Year 6 have enjoyed over the last term learning about the Circulatory system, the Respiratory system and the Cardiovascular system within their Science lessons. The culmination of this saw them analyse and unpick their class investigation results as well as making their own graph results within their Computing. Children discussed how football and rugby data from PE showed that perhaps in football, children had a faster pace per km and that they ran, jogged or walked slightly further than in rugby. They enjoyed realising that this, of course, was only the evidence within one snapshot of one match for each. There could be some notational analysts within the year group that could work for performance sports clubs in the future!

In other news, a Parentmail has been sent home to year 6 parents today informing you of a SATs parents’ meeting at 5:00pm in the school hall on Thursday 26th January, 2023. This will be a 30-minute meeting letting you know about SATs week, the preparations within the Spring term and how you can help at home.

Many thanks, and have a great weekend.

The Year 6 Team

Following the fun and festivities of the Christmas period it has been lovely to see the children again and return to our regular school-week routines. We have been very impressed with the way in which they have all seamlessly re-engaged with their learning.

For the Spring Term, our English unit will focus on a range of writing outcomes linked to the endeavours of Ernest Shackleton – the great polar explorer. The children will be: crafting a Job advertisement to recruit crew; writing a speech to rouse the men when at their lowest ebb; narrating the scene when the ship Endurance finally began to be taken by the sea; writing as Shackleton a letter home to his dear wife Emily. They are already showing great engagement with this new topic so we are very much looking forward to reading these pieces.

Have a relaxing weekend.

The Year 6 Team

To bring the Autumn Term to a fantastic finale, on the last afternoon in school the Year 6 pupils shared and played their Christmas themed board games with children from Year 3. These games were incredibly creative and included ‘Elf-opoly’, ‘Trees and Stockings’ and ‘Elf-the board game’ to name but a small selection.

It was lovely to see enthusiasm and co-operation in abundance as the games found their winners! See for yourselves below!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Year 6 Team

Amongst many other aspects of learning taking place in Year 6 thus week, a highlight was the children learning how to manipulate formulas in spreadsheets and produce their own graphs of results.

Having investigated the question, ‘Do taller people have a larger lung capacity?’, the children tabulated their results and then chose to represent them in the form of a scattergraph! They were also able to include a trendline which was very helpful in them seeing the relationship between height and lung capacity.

Would you know how to do this in Excel?

Have a great weekend

The Year 6 Team

A fantastic morning of football was enjoyed by the majority of children in Years 5 and 6 as they competed in balanced teams to win the St Peter”s World Cup. Five teams had made it through to the group stages: England, Germany, Brazil, Portugal and Spain. England came out on top with a solid 7 points, mirroring the success of our own team England in Qatar. However, it wouldn’t be a world cup without an upset … and what an upset it turned out to be – Brazil, the bottom in the group, storming through to beat England in a penalty shootout!

The children all agreed that they had had a fantastic morning, and Coach Land praised them all for their sportsmanship and teamwork – qualities that made the tournament enjoyable for all and a great success.

In Year 6 this week we have been looking at division strategies to support our problem solving.

To begin, we learnt that sometimes it may be easier to use factors to divide by larger numbers. E.g. – If you want to solve 912 divided by 48, this can be done by dividing 912 by 8 and the answer to this by 6 (as 8 x 6 = 48).

Having secured that strategy, the children were introduced to good old fashioned long division. It was nice for their teachers to be able to say, “Just like we were taught when we were your age!”.

Sometimes, the old school methods are the best!

Have a lovely weekend!

The Year 6 Team

Our RE unit at present is focused on Catholic Social Teaching and how we can use these principles to look after all of God’s creation. The children have read the letter from Pope Francis – Laudato Si – and thought about what they consider to be having the strongest negative impact on God’s world today. They also identified how the world once was, and how it is now. See below for some examples of their work and thinking:

Have a great weekend

The Year 6 Team

In the run-up to Remembrance Weekend and Armistice Day, the children have spent time this week listening to first-hand recollections of what is was like to live and fight in the trenches. We had also previously read poetry by Siegfried Sassoon and responded to a range of images from the Western Front.

The children were tasked with writing a poignant WW1 poem that considers mood and atmosphere. We are proud of their results, particularly their ability to empathise with the situation the soldiers and their families found themselves in.

We chose Edith Swandell’s to be read aloud in our Remembrance Assembly:

“Your Country Needs You!”

the posters said,

I repeated the words over and over

As I sat in bed.

It will be a short war I would say,

I might even be back later that day.

 

The day we arrived,

Knee deep in mud,

Showered by rain and our neighbours’ blood,

The crimson skies called out their alarm,

As rifles and machine guns aimed for harm.

None of us expected it this way,

All of the things we saw that first day.

By the warmth of a candle I sat waiting,

How much more could I handle?

But we – daring men,

We stood our ground,

For all we wanted was for our country to be proud.

Months later,

With many lucky retreats,

I waited to go over,

Although I was weak.

I took one step towards the foe,

And all-of-a-sudden, my body fell low.

They couldn’t help,

They weren’t allowed,

But still I tried to stay strong and proud.

The courageous soldiers who fell for us,

So we could live freely.

They gave their tomorrow so that we could have our today.

Edith Swandell, 2022

Today, Year 6 children experienced a taste of what it must be like to work as an engineer or designer for Sir James Dyson when they took on the challenge of building their own vacuum devices! Not an easy task when all they were provided with was a plastic bottle, some card and a small electric motor.

Working in small groups, co-operation was key, as was the need to be resilient, curious and creative. Upon reflection, they all enjoyed the process and are keen to ‘try again’ and build upon their learning in this, their first STEM Day in Year 6.

See below for photographic evidence of their work in progress and final outcomes:

Our penultimate day at Fairthorne Manor culminated with a Campfire to top off yet another quality set of sessions!

Resilience and Creativity were in abundance during the Pioneering activity where the children had to make their very own A-frame swing from wooden beams of different sizes and rope! Some interesting dialogue about the word ‘Pioneer’ was had by the group before the commencement of the lesson which was craftily segwayed into a 25 second history lesson from Mr Cunningham in response to Alfie’s informative answer. You see, every day is a learning day for St Peter’s!

The children’s water-based activities finished today in the shape of Kayaking, where they sharpened their skills on the water when using paddles from a sitting-down position. Games were enjoyed on the water and the children jumped in at the end, showing their water confidence in the process!

Take a look at the photos below!!!