Year 6 have had an excellent start to the term and we are very proud of them all. They have been very sensible, mature and responsible as they have settled back into school routine.
In Literacy, we have been reading ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’ the story of an orphan who inherits a mysterious automaton and enters a world of secrets as he learns all about the mechanical man and what all of it means for his future! The children have been hooked as we have read the book and written dialogues, narratives and diary entries. We have been very impressed with children’s writing skills as we have focused on effective descriptions through adjectives, verbs and varying sentence types!
Our Theme this term was ‘Lights, Camera, Action’. The topic kicked off with a visit from Screen Alliance Wales. We found out about the many amazing career opportunities there are in the Film and Media industry that use some of the skills that we have refined in our theme! The children have been fascinated with learning all about how films began. We have learnt about and made our own optical toys such as a ‘Thaumatrope’ and ‘Flip Book’ to learn about how inventors created the first moving image. Year 6 have also explored early films such as Fred Ott’s Sneeze, A Trip to the Moon, Safety Last and films that star Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The children loved the simplicity of the films, the chase scenes, the stunts and comical slapstick humour. We have been learning about different camera angles and shots used in films and their effect.
A real highlight of the theme was the prosthetics lesson from local make-up artist Jenna McDonnell. The children learnt all about artificial wounds and theatre make-up. It was lovely to see such enthusiasm and enjoyment from the children within the workshop and it demonstrated the importance of ‘Pupil Voice’ within our curriculum.
In Year 6, we ensure that we prepare our learners to be healthy, confident, ethically informed citizens of Wales and the World. As the oldest in the school, and as Year 7 approaches, it is important that learners are aware of issues that can affect them, their peers and their communities. To help support this, Year 6 collaborated with ‘NDEC’ on how to be ‘Cyber Heroes’. The children completed lots of activities centred around internet safety before creating their own films to share with a local care setting, explaining how to be cyber safe. Over half term, the ‘Cyber Heroes’ would like your help to design a logo to celebrate your achievements. Keep an eye on our Class Dojo pages for more information.
Recently, Year 6 visited Raglan Barracks to attend the ‘Crucial Crew’ workshop, where valuable health and safety information was provided.
At the event, they learned about how to keep themselves physically and emotionally safe in a variety of different situations. Among the ‘Crucial Crews’ delivering these important messages were the Fire Service, Western Power Distribution, Resolve it, Samaritans, and Changing Minds. It was a busy, fun-filled, informative morning and, as usual, the behaviour of our students was exemplary. Well done Y6!
Since the end of September the children have been tuning into a weekly ‘Teaching Live’ session with the author and educator, Pie Corbett. The focus so far has been on developing the childrens’ adventurous and creative vocabulary to help them create powerful and imaginative poems. We look forward to continuing this work after half-term.
In STEM, linked to ‘Lights, Camera, Action’, we have been theatre ‘light technicians’. We have watched some shadow theatre and planned our own shadow investigation and used our results to create a line graph.
We have thoroughly enjoyed their music lessons with Mr Banks this half term where they’ve been learning to play ‘Memories’ by Maroon 5 on the Glockenspiels. Classes were split into two groups and were responsible for reading music, learning the correct notes and performing their section of the song. In their final performance, they played collaboratively to produce a wonderful rendition of the song. Da iawn pawb!
