Year 6 Weekly Blog 26.01.24 'To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try' Rosa Parks

It has been such a reflective week in Year 6. In our RE we delved deeper in to the scripture ‘I am the bread of life’, at how we can nourish ourselves spirituality as well as physically through our daily interactions with others, as well as prayer and different ways we can connect or talk to God. Earlier in the week we reflected on Sunday’s gospel and what it mean to be ‘fishers of men’, adding our name to a fish where it will displayed in our front entrance.

HOMEWORK

Homework is such a crucial part of Year 6, where children reinforce their learning, revisit new concepts and retrieve information from their class learning, which in turn has more chance sticking in their long term memory, finding it easier and quicker to retrieve pieces of information when needed in the future. Also, children who reinforce their learning, do find it easier to make links to other areas and apply the same strategies they have learnt to unfamiliar areas. Every week, there are children, often the same children, who do not complete all areas of their homework or do not bring back their book. In Year 6 our mission is to prepare them for their next stage in life, and organising their home learning and ensuring they have completed work on time is a crucial part of this. Please help your child and make sure they have completed all the necessary homework on time. We also need another big push on ensuring all children are reading every night- this week I went through who has not completed a quiz during the three weeks of this half term and there was quite a number of them. Please help us to reinforce the importance of this skill.

Where has our learning taken us this week?

We have had a lovely week in class. Full of hard work, enthusiasm and deep reflection- and we even managed to watch the Dr Who episode where the doctor met Rosa Parks, which was such a great tool to use before we wrote our wonderful Biographies. The children were so gripped and great conversations led on from this about the injustice of the time.

  • English - This week the children have finished their Outcome 2 biographies on Rosa Parks. Because of the excellent homework produced, the children had such a wealth of knowledge and could write with great confidence. I am looking forward to marking them over the weekend- they are so proud of their work!

Maths- we have now started to look in to equivalent fractions- this is where our excellent recall in our times tables really comes in to play!

  • Science - EVOLUTION AND INHERITANCE - this week have carried out an experiment in teams, where we were given certain materials and had to design and make our own beaks. In order to survive this beak had to be able to pick up and drop the ‘worms’ in a time limit. There was then a twist and the environment changes- these beaks then had to be adpated to be able to pick up sunflower seeds!

Leading Learners

Well done to Betsy and Dominic this week.

Betsy, thank you for reflecting so deeply on your writing targets and responding to any feedback given. You take advice and comments on board and apply this to your writing, I have loved picking up your book this week and seeing just how much progress you have made! 

Dominic you are so focused during lessons, managing your distractions and getting lost in each task. Your writing this week reflected this beautifully. You listen to lessons and apply what you have learnt very well- keep it up Dominic.

Eloquent and Truthful butterflies

This half term we will be on the lookout for all the children that are eloquent in their words, that show the language to ask questions, express emotions, speak beliefs, talk about matters of faith and hope, debate points of view, and engage in conversation. Those who are truthful, who speak the truth about themselves and others. These children are the role models of the school. This week we thank Rosa and Jay for always being eloquent and truthful.

Lunch Time Awards …

Marvelous Manners awards … Jay

Role Model of the week … Iris

Helpers in the morning

This week we have the following children helping to take the younger children to their class:

Harvey Owen Evan Leo

Notices

  • Next Wednesday the NHS are here to measure height and weight. There is also a short survey for the children to complete in regards to their mental well-being. Please make sure you have read the letter they have had fully, so you know what to expect on thsi day.

  • LEAVERS HOODIES - Over the past 10 years, the children in Year 6 have wanted to have a leavers hoodie to commemorate their time in school; they seem to have become a normal gift at the end of a child's primary school journey. Whenever, our children have had them, it hasn't been school that have organised them, but a group of parents who have taken on the job ready for when the children leave. I have reflected on this and have decided that we will now bring this in school and embrace the need. The children will be able to order their hoodie so that it will be delivered in time for their residential in May. It seems only fair that they can wear them whilst they have fun at Borwick Hall. Once I have a final design, timeframe and costing, we will issue a letter and you will be able to order and pay via Parent Pay. We hope that this takes some pressure off the need for parents to organise

  • Just a reminder that lip balms or any type of creams, are classed as a type of medication and therefore (if needed) need to be handed in to the teacher- thank you for your support.


Year 6 Home Learning 26.01.24

Spelling

Spelling - Homophones- words that are easily confused. Please check the meaning of each of the words. You may also want to use these word in sentences so that you fully understand the words meaning and when the correct spelling would be used. There is a quiz for you to complete on PURPLE MASH.

Mrs Barker’s Group

hand high home house kind land

Reading

Some children have not quized since being back at school after Christmas- plese make sure you are reading every night for at least 20 minutes!

Maths

Please complete the IXL strand L1: Fractions and go on TT Rockstars a lot this week! Be good if you could try for 10/15 minutes a day.

ENGLISH (two week homework)

On a piece of paper, or typed up, please could you write a biography on an inspirational person of your choice. Please remember all of the tools we need to include in a biography:

Year 3 Homework - Tuesday 23rd January

English

As we’ve been reading The Iron Man we’ve come across some new vocabulary. This week your homework task is to find the meaning of some of the tricky words that we will come across in Chapter 3. Use Word Hippo to find the meaning and record them on the table in your homework book.

Maths - Unit Fractions

Complete the worksheet and stick it into your homework book.




Spellings

More homophones!
scene seen hear here be bee week weak plain plane

Your spelling quiz will be on Monday 29th January


Year 1 Homework 19.1.24

Reading

Please keep reading as much as possible and please can you ensure that your child’s reading folder comes in to school every day. As we aim to listen to all children read to an adult at least once a week, change their books and quiz.



Science

This half term our topic is materials, can you go on a material hunt at home and find objects made from glass, metal wood and plastic? You can write, draw and label or take photos. I’m excited to see what you find, please return your homework book by Thursday 25th January so I can mark your books.

Spellings

It’s our big spelling test, these consists of all the words we have learnt so far:

a do I is to

has no so go by the

was she of he his

we full me some they you

As there are 22 spellings our test will be on Thursday 8th February this should give you enough time to practise.


Have a lovely weekend

Miss Drummond

Year 5 Weekly Blog 19.01.24- ' Motivation determines what you do, attitude determines how well you do it'

Yet another week has flown by as we are approaching the half way point of this half term! Regardless of the very cold and icy weather conditions, the children have soldiered on and cracked on with their learning as usual.

Landmarks have been the theme in our geography unit as we mainly focused on the famous physical landmarks of North America such as the Rockies, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Death Valley and many more.

In English, we have been using our sci-fi nouns to produce extended noun phrases. The children have also been able to link their science knowledge of the solar system into their sci-fi writing to discuss planets, outer space and other outer world objects.

In Maths, we have been looking at the connection between factors and multiples and finding common multiples/factors between two different numbers.

In Science, we looked at how planets move within space through rotation and revolution- depending on your position from the sun.

In RHE, we carried on from last weeks focus of pressure and looked at ‘consent’ and ‘body autonomy- looking at what that means and how that may be portrayed within different social settings.

In RE, we have begun to look at the beatitudes and analyse the key vocabulary in each beatitude to create understanding. We have then been able to link these to our own inspirational people and how people in our lives portray these beatitudes.

In PE, we have started our new outdoor topic which is hockey. We spent the first lesson going over the safety procedures of using the equipment correctly and learning the technique of passing. We have started up our gymnastics topic in our indoor PE lessons in which we have focused on cannoning and unison movements and how that might look on the mat. Lots of our children also got the opportunity to represent our school in the indoor athletics competition this week. These photos are available on the sports page of the website.


Let’s Celebrate!

  • Benjamin for being a focused learner: I have been really impressed with your focus these past couple of weeks Benjamin. You want to succeed and complete all of your learning tasks and this is a credit to your focus. Even when you have finished your work, you are always looking for the next learning challenge and to not use that time to mess around or distract others.


  • Ella for being an enthusiastic learner: I have loved your enthusiasm this week Ella! Your hand has been shooting up with you out of your seat trying to answer the question. This has come from you wanting to show your hard work and focus which has been excellent to see. Keep this up!


Lunchtime Certificates

  • Role Model of the Week- Gabriella

  • Marvelous Manners- Benjamin


    Notices

  • Coats- We still have some children coming into school without a coat on. Especially in these conditions, all children need to have a coat in school.

  • Homework- The homework blog is now live. Please keep on track with homework as our spellings have increased from 10 to 12 words each week and that our multiplication homework is regularly practiced.

This week....

What a week!

We have completed two displays. One by painting dinosaurs and another by drawing our favourite dinosaur independently. The children have really thought about their paintings and recreated all the characteristics that make them unique.

We have added to our wow words dictionary with words such as extinct, fossils, herbivore, carnivore and omnivore and all the names of the dinosaurs…they are really tricky! We are definitely being challenged!

On Wednesday we read the scary story ‘Wolf’s Coming’, it’s one of our favourites. We noticed at the end of the story there was a pin the tail on the donkey game at Wolf’s birthday party. We decided to make a pin the tail on the dinosaur. What great fun we had, we pinned stegosaurus’ tail in very odd places. Click here to be scared!

Worship - Created to Love Others

This week we explored the individual’s relationship with others. Building on the understanding that we have been created out of love and for love. We talked about how we take this calling into our family, friendships and relationships, and learnt strategies for developing healthy relationships and keeping safe both online and in our daily lives. Click on the button below to discuss the slides.

Emma’s blog

Hello everyone,

We have been so busy this week working our brains.

We had a fantastic time with Mr Nay this week. He was helping us to practice our throwing, and he gave the children some shuttlecocks to throw around. The children loved this as they could see how far they would fly through the air. Mr Nay and Mr Murray had hung a huge parachute with a target on, and Mr Nay asked the children if they could throw the shuttlecocks to try to hit a particular colour. When some of the children hit the bullseye and we all cheered. We had so much fun.

We have been making some tricky assault courses in the garden to help build the childrens strength and to work their muscles. The course involved climbing and balancing which also helped them with there confidence. We made our own pretend ball pit using bits of foam which the children loved falling into.

We are continuing our dinosaur topic and are very excited that we have found 'dough disco dinosaurs'. It's brilliant and the children got to make a herbivore chewing leaves, the diplodocus neck and the pterodactyl’s beak. Here is the link for you to have a go at home, have fun. 

 Click here

Click here

 Click here

To concentrate on strengthening our hand muscles, and practice using our knife and fork, I made a dinosaur spaghetti swamp but the only way for the dinosaurs to get though it wasfor the children to cut the spaghetti up using their knife and fork. Let's hope some of the dinosaurs didn't get stuck.

We have been busy continuing to work on our letter sounds and our numbers, and we have been working our brains with our maths mastery wall, working out how many animals are in the grassy field and the flower meadow, then adding the total together, a bit like a number strory. The children enjoyed getting involved. Here is a link to a number ordering game for you to try at home. Click here.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and with the weather being so cold, wrap up and stay cosy.

Emma 

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's blog.

We have continued exploring and investigating dinosaurs.

We have been investigating what a t-rex ate and how they found their food. We have found out about carnivores, and herbivores and also omnivores.

We looked closely at the t rex this week and we discovered the head of a t rex was 1.5 metres wide. We measured this and this is as wide as 6 children or 3 nursery ladies 

Justine very kindly shared her photos of her visit to a real dinosaur fossil in Manchester Museum. Thank you Justine. This is a very worthwhile trip to make if you are looking for a day out. The museum can be found on Oxford Road in Manchester.

We have been very busy making our own dinosaurs, painting, drawing and using junk materials 

Emma let us help her in her activity to cut up the swamp spaghetti to help the dinosaurs feed. But we only had knives and forks! It was tricky. Using a knife and fork is an essential skill and one your child will need to master. Let them have as much practice with this at mealtimes as you can.

As well as PE on Monday and Tuesday, we now have a session on Wednesday. This week we practiced our running skills and our throwing skills. So much fun.

Apologies for the link not working last week for the dinosaur discovery game. Here it is again. Click here

Have a good weekend and we will see you next week.

Michelle 

Justine’s trip to the museum

Parent questionnaire

Thank you to everyone that has managed to complete this years questionnaire, it is greatly appreciated. Don’t worry if you have not had time yet I have attached another copy, just in case you have a few moment this weekend.

Parent ‘Drop In’ session

This half term we will be holding our drop in session on February 6th from 3.45-4.45 pm. This is a great opportunity to have an informal catch up with the nursery team and to see what we have been doing. Please try and pop in for five minutes we would love to see you…no appointment necessary.

Andy’s Dinosaur adventures

If you fancy finding our more about dinosaurs click here

Meet the Dinos click here

Inspired by our discovery of all kinds of dinosaurs we have written a song and also a started our own dino story.

Ask your child to sing our dinosaur song…its funny! When we have finished our story I will put it on the blog!

Next week we are planning to meet Number 6 and a new set of sounds. We are sooo excited. Keep practicing at home!

I hope the weather isn’t too cold this weekend although a bit of snow may be fun!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and I will see you on Monday morning bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Keep safe and God bless.

Barbara

Year 5 Homework- Due Thursday 25th January

Reading

All children have been given a post it note which should be inside their reading book. This is a target that they have set for themselves in the time to complete the book. Big house points up for grabs for each target complete.


Spellings

This week we have looked at homophones again but have focused on ‘near-homophones’ which are words with the same sound and very similar spelling. The first 8 spellings focus on this theme. I have attached some of the techniques that we used to help differentiate these words. It would be great if the children could practise writing these words in sentences. The next four spellings are other homophones that we have covered this year.

  1. affect

  2. except

  3. practice

  4. advise

  5. effect

  6. accept

  7. advice

  8. practise

  9. aloud

  10. passsed

  11. guest

  12. stationery

    • affect effect accept except- The words that begin with an a are verbs

    • advise practise advice practice

      words ending in se are verbs. Words ending in ce are nouns.


Maths

Will be on IXL. We have began to focus on multiples in relation to factors.

  • D9- Choose a multiples of a given number up to 12.

  • K10- Square numbers.

Year 6 Weekly Home Learning 19.01.24

SPELLING: This week our focus is on words ending with ‘cial’. Once you have practiced there is also a Purple Mash quiz set for you to test yourself at home. I have also set a 2Do on Purple Mash, where you will find some downloadable flash cards, that may help you if you want to print them off:

Mrs Barker’s Spelling Group

tell end England even found hand


MATHS:

Complete the worksheet in books practicing your multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.

GRAMMAR:

Please complete the semi colons sheet in your books.

Rosa Parks

This needs to be in school or on Purple Mash for Monday please as we need the research for our writing.

Please research Rosa Parks ready to write a biography on her in English lessons next week. Think about the following titles:

  • Early life and family

  • Education and working life

  • Experiencing Injustice

  • Fight against persecution

  • Later life and legacy


Year 6 Weekly Blog 'The Word was God ... and the Word became flesh' (John 1:14)

God came to Earth to deliver a very important message of love to us all and the children have been reflecting on the meaning of the mystery of the Incarnation during RE lessons. We looked closely at the meaning of the scripture, how God came in the human form and then we questioned the significance of this and why he did this. The children also looked at evidence in the Gospels that Jesus was homeless, persecuted and displaced. This has enhanced our virtues Eloquent and Truthful even further, as we look for God in all things and use his teachings to speak his words eloquently and truthfully in our every day life. Earlier this week we shared a liturgy where we looked at these virtues and how we can use them in our lives, the children were then asked to write a prayer on these to add to our ‘burning bush’ display in the classroom.

Where has our learning taken us this week?

Wow the learning in Year 6 has really started to pick up pace and Year 6 are rising to all of the challenges- we are all so proud of them. We are managing to fit in so much learning and they are even becoming much more organised in the mornings, getting all of their equipment and books ready for the lessons ahead.

  • English - This week we have been working hard on our biography work, writing a paragraph each day on our Henry VIII biography and practicing using semi-colons and our relative clauses, using them as embedded clauses and at the end of our sentences. Next week we will be writing our own biographies on Rosa Parks, we were hoping to watch the Dr Who eposide to help us undertsand her struggles, please let me know via email if this is not something you want your children to see.

  • Maths - This week we have been looking at decimals, the value of all of the digits, comparing and ordering. We are now multiplying and dividing them by 10, 100 and 1000.

  • Science- This week we have been continuing our learning in to the theory of evolution, finishing our Charles Darwin research and looking at how the industrial revolution affected two varieties of peppered moths.

  • Music- This week we have been looking at boroque style music and learning to play canon in D using musical instruments….

Here is the video of them following the notation, they did so well and we love their concentration faces!

Leading Learners

Well done to Matilda and Anncia this week.

Matilda, thank you for reflecting so deeply on your learning, ensuring you apply what you have learnt to all areas and striving to be the best you can. You are working so hard across all areas, but I can see you know exactly the areas that you are determined to improve.

Anncia, we are always so impressed with your resilience and focus in all areas. You listen so well to the teaching, think deeply and this is always reflected in your work. Thank you for always putting 110% in to your work.

Eloquent and Truthful butterflies

This half term we will be on the lookout for all the children that are eloquent in their words, that show the language to ask questions, express emotions, speak beliefs, talk about matters of faith and hope, debate points of view, and engage in conversation. Those who are truthful, who speak the truth about themselves and others. These children are the role models of the school. This week we thank Daisy for always being eloquent and truthful.

Lunch Time Awards …

Marvelous Manners awards … Dominic

Role Model of the week … Georgia

Helpers in the morning

This week we have the following children helping to take the younger children to their class:

Leon Edi Tabby Matilda

Notices

  • Please do continue to keep up to date with your child’s homework (particularly spelling). The vocabulary that the children are being asked to spell are getting more complex and they will need your support to figure out the best strategy to use. Learning them over time, rather than bulking them the night before, always seems like the best route to use.

  • Just a reminder that lip balms or any type of creams, are classed as a type of medication and therefore (if needed) need to be handed in to the teacher- thank you for your support.

Indoor Athletics 2024!

What an afternoon we had at Blackpool sports hall for the 2024 Fylde and Wyre Indoor Athletics competition! The children as always represented Our Lady’s beautifully, with their excellent sportsmanship, the support they offered one another and of course the way the celebrated each other. Although we did not place towards the top, the children continued this celebration and enjoyed every minute of this experience!

Year 3 Homework - Tuesday 16th January

English - The Iron Man

Read the passage from The Iron man and add the missing punctuation.

Maths - IXL

L.Multiplication skill builders

3 Multiply by 2

5 Multiply by 4

9 Multiply by 8

Complete the order numbers and missing numbers tasks in your homework books.



Spellings

Suffix ian
musician optician politician magician electrician mathematician beautician technician

Your spelling quiz will be on Monday 22nd January

Challenge - can you put your spelling words in alphabetical order?