Fairfields Primary School

Year 6

Welcome to Year 6.  

Class teacher of Ottawa:  Miss Warwick

Class teacher of Lima:  Mrs Dawson.

Please find the summer newsletter here and a mind-map of the autumn term curriculum topics. 

Fairfields Primary School Termly letter to Parents SUMMER 2023.docx

Please find a copy of the Year 6  timetable here.

Summer term timetable.docx

 S.A.T.s

S.A.T.s week is quickly approaching.

The timetable is as follows:

Key stage 2

The key stage 2 tests are timetabled from Tuesday 9 May to Friday 12 May 2023.

The deadline for ordering S.A.T.s breakfast has now passed.

S.A.T.s advice:

Please do not overdo the revision on the weekend before S.A.T.s.   Some is obviously good but the children need to be rested too.

Quality sleep is very important on the week of S.A.T.s and the weekend before.

Please ensure that your child arrives in school in good time.  We let the children in and get started straight away on the tests.  It will obviously, therefore, cause difficulties if children are late.

Please avoid arranging any appointments any morning in this week.   It will not be possible to do the test the following day.

Thank you to all who attended parents' evenings and the S.A.T.s meeting.  If you were unable to attend the latter, here is the powerpoint of the session.  SATs meeting 2023.ppt

The website for Boot Camp is www.yearsix.co.uk/sats-boot-camp.  The children are recording their user names and passwords in their purple homework book.

Hindleap Warren residential trip - November 2022 

SCROLL DOWN FOR TUESDAY ONWARDS...

Greetings from Hindleap!

Here we are after a successful first day.  The journey here was quick and uneventful.  We were quickly organised into dormitories and all the children went off happily with their new room-mates.   We had lunch and then started our first activity.

The activities for today were team building that involved some great challenges in the wood including a tricky maze that the children had to tilt but avoid the ball dropping through a hole and also a challenge for the whole group to travel across an area only standing on tyres.

The other activities were more adventurous - pentagon and zipwire.  Mrs Dawson said her zipwire group pushed themselves to do something they were anxious about and were very encouraging of each other.  Some children whizzed round pentagon.  Some were very nervous but were amazing and got themselves right round.  Some just managed the first part which was great as they pushed themselves a little beyond their comfort zone as we asked.

Tonight, after a meal with NO COMPLAINTS FROM ANY CHILDREN, we had our last activity.  The meal was pizza by the way!

We went off into the muddy woods for a walk in the dark.  Finally, after hot chocolate they have now gone to bed!  It is peaceful ... at the moment.

 Please select below for further information regarding the residential trip to Hindleap Warren. 

 Activity schedule

Hindleap Information Evening November 2022.pptx

Hindleap Warren Kit List 2022.pdf

Tuesday 29th November

What a great day we have had today!  We have done fire lighting, orienteering, map reading and shelter building.  The shelter building involved thinking about survival and setting up a shelter in the amazing forest that surrounds our site.

As well as shelter building, the children were given the skills to fire light.  This led to an interesting challenge in perseverance, as they needed to light a fire to toast a marshmallow!

The children also experienced map reading where they had a little freedom to navigate themselves around the centre. 

The winning children were very excited until they discovered that they had won a lifetime's supply of oxygen! (See below!)

Wednesday 30th November

A very busy day today of children encountering new and different challenges and meeting them!  Please see below for a range of pictures of our adventures.  Also, we have been SO lucky with the weather...

This is a picture of William very much enjoying his dinner!

Thursday

The day of more abseiling and forest adventure!

Autumn Term

Hook days

Please see below information about our hook days at the start of this term to introduce the topic of 'Contrasts'.

Writing

In year 6, there isn't a SATs test for writing.   The children are assessed based on the work they complete in class.  To understand how this happens, look at the piece of writing below produced by Gaby.

We need to judge the work on multiple criteria.  Here are three of them to introduce this to you:

Has the child written clearly to an audience?

Has the child used the right verbs to show the different tenses?

Is the writing legible and joined?

The next pieces of writing were about developing characters.  You can see that these three children have described the characters in a range of ways, including using dialogue to bring the characters alive.

The following piece of writing moves on to look at atmosphere.  This child has developed a sense of tension through their word choices.

For our Harvest Festival art, Lima class painted pictures of a fruit from Peru.  It is a lucuma. This is very popular in Peru, especially in ice cream. We used a technique called pointillism where the picture is created using tiny dots. Layers of colour are built up for effect.

Summer Term

Ufton Court Residential

Wednesday

Greetings from our last evening at Ufton Court.  We have had a lovely day today with lots of different activities.  The children very much enjoyed making a braided bracelet and also the challenge wall.  The latter involved vaulting over a wall that gradually got higher and higher until it reached 6 foot!  This then involved the children providing human steps.  We were really impressed with the children's courage.  Harry, Sophia, Olivia, Maisie, Hamza and Matias were human spiders!  This evening we have had a fiesta.  The barn was beautifully decorated and the children sat at round tables with masks and  sombreros to wear.  The food was from around the world and the music added to the atmosphere.

We ended the evening with some free time and then our usual bedtime story which we make up together.  Today's involved Iana, Cleo, Bobby and Moussa visiting Fantasy Narnia Fairfields and meeting Mr Tumble.

The children are now all in bed and - hu hum - possibly asleep.

We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow at the graduation ceremony and, all those of you who wish to, we will see you for a picnic.

Day 3 Photos

Tuesday

Well, what a surprise that when I (Miss Warwick) went to wake the children up at 7, they were all already awake!  Today has been a busy one full of activities as  you will see from the photos and the children have had a great time.  We did activities such as creating a Fred Flintstone car, low ropes and moving a giant ball.  The most popular activity was the water event involving various games where we needed to throw wet balls at each other!  One group had to  make a bridge of milk crates and walk over it at the same time as the other team were throwing the balls.  This session ended with the super soak event which involved the children sitting in a row and having a bucket of cold water dropped on them.  You will see some of this in action photos below!

The food continues to exceed expectations.  We had jacket potatoes and bangers and mash.

In the evening, we decided not to do a woodland activity and instead made the most of the amazing property we are staying at by playing football in the gardens, chilling out in dorms etc.  Miss Rees and I took groups of children to the farm and had a great time feeding the goats and scratching the pigs' backs.

We have finished each day with a bedtime story and today Samiyah told a story about Mr Thorpe becoming a super hero with a magic fork.  Well, I would like to think that was the end of today but, as I write, we are still at the stage of 'I can still hear you in this dorm and I thought I told you to go to sleep!'  Parents, enjoy your second peaceful evening!

Day 2 Photos

Monday

Wow, what a busy first day!  Yes, it has been hot but we have still had lots of activities to do.  We've had two great meals that have been eagerly devoured and four activities.  First was Ultimate Frisbee when the children split into two groups, bibs and non-bibs.  It was then a competition get the frisbee in the other team's space.

In the afternoon, we split into different activities.  Some children were doing fire lighting and toasting marshmallows and others were doing a woodland walk and learning how to make an acorn whistle.  Phoebe and Hamza were very  focused learning how to whistle.   Yasna, Zyiah, Matias and Maisie managed to get their fire lit first with a flint.

One group  had a water fight which was lovely in the heat and made flintstone cars.

We also had a go at archery where the children searched for their inner Robin Hood.  There was a hog target and we were told no tea without 15 arrows hitting it!  Unfortunately we didn't reach the target but we were let off.

This evening, we played sardines in the wood, where one person hid and the others hid with them when they found them.  The hiders were Ciara and Samuel but the last time Cameron tricked us by not sending anyone to hide!!

It is now 11.13 and we are still working on making sure that everyone is asleep!  Stand by for photos to be added.

Quotes:

Rebecca – Great experience because we got to do teamwork.  It was fun (we were the best group!)

Isla – the food is very good and fire lighting was fun. The marshmallow was nice even though it was on fire.

Emma – It has been exciting and I have been working with and talking to people I don’t normally interact with.

Maisie - We did the A frame walking activity and it kept coming apart as the knots weren't tight enough.  Yasna was pulling one way, I was pulling another, Matias was pulling another and Zyiah was pulling another!

Day 1 Photos

Fantasy Fairfields

Well done to year 6 for pulling together a super performance this week!

Work samples

To help you to understand the reports just sent out, here are examples of work for writing.

This first example shows evidence of the expected standard for year 6 pupils to reach:

The following example shows evidence of greater depth:

Spring Term

Spring term learning

Phoenix flies

To help us to understand evolution we built 'phoenix flies' and then were told the story of their evolution.  Unfortunately our phoenix families dies out if they didn't have the adaptations needed to survive which included big eyes, a sting, claws and strong wings.

Bikeability

We spent a week learning how to ride our bikes with more confidence and greater safety.

Introduction to our Evolution topic

We met and interviewed a surprise visitor - Mary Anning.   We also created our own fossilised rock using imprints and etching.

Examples of work

Here are some examples of our writing.  The children were asked to write a balanced argument to help somebody to decide whether or not Ami should be sent to away from Culion Island.  She currently lives with her mother, who has leprosy, and the proposal is to send her to an orphanage.

Autumn Term

Autumn term learning - Visit to the Science Centre

In order to learn about electricity, year 6 have visited the science centre at Queen Mary's College.  Ottawa went in the morning and Lima went in the afternoon.   We experimented with different ways to change the brightness of the bulb, how to create doorbells, the effect of changing voltage and how to measure decibels. Here are some pictures:

Immersion Activities in September

We have started our autumn term with two days of immersion to introduce the children to our topic of 'Contrasts'.

The children have been taking part in a selection process to show if they have the skills to visit Antarctica.

They have completed application forms, taken part in a quiz about survival, learnt knots and shelter building, used a compass, learnt to trust each other while blindfolded and put up Miss Warwick's tent!

We have learnt lots about our new classes this way and now need to decide who has passed and who will win the special trophies.

We have also studied Scott and his ill- fated expedition to the South Pole through drama so our days have been busy!

Examples of work

Please look below to see samples of ARE work.  The writing that we display will include aspects needed to achieve age related expectations at the current moment.

Gallery