Year 4 Lacey

Lacey is really enjoying her reading and loves visiting the library to change her books. Well done Lacey!

Year 3 Gracie-Mae

Gracie-Mae is a really enthusiastic reader. Keep it up Gracie-Mae!

Year 6 Amelia

Amelia has become an avid reader and is making fantastic progress with her reading target. Amazing Amelia!

Year 5 Oliver

Oliver has become an enthusiastic reader. Keep reading Oliver!

Year 4 Ethan

Ethan is a regular visitor to the library to change his book after completing a book quiz. Brilliant Ethan!

Year 3 Patrick

Patrick loves reading and reads whenever he can. Fantastic Patrick!

Over the last term, Holly Class have demonstrated excellent learning attitudes, especially in maths. They have been reflective by thinking about what they noticed and learning from their mistakes by using them to make progress. They have also been collaborative, with lots of great examples of maths discussions and helping each other. Additionally, the pupils in Holly Class have shown excellent resilience. I am very proud of them!

Year 6 Lewis

Well done Lewis you are really challenging yourself with your reading. Keep it up!

Year 5 Evie

Evie is really enthusiastic about reading the Roald Dahl books. Amazing Evie!

Year 4 Henry

Henry is trying really hard with his reading and getting some great quiz results. Keep going Henry!

Year 3 Rufus

Rufus is an enthusiastic reader. Keep reading Rufus!

Over the last half term, Holly Class have worked really hard on a sequence in gymnastics using key skills. In our last lesson, we used the apparatus to create a small sequence using three balances and three different ways to travel. We focused on extension and body tension.

As part of our topic for last half term, Frozen Kingdom, Year 6 completed a mini project on climate change. They found out what global warming is, the impact it is having on the Earth and how people can help to reduce the effects. Here is a video made by three children from Holly Class to summarise what they have learnt:

Congratulations to this week’s Star Readers

Year 6 Aston

Aston is showing great determination with his reading. Well done Aston!

Year 5

Year 5 Jude

Jude is making a really determined effort to achieve his reading target. Keep going Jude!

Year 4 Zerren

Zerren is showing a really positive attitude towards reading and choosing books. Keep it up Zerren!

Year 3 Lauren

Lauren shows great enthusiasm towards reading and visiting the library. Amazing Lauren!

Yesterday, Holly Class investigated Roman Numerals. We looked at the symbols used for different numbers and then had a go at making some of our own. We then used Roman Numerals to write our ages, birthdays and the date.