Welcome to our Year 6 Class Page
Friday 14th June 2024
What a wonderfully exciting week it has been in Year 6!
This week saw the first of our leavers activities as we made Clearwater history by attending our first ever Leaver’s Service at Gloucester Cathedral. We arrived with a boundless enthusiasm and fully immersed ourselves in the experience. After taking time to learn the songs and actions, we didn’t hold back in joining in all of the festivities! The children were incredible in their various roles; reading a class-written prayer in front of hundreds and carrying our newly-made banner around during the ceremony. During our song, ‘Light Up the World’, Mrs Moss and a pupil joined the candle procession, perfectly representing our school as both have been there from Clearwater’s very first day to now – where we have our first ever leavers. We would like to thank Ashleigh Harrison for making our incredible banner. It really stood out. It is 100% recyclable with the structure being made from an old curtain pole and the actual banner made from a very skilled compilation of Clearwater school uniform and even some of Mrs Moss’ curtains!
Our writing is reaching new peaks as we have created our very own short narratives. The children have been phenomenal at creating settings with so much atmosphere and the characters that are so vividly life-like. It has been a true pleasure to see how far the children have come over their time at Clearwater.
We welcomed PC Murphy to our classroom this week, where she explored the realities of peer pressure and the consequences of succumbing to it. The main essence of the session was to explain what are (and aren’t) drugs and what effect they can have on a person’s life – immediately and in the long-term. The children were thoughtful when discussing their thoughts and learned a lot about how our bodies can be so easily affected.
In PE, our rounders game is getting serious. After our initial game, we have been practicing our fielding skills – mostly, how to get the ball back to the bowler over a large distance quickly and increasing our technique (and then accuracy) in our bowling. We look forward to Tuesday’s game to see if any batters will stand a chance at scoring…
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 22nd April 2024
Year 6 have been enraptured by our fantastic new class book The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave as they have escaped deep into the world of the Isle of Joya. In their writing, the children have been learning to write using ‘reported speech’ and they are now writing a witness report over Cata’s mysterious disappearance.
We have launched our new science unit on Living Things and their Habitats’ and the children have explored how scientists group and classify all the billions of living things worldwide! After looking at the different ‘kingdoms’ of living things, Year 6 have looked at the characteristics that would place animals in the different animal groups and they are now starting to unpick how plants can be classified according to characteristics.
In Maths, the children have been gaining great confidence with Algebra – they have been finding unknowns, playing with variables and creating and describing linear sequences.
Watch this space for more details about our new and incredibly exciting music project, which starts this Friday…
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 8th March 2024
Year 6 have been escaping to all corners of their imagination this week as we have been celebrating the Gloucester School’s Partnership’s Really Wild Reading Festival where they have been to not one, but two, live author events! On Tuesday we were in awe of Jasbinder Bilan’s live showcase of her work, inspiration, hard work and incredible family story. Continuing with the literary theme, we celebrated World Book Day in style; the children came in fully-adorned in pyjamas and their favourite reads. We took part in a BBC Live Session, shared our favourite stories together and hosted the hilarious JM Joseph, acclaimed author of Fire Boy, Pants on Fire and Fire Power for a live author visit at Clearwater.
In geography, we have been applying all that we know about human and physical geographical features to analysing various maps on Robinswood Hill. We are now using this to create our very own geographical sketch maps to highlight those features.
We have truly been scientists this week as we have set up and implemented a science experiment to test if the amount of batteries used effects the brightness of a light bulb in a circuit. The children designed the experiment with fair testing in mind and been explaining how we fix variables and only change one thing to make the test fair. The children were also quick to tell me that we have to collect the results three times for each one so that the data we collect is accurate.
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 22nd February 2024
Well here we are in Term 4 – this year is whizzing by before our very eyes!
Year 6 have been completely enraptured by our new book ‘Can You See Me?’. It’s beautifully co-written by 11-Year-old Libby, who shares her own experiences of navigating her way through starting secondary school via various diary entries – these are intertwined with Rebecca Westcott’s captivating narrative and brings her magnificent story to life. Alongside this, we have been learning all about how we can enhance the cohesion of our writing using semi-colons to link closely-related sentences and Year 6 have started to write some skilled and imaginative diary entries in role as Tally.
In Science, we have been reflecting on everything we learned in Year 4 about electricity and we are now using that as a basis to progress into Year 6 learning about electricity. After outlining our science project – where we will be designing a modern device that would scare the crows away from crops, we considered what components we might need to make our device move, make noise or light up – or even a combination.
In maths we have started to learn all about ratio and proportion, starting with how we can calculate percentages of a number when the percentage is a multiple of 10 or 5 and we will soon be able to calculate any percentage of a number using a quick written method.
I have been very proud of how the children have been tackling new learning and challenge with calm and vigour and I am really looking forward to seeing how our learning journey unfolds over the course of the term.
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 26th January 2024
Year 6 have been busy in the ‘grapple’ of learning by getting stuck into calculating fractions of different denominators. It has been wonderful to see the children rise to the challenge when they have found it tricky; they have worked their way methodically through and everyone has made leaps in their own confidence when it comes to such calculations.
In RE, we have embarked upon the mature and thought-provoking unit – ‘Creation vs Science – complimentary or conflict?’ The children have been incredibly detailed and respectful when unpicking the creation story from Genesis and when learning more about how the scientific belief around how the world came to be.
This week in PE, the children were extremely excited to find out that this new PE unit is on football. True to form, they have applied their knowledge and skills of movement, passing and working together from netball and basketball and are now refining how to move, pass and be spatially aware of their team mates and opponents. It has been a pleasure to witness the tangible leap in sportsmanship (and sportswomanship!) over the course of the year so far.
Last week we held our class heats of the ‘Look Who’s Talking’ oracy competition. Over half the class entered and made it extremely difficult to choose an overall winner! Valerie was crowned the class’ Star Speaker and she then delivered her speech brilliantly to the school during the whole-school heat earlier this week. A huge well done to everyone involved.
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 12th January 2024
What an energetic and enthusiastic start Year 6 have had to 2024 so far! We launched the new calendar year by unveiling our new and page-turning text – Pig-Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman. Already, Year 6 have been vocal in discussing and debating ethical dilemma that the book presents – should Cam, whose weakening heart puts him in danger – have a transplant from a specially-bred pig? The children have started to explore this idea in depth as they have considered all the pros and cons and put this into writing, embarking upon their new writing genre of ‘discussion’.
Linking perfectly to our new book, we have started to explore our new science unit of the circulatory system. So far, the children have considered what this system does, what it’s made of and how it works.
In History, after previously learning about the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Rome, the children have started to explore the ancient civilisation of Greece. So far, they have considered the chronology (both when and how long) in the context of what they have previously studied by visiting our whole-school time line; located modern Greece on a map and the Ancient Greek civilisations of Sparta and Athens; and have now started to unpick what life was like in both Athens and Sparta.
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 1st December 2023
We had the absolute pleasure of being visited by School Beat Officer PC Murphy and she guided us through the potential perils of the apps and websites commonly used by many of us. We explored how deep digital footprints run and that anything we share now can be easily taken, shared or used by others online if we are not careful. PC Murphy set us the task of sitting down with a trusted adult, going through our social media accounts and ensuring our privacy settings are set to ‘private’.
Carol Concert rehearsals are well under way and are lifting the sprits of anyone within earshot. Year 6s have been perfecting their top harmonies when singing collaboratively with the rest of KS2 as well as singing the first verse of Silent Night in a different language! More will be revealed on the night…
It is also the season to elect the new School Council and an incredible 18 Year 6s stood for the role. Each and every candidate put their case forward with tremendous conviction which made the voting a high task indeed. Congratulations to our new school councillors – Annabelle and Dougie!
This week, some of Year 6 represented the school at a Netball workshop and tournament at Crypt School. The children were excellent representatives of the school, showing admirable sportsmanship and living out our own school values as they played and every part in-between.
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 10th November 2023
Year 6 have returned back from half term with energy and enthusiasm and have been incredible when reflecting on this week’s value of ‘respect’. We have focused in on ‘respect’ by considering how to act with ‘integrity’ and have been inspired by Brene Brown’s quote:
Integrity – choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than just professing them
It’s been remarkable to see the children’s curiosity and response to this and they have consistently applied this wisdom to all aspects of school life – whether it’s their focus and dedication to their learning, how they look after their environment or how the interact and play at break and lunchtimes.
This week saw the launch of our new class text ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar and we are all absolutely hooked! Sachar’s candid way of writing and short, snappy and suspenseful chapter have us all on the edge of our seats. In our writing sessions, we have started to explore the wonderful world of hyphens and how by using them, we are avoiding all kinds of awkward ambiguity! We are now putting them to good use in describing the setting and atmosphere of Camp Green Lake from ‘Holes’.
In maths, we have delved deep into our ‘fractions, decimals and percentages’ unit by simplifying, finding equivalent, comparing and ordering fractions when they have differing denominators. The children have been brilliant at finding common denominators from their knowledge of factors and multiples.
We have launched our new computing unit with an online safety session about how to report a concern when you see something online that upsets you. As the children are now beginning to use more devices and apps in their free time, they have explored ways to remove themselves from and report inappropriate content.
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 6th November 2023
We have been very busy continuing with our ‘light’ learning in Science and more about how WWII affected families in Britain on the home front.
In PE, we have been practicing our basketball skills where we have dribbled, passed, travelled and participated in many races and games to test our newly-formed skills. This week, we learned all about the ‘triple threat’, a position that allows us to very easily chose between shooting, passing or driving forward with the ball.
In PSHE, we have been looking at what can quite often make a ‘difficult day’ and created ways to overcome this with how we could react in different scenarios in a positive manner to turn the day around. We role-played what happened in ‘Dan’s’ day and then re-write the script by helping Dan to make better choices and responses to the challenges he faced.
We have been delving deep into the technicalities of the internet during our computing lessons and this week, we learned how our data is transferred over the internet every time we use it. We looked at how information (text, pictures, audio….everything!) is transferred in ‘data packets’ and then put back in order for the recipient or person downloading it to see. Amazing! We had a go at sending our own messages in ‘physical’ data packets for the recipient to put back together to read.
This week saw the excitement of National Poetry Day and Year 6 has a blast looking at ‘Be Very Afraid’ by Carol Ann Duffy. We had fun exploring the concept of the poem and then started to re-create a performance using Reader’s Theatre techniques, splitting into small groups and taking a stanza each. It was a lot of fun putting it all back together again as a class performance!
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 29th October 2023
Year 6 have had a wonderful learning-packed week. After starting our history unit on WWII’s ‘The Blitz’, we explored the infamous event’s place in the wider war. We learned of the other key events of WWII and how other cities, such as Stalingrad (USSR), Hiroshima (Japan) and Dresden (Germany) also experienced severe and intense bombing. Alongside history, out class text, ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ by Michelle Magorian continues to bring wartime life on the home front. The children have journeyed with ‘Willie’ as he has been evacuated, built and air-raid shelter and started school in his new village as an evacuee.
In Science, we have further investigated the concept that light travels in straight lines by testing creating shadows. At first, we cast simple shadow using a square but then we extended this further by changing the shape slightly and making predictions of how this might affect the shadow cast. It was unanimous that objects cast shadows of the same shape.
In PE, we have been delving into basketball territory and honing our dribbling and ball-control skills. We have been focusing on what ‘sportsmanship’ is and have been discussing how we can live our values through the way we play with – and in opposition against – others.
This week in PSHE, we have been thinking all about assertiveness – what it is and how we can use it politely to stand our ground and do the right thing. We explored lots of assertiveness strategies and understood that calm, kind and clear is helpful in a plethora of situations!
Mrs Le Templier
Friday 15th september 2023
What a magnificent start to the year we have had as Clearwater’s very first Year 6 class! It has been truly wonderful for us all to be back together as we have bounded back with contagious energy – it is safe to say that learning has got off to a flying start.
We have exploring ‘light’ in our new science unit and we have set up a demonstration to prove that line can only travel in straight lines – all it took was some card, a hole punch, torches and a lot of teamwork. It was impressive how the children were forthcoming in making tangible links from our new scientific learning about light with other current and previous areas of learning. An example is how, in RE, Hindus, Jews and Christians use light as a symbol in their practices.
In art, we have been exploring how to refine our sketching skills by learning how to draw using outline and edges and the different effects they have. We have dipped into how to show light and shadow (yet more science links!) based on the direction and brightness of the light source.
Nothing connects us better and make us snuggle down more into our chairs than when we are sharing a story in class. You would have been able to hear a pin drop every day during reading time since we started ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ by Michelle Magorian. The children have risen to the challenge of writing precise descriptions of setting and character as they have described what is it like to be standing in Tom’s lounge and they have retold a conversation from the book, bringing the characters to life through vivid description. Not only is this a heart-wrenchingly gripping story but it also takes us back to the time of World War II which uncoincidentally is our history unit this term. We look forward to telling you more about that in the coming weeks.
Mrs Le Templier