Science

Year 6 finished their Science learning journey about the human body by investigating the effects of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. The children shared ideas and learnt that drugs can have both beneficial and negative impacts. We discussed when it would be safe to take a drug such as paracetamol or an inhaler and when it wouldn’t. Children learnt about the addictive qualities of nicotine in cigarettes and the damage that smoking can do to many aspects of their health. They also learnt about the dangers of drinking too much alcohol and the negative effects that can have on the body.

The topic ended with a true or false quiz, where the children answered quickfire questions about drugs, alcohol and tobacco and showed what they had learnt.

Electricity

We introduced the new topic by doing some balloon investigations. How could we get a balloon to make our hair stand on end, pick up paper or stick to a window?

The answer was with static ELECTRICITY!! The children were amazed by how easy it was to create static electricity using friction on different types of materials such as plastic and fabric. We deepened our understanding of electricity. It is not just something in circuits and wires. Electricity is all around us and can be created in nature.

Year 6 continued their work on Electricity.

The children set up basic circuits using batteries, wires, bulbs and buzzers. They investigated different types of circuits and proved that some would work and some would not. Common problems included gaps in the circuits and batteries with the terminals connected incorrectly.

After securing their knowledge of creating basic circuits, the children explored ways in which to increase the brightness of a bulb or the loudness of a buzzer. The children also added motors into their circuits and many were able to find a use for these; some god examples used fans and wheels.

The children have been working hard to include scientific vocabulary in their work and write thorough explanations of how circuits work.

Year 6 have also made sure they have been using their maths skills  during science lessons. We measured the length of the wires we use in our circuits and found the total length of wire for our full circuits. It was quite tricky to measure the wires as the children found they had to straighten them out fully in order to get an accurate measurement.

Environment Education & Live Simply Mission

Y6 visited the local waste recovery park at Allerton near Knaresborough as part of their environment education and Live Simply mission. It was super interesting to see how the plant recovers waste and deals with rubbish to reduce the negative impact on the environment. We were able to visit inside the huge plant and see the different sections. It was very smelly! 

Y6 completed lots of activities back in the education centre to deepen their knowledge of reduce, reuse, recycle and recover. Thank you to Allerton Waste Recovery Park for allowing us to visit and helping us to grow in knowledge.

https://thalia.co.uk/where-we-work/york-and-north-yorkshire/waste-education-experience/

DT

Year 6 have an exciting project underway in the build up to Christmas. We don’t want to give too much away, but our DT project this half term involved lots of sewing. The children have been working very hard to improve their fine motor skills as these are crucial to making good progress in DT, as well as in many other aspects of school life. We had a knot tying competition and then worked hard to learn how to thread a needle quickly – some children can now thread a needle more than 20 times in a minute!

The children have practised some common stitches including running stitch, cross stitch, overhand and herringbone stitch.

Now that the children have the knowledge of different types of stitches and the skills to be able to sew a range themselves, we have been looking at other handmade products available to buy and evaluating them. We stayed with the Christmas theme and looked at a wide range of Christmas decorations. The children had their top tips to follow which included by starting simply with discussing orally what they liked about each product and perhaps what they disliked. It’s important that we recognise that we all have different tastes so some products appeal to some of us and not others. After that, they independently evaluated the products commenting on the use of colour, stitches and embellishment. The children self-assessed as they worked to ensure that their evaluations were thorough and covered all 3 aspects.

After looking at these products already available on the market, they used this inspiration to plan and design their own Christmas decorations which they will shortly be making.The children love DT and are looking forward to getting on to the making of their product. Before we can do that, we need to look at how we can progress our sewing skills to move from Binka to felt which doesn’t have holes already spaced out for us.  A little practice on felt is therefore needed before we dive into making the actual Christmas decoration. We have lots to do as Christmas is fast approaching!

DT Leather Workshop

Year 6 are really enjoying the topic of WW1 and loved their practical arts workshop which was lead by Zoe Phillips of Deckle and Hide and former Head of Armoury at the Royal Opera House.

Zoe was also very excited to be running this workshop for Year 6 and the children certainly enjoyed the experience. In the workshop, the children had a practical hands on project, working with leather and up-cycled materials which fits with our Live Simply mission. They made leather map bags which a soldier would have used in WW1 to keep their maps protected from dirt. Without maps, the soldiers would have been in big trouble, even danger, so the leather bags were an important part of a soldiers kit. Zoe went to great lengths to research and make a prototype so that the map bag closely resembled the real thing!

The DT skills which the children have developed to be able to achieve this task included using a template, seam allowance, careful cutting, folding, gluing, strengthening and following instructions to name only a few. As they worked, the children had to problem solve to progress with the task.  Also leather is a material they have never worked with before so cutting through it felt very different to cutting paper. Zoe taught the children a good technique of slightly tilting the scissors on an angle and using the very inside of the blades rather than the tips of the scissors. This made an instant change. Some of the children also realised that adding a bit of tension to the leather helped with the cutting too. The children also got the chance to use some real tools which fascinated them; this included a rotary punch, rivet setting tools and a rawhide mallet.

When the map bags had been completed, the children made maps on old fashioned looking paper to include inside the map bags; this really finished off the overall look of the finished item. Year 6 loved this workshop and are very proud of what they achieved.

French

The children in Year 6 have been working hard and having fun while they improve their French speaking and listening skills. Becoming more confident at pronunciation and using the vocabulary we have learnt means there have been some great opportunities for playing games.

To enhance our work on countries, we each pretended to live in a different country. The children were given the challenge of only using French to find a person in the class from each country by asking: Oú habites -tu? The children have really embraced trying to communicate without using English.

We also played the ‘apple pie’ with French countries and tried to guess who the mystery French voice was. Some children feel a lot more confident speaking French with a funny voice!

To revisit our prior learning and sticky knowledge in French, we played a numbers bingo game with the numbers dix – trente. The children are building there speed of recall with the higher numbers and this vocabulary is something we keep bubbling over in French throughout Y6.

Trés bien Year Six!

PE

The weather is getting chillier, so this half term we have planned lots of exciting indoor PE opportunities for the children. In Year 6, some of the sticky knowledge that we want the children to remember is about the role of a referee and what skills a referee must use to take charge of a match. As part of this, the children are being given the opportunity to work as the referee of a match in PE at school. We had some great refs for our first two lessons, where each child was put in charge of a short game of two different kinds of benchball. We evaluated what the challenges of being a referee are. The children told me that it is easier to be a referee when the players respect you and don’t question your decisions. Another challenge is to keep your eyes on what is happening in different parts of the game at the same time and spot fouls. A last challenge was keeping track of the score of the game and the making sure that all players stick to the rules. All the children agreed that it wasn’t an easy job at all and had lots of respect for the people who do this job for our sports.

Another key part of the Y6 curriculum for PE is developing sports leadership skills. We ask children to lead parts of the warm ups in PE and, with our prior learning in Science, children have been very thorough about warming up all the key muscle groups of the body such as the abs, quads, deltoids, biceps and calves. Also in PE, to get our heart rates up, we have been performing simple exercises such as star jumps and sit ups with a twist. The children have been telling each other how many of each exercise to do in French in order to practise using their French numbers in another context. A great start to this half term’s PE.

Dance

This half term, our Dance lessons with Ms Crolla are linked to our World War 1 topic. The children have been exploring this theme through the medium of dance. We started by looking at marching rhythms and making quick, repetitive steps in time with the beat. We then added turns and salutes into the routines. When they mastered marching, the children worked in small groups to march in time together – a much trickier skill!

The next parts of our dance were linked to the roles people had in earlier 20th century Britain, just before the outbreak of war. We created a series of motifs showing farming and agricultural movements, such as scything and picking. After linking a short sequence of these, we added a similar short section to music with a different rhythm. This showed the faster, robotic movements that factory workers would have performed. The children were careful to perform in an exaggerated and precise way, linking a longer series of movements and beginning to develop mirroring sequences with a partner.

The children have impressed me with their group work and the confident way they perform in front of their peers.

Football Achievements

Well done to the Y6 girls who played with our Y5 girls and won a recent game against a local school. This was only their second match as a team and for one of the girls, it was her first time ever playing a match, so we were super proud! We saw great sportsmanship, resilience and skill. Congratulations!

PSHE

Visit from the Mayor of Wetherby

On Monday 7th November, we had a visit from the Mayor of Wetherby, Neil, who came to talk to us in school about his role as Mayor, how he became the Mayor and the important things he does to support the town of Wetherby through the town council. Mayor Neil talked to us about he became the Mayor and told the children that he was elected and appointed Mayor during the pandemic which meant he was brought in as Mayor over zoom, and his wife had to place his chains on him, instead of having this done during a ceremony with the council.

The Mayor talked to us about democracy and inclusion in the local community. He shared that he is passionate about making a difference and shared that he knows that the children at St Joseph’s are also passionate about making a difference too. The children asked lots of thoughtful questions and were extremely interested. Some questions they asked were:

• What do you like best about your role?
• What does your role involve?
• How much do you get paid for this very important job?

The children were shocked to learn that being a Mayor is a voluntary role meaning he doesn’t get paid anything for this very important role. In fact, the Mayor also has another job that he gets paid for where he works hard to keep children safe. The Mayor shared that he most enjoys going out in the community, especially visiting schools because he believes children are the future of our community. The Mayor shared that because of covid, he wasn’t able to carry out his work in the local community, so his term has been extended for one year, which is very rare. The Mayor shared how pleased he was that he was able to do this and that his term will end shortly after the Coronation of the King, something that he is really looking forward to.

Our school councillors then had an opportunity to speak to him further, ask him any questions they had and even try on his Mayor chain. This visit supported our learning about the British Values, about democracy as the Mayor is voted for and elected, about Individual Liberty – having the freedom of choice and how the Mayor can support this in our town and so much more! It was an exciting morning to welcome such an important member of our local community into our school. Thank you to our Mayor of Wetherby for visiting St Joseph’s! We look forward to welcoming you back to our school in the future.

Anti-Bullying Week

Road Safety Workshop

The Leeds Road Safety team came in to Year 6 to teach the children about road safety. Ms Baird began by telling us that 800 people were killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents last year in Leeds. Everyone was shocked to learn that Year 7 is the most likely time that boys and girls will have an accident and that using mobile phones whilst crossing the road is one of the biggest factors. Other problems can be listening to headphones whilst crossing the road and showing off to friends on their way to school.

As well as the possibility of serious injury or death, we learnt that there is a wider impact to lots of people if an accident occurs. Just one recent road accident cost £214,000. This was due to the hospital treatment, damage to cars and roads, accident investigators, insurance and disruption to services.

Ms Baird explained that when a number of accidents occur on a particular road, the road safety team will consider putting in traffic calming measures. The children were surprised to learn that a speed camera costs £55,000 to put in but a pair of speed bumps only costs £1,600. Ms Baird told children that speed bumps have been more effective in Leeds because drivers have to always slow down otherwise they will damage their cars.

The children asked who pays for all this and some were surprised to find that it was their parents and teachers through the tax they pay on their wages from their jobs!

For a practical demonstration, children were all asked to find their homes on a printed map of Wetherby. They then worked in groups to plan a route from home to a key place in Wetherby. The groups looked at where there were likely to be road traffic accidents involving speeding vehicles or pedestrians. Year 6 became road safety engineers with a £100,000 budget to spend on making the route safer. The children shared their ideas and gave reasons for their designs.

Good Touch, Bad Touch

The children completed a lesson on the subject of good touch and bad touch. The focus was to learn about appropriate and inappropriate ways that people might make physical contact with us. Year 6 were given lots of different scenario cards to discuss. The children gave feedback about how they would feel in the scenarios, including language such as comfortable, safe, uncomfortable, embarrassed, unhappy, unsafe and frightened. We discussed different ways we might deal with some of these scenarios; some of the ideas children gave were: asking permission, explaining to a younger child that they didn’t want to be touched, getting away immediately if a stranger was involved, or telling a trusted adult if something had made them feel uncomfortable.

The children also learnt about medical situations where they might feel uncomfortable, but the physical contact might be necessary. In these cases, children their age would usually have parents or carers present and be asked for consent to be touched by doctors, nurses and dentists. Children shared some of their experiences of this.

As well as these, the children discussed lots of positive scenarios and talked in a mature way about times when they have enjoyed having hugs from parents, relatives and friends and how this can be great for their wellbeing and provide comfort.

Inspiring You Week

Y6 enjoyed the start of our ‘Inspiring You’ work which is intended to help the children have high aspirations for themselves either through setting new goals, considering future career options, or perhaps try something, etc. Y6 children loved trying to guess what jobs the adults in Y6 wanted when they were young, and were surprised to hear of how career paths changed for many different reasons. They then shared their ambitions for their future careers. We talked about the importance of having back up plans and to try to link career paths to interests, for example, if you like animals,  you could be work in a veterinary practice, not necessarily having to take on the role of being a vet, or you could work in animal rescue, dog training, police dog handler, mounted police, zoos, etc.

Later in the week, they had an inspiring dance workshop delivered by Kayleigh who aspires to be a dancer and is on track to achieve her goals through hard work, commitment and determination. For those children with some dance background, it was a chance to apply what they know and learn from an older peer, but for any children with no dance background, it was time to try something new!

We will keep revisiting the idea of ‘inspiring you’ throughout the year with new opportunities that come our way.

Music

The children have enjoyed linking their music lessons to the topic of World War 1. This half term, Year 6 have been learning to compose their own music using the ipads. We have working on a fantastic app called garageband. This allows to children to put together several ‘tracks’ to create a piece of music which sounds as if several instruments and vocals are playing together.

The children used the inspiration of a soldiers’ marching band to create a composition. They listened carefully to some real WW1 marching music and you can listen to this below. Year 6 were able to pick out that there was a strong percussion section in the marching music to provide the rhythm and that brass instruments played the melody.

The children have practised marching in their dance lessons, so they were able to work to a 4/4 time signature and their aim was to produce a piece of music that was exactly 32 beats long. Year 6 were able to evaluate whether their compositions were successful by trying to march along to the music – this would only be possible if they played a steady beat. There were some great marching tunes at the end of the lesson. Well done Year 6.

Here are some quotes from Y6 about their current learning in music:

Charlie said, “I like it when we go onto Garageband and get to record our own music and writing our own songs.”

Thomas said, “I enjoy music, especially using digital technology and when we are allowed to be creative.”

Scarlett said, “I like it when we can make our own rhythms and use technology to help us.”

Amelia said, “I enjoyed playing the chime bars and the silly stories we made using all the notes.”

Year 6 have also been enjoying some quick quizzes to help them keep their musical terminology and understanding polished. These are quick fire and a chance to recap on things learnt previously, whether that is in Y6 or in previous years.