Summer term!
This term, our theme of learning has been lights, camera, ACTION! We went to the West End to watch Wicked as our inspiration for our end of year play. We've then worked our socks off: learning lines, acting, singing and dancing to put together an incredible show!
Here is a sneak peak of the children in their roles for the performance this week!
Preparing for secondary school
Today, Mrs Jennings and Mr Fusi from St Benedict's conference called our class to introduce themselves and explain what the pupils need to do to prepare for their transition days in the coming weeks. They brought along with them two year 7s to speak with the children. The children of year 6 had many questions and the two former pupils answered them expertly!
Local history month - May
Learning about the Siege of Colchester, 1648
To learn about the Siege of Colchester, Year 6 went on a walking tour of the town itself, to visit the places impacted by the Siege all those years ago. We met Nick and Mary, 17th Century Jailors who took us to all the different places impacted: the Dutch Quarter, the Castle, The Town Hall, Balkerne Gate, St Mary’s Church and Eld Lane. Evidence of the Siege is still present in the town. As we listened to the stories of Nick and Mary, we got a real feeling of what it was like to live during the time: many of us did not like the sound of the harsh living conditions Colchestrians lived through during the longest siege in British history.
Celebrating the Coronation in Year 6!
Even though it has been SATs week, Year 6 have been celebrating the Coronation of King Charles by learning a dance and learning about different decades of his life. We have looked at inspirational people and events in different decades and thinking about timelines and chronology to represent the information we have learnt.
What have we been learning about in Year 6?
The circulation system!
We've been studying the heart, blood and the circulation system through science and English. Today we reflected on what we knew about the heart and studied the components of blood. We represented this through making a blood smoothie with Cheerios and marshmallows as the blood cells!
Spring term!
Part of our art skill development was painting and using oil paints on canvas to explore different painting media. Under our theme of Galapagos, we looked at Darwin's drawings of finches and then looked at the finches ourselves. Using our knowledge of art, from our artist great study, we created our own canvas art of Darwin's finches. Year 6 worked so hard on their artwork and the results are stunning! Take a look at some of their work!
Our art great study: Georgia O'Keeffe
As part of our artist study, we looked at the art style of Georgia O'Keeffe. We noticed she drew a lot of the natural world and zoomed in to show the true beauty. We then looked at orchids and sketched, zoomed in, like Georgia did. Finally we replicated a piece of art, using the orchids, in the style of Georgia: zoomed in, bright and colourful.
As part of our PSHE unit of 'Keeping Safe, out and about', Pc Adams and PC Spiers came in to visit year 6 today (20.1.23) with a problem. Year 6 became police detectives and used the same equipment police officers do to find a missing child. We looked at witness statements and drew out all of the facts. Then we used an OS map of Colchester to locate the different areas our missing person might be. We looked into where the CCTV would be in those areas and then watched the footage to see if we could find the person. All the while, we were drawing conclusions to find the person. Next we looked at his mobile phone records to see where he could be and then decided to call 3 of the numbers on his phone records. We learned that the police can access our messages and phone calls, even after they have been deleted to keep us safe. We thought of good questions to ask to locate the person and eventually found him: safe and well. PC Spiers called the office to make sure he was collected and taken back to his mum. All in all, it was a fantastic workshop that showed us all of the police skills - some of the children were excellent observers and detectives and now many of them wish to be police detectives as a career choice! Thank you PC Adams and PC Spiers for the excellent workshop today!
Ignition arts - session 2. What should we say when we see someone who is sad? What advice should we give them? Today we role played what we could say and what advice we can give. Darren's tooolkit advice was to always tell a trusted adult and our friends can support us in doing this.
Autumn term!
The role of the priest - interviewing Father Paschal
On Friday 18th November, Father Paschal came in to talk to us about the role of the priest. We asked him many questions about his calling to the church and what he does each day. Father Paschal told us about how he was initially called through prayer. He told us that we should listen during prayer and trust in God. He showed us what this meant with a demonstration. One of us went to the front of the class and listened to Father Paschal calling his name (like when God calls us) and how we should trust in God too. He then fell backwards and trusted Father Paschal, who caught him. This is what it means to trust in God. We then asked Father Paschal about his ordination and sang some hymns that linked to ordination. He then taught us a fun song with actions. It was wonderful to interview Father Paschal and learn about the role of a priest.
Mummifying an orange
Today we mummified oranges to replicate the process we know from primary and secondary historical sources. We followed the processes, with a few alterations, to see what a difficult and pressured job it was. We used our historical empathy to identify how we felt and how embalmers would have felt 3000 years. We compared mummies from 1000bc to 50bc and saw how over time they changed and practice made perfect. Many of us felt honoured but also felt the pressure of mummifying a pharaoh. How would you feel mummifying a pharaoh knowing Ra would be watching?
Black History month - studying an art great: Jacob Lawrence
Day 5
And so our time at Aylmerton came to an end. On our last day we went on the monster trail. We used an OS map of Felbrigg Hall to find clues to solve the riddle and we learned to find a compass to find north and work out our direction of travel on the map. On our way, we encountered monsters hidden in the woods.
Day 4
Today we went to Blakeney Point to study long shore drift and see the evidence of long shore drift at the point. Unfortunately we couldn't go on the seal boat trip due to the wind. As we walked back to Cley, we were actually being followed by not one but three seals!
Day 3
Today the weather was not on our side and so we had to change our plans! We began the day at West Runton, looking at the cliff erosion and then fossil hunting in the rock pools. We were fascinated by the sea creatures we found! We also managed to find belemnites, fossils on the north Norfolk coast - we're bringing lots of these home with us! We then learned more about how we get the different rocks and gem stones on our beaches and went treasure hunting for rocks. We found flint, jasper and carnelian. The weather then turned from glorious sunshine to gales and rain. We went to the life boat museum and learned about Henry Blogg and his dog Monte.
Our Aylmerton Adventures
Day 2
Today was another jam packed day! We woke up and had a very hearty breakfast, ready for the day ahead. We went to Happisburgh and learned about the impact of coastal erosion. We were all quite shocked at the impact coastal erosion has on the landscape and people! We then went to Sea Palling and looked at the different sea defences. We stopped to have some delicious ice-creams before becoming captains and driving/navigating a boat on the Broads. After dinner we prepared for a super exciting bowling trip. We then had cake and hot chocolate before bed! It has been another amazing day and the children have been incredible ambassadors for the school!
Day 1
This afternoon we spent time exploring our home for the next few days. We took part in some team building and free time before dinner! After dinner we went on a special night walk and then enjoyed a story altogether before bedtime.
Judaism Week in Year 6
As part of our studies on Judaism, we looked at the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashannah which took place this week. We developed our knowledge of Rosh Hashannah and took part in the celebration of eating apples and honey while looking at the prayer. We then found the Bible reference in Leviticus and thought about how it links to our lives as Catholics.
Remembering Queen Elizabeth II
R.E: unconditional love
Should the Prodigal son have been forgiven?
We held a conscience alley drama activity, acting in role. We drew upon our knowledge of unconditional love in the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18: 10-14), Psalm 23 and Paul’s letter to Titus (Titus 3: 2-8). Owen and Santino then summed up both arguments and decided that the son should be forgiven.
Was King Tutankhamun murdered? Did he die from illness or accident? Year 6 investigated possible causes of death and put forward their case for debate. They ensured their opinions were backed up with fact (evidence). Then, using the British Value of democracy, the children voted anonymously. The results: a tie between accident and illness. What do you think his cause of death was?
We are archaeologists. As part of our ancient civilisations studies, the children became archaeologists, using different tools to uncover different artefacts.
