Year 6

Welcome to Dolphins

Class Teacher- Mrs Petersford

 

       

  Miss Wickenden                           Mrs Beagle                            Miss Mitchell

Support staff

ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE EMAIL THE CLASS EMAIL ADDRESS AT dolphins@maybury.surrey.sch.uk

Class Timetable

Our PE days are Monday and Wednesday this half term. Wednesdays we will be swimming!

Our VIP table, Selfie Station and Star Writers!

Last year in Dolphins we have introduced a new VIP table for very important people. It was such a success we have carried it on this year! if the children win our achievement certificates they then get to spend the next week on our table for very important people.

  

There are some perks to sitting on the VIP table, the children get to use our exclusive VIP stationery, wear our VIP badges, get to be the first to go ou to break and lunch, they can even request a drink of juice and enjoy a biscuit on the Friday! We will post pictures of our VIPS. Our VIPs this week chose to enjoy some mini chocolate doughnuts!

Our Selfie Station is another new addition to Dolphins, if the children are proud of their work they can take a pop a selfie clip in their books, we will copy it for the children to bring home and share with you. 

 

As a new addition this year, to show off our hard work in literacy, we have a weekly Star Writer! Their work is displayed in the classroom and then it goes on our wall of fame! Make sure you ask your children about their writing and encourage them to use the Selfie Station to share it with you at home.

June

This month has been so busy for Year 6. We have been focusing on our writing and written some amazing stories! For our 'Before Sunset' stories we were looking at how to build suspense and tension; to help with this we did our writing by candle light and listened to some tense background music to help get us in the mood! It worked well and the stories were fantastic! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In PE, we have been swimming on Wednesdays. The children have been working on their front and back strokes and trying to use the correct breathing technique during these. The children have been using aids to build their confidence and some have even moved to unaided swimming! We have also been learning water safety to make sure we are all staying safe and enjoying our lessons.

 

In RE, we have moved onto our thematic unit all about how to live a good life. The children have been researching different religious views on this topic and are creating a mini-presentation for their chosen religion. They have enjoyed comparing the religions they chose to their own views and beliefs. It has been interesting to look at similarities and differences and think about why these differences might exist. 

In PSHE, we have been focusing on transitioning to our new schools in September. Most children have met with their new head of years and will soon be enjoying transition days at their new schools. Some children have been at Maybury for their whole school lives, so this move is daunting and the children have many questions. Engage came in and we had a workshop all about what to expect at our new school, advice on how to cope with some of the changes and tips for what we can do to help with these changes. The children loved the activities and took home a very handy book with more tips and advice. 

 

May

It has been a very busy month for Year 6, the children have been working hard all year in preparation for their SATs tests. Last week our time to shine finally came! The children came in for a very yummy breakfast where they could choose between cereal, toast, crumpets, pancakes or pan au chocolates!

Once our tests were over, we enjoyed a few treats… we had a visit from the ducklings that have been in Starfish class. They were so cute and a lot of fun to have cuddles with!

             

On Friday, we spent the morning at Boundary park. It was fantastic weather, we had football, skipping and the children played on all of the equipment. The children also enjoyed some tasty snacks and juice drinks!

As well as SATs we have still been busy with our art learning journey. The children have been making life size sculptures of a human body inspired by Sean Henry the creator of the Woking people sculptures that you can see around town. We made ours from sellotape, clingfilm, newspaper and paper mâché. Each person in our group was one of the body parts– we measured them and then created them. It was so much fun!

April

This half term our Geography focus is the Americas. We have been using our map reading skills to find North and South America and identify countries in them. We have also looked at why time zones are different across the world and compared them to ours.

In PE, we have been reading maps to create faces as part of our orienteering skill development. We had communicators who could give directions and builders who had to listen to the instructions and create the faces correctly. It was tricky to start with but we learnt some great strategies to organize our groups and speed up our building.

   

In computing, we have been using Micro:bits. It is the first time the children have used them. The nit follows on from our scratch programming unit earlier in the year. The children have programmed the bits using their Chromebooks and then created messages and pictures that are downloaded onto the Micro:bits. It has been fun so far and we will be moving onto making our own step counters.

      

In RE, we have been learning about a new religion, Buddhism. The children have been learning about the  key beliefs and principles of the religion and so far they have sequenced the story of Buddha, a very important man in this religion. The children were interested to find out he is not considered a God in Buddhism.

In art, we have been learning about local sculptor Sean Henry. He created the sculptures around Woking town centre. We will be creating our own 3D models inspired by his work. We began by experimenting with paper mache. It was very fun and very messy!

            

We are getting ready for SATs this month so please make sure you support the children at home and make sure they attend school every day! We will still be learning new things and revising in Maths and literacy everyday.

 

March

We need to start by saying a HUGE well done to Dolphins this half term for showing resilience during their Mock SATs week! You should be very proud of your efforts Dolphins!

This month, we went on an amazing trip to Milestones Museum linking to our History topic. We took part in workshops and learnt all about life during WW2. We found out what an ARP warden was and what their job entailed. It sounded very scary, but the children recalled lots of facts from our Mr Dilly workshop and listened carefully to what life was like during The Blitz. The children got to dress up and had a go at spotting enemy planes. We also learnt about rationing, during the war and used our ration books to buy our own sweets to take home.

March is also the month of World Book day! We were lucky enough to have a visit from a published Author: Michael De Souza. He was very engaging and helped us learn rhymes to remember stories! It was a lot of fun. We had some great costumes in our classroom including some new characters we haven’t seen before so thank you for your help creating these!

In P.E, we have become Gymnasts, we have been learning to balance, mirror and match. It has been wonderful to see our balance getting better each week. During our final lesson we watched our apparatus mirroring and matching pieces and then evaluated each other according to the skills we have been learning each week.

 

In RE, we have been learning about prophecies and finding examples of prophecies Jesus made and then looking for evidence of them being fulfilled. We have also looked at artworks and linked them to the prophecies we learnt about.

 

 

February

At the end of last term, we started our new World War 2 topic, ’Blitz and Pieces’, with a fantastic workshop with Mr Dilly. We learnt so much about the War and even got to role play being air raid wardens and being in the Blitz, it was very loud and very disorientating! The children had so much fun and over the half term they have managed to remember a lot of facts from our morning.

In literacy, we are continuing to read ‘War Horse’ and the children are really enjoying it. So far, we have written: diary entries, a balanced argument and a newspaper report about the beginning of the Blitz. The children listened to old radio news reports and then worked on creating their own.

In maths, we have been continuing to look at fractions, decimals and percentages. We are focusing on converting them and solving problems including them.

In computing, the children have now finished their Scratch games with moving objects and they have evaluated each others by playing them. This half term, we are moving onto creating our own webpages! The children are very excited about this unit and can’t wait to get started!

In art, we completed our street art unit and had a go at screen printing  our own designs they had made using positive and negative space. The children were very pleased with their results.

In DT this half term, we are going to be creating our own phone cases. The children will research materials to use for it and then learn a number of different sewing stitches. The children will then plan their own design and select the stitch they feel is best. Once they are completed, the children can take them home and use them!

In PE, we finished our carnival dance unit and filmed our samba dances. The children did a great job at timing their moves and making sure they were all synchronised.

In PSHE, we have been learning about how we are all different and this can be affected by where you live. We compared what we have with what some children from other countries had. We then looked at how we could raise money to help those with less than us. Everyone planned a charity event and created promotional posters for our events too!

January

This half term, has been a busy start to 2024! We have jumped straight into some new and exciting topics. WW1 is the  theme of our History and Literacy lessons, with a focus on our class text of War Horse written by Michael Morpurgo.

In PE, we have started two new sports, tennis and dance. The children have shown great skill during our tennis lessons. So far, we have practised balance, coordination and returning the ball. We have also learnt the importance of the handshake grip and keeping a firm wrist! In our dance lessons, we are making links with music whilst focusing on rhythm and team work to learn Samba moves. We recorded them in our final lesson, they were amazing!

 

Dolphin's have been fantastic mathematicians this month, learning algebra. Children have enjoyed using function machines and substituting numbers in equations.

In art, we have been looking at street art and the famous artist Banksy. The children enjoyed looking at a range of his artworks and debated whether they thought it was art or graffiti. It was a very interesting topic! The children have been learning how to create depth in their artwork by looking at positive and negative space and creating these in their work. We had some great results!

We were lucky enough to take part in a First Aid workshop with a volunteer from the Red Cross. We learnt how we can use everyday items to help someone who has hurt themselves, role-played emergency situations and practised the recovery position and how to tell an adult how to do CPR. It was very informative, and we learnt to always call for help from an adult or, if there are none, call 999!

 

December 

In Year 6, we have had a very busy month. We were rehearsing for our Christmas performance. We decided to focus on Poland and how they celebrate Christmas. We created a class acrostic poem all about what makes Christmas special in Poland. We voted for our favourite ideas for each letter and put them together for the show. We also chose a lovely song to sing all about “the little star" or Gwiazdka. The children loved learning the words and making up actions to go with the song.

In DT, we have finished our healthy packed lunch learning journey.  We have researched what would make a good healthy packed lunch, looked at the differences between processed, precooked and fresh foods. We then created a questionnaire for a friend to find out what they would want in a healthy packed lunch. We then used that information to plan what we wanted to include and created shopping lists to take home.  We also constructed nets to hold our packed lunch items.

This week, it was finally time to make our healthy packed lunches. The children did so well sharing ingredients and working together! It was a great day.

 

 

In computing, we have wrapped up our spreadsheet lessons with a big event! The children needed to plan and budget for a big party. They had a price list of items to choose from and they  worked with a partner to create their spreadsheet using the function inputs we had learnt about.

Finally, we had our last Winter Wonderland party at Maybury! The children looked great in their party outfits and really enjoyed taking part in the games. We even had some winners in our class!

November 

This has been a very busy month for the Dolphins. We finished our first class text and now have our new one ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty.  It is based on a young boy Jim Jarvis and his life in the Victorian times. We have been focusing our Literacy learning around this text and producing different pieces of writing about Jim and his life.

 

This month we also had one of our favourite workshops; we visited the Life space tent in the hall with one of our favourite visitors, Mark. He came to talk to the children about decisions we make in life and how to make sure we make decisions that are best for us and how we can cope with peep pressure. We then watched a video about Jack who was facing some tough decisions when his friends try to pressure him into breaking rules. We talked about how Jack and his friends could speak out against their friends and work as a united front.

We also talked about what our body needs to stay healthy, including how our organs work, and we even learnt some fun facts! We also learnt about drugs and the difference between legal and illegal drugs and how they can affect your body.

In science, we have started a new topic ‘Evolution and Inheritance’, and we have been looking at maternal and paternal inherited characteristics. The children produced some great homework for this!

In DT, we have started a new project about making a healthy packed lunch for a friend in the class. The children will be setting questionnaires to find out what their friend wants in their lunch. They will also be writing a shopping list for items they will need to bring in for our making sessions in a couple of weeks. Once they have been completed, the children will be getting feedback to see if they fulfilled their brief.

October

In PE, we have been practising our passing and defending skills in netball. We then learnt the different positions and how they can move in the game. Once we knew this, we could move onto playing mini-games. The children loved applying the skills to their games!

In RE, we have been learning all about Hindus and how they worship. We have learnt all about the Puja tray and what each of the artefacts are for. The children chose their own pictures of the Puja tray and then added labels with information.

This week the children learnt about Diwali, the festival of light, and created their own Rangoli patterns to celebrate.

In maths, the children have been consolidating their understanding of the four operations: adding, subtraction, multiplication and division. We had a lesson on BIDMAS and the children absolutely loved it! They were challenging themselves to solve multistep problems during breaktime! 

 

In art, we have been learning about Lowry, a famous artist from the Victorian era. We have been practising different skills he used to create his paintings and this week we are going to be creating our own Lowry inspired art work!

 

In history, we have been comparing the Victorian era to our lives. The children have looked at schools and decided they did not like how the Victorian children learnt, it is much nicer in 2023!

The children also learnt about the Industrial Revolution and how Britain changed during it. We compared housing, how areas changed and people's jobs. It was very interesting to link this to Lowry's paintings which featured many factories. 

In computing, children have been learning about the Internet and how it works! They have worked collaboratively using messages over the internet, which they very much enjoyed! We have looked at appropriate ways to use the internet and how to stay safe when accessing websites.

September

This month has been a very busy for Dolphins! The children have settled into our new classroom environment well and are keeping up with the demanding schedule.

We began the year learning about our class sea creature, the dolphin. The children researched them and found lots of fun facts to create a fact file. The children also chose their own medium to create dolphin pictures. They are on display in the corridor and the cloakroom.

In Literacy, we have started reading 'Pig Heart Boy' by Malorie Blackman. This is a very interesting text with some very interesting issues regarding organ transplants. This text links well with our Science topic which is all about the circulatory system, last week we made our own blood and learnt about the different parts that make it up, it was lots of fun!

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'Pig Heart Boy' has a controversial story line which has lent itself well to debating in Literacy. The children chose a side, researched facts and evidence to support their viewpoints and then learnt debating skills. This week of learning resulted in us having our own debates at the end of the week. It was great to hear the children giving reasons and evidence to support their opinions!

Our prefects had a very important job this month; they opened the new Aldi store and we had an inspirational assembly from a gold medal winning Olympian and Paralympian! Aldi also donated fresh fruit to the school so the children enjoyed a very yummy fruit bar!

In music, we have been learning how to play parts of 'Make You Feel My Love' by Adele. \The children have been learning to play the recorder alongside this song and practising reading sheet music to know which notes to play.

In PSHE, we were thinking about our school rules and what this would look like in our classroom. We created a Jam Board with all of our ideas and they are displayed in our classroom to make sure we all remember how to be Ready, Respectful, Safe and Kind.