Year 6 Mrs Brennan

Welcome to Falcon Class

Mrs Blakeborough, Mrs Naymacosi and I would like to offer you a very warm welcome to Year 6 and to our class page.

Throughout the course of the year, there will be lots of different and exciting challenges which we are going to tackle together as a team, working together and supporting each other. There will also be lots of exciting roles and responsibilities for your child to become involved within, allowing us to grow in confidence, independence, and resilience and more importantly, allow for us to be immersed in fun and develop our love for learning. These include roles in our School Council, Playground Leaders and Story Time Leaders.

Each week, your child will be set homework which links in with the learning taking place within the classroom that week. We encourage you to support your child with the tasks which have been set, alongside listening to your child read at least twice a week – our homework timetable can be found at the bottom of this page.

Throughout the year, different reading challenges will be set and reading will be celebrated throughout the school. We also have a class reading challenge, where the children can receive raffle tickets for the number of times they read to an adult each week. These tickets will then be entered into a raffle, where you child could win a gift voucher for Boston, West End Cinema.

We also have some fantastic Year 6 texts to read this year including: Anne Frank’s Diary, The Titanic Detective Agency, Hidden Figures and not forgetting our first text of Goodnight Mister Tom in support of our English and History lessons for Term 1. 

If you do have any concerns or queries, then please do not hesitate to contact us (preferably by phone or email) before or after the school day.

sara.brennan@hawthorn-tree.lincs.sch.uk

If your child is struggling with homework, then please encourage them to come and speak to myself, Mrs Blakeborough, Mrs Naymacosi BEFORE their homework is due in, this means we can go over the homework together in enough time.

On Thursdays, Miss Neal will be teaching R.E., French and Art to our Year 6 pupils and they will also be able to enjoy exciting music lessons from Lincolnshire Music Service - the children really enjoy these hands on sessions.

Please keep browsing our class page for important updates, homework timetables, knowledge organisers and more importantly, the children's learning – these can all be found at the bottom of our class page.

We hope you enjoy browsing our page and we look forward to working with you closely this academic year.

Many Thanks, 

Mrs Brennan

A HUGE WELL DONE!

Congratulations to Year 6 for completing your SATs this week. The resilience and determination you have shown this week has made us all proud. You also completed your sponsored Fun Run this afternoon with some fabulous results:

Ollie A 20 laps    

Leo B 23 laps

Riley B 11 laps

Penny B 12 laps

Amelia B 19 laps

Olly B 20 laps

Alfie C 20 laps

Lukas D 11 laps

Bozhidar G 18 laps

Anthony G 16 laps

Cody G 24 laps

Tyler H 29 laps

Emily H 17 laps

Jacob H 29 laps

Nikita I 27 laps

Isla K 18 laps

Amelia-Rose 15 laps

Zackary M 19 laps

Charlie N 27 Laps

Lewis P 14 laps

Henry P 25 laps

Rylie R 18 laps

Anna S-B 15 laps

Sana S 20 laps

Amelija U 22 laps

Lola G U 13 laps

Kristian V 16 laps

Emma W 25 laps

Alex Z 22 laps

Summer Term One

Welcome back everyone. All children have completed and returned their Year 6 Easter homework booklets. A huge thank you to all the children, parents and carers who supported your children in completing these. I am so proud of the hard work, resilience and determination that the children have shown this year. Thank you everyone for your hard work and support.

Below are the dates for this year's SATs as well as some useful websites to support the children further. Our class dog will also be visiting regularly this week to support our children. If you have any concerns or questions please do not hesitate to contact me through email or directly by telephoning or popping in.

Tuesday 9th May - Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (Paper 1)

                              Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (Paper 2)

Wednesday 10th May - English Reading.

Thursday 11th May - Maths Paper 1 (Arithmetic)

                                      Maths Paper 2 (Reasoning)

Friday 12th May - Maths Paper 3 (Reasoning)

Here are some web links that you may wish to use to help with SATs practise, ready for May 9th. Simply click on the links below. 

https://myminimaths.co.uk/

https://corbettmathsprimary.com/

https://readtheory.org/

Class Code: J8V284JT

Welcome back to Spring Terms 3 & 4

Please find our curriculum update and knowledge organisers for the next two terms. These terms are really important for our Year 6 children as we lay some important foundations for the SATs in May and start preparing children for secondary school. 

Holocaust Educational Trust - Vera Schaufeld MBE

On Friday afternoon, the children of Year 6 were privileged to have a virtual meeting with Vera Schaufeld a survivor of the Holocaust in World War II. The children were able to hear how Vera was  brought to England as a child through the Kindertransport system. Vera shared photographs of her happy childhood in Czechoslovakia before she arrived in England as well as photographs of her family. Sadly Vera learned that after the war she had no surviving family members. She went on to become a teacher and received the MBE from Prince William. It was such an honour to become a part of history and to know that stories like Vera's will be continued to be shared through generations to come.

Welcome to Autumn Term Two

Welcome back everyone! We have a very busy term coming ahead. We have our visit to the Imperial War Museum Duxford, as well as a live webinar with Vera from the Holocaust Trust who will be speaking to the children about her experiences with the Kindertransport during World War II.

We will be making sewn Christmas decorations in Dt, investigating 'Electricity' in Science and continuing with our work on World War II with a focus on the holocaust and Anne Frank. In computing we will look at coding and how to create strong passwords that cannot be hacked.

I have included a curriculum overview for your information.

Imperial War Museum Trip - Wednesday 9th November

Please see letter below for further details.

Online Safety - 2 Step Verification

In computing this week, we looked at passwords and why they are important, what makes a strong password and how can we best avoid our password being stolen.

Key questions:

• Is it a good idea to use the same password for all your accounts? 
• How can we remember lots of passwords? 
• Has anybody used two factor authentication before? 
• Why might signing in with a fingerprint be more secure than a written password? 
• What could you do if somebody gets hold of your password? 
• Why is it important to ask fast? 

We then had to design a two-step verification process to access a class sweet dispenser.

Year 6 had a hands on activity this afternoon finding out how many countries Germany (Blue) Russia (Green) and Italy (Yellow)  invaded at the beginning of WWII. After this point, the Battle of Britain began and fighting took took the skies as well as the land.

1938: Germany marches into Austria and takes it over. Pinch a piece of dough from Germany and add it to Austria.

March 1939: Germany marches into Czechoslovakia. Pinch a piece of dough from Germany and add it to Czechoslovakia.

March 1939: Germany marches into Poland. Pinch a piece of dough from Germany and add it to Poland.

3 Sept 1939: The Prime Minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain, declares war on Germany.

He said this: “I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany... Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened…”

France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada all declare war on Germany!

17 Sept 1939: The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east. Take dough from the Soviet Union and add it to Poland.

30 Nov 1939: The Soviet Union invades Finland. Take dough from the Soviet Union and add it to Finland.

9 April 1940: Germany invades Norway and Denmark. Take dough from Germany and add it to Denmark first (they surrendered straight away) and then Norway (they surrendered 2 months later).

10 May: Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain, replacing Neville Chamberlain. Churchill knew things were going to be tough. He said to one of his colleagues “Poor people, poor people. They trust me, and I can give them nothing but disaster for quite a long time.”

10 May 1940: Germany attacks Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Belgium. Luxemburg surrenders. Take dough from Germany and add it to Luxemburg first, then to Netherlands (they took 2 days to surrender).

12 May 1940: With Luxemburg, Netherlands and Belgium invaded, Germany has a clear route into France. Germany attacks France. Move dough from Germany, through Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Belgium and into France.

10 June 1940: Italy joins in the war, on the side of the Germans. Add dough to Italy. Italy declares war on Britain and France.

21 June 1940: Italy invades southern France. Add a piece of Italy’s dough to southern France.

22 June 1940: Germany conquers France. France surrenders. Add Germany’s dough to France. 30 June 1940: Germany takes over the Channel Islands, the only piece of British soil to be invaded. Move a small piece of German dough to the Channel Islands.

We  finished our play dough war there, because on the 10th July the Battle of Britain began and, although it continued on the ground, the fighting took to the skies!

Online Bullying

Year 6 have been learning about what to do if they are victims of online bullying. We hope you find these video links about cyber bullying useful. As online bullying is difficult to evidence I have also included a guide on how to take a screen grab or screen shot on different devices so that children know what to do if they need to collect evidence.

https://www.bbc.com/ownit/its-personal/your-experience-why-do-people-bully

https://www.bbc.com/ownit/its-personal/bystander-to-bullying-five-things-now?collection=bullying-and-trolling

What is Refraction?

The children in Year 6 have been looking at light and how it helps us to see objects. Today they investigated the idea of refraction - how light bends and creates and creates an illusion such as the bendy straw. Light waves travel at a different speed when they go through other transparent materials, such as water or glass. This causes the rays of light to change direction and bend. This is known as refraction.

Refraction creates illusions. Because light bends when it travels between air and water or glass, objects seen through these materials look bent or distorted. Did you know refraction is the reason we can see rainbows? Refraction also helps us to see as it is used to bend light in the lenses of our glasses and contact lenses.

Watch this video to find out more!

https://youtu.be/zarxpu43-ls

Women's Roles in WW2

Life for most women before the war was quite different than it is today. Typically, most women stayed at home and did not go out to work. When WW2 started, men were being called up for active service, meaning that there was a great need for women to undertake the jobs that the men had previously done, allowing for women to be employed in a wide range of jobs.

During the war, women were employed in a wide range of jobs. Some became munition factory workers (making weapons); others joined the armed forces (army, navy and air force); many worked as Land Girls; some drove buses or trains; some worked on the canals; they worked as nurses or ambulance drivers; they built ships and worked in other engineering industries; they worked as searchlight operators and some became air raid wardens.

The Women’s Voluntary Service also employed women, who assisted with a wide range of duties.