Year 6 children applied their maths skills to solving a wide range of recipe based problems this week, from flapjacks and ice-creams to a meat-free-Monday lentil bolognese! This involved scaling up and down of ingredients to calculate how much of each item would be needed for a given number of people. We were impressed with the strategies children were choosing to find quantities for 3 when the recipe was for 5. Maybe they can help out at home this weekend?

Our English work is now focused on writing convincing applications for the role of Intelligence Officer with MI6. The children have perused the requirements of the role and identified the skills and qualities that they possess that will set them apart from other applicants. We are now working on embedding the formal language required to effectively communicate these ideas.

A highlight of the week was Art with Mrs Pearson, where the children have worked extremely well, applying their skills to develop pieces depecting scenes from Good Friday. We look forward to the finished pieces.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Year 6 Team

Our STEM day today, as the title alludes to, was shaped around designing and constructing bridges that would withstand a span across the Solent. A load was tested in the form of a thesaurus to see whether the infrastructure of the bridge was adequate enough. This was harder than it first appeared as the children could only use plain paper as their raw material. They had to consider the idea of scaling and scale factor to be able to think proportionately.

The children exhibited many of St Peter’s core values in the process, particularly being creative, reflective, cooperative, curious and resilience. There were definitely some youthful James Dysons in-the-making!

See below for some of their ingenious designs…

This week in Year 6 we have been focusing on ‘thinking about our thinking’, or metacognition for short. Pupils are striving to become more ‘self-aware’ of their preferred strategies in reading and maths, so that they can select from these more efficiently when required. An important element in this approach is spending time in reviewing how they did in a task, as this will inform future decision making. It is still early days but we can already see pupils being more considered in their working.

The sad passing of Kobe Bryant earlier in the week signposted us to his Oscar winning animated poem ‘To Basketball’, which he wrote upon his retirement. The children were amazed at the longevity of his career and his aspiration to become a professional basketball player from the age of six years old. His passion for the sport sings through the poem – we hope it may have encouraged some of our pupils to aim high with their personal goals.

Many thanks for your continued support in encouraging children to spend some of their time using SATSBootcamp, Sumdog, TTRockstars or their CGP revision books. We can assure you it is time well spent.

What’s on?

Please join us for the Year 5 and 6 Mass in school this coming Tuesday 4th February at 10:30am.

SATS information evening – Wednesday 12th February at 5:15pm.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Year 6 Team

This week we have enjoyed learning about the Battle of Marathon in Ancient Greece and the unlikely outcome that ensued. The children got to grips with the tactics and strategies used by the Athenians to outwit a Persian invasion. If you can, ask your child why the Athenians won!

On top of this, PE saw the children compete in some athletic try-outs in readiness for four teams to compete in the Interschools Indoor Athletics Championships being held at the Mountbatten Centre in early February.We wish to thank everyone that has taken part in the training thus far, led by Head Conditioning Coach Mr Crozier; many of the children complained about sore legs and spoke of muscles they didn’t know they had!

Rest up to ‘go again’ next week!

The Year 6 Team

This week really culminated on Wednesday when the Year 6 children were riveted by key note inspirational speaker Chris Lubbe, a former bodyguard to President Nelson Mandela. Chris captivated the children by sharing his challenging stories of life under Apartheid and how his life experiences have led him to spread the word of forgiveness to people all around the world. He spoke in-depth about equality, what this looked like in South Africa at the time, how racism is still prevalent in the world today and how we can combat this. Chris really strived to communicate these points to the children. We are sure they took away a lot of wisdom from the session.

Have a great weekend!

The Year 6 Team

The children seem to have come back with renewed vigour and have settled quickly!

We have enjoyed getting to grips with Wolf Brother – a mini unit for our writing – and have finished our guided reading novel ‘Oranges in no-mans land’.

Maths has continued to develop the children’s understanding and application of fractions within real-life contexts, where they are improving awareness of fractional parts and wholes of amounts.

Our PE topic is now hockey  – a new invasion game for many pupils to learn. PE kits do need to be in school at all times.

Please encourage children to make a start on their CGP revision booklets! 10 minutes a day would be sufficient. We would also be grateful if they spent time learning their times table facts through TTRockstars. Do get in touch if you require assistance with this.

Have a relaxing weekend.

The Year 6 Team

The children have had a lovely creative week in the run-up to a very well deserved Christmas break. Carrying on from our comparison of lives of women in Ancient Greece and Mayan society, we focussed our attention onto the Greek gods. After some throrough research and note taking, we were all very proud of our finished pieces.

We would like to say a huge thank you to all parents who generously sent in cards, presents and good wishes. We are truly very grateful.

Have a fantastic Christmas break!

The Year 6 Team

This week is the final tinsel on the tree when it comes to our Christmas Caring Cans project, where the children advertised the campaign around the school to promote care in the community. All of the offerings, of which there were many, were assembled in the shape of a six-foot Christmas tree in the school hall, where it will remain erected until the final day of term. From here, the Havant Food Bank will receive everyone’s kind donations to help people in the community. This really illustrates the kindness and warmth that children of St Peter’s show to people they do not know. We are proud of the children living out the schol mission statement.

Year 6 spent their STEM Day engineering a solution to a very real problem at this time of year – removing all the pieces of confetti and other party related detritus from the classroom floor. Unfortunately, our cleaner had taken her equipment home so it was up to the children to design, build, test and refine their own mini vacuum cleaners.

This was no easy ask, with the hardest part proving to be the shaping of the fan blades to attach to the tiny 3volt motor. Nevertheless, many groups did produce an end product that was suitable for the task in hand.

Here are some photos of our outcomes:

Thank you to all the parents and family members who attended the Year 5 and 6 Mass on Tuesday, where the focus was on reflecting and thinking about those who are persecuted across the world for what they believe in – ‘Faith and Freedom’ was the message for the Mass.

We have focused on Ancient Greece within our English, where the children have decided whether they would rather reside in Athens or Sparta, and they have persuaded prospective citizens to move to their preferred city. The children have enjoyed learning about city life in this time period, and were intrigued to find out the unique features of each city and the impact of this on the lives of the people.

Please remember to send in your donations of tinned foodstuffs for our Christmas Caring Cans Appeal and empty 1 1/2 or 2 litre bottles for use in our STEM day next week.

Have a great weekend,

The Year 6 Team