Autumn Term 2 2022
Welcome back. I hope you’ve all had a lovely half term break and feel fresh and ready to learn. We’ve got lots planned for the half term up to Christmas and I’m sure it’s going to be lots of fun. I’m excited to see you back to school, fully rested after the half term break and ready to learn even more!
Collective Worship
We are enjoying our focus on virtues in both whole school worship and our class collective worship. We are currently learning about prayer and looking at different sources that teach us about prayer. We have been listening to the words of Pope Francis who teaches us that we are instruments and reflections of the Lord’s peace.
We have been enjoying worship through songs in class too. Here is our current favourite one which links back to our last virtue and the idea of agape which is the love that God asks from us. This is a great type of love and our God is a great God! Parents have been joining us in class for worship already this half term, and they have picked up this song quickly!
Year 6 dressed the prayer table to participate in Remembrance Day which is a perfect introduction to our unit of work this half term about justice. The children also wrote some beautifully thoughtful prayers for peace and to remember those who have lost their lives at war and their families left behind. They made links to what they had learnt in history about Armistice Day, including the subject specific vocabulary which we worked on to deepen their understanding.
Thank you to Marius who played The Last Post on his trumpet at the end of the two minutes silence.
Our new virtue to live to by for the next few weeks is generosity. We are inspired in worship together to reflect on what this means and how we can be disciples of Jesus. We know we are living out this virtue if we notice others in need, think of others before ourselves, feely give with no reward and we’re willing to make a sacrifice for others. We learnt a new song in worship linked to generosity. Please enjoy this song when you worship and pray together at home:
In worship, we are now preparing for Christmas through prayer and worship around the advent wreath. The children have the opportunity to take an advent prayer bag home with them to extend their worship beyond the classroom and into the home with their families.
Live Simply: Environment Education
Y6 Planet Protectors were very happy to help the FS2 Planet Protectors with their Live Simply project. The final product (wild flower seed paper) made by FS2 was made in class and prepared to share with the local community. Y6 stuck instructions to the back of the card which was all cut out from old cardboard due to go into the recycling bins. FS2 and Y6 planet protectors went to the local hardware shop who were pleased to give out to customers for free during the festive season. If you look carefully, you’ll see that FS2 made star and Christmas tree shapes. Don’t they look great! Let’s hope we get more wild flowers in the community next year as a result of this project. Thank you to Y6 for helping!
RE
We are currently finishing our unit of work from last half term about the Kingdom of God. We have been revisiting parables and miracles, and revisiting stories from the Old Testament too. We have looked at what the different books in the Bible tell us about the Kingdom of God. The children have worked really hard to learn about scripture and more importantly, learn from it; this means putting the words into action in their daily lives now.
Y6 have also started their programme of preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. They are having weekly sessions to help them to understand the significance of this Sacrament, and we are very grateful to Mrs Flannery for her support in preparing the children for this special Sacrament.
Y6 have now moved onto learning about our new topic of Justice. We are all called to work for justice and in this topic we will learn what justice is, some inspirational Christians who stood up for justice and how challenging that can be. We have collected lots of different words associated with justice and these are displayed on our working wall. Many of these link to themes in PSHE and British Values which we study every half term.
We started off by discussing what it means if something is unfair. We looked at several different scenarios where something was unfair and they had to explain that impact on other people due to individuals being unfair. The children really enjoyed role-playing this spontaneously.
Year 6 moved on to learning about 3 inspirational Christians who felt called to serve God: Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero and Dorothy Day.
The children watched great videos to learn about these inspirational Christians; each individual had different heritage and experiences, but they all recognised injustice in the world and serve to be truly inspirational followers of Jesus and relevant to us today.
Watch this beautiful animation at home together to learn more about Oscar Romero.
You could also watch this child-friendly animation to learn more about Martin Luther King who was inspired by his faith and the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi:
Watch this useful video about Dorothy Day’s beautiful story. She had many challenges in her life and made mistakes. She was sometimes seen as a trouble maker, but she turned her life around, converted to the Catholic Faith and championed for the poor in America.
Reading
We have a fantastic range of new books in our class reading area which have been changed to reflect the new topic of War and Justice. Our class text is War Horse by Michael Morporgo and we have a lovely range of his books there for the children to take home and enjoy, as well as plenty of copies of War Horse for anyone wanting to read ahead.
- Fiction books linked to our topic.
- Fiction books linked to our key author.
- Fiction books linked to our topic.
- Familiar texts
We have some super non-fiction books about WW1 and WW2 for the children to explore. These books can be taken home, but we also have time in class to read about our topic of war so these books are often very popular in class too.
- Poetry books
- Topic Books
- Familiar texts
We also have a nice range of dyslexia friendly books too that anyone can read as they’re great stories. In this area, we have images of successful dyslexic people to inspire the children that they can achieve, and a reminder that we are all the same but we all learn in different ways.
- Successful dyslexic people.
- Class authors and key texts.
Y6 have been enjoying quizzes about the authors in our learning journey so far this year. These authors are displayed in our reading area. They have also made some creative facts files about the authors, and these are displayed in our reading area too; these are chosen by our class library monitors who love organising the books and keeping it looking inviting.
English
We have been looking at different formalities in writing and how this can change over a period of time. For example, a letter to a friend 200 years ago would sound more formal than a letter to a friend today. We used Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare as a stimulus to write a formal letter of complaint with an old-fashioned feel to it. Y6 acted out a wild party in class, dancing the conga and singing to get into role as Sir Toby Belch. It was great fun! They then planned the things that happened at the party which would have annoyed the neighbours of Lady Olivia. There was lots of practising orally first before starting to write so that they could really get a feel for the formality required of the task. Then, off they set writing their letters working hard to edit as they worked. The finished work was excellent!
We have now started our class text called War Horse by Michael Morporgo. Before reading it, the children completed a task to activate their prior learning about horses. When we studied the Highwayman in Autumn 1, we learnt lots of words related to horses. For this task, they had an outline of a horse and tried to fill it up with all words related to anything equestrian. We did this as the book is likely to have this language in so it was a good recap, especially for any children with limited experience of horse.
The children were very excited to get the bean bags out and relax as I read to them. If you would like to listen to this at home with your child, please click on the link below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/english-ks2-war-horse-michael-morpurgo-episode-1/zdv792p
Y6 are working on a writing project where they have look at the features of instructions and then writing instructions for Captain Nichols to follow when Joey goes to war with him. They became the horse experts and learnt lots of equine words so that they could be precise in their instructions. More information to come soon. We are still working on this!
Maths
Year 6 enjoyed solving word problems applying their addition and subtraction skills linked to real data about WW1. They had lots of real data to interpret, some included small numbers, some numbers were large in their millions and some were decimal numbers. Y6 enjoyed the fact that the data was real so they were learning a little about history as they did their maths. They are working on reading questions really carefully and solving muti-step word problems so this was great practise!
Year 6 are working hard on solving multi-step word problems and reasoning skills. They have been looking at calculations and answers given, and deciding if the answers are reasonable or unreasonable. Then, using their writing skills, they have given explanations for their reasons. This has given us a great opportunity to really work on using varied maths vocabulary.
Y6 parents have also joined us for a Show and Share maths lesson. We started off with a Kahoots quiz which was designed to revisit lots of different maths vocabulary and concepts already covered this year so far. The children loved it and the parents were surprised by how much the children need to know! After the quiz, they completed a murder mystery which included Burn2Learn for a physically active twist to the lesson. The mystery involved many different stages of problem solving to complete and kept everyone fully engrossed from start to finish. The parents didn’t want to go home! Thank you to the parents who were able to join us today. We have another session soon, so hopefully we will see more of you then.
Year 6 have been working on lots of problem solving. They have now moved onto division methods which are a little rusty and taking time to work on, but we will slow the learning journey down and get lots of practise before moving onto word problems and puzzles. Y6 have been working on how to show a remainder as a decimal. There are some simple videos below for you to watch at home with your children to revise short division and turning remainders into decimals.
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/
Art
We have moved onto our next art project which is linked to our topic of war and peace. We started by looking at a range of pictures of poppies and seeing which one we were most drawn to and why. The children used their writing and reading skills to give detailed explanations (PEE) using visual language. They practised this skill last half term on artwork by Van Gogh so it was good to see them applying their visual language skills again. The children produced some exceptional work, well written with really personal responses included.
We then looked at artwork by an artist called Brian Clarke. He was a particular passion for wild flowers, including poppies, and we looked at a wide range of his poppy work, and commented on it using visual language about line, tone, colour and placement. If you would like to learn more about Brian Clarke, or see some of poppy exhibition, ‘Vespers’, you can watch the video below:
They have since spent time working on their own skills of using s bend lines and creating perspective through the use of tone and orientation. They have practised several times to improve their skills, and their partners gave them feedback using yellow and pink post-its; these colours match our marking and feedback policy so the children are very familiar with how to do this well. They are now working towards creating their own masterpiece inspired by the theme of war.
If you’d like to practise this at home, here are some of the tutorials we watched in class to help us start to understand how to create perspective when drawing poppies.
After evaluating other artists’ work and practising the skills, it was time for them to get creative. Sometimes this can be tricky for the children as they often ask, ‘can I….’ and the answer at this stage is always, ‘try it!’. These pieces of work are totally freestyle but using what they have learnt so it’s always exciting to stand back and watch what happens.
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!
History
Y6 have worked so hard in history this half term. They continued learning about Joseph Bazalgette who linked to our geography topic from last half term about water and rivers. They started off by making links back to prior learning about Victorians (Y4) and Florence Nightingale (Y2), thinking particularly about hygiene challenges, illnesses and diseases. They then made a prediction about the challenges that Joseph Bazalgette faced when set the task of designing a sewer system. It was great to see the children recalling prior learning to use for new learning in Y6.
After this, the children studied the fine details of The Great Stink which was in mid 19th century when Britain was gripped by the fear of cholera. After learning lots of detail about this time in history, it was time to reflect on why Bazalgette’s design was a turning point in British history. To achieve this, Y6 made a Venn diagram with similarities and differences between Bazalgette and Nightingale. This allowed them to see that illness, disease, hygiene and life expectancy was a common thread, and that both individuals had been significant in pushing for change.
As an extension task to this, the children used scientific prior knowledge, recalling prior learning from Y4 (water cycle), Y5 (separating materials/mixtures) and the Y6 trip to Headingley Water Treatment Plant, and they had to offer advice to Victorians to help them clean up their dirty water. Y6 loved looking back at photographs when they were in Y5 and completed experiments where they removed various debris from water and this really helped to bring back prior learning to use today. They wrote some super advice to help clean up water manually.
We have now moved onto our new History topic of War. Before we start to look at the details of WW1, we looked at out historical enquiry question for this half term which is, ‘What role did WW1 play in changing British society that we see today, and what is the impact of WW1 on Wetherby today?’. Over the weeks, we will be trying to build up a picture through each lesson to be able to answer these questions in detail.
We started by learning vocabulary needed in order to understand why WW1 started in the first place. The vocabulary included: declared, threat, allies, alliances, defend, agreement, colonisation and imperialism. They made a glossary of these words and then learnt why WW1 started. This was pretty tough as there are so many different things to understand but Y6 did a great job as they had the understanding of imperialism, colonisation and how this caused tension. To help keep these words bubbling and deepen our understanding, there is a table-top activity in the reading area for the children, and we will keep revisiting the language in our history lessons so they can apply what they know.
They learnt about the Central Powers and Triple Entente. Y6 are familiar with Horrible Histories from the TV so asked to watch some episodes which made a lot more sense after our lesson.
Once they understood why WW1 started, they started making predictions about how Wetherby might have been affected based on our basic starting knowledge of men going to war. We then looked back at prior learning about battles during the Stone Age, Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greece, Romans and Vikings (all studied in KS2 earlier) so that we can make predictions about what battle might have been like in WW1, considering significant changes during the industrial revolution.
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.
- Mayor of Wetherby with our School Council and Miss Milivojevic (Headteacher)
Anti-Bullying Week
- Anti-bullying Week
- 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
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.