- Curriculum Information Year 6 Spring 2025 (128.91KB)
- Curriculum Information Year 6 Autumn 2024 (135.68KB)
- Year 6 Objective Map - Maths Curriculum (55.51KB)
- Year 6 Maths Information for Parents (107.60KB)
- Year 5/6 Reading Information for Parents (517.24KB)
Learning Links
Mar 182025
Visit to Knebworth House
On the Tuesday 18th March, we went to Knebworth House as part of our Tudors topic in history.
Firstly, we went through the scenic gardens to get to the house. We were greeted by our guides who were dressed up in Tudor costumes as part of the tour. We sat down in the banqueting hall whilst our guides talked about the house and its relationship with the Tudors. The house owners (the Lytton family) were originally the treasurers to Henry VII. Holding up pictures and wearing tabards, some of the children acted out the timeline of the Tudors. The class were then split into two groups. Each group were given an empty bag to collect groats in. The groats were earnt by answering question correctly. At the end of the session the groats would be counted and the group with the most would get a special treat.
Library activity – The guide explained about Tudor education and the differences between what boys and girls learnt. Boys would be taught how to fight and read, whereas girls were taught to sew. One of the items shown was a quill. A quill was used to write, by dipping a it in to a pot of ink. The children then had a go at writing with a calligraphy pen in Tudor handwriting. It was difficult to add all the extra spirals and swirls.
Armoury activity – The children then moved into the armoury staircase where the guide talked about weapons and sports. There were big shields and lances that would have been used in a popular sport called jousting. During this game, the aim was to knock the other player off of their horse. It is possible that this is how Richard III died at the battle of Bosworth Field.
State Drawing Room – On the walk to the State Drawing Room the guide spoke about Coats-of Arms and heraldry. We saw that the Tudor coat of arms was a combination of his parent’s (Margaret Beaufort and Edmund Tudor) coats of arms. On the ceiling above the children there were lots of coats of arms, most from the Lytton family ancestry.
Just across the corridor was the Elizabeth Room, this is where Queen Elizabeth I stayed when the Spanish army were trying to attack her. The guide talked and showed the group a selection of Tudor clothing. He explained that if you wore black or purple clothing you would be thought of as very rich but if you were seen in cream or beige, a passer-by would know you were poor. A richer person may also have worn a ruff.
Controversially, a person with white teeth would be poor and someone with black teeth would be rich. This is because rich people would have had access to sugar whereas poor people would only have more nutritious foods like vegetables.
Banqueting Hall activity – Once in the Banqueting Hall there was a selection of Tudor musical instruments which included a lyre, some drums and a recorder that some children had the opportunity to play. We then took part in a dance lesson, where we were shown the Tudor Pavan dance. There were only three steps to learn and this dance would have been performed to show off fancy clothes.
As our last thing before lunch, we counted up the groats and performed a ceremony. A member of the winning team was Queen Elizabeth I and a member of the other team was knighted.
After lunch, the class spent the afternoon in the gardens. They were given their Knebworth House booklets, which they had previously made at school, and they drew pictures of plants, griffins, grotesques gargoyles and fountains.
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Feb 042025
Evolution and Inheritance with Dr Helen Waterhouse
Evolution
On Tuesday 4th February, we were visited by Dr Helen, a palaeontologist from Palaeoquest, who visits schools to teach children all about ancient life forms, evolution and inheritance. During our first set of workshops, we focused on evolution. We learnt all about the formation of fossils and looked at the layering of sedimentary rock over time.
In groups, we examined real and replica fossil specimens from as far back as 520 million years ago to as ‘recently’ as 4 million years ago. We used tables to record our observations regarding which particular creatures were in existence over time.
Once we had collected the data, we evaluated our findings and compared the evidence of life forms over millions of years. We noticed that the further back in time you go, the less examples of fossils, and evidence of life, you can find. We also observed that 520 million years ago, all life was underwater.
Inheritance
In our second set of workshops, we looked at further evidence of evolution when we focused on inheritance. We looked at DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) replicas and used decoding resources to work out what the DNA contained instructions for. Using the decoding devices, we predicted which living organism would be created from the different DNA structures. Lastly, we compared the DNA to see which organisms had lots in common. We traced back to identify their common ancestors.
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Dec 062024
Gingerbread House Parent Activity
Class 6 invited their parents in to help build their gingerbread houses which was the final stage of their design and technology (D&T) project. The class worked on a number of D&T skills, including; measuring accurately; weighing ingredients; following a recipe building structures and following a design criteria. Class 6 also enjoyed decorating the houses with sweets and icing as well as eating a few sweets too!
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Jul 172024
Fairground Design and Technology
This term in Design and Technology, Class 6 have been working on creating a moving fairground ride. This has been a fun yet challenging project. Class 6 have used their knowledge of circuits which we revised last year and building structures to design and build their own ride. We were challenged to use a circuit, a dc motor, a pulley and a driver in our fairground ride. There were difficulties along the way, which included: ensuring our individual parts were cut to the right size (not easy when we were using thick cardboard); and creating the right distance between the motor and the driver.
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Jun 112024
Visit to Knebworth Park
Class 6 went to Knebworth House on Tuesday 11th June. We were taken on a tour of the house and found out so much about how the Tudors lived, including: what they wore; where they slept; what they ate and much more.
We also found out how the family welcomed Queen Elizabeth I – the last Tudor monarch – when she came on a royal visit to the house.
Did you know that the first owner of Knebworth House helped Henry Tudor win the War of the Roses.
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Mar 282024
Protest Art
This term, in art, Year 6 have been exploring the work of protest artists like: Luba Lukova, Kate de Ciccio and Faith Ringgold. We used their work to inspired our own mixed media piece which focused on something that was important to us. Some of the class chose issues about animal cruelty, fast food prices, stopping racism and stopping pollution.
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Mar 122024
Kew Gardens
Linked to our work in geography (world biomes and climates) and Science (evolution and adaption) Year 6 took a trip to Kew Gardens in London. Although it was a wet day, the children learnt so much about what it is like to be in different climates – most agreed that a tropical rainforest was too hot and damp for them. We saw so many amazing plant species which sometimes looked very strange. We all took photos of the plants that most interested us which will form part of a research activity back in class.
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Feb 062024
Evolution with Dr Helen Waterhouse
We started off by doing an activity where we had to identify different fossils and write them down on a sheet. It was really cool that there were some real fossils that were hundreds of million years old and we were allowed to touch them.
After this, we had our second activity and it was about DNA. Dr Helen showed us the structure of DNA. Then she showed us some strings with plastic balls on it to represent a DNA code. We had to find out what living thing the DNA represented. Lots of them were animals.
Finally, we figured out which animals used to be related. We had to compare the structure of each DNA without looking at what the actual animal was. We were really surprised to see some animals that used to be related but now are completely different – this is evidence of evolution.
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Dec 202023
Art Project
Class 6 have really enjoyed their art project this term. The title of our project was flat yet sculptural. We looked at Lubauna Hind who creates sculptural large scales paintings.
We used negative pace and the grid method to enlarge drawings of animals. Class 6 loved working on a big scale and were really proud of their large drawings.
Our last step was to cut out and collage our final pieces. Some of us added black pen for shadow and detailing.
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Nov 082023
Romeo and Juliet
To inspire our writing, Class 6 watched an amazing performance of Romeo and Juliet by the Young Shakespeare Company. The actors and actresses helped us understand the plot and some of the Shakespearean language. In our English lessons we have worked on developing the writing skills needed to write our own version of the tragic tale. We have looked at punctuating speech, using paragraphs, writing expanded noun phrases and developing our vocabulary.
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Jul 232023
Summer Term Forest School Sessions
During Forest School sessions pupils have had the opportunity to learn new tool skills, as well as revisiting those activities enjoyed in past years. The photos below show a selection of the range of activities during the term.
- Learning how to use new hand tools like Japanese saw and pruning saw, loppers, secateurs, bit and brace, hand drill and peeler skills on green willow.
- Our campfires are always an exciting and yummy time .
- Skills in sculpting with clay and creativity using willow.
- Play with mud and water has been popular too.
- Branches and tarpaulins used to create dens
- Problem solving team work to rescue soft animals stuck in the branches
Some of the pupils have supported Year 2 visits to ‘The Dell’ this term and assisted with the litter picks to keep the community space safe and tidy for everyone the animals who live there.
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Jun 302023
Outdoor Adventurous Week
We loved outdoor and adventurous week – our last ever one at this school!
We made clinometers out of protractors, straws and string. We used these to help us measure the height of different trees and taller objects around the school grounds. We had to make sure the string on the clinometer was at a 45˚ angle when looking through the straw. This meant that between us, the bottom of the tree and the top of the tree we had made an isosceles triangle.
Campfire
We enjoyed our tasty breakfast bagels which we toasted on the campfire.
The Ryde Journey
For one of our activities for OAA week we looked at the work of Richard Long. He inspired us to create small sketch books inspired by places around The Ryde. We chose the media we wanted to work with and some us wrote small poetic sentences to go with our drawings and sketches.
Dream Catchers
We created dream catchers from bamboo. We had to bend and shape the willow and cut string and holes into the calico before threading and decorating the material.
Den Building
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Jun 282023
OAA Science
During OAA week we completed an investigation into paper aeroplanes. We thought about different questions we could investigate relating to paper planes, for example: Do larger planes fly further? Do heavier planes fly shorter distances? How does the size of the wings impact the distance the plane will fly? Each group designed their own investigation thinking carefully about the variables and how they would measure and collect their results.
We have been looking at light as one of our science topics over the last year. In one of our science lessons this term we made periscopes. We investigated how we could use mirrors to change the direction of light beams and to reflect an image you wouldn’t usually be able to see.
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Feb 032023
Reading to their reading buddies
Class 6 had a lovely end to the week reading to their buddies. They enjoyed reading the books with lots of expression and trying to keep the receptions engaged in the story.
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