Monarchs (Year 6)

Message from Sandringham School Office to Parents/Carers

Due to the delay in the easing of COVID restrictions, the decision has been reached to postpone Sandringham’s Open Evening scheduled for Monday, 12^th July 2021 and re-scheduled the Open Evening to Monday, 13^th September 2021.

It would be appreciated if this information could be conveyed to your parents / carers so no unnecessary journeys are made to the school on 12^th July.

Welcome to Year 6

Our class is called Monarchs.

Monarchs are taught by Mr Milbourn and Mrs Rigarlsford.  

Things to remember:

Outdoor P.E will take place on Tuesdays and  Fridays.  Please come into school wearing your PE kit on those days. No need to bring a change of clothes. Spelling homework will be sent home on Friday and must be returned on the following Friday. Reading record books can be handed in for marking on Wednesday.  

Summer (2) Term 

Monarchs have been working very hard in recent weeks rehearsing the upcoming production of ‘Let the games begin.’ The performance is set to be an extravaganza of singing, dancing and acting. Keep learning those lines!

In PE we are developing our skills in Rounders and Athletics. We have practiced our running technique and applied this to the relay race where baton changes have been a focus. We have also been thinking about tactical play in Rounders and how the fielding team can be most effective.

Over the last week we have been learning remotely and the children have shown great resilience and enthusiasm. We have worked on a Theme Park project that incorporated lots of fun maths and design exercises. We will be carrying on with the project over the next couple of weeks. We have been thinking about persuasive writing techniques in English and have just completed a letter to Mrs Gibbs.

We also had a fun day last week dressing up as Rockstars and practicing our production songs with Mrs Curson.

 Summer Term

Weeks 3 and 4

In Maths, we have been working on our fractions skills. We have revised changing the denominator to add and subtract fractions easily as well as writing fractions in their simplest form. This week we have looked at mixed fractions and improper fractions which can be extremely challenging. We have been trying to add and subtract mixed fractions and will continue to work on this next week.

In English, we have continued to work on our sentence construction based on the 'Night of The Gargoyles' by Eve Bunting. We have created mystery and suspense through vocabulary choices and have started to look at dialogue between the characters of the watchman and the man behind the desk. Mr Milbourn and Mrs Rigarlsford modelled some role play of their possible conversations and we then created our own improvisations. This was then recorded in a speech bubble conversation poster.

In Art, we have created clay gargoyle models based on our 'Night of the Gargoyles' text. We learned how to shape clay, use different clay tools and join pieces of clay using slip. After 72 hours we applied a glaze of PVA and water to varnish and seal the air drying clay. The results were amazing!

On Friday, we took part in 'Numbers Day' with the focus being on the number 100. In PE, we completed a  fitness circuit of eight activities for a 100 seconds each. We were all exhausted afterwards. Some of us used a 100 speed stacking cups to build towers as tall as we could.

Summer Term

Weeks 1 and 2

In Maths we have been getting to grips with the differences between ratio and proportion and how this links with fractions and multiplication tables. We have used our understanding of the relationships between numbers to solve some complex reasoning problems.

In English, we completed final drafts of newspaper reports. These were based on the "wordless" picture book Tuesday where frogs on lilypads were seen floating around town at night by local residents. This week we have read the incredibly tense book "The Watertower" by Gary Crew. This sinister picture book tells the story of a town called Preston where the inhabitants appear to be controlled by an unknown force coming from the watertower on Shooter's Hill. The children investigated how mystery and suspense was created through what was and wasn't written by the author and through the incredible illustrations which give the reader additional clues about the story.

In PE we have taken advantage of the sunnier weather and have enjoyed learning about Kwik Cricket. The Year 6 children have learned the key skills of accurate underarm bowling, batting accuracy, close catching/wicket keeping as well as deep field catching. They have played small sided games to develop these skills in each lesson.

Second Half Term

Weeks 1 and 2

What a great start to this half term! The children have come back ready to learn and many of them have been working hard to read every night and play Times Tables Rockstars every night. Please encourage your child to read every night as they will win a house point every time they read. Please encourage your child to play on Times Tables Rockstars every night as they will win a house point every time they play! As well as winning house points, reading and knowledge of times tables are both such important life skills. Good luck Monarchs Class - your House Captains need you!

In English we have been carrying on researching the important features of Non-Chronological Reports. We have been looking at the fictional planet from the film Avatar and next week we will be writing our own reports. We are nearing the end of Letters from the Lighthouse and solving the mystery of the code. We are carrying on with our grammar learning and although at times it can be tricky, we have shown resilience when studying the trickier areas.

In Maths, we have been studying the different properties of numbers and have now moved on to fractions. We have looked at finding equivalent fractions, ordering fractions and simplifying fraction. Some have found the bar model useful for solving these problems and others have used their knowledge of common multiples for solving these problems. Mr Milbourn has also been showing us how well we are progressing with our Times Tables Rockstars. It is very obvious that those that play every day, make the most progress! Well done!

In Science, we have been looking at how to carry out and write up investigations as well as reviewing our Light Topic. We are just about to embark on our topic, Electricity and we are very excited to get out the equipment and create our own circuits. 

In History, we have created our own propaganda posters encouraging people during The Second World War to grown their own food in order to subsidise their diet because of rationing. We also begun to look at prejudice during The Second World War and have particularly focused on Anne Frank. The children showed maturity and respect when studying her. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be writing her letters, telling her what she has taught us and explaining just how much her story has changed the world.

In PHSCE, we have been talking about dealing with our Mental Health and what we can do if we are struggling. Also we considered how we could be kind to others. In our classroom, we have a Worry Box, where children can put their problems. We then discuss these with the children. 

It's Christmas Week...

We wore Christmas jumpers! We made Christmas hats! We ate Christmas lunch! We created electrical circuits! Watched a pantomime! And all of this was punctuated with reminding ourselves of division in maths, exploring Shakespeare in Guided Reading and writing poetry in English. What a busy time! Happy Christmas everyone!

Weeks Five and Six

Wow! This half term has gone so quickly and what a lot we have done. The children have worked really hard and have done well adjusting to life back in school. They have given their learning 100% commitment and I continue to be impressed by their motivation and keenness to achieve their potential. We hope you enjoyed our class assembly - it was tricky to do without a live audience!

In English over the last few weeks, we have written our own portal stories based on Journey by Aaron Becker. We worked hard to include lots of techniques to make our writing as brilliant as possible. Please read a small sample from a selection below. We have also moved on to writing a non-chronological report based on the fantastic book called Planetarium. Currently, we are studying the language and sentence structures that make it different from a fiction book. We continue to read our book, "Letters from the Lighthouse" and just can't put it down. The children are now living in the lighthouse and it is getting more mysterious with every page we read.

In Maths, we have been reading time tables - a very useful life skill, and solving word problems. We particularly enjoyed finding solutions to the questions that demanded we worked backwards. We learnt how to use the bar model and this was a very useful strategy. Most of us are working hard using TTRockstars both at school and home. Please remember to use this at least ten minutes everyday. 

In other news, we love our Science topic of Light. This week we have looked at refraction. It was so helpful to use lasers to illustrate this and it was great fun! We have finished our blitz diary entries and started writing evacuee letters in History. We loved looking at films that told us about the experiences of evacuees and spent a lot of time imagining how we would have felt. We also looked at the advantages and disadvantages of this government initiative. We have continued our game making in Computing, hockey playing in PE, Christianity in RE and many fabulous art projects related to our Second World War topic. 

Happy Half Term everyone!

Weeks Three and Four

Thank you to those parents/carers that attended the Meet the Teacher event on Wednesday. Please take a look at the PowerPoint that I have saved onto our Class Page at the bottom of this week's update as well as in our Class Information Star.

We have had a very busy couple of weeks. We have enjoyed reading our class read, Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll. We can't wait to find out where Sukie has disappeared to, whether Queenie will welcome Olive and Cliff with open arms and why the lighthouse will be important in the story. We just can't put it down!

We have had great fun in our maths lessons too. We have worked hard to understand big numbers, negative numbers and mental calculations. We have tried to match sums to the strategy we would use to ensure we were quick and efficient in our workings. We worked hard in pairs to achieve this.

How you can help at home...

Support your child with their home learning.

Read with your child and chat about the book they are reading. Look at the recommendation list at the top of this page.

Complete 10 minutes on TTRockstars every day. Also look at the Maths Fluency Star at the top of this page.

Talk to your child about any worries or concerns they have about the current situation. Remember they can also talk to an adult at school.

Weeks One and Two

It has been wonderful to have the children back in the classroom. The Year Sixes have been wonderful at adapting to the new routines in school and their laughter and enthusiasm for learning have been an absolute delight. Please read below to find out what we have been up to and also how you can help your child at home.

In English we have been studying the wonderful wordless book Journey by Aaron Becker. We have studied the beginning, predicting what it might be about and described some of the pictures in it. We have also created our own version of it, but adding words as well. The children have worked hard to write well, with fantastic vocabulary choices and well chosen sentence structures. Next week, we will be looking at the thoughts of the girl from the book and creating poetry based on The Door by Miroslav Holub (see this link for a preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bazJvnuOLMM)

In Maths we have played a whole host of games to reactivate our learning. These have involved place value and multiplication games using playing cards and 0-9 number cards. Please see the photographs below to give you a taste of the fun we have had. We have also familiarised ourselves with large numbers and some of us have become confident with numbers as big as ten million. We will be continuing our journey into number next week and will begin to look at how we can round numbers too. Please look at the Fluency star on our class page for games that you might like to try out at home and don't forget about Times Table Rockstars!

In other areas of the curriculum, we have begun our topic of Light in Science; "The Second World War" in History, "E-Safety" in Computing, "Celebrations and Key Events in Life" in RE, learning about weather vocabulary in French and much, much more. 

Reminders: The children have brought home some books to complete homework in. This needs to be handed in on Wednesday, ready to go back out on Friday. Please also remember Give me Ten begin on Monday 14th September. Your children will receive their Reading Record then. 

Please look at our photographs below to see some of the fun we have been having since we returned and brought the classroom back to life!

Imagine With All Your Mind. Believe With All Your Heart. Achieve With All Your Might.

Welcome to Year 6

Our class is called Monarchs.

Monarchs are taught by Mrs Gibbs, Mr Milbourn and Mrs Harvey.  Monarchs are supported by Mrs Ison. 

Things to remember:

Outdoor P.E will take place on Fridays with Rising Stars.  Please come into school wearing your PE kit on Fridays. No need to bring a change of clothes. Homework will be sent home on Friday and must be returned by Wednesday, in order to be marked. Reading books can be taken home on Monday and returned on Thursday - if finished. 

Key dates:

Virtual Meet the Teacher Meeting on Wednesday 23^rd September at 4.00. (invitations will be sent via email)

Parents consultation evenings: 10th November and 12th November.

Sharing Assembly: Tuesday 6th October

External examination dates (SATs):  Monday 10th May and Thursday 13th May.

We look forward to welcoming you.

"A teacher takes a hand. Opens a mind and touches a heart."

Now, let's take a tour of the classroom and look at where you will come into school: