27th July
End of an era!
Today has been such a mix of emotions - the excitment of adventures to come, and sadness of changes taking place. As I am sure you will know, today was Mr Merrell's last day also. We all shared a heartfelt assembly with him in the morning to wish him well and to say goodbye.
As a special treat, a suprise arrived on the school field: a Bouncy Castle, Gladiator Podium and giant slide! So much fun was had by all, and we were blessed with perfect weather as well. The only thing that could have made it better was adding ice-lollies and ice-creams - so we did!
Seeing the children leave, walking up through their guard of honour, was very emotional. They have all grown-up so much this year and it has been a pleasure to make that journey with them.
On behalf of myself and Ms Burney, thank you so much for the lovely and thoughtful gifts which have been given to us. We have been over-whelmed by the kind messages, and send our very best wishes to you all for an amazing summer and very successful Year 7!
Take care, and signing out...
Mrs Thornton, Mrs Brownsell and Ms Burney
WELCOME TO YEAR 6 !!
Wednesday 29th June 2022
Another update for you all by Mrs Thornton!!!
After an evening of night walks, fire starting and toasting marshmellows, we all got together for Mr Merrells favourite party games, including Wink Murder, the Pringle Game and Would I Lie to You. Then back to our rooms for a shower, chat and finally all ready for bed (well, most of us were….!) All the children settled really well, and I think teachers managed to listen at every door and head to bed ourselves before 11.30pm which we were happy with!
A few early risers (they know who they are and I’m sure you can guess!) helped us all to wake up bright and early, and head for breakfast – cereal, beans, toast, jams and juice – followed by the tuck shop! Following this, we went outside to await instructions, when some of those less mature teachers, pulled out the water guns and soaked everyone, which the children found hilarious! A very one sided water fight began.... and for some reason I appeared to be Miss Pritchards target which I felt was very unfair! By 10am we were starting our day’s activities such as paddle boarding, kayaking, archery, crate climbing, tree climbing, team games and a few more. We had torrential rain for about an hour, but thanks to all the children’s waterproofs, we carried on regardless (although I must admit I was pleased to be in here typing this update whilst Mrs Brownsell was on the reservoir in her kayak…..)
I have tried to put as many pictures on a document in the Download section as I can in the time I have escaped, but please rest assured we have hundreds to share.
Everyone is having a fabulous time, including the staff, and your children are doing you all proud!
Tuesday 28th June 2022
The long awaited residential trip has finally arrived!!! Children have had a fantastic time so far.... we arrived at 11.30am, and had a tour of the grounds before eating our lunch and playing hide and seek! After lunch, we split into 6 groups - three did team activities such as crate climbing, and three groups hit the water! Children all got on 3 paddle boards and set off on a very windy reservoir (accompanied by 3 safety boats!) and spent a fun hour paddling away. Only Matthew R and Silas fell in which we thought was fairly good! They took it in good spirits and climbed back on board with big smiles on their faces! After that most of the children decided they wanted to jump in off the pier (as did Mr Butler and Miss Cooney!) which was good fun. A very wet and cold group dived straight into hot showers and dry clothes and went to their rooms to unpack, before heading for dinner (pizza, lasagne, garlic bread and chips - some of them even had salad from the salad bar!). As I write this and download the photos onto a word document ( please find in the password protected section of this page) we have half the children on a forest walk, and the other half doing bushcraft activities and marshmellow toasting! So I am off now to join in the fun!
PS There have been many photos taken by Mr Merrell today we will share on our return, and there will be and update tomorrowa long with photos of children not on the photos today.
27th May
Homework over the holiday is to improve your Malala Newspaper Report you wrote in September. You have come on so far with your writing it would be nice to uplevel this report to the level you are capable of now!
In Downloads there is a publisher template you can use and do it electronically (e-mail it in please!) or you may have taken a paper template home to do it by hand. The idea is to IMPROVE it - not copy it out! Use all your new skills - passive voice, modal verbs, a wide range of punctuation. If you want a reminder of what you could demonstrate, there is a sheet in the downloads section for you to look at (don't forget all htese skills will not be appropriate for a non-fiction piece of writing such as describing character etc)
II hope you have a lovely holiday!
25th May
Well - the day all teachers dread has arrived! Can you think what it might be? Just 2 weeks after the poor kids have had to sit their SATs - it's WRITING MODERATION!!!! AAAAGHHHHH!!!!
Luckily, the angels in my class have been working so hard all year, that they already have soooooo many pieces of work to show off - and beautifully illustrated too I might add! To be honest, I’m not looking forward to having to ask them today to write me just one more example to show off their talents! At least it's a blog which they might find fun - hence my wonderful informal writing today - which will conveniently serve as a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like!)
Hopefully, after they have finished their blogs, we will be able to read some on here, to find out all about what they thought of our Sports Day!
13th May
This week has been a huge week for children of Year 6 right across the country. It is of course the week when children take their SAT's, and we would like to say well done to all the children for their attention and dedication to all the papers they have done. We know that everyone will have done their very best.
6th May
What a fabulous fitFENCE session we had today! It was so fast paced that we all learned a huge amount! Here are some photos of the session.....
On Tuesday 3rd May and Wednesday 4th May, Oldfield Brow will be hosting...
The whole school will take part, with each class getting a slot from Reception - Y6!
“…fun, exciting and truly memorable experience for the school…”
Children will wear scoring vests and use foam/ plastic swords, learning how to advance and retreat, lunge and score, parry and block and the etiquette of a duel through a variety of exciting games and exercises!
Everyone came back from holidays raring to go. We created our own pledges for Earth Day on Monday, and have been working hard in our knowledge of measures. We have also really up-levelled our Instructional writing by using a check-list which showcases our many grammatical talents.
There is a free Calm Connections' upcoming parent-led drop in session, running May 3rd at Partington Shopping Centre. The details are below.
Friday was very energetic. We took part in our sponsored run for charity and even though it was a sunny day, it didn't stop the children giving their all and pushing themselves to achieve the best of their ability. One chap achieved 30 laps! That worked out at one a minute as we only had 30 minutes in total - I think he will sleep well tonight! The very best part was the children saying how much they enjoyed it, and seeing them cheer each other on. Well done, Year 6!
Have a lovely Bank Holiday everyone, let's hope the sun shines brightly. A reminder for next week - we are lucky enough to have had a fencing taster lesson organised for us. Ours will take place on Wednesday, so next week we will need to wear PE kit on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
*** Thursday 22nd April - We may be on holiday but we still wish you a happy Earth Day! How many small changes can you make, to create a big difference? ***
8.4.22
A second term has finished, the year is rushing by. The signs of spring are finally bursting through. From all of us here in the Year 6 team, we hope you have a wonderful, restful break, see lots of lambs and bunnies, find lots of sweet treats, and have a happy Easter holiday! (Don't forget to brush your teeth after all that chocolate! ) :-)
25.3.22
It was World Maths Day on Wednesday this week, and we applied our algebra skills to drawing cardioid pictures. (We discovered a cardioid is a plane curve traced by a point on the perimeter of a circle that is rolling around a fixed circle of the same radius. We also loved the fact that we could make a straight line bend).
Here are some examples of our work:
11th March 2022
We have been learning about algebra this week, and how we can solve lots of questions, even if we don't know what the question actually is. Sound crazy? We thought so to till we worked that following rules let us find answers if we have the same constant information and a changing variable. Ask us to give you an example to explain our learning.
We have been honing our persuasive writing techniques in English, as we prepare our 'Camp Green Lake' leaflets. Admittedly, this is a hard sell. We know what the camp is actually like, but once we've finished all our persuasive techiques, parents will be queuing up to send their children there! :-)
We have shared 4 Fairtrade Fortnight videos as well, which has sparked lots of debate about what we think we mean by fairtrade and climate justice, and what we can do with regards to the climate crisis caused by the way humans live our lives.
4th March 2022
We have had a super busy week, despite the huge amount of varied weather! Lacrosse saw us improving our cradling techniques, running for 3 minutes without stopping and learning how to throw and catch the ball at head height. The muga fence took quite a hammering while we perfected our technique, and we are getting very good at having 'full basket' available!
Parent's evenings have been a great opportunity to catch up. Many people have already mentioned how much they are looking forward to future events such as the Open House evenings which have previously been held in the summer terms.
It has also been World Book Week this week, and we have shared across the school a charming picture book called The Tin Forest. In Year 6, we have used it to support our learning and use of alliteration and the creation of 3 step action sentences.
We also took part in the 'Design a Door' competition where each class decorated their door in the style of a book they are reading. Ours was based on The Tin Forest.
25TH February
Wednesday is the new Friday! Well, as far as PE goes for this half term. We are really enjoying Lacrosse with our coach. Even though the weather was cold with an icy wind, we managed to avoid the blizzards this week has sprung on us, and everyone soon got toasty warm, running around learning how to basket, protect the ball and move efficently all around the area.
We have delved further into our Evolution topic, and researched how humans have evolved. It was fascinating to learn that as soon as humans learned how to cook meat, the energy which was freed up from the digestive system was used to develop the brain.
We have been looking at how we influence evolution as well. We learnt all about the impact the Industrial Revolution had on a species of moth - ask us to tell you all about it!
Lots of things are in preparation for World Book Week next week. We will be using The Tin Forest as our school wide theme, we will be decorating our classroom door too.
Friday saw us creating lots of artistic wonder, ready for the Year 6 AMITLO (A month in the life of...) table which is past the office at the entrance to the school. We get through so much that it was tricky to know where to start sharing, so we have chosen the theme of our Science topic - Evolution. Once it is complete, I will include a photo here!
Have a lovely weekend everybody.
11th February
As we are now officially half - way through the school year, can the Year 6 team wish you all a fantastic half-term break!
Our school was a blaze of colour today as children celebrated Children's Mental Health Week by coming to school in own clothes in exchange for a donation.
A number of children from both Year 6 classes were lucky enough to take part in the first major sport competition schools have been able to attend for years! Altrincham College hosted Sportshall Primary, an event which drew a number of schools together to compete in a range of track and field events. The children thoroughly enjoyed getting stuck in, and my ears are still ringing from all the encouraging cheering that was going on. Well done, everyone!
We have continued our assemblies based on topics to support Children's Mental Health week, and on Thursday the classes came together to consider what helps us Grow Together.
The class have made Valentine's cards this week, which we are going to give to G-Force. They are going to include them in packages which will be sent out to the elderly and vulnerable,and we are so proud to be able to be part of this.
We have been taking part in Children's Mental Health week, and both classes shared an assembly on Tuesday, where we looked at the book, Bottled. It talks about how feelings can be bottled up, what sort of feelings they can be, who we can talk to and is bottling a good idea (turns out yes - sometimes - well, at least till we get a handle on the way we are feeling :-)
This is us watching the introductory video on Twitter, and here is the tweet which we sent back.
The book has not been put on general release yet, so we are very lucky to be able to share it - keep an eye out for it. It is well worth a read!
9th February
On Wednesday we welcomed Mrs Wilson into Year 6 LT - who ran a 'Chemistry with Cabbage' workshop. Children carried out a range of experiments involving acids, alkalis, milk, bicarbonate of soda, and of course cabbage (amongst other things!). Children really enjoyed having a set of equipment and resources each and really getting stuck in with pipettes, mixing, bottles and using different chemicals. Thank you so much to Parents and Guardians for supporting us in arranging this opportunity for the children.
28th January
We have done lots of work with decimals and now know how to multiply and divide them. We are getting very good at being able to express equivalent values as fractions or decimals. We have also been looking at circles, learning very grown-up words like radius and diameter, and knowing how to use and apply our knowledge of what they mean.
We have continued our adventures into evolution and developed our understanding further. We have discussed natural selection and its difference to acclimatisation - ask us what both these terms mean :-)
History saw us finding out a very confusing fact: crimes punishable by capital punishment increased by 4x, but the number of crimes went down! If you ask us, we can tell you why!
In PE, we have conquered the push pass. We checked our progress, listening out for the tell-tale click if we had hit not pushed, and progressed to pushing our hockey balls into a target across the width of the muga - super fun!
21st January
Check out the recommended reading lists in the downloads section - there are 50 to choose from. How many have you read? You could use the checklist to track your progress. How many have you read? How many will you finish by the end of the year? Challenge time !
14th January 2022
In Maths, we have been looking at multiplying and dividing by 10,100 and a 1000 using decimals and fractions as well. There is a lot to get our head round but we have lots of tricks (like thinking of decimals as money - 0.25 as £0.25, and counting the zeros of our denominator so we have the same number of place value columns - 99/1000 is 0.099
Our PE topic this half term is hockey, and today we were learning how to control the ball and dribble it with our head up. We played a really fun game where we had race to retrieve balls from a central hoop, and then try to take them from other teams ball stores. Everyone had a lot of fun.
13th January 2022
Out of our Year 6 windows this morning. We are feeling very lucky.....
Check out our Animation Films in the download section below!
7th January 2022
Even though this week has had only 4 days in it, we have still managed to cram a huge amount in! We have completed our co-ordinates work which has included translation and reflection across 4 quadrants. Some of the reasoning questions were very challenging, especially the ones which asked us to show new co-ordinates without showing us a numbered x or y axis. Thankfully, we knew how to use a numberline and this helped us to solve the problems!
In English, we have continued to look at survivors stories, this time of Juliane Koepke. She was an incredibly courageous girl whose plane was struck by lightning as she travelled home for Christmas. Ask us to tell you the rest of the story! After looking closely at the text, we re-wrote the story, but told it from the point of view of the jungle.
We studied the story of Robin Hood in History, and learned how he robbed from the rich and gave money to the poor. We discussed motivations for doing this, and how it might have been viewed differently in King John's time to now (deciding what it meant to be rich, and how this changed depending how rich a person thought they were to others, and whether this justified someone with less robbing them provoked a very lively discussion, and relief we have a police force nowadays.
Friday's weather was 'wintery'. We were due to do hockey outside but at 9am it was as dark as 9pm so we retreated inside and played benchball. Two of the benches were virtual which gave us different challenges. (You can move on a 'virtual bench' more, but are raised higher on a real bench).
17th December 2021
My goodness, our first term is over! It is incredible to think we are a third of the year through already. Today is Friday, and on behalf of the whole team, thank you so much for the very kind and thoughtful gifts so many of you have shared with us. It is really appreciated.
The class has been amazing at creating their Christmas crafts we have been creating. There has been mindfulness inspired cards with Impossible poems inside, our re-imagined baubles and also, of course, our sewing. We have also done pictures using finger tip snowmen, collages of Father Christmas and lots of maths based activities with a Christmassy theme. It is astonishing how we managed to fit it all in.
I have loved sharing their 'Impossible' poems, and the sewing for many has been a revelation. So many children began the exercise with a lot of doubt as had never sewed before, but they end they were well away, and thoroughly enjoying it. Those who became classroom helpers and 'floating experts' were particularly pleased with their progress - and quite right too! Well done! We are sure many of the beautiful pieces of craft will have been shared at home by the time you read this - the children were so proud of what they achieved.
Today has been a whirlwind, lovely day. After completing our craft projects, we enjoyed a cinema experience in the afternoon, with lots of tasty treats to go with.
Merry Christmas to the families of 6LT, and a very Happy New Year!
10th December 2021
Year 6 unfortunately could not take part in the Tag Rugby event yesterday, as it had to be cancelled due to terrible weather (our athletes are very much looking forward to taking part when it is rescheduled). This did not stop them playing their heart out with Will (from Sale Sharks) this morning. Even though the muga was extremely soggy, they did not let it dampen their spirits!
These high spirits continued when we joined schools from across Trafford in the ExTraffordWinterGanza, organised by the Trafford Music Service. We sang and signed and listened to a variety of wind and string instruments. It was a joy to be able to share these beautiful sounds.
Christmas craft is here! We have begun decorating our collage baubles, and have had so much fun making gingerbread trees, curtesy of G-Force. Thank you G-Force, from all of Year 6 :-) There were lots of smiling faces and full tummies by the time we had done, and that was before the gingerbread was eaten! They all looked fantastic in their shiny wrappers with tinsel and ribbons - very professional!
3rd December 2021
December has arrived, and we certainly felt like winter was with us at the beginning of the week. The snow was very beautiful on the frosty trees outside our windows, even if it did not stay very long.
We have started a formal writing topic and we are considering stories from a book called, 'Survivors'. We began by finding out the history of the Berlin Wall, and then discovering how the Strelczyk and Wetzel families escaped by building their own hot air balloon! We have used the subjunctive form to increase the formality of our writing, and recounted the events of their adventure.
Maths has been one of the trickiest subjects this week - adding and subtracting fractions! We have been applying our times tables knowledge so help us make our denominators equal sizes, and have also tackled subtracting fractions that include whole numbers too. We're amazing!
Friday is Tag Rugby day, and we had such a lot of fun with Will from Sale Sharks. He helped us improve our back pass, and also with playing the game - it was very competitive out there, but good teamwork and fun was had by all.
19th November 2021
This week, we began our work on 'The Lighthouse'. We have been practising our figurative language and lots of different types of sentence structure to make our writing more engaging and colourful.
Maths has been all about fractions. Knowing how to make equivalent fractions has been really useful for when we need to add or subtract fractions with different denominators and has led into knowing how to find factors of numbers, and how they are different to multiples.
Another fantastic lesson with Sale Sharks coach, Will! The class were conquering the back pass today!
It is of course, also Children In Need Day in Oldfield Brow today. The children looked spectacular in their bright clothes and bright smiles. Mrs Thornton is going to the event this evening and will be taking the donations of the school with her, and hoping to get a hug from Pudsey Bear!
In the afternoon, we shared 5RC's assembly and loved hearing about the Vikings themed work they had done and huge variety of activities based on Harry Potter. Well done, 5RC!
11th November 2021
Today we had a very special assembly for Remembrance Day, and the children did us proud with two minutes silence. We learned about the Tomb of the Unknown Warrier, and why it is important for those families and friends to remember those lost.
We also blended colours in oil pastels to create our own door wreath for the classroom.
5th November
Our week this week has been very busy. We have discussed the COP26 conference and the work they are looking to achieve, investigated the component parts of blood (and even made our own), discovered the story of lego and used it to improve our comprehension and retrieval skills, as well as a range of grammatical features such as the subjunctive clause, and celebrated Diwalli by creating some stunning and colourful hand designs.
We are very lucky this week as have a new coach from Sale Sharks coming in to teach us Tag Rugby this half term. Everyone really enjoyed it, even though it was definitely a chilly Autumn morning.
It has been wonderful to talk with so many of you over the parent's evening consultations this week. Thank you for making your time available.
13th October 2021
CONGRATULATIONS to Emily and Pardis whose work was commended in Trafford's 500 Word Competition earlier in the year! They received their copies of the Anthology of Commended Winners' writing this week in assembly. Well done!
There will be another 500 Words Competition next year, and Oldfield Brow has already signed up.
8th October 2021
On Thursday, as part of our celebrations and engagement with Black History Month we joined a live lesson which included nearly 200 schools from not just across the country, but across the world as well - there was a school joining us from Auckland!
Wendy Shearer, professional storyteller and author of African and Caribbean Folktales, Myths and Legends, led the session and read to us some classic stories from all over Africa and the Caribbean. She discussed with us how she takes inspiration from important moments in Black history and shared stories which drew from her Afro-Caribbean heritage and degree in Classics. She gave use some fantastic advice for if we wanted to be successful writers ourselves.
1) Read as much as possible
2) Write every single day!
3) When you are telling a story, see a picture of what you are describing in your mind. This really helps your audience see it too!
1st October 2021
Our week began with Monday seeing us celebrating European Languages Day! We learnt how to say 'hello' in lots and lots of different languages and had great fun practising with our friends.
Mrs Brownsell and I also welcomed a number of you into school to our Curriculum Evening presentation, it was so lovely to be able to see people in person again.
PE today saw us embracing a whole world of athletics which we looking forward to telling you more about in our assembly.
Our art work for our Christmas cards is now complete, and as you can see from the examples below, the children have created some really beautiful work. The order forms are coming home with the work, and there are the usual options for you to turn your child's work into personalise Christmas cards and mugs etc. We are sure you will love them as much as we do.
24th September 2021
We have settled properly now into life in Year 6 and the children have all enjoyed getting familiar with new routines, the THREE flights of stairs, and being the oldest ones in the school. It has also been lovely to see so many things going back to 'normal'! Children now eating dinner in the School Hall, play times spent with other children outside their class, and more group activities and assemblies.
On Monday at 6pm we have a 'Curriculum Evening', where myself and Mrs Brownsell will talk about life in Year 6 - the expectations and the work we will be doing. If you cannot make this - please dont worry as the presentation will be shared on this webpage and you are welcome to ask any questions via email or at the end of the school day.
We have enjoyed learning all about figurative language in literacy, Athletics in PE and Mapping in Topic work - and much of this will be shared I the very first 'Showing Assembly' for nearly 2 years! This will be on Friday 8th October at 2.30pm, and all parents of Y6LT are welcome.
17.9.21
We have a terrific week. The children are really settling into the rhythm and routines of Year 6. Well done!
We have been learning about the organs of the body in Science as part of our 'Animals Including Humans' topic, and it was clear just how interested the class were in this subject. There are clearly a lot of eager young scientists in 6LT, and I can't wait to see this interest develop :-)
Our poetry work 'Out of our window!' is really taking shape. We are building our skills by working on noun phrases and personification - this is really starting to bring our ideas to life.
We are working on place value in Maths, spotting how important zero's are for holding place value, understanding what a million (and more!) looks like, and honing our skills when spotting ascending and descending numbers and intervals between numbers.
In PE (which we enjoyed outside this week - hooray) we began our Athletics work. We discussed the challenges faced by paralympians, and felt how it affected us when we raced in a straight line, and a circle as we usually would, then again with our hands held rigid. Ask us what we discovered. :-)
10.9.21
It may only have been a half week but we have crammed so much in already. We have done lots of fun activities (ask us about the application form to Year 6! When asked to answer the impossible, creativity takes flight - I loved what the children came up with, particularly about the jelly feet and the caveman!) We've discussed and agreed how we want our classroom to work, checked where our Mathematical understanding is so that we know how we will need to progress, begun our work towards creating a poem in the style of Ted Hughes AND started to delve deep into our class reader book: Orphans of the Tide. We've begun our first foundation subject as well, and embraced the subject of Mapping in Geography. Using atlases to locate different places of the UK was so much fun, the children really enjoyed the collaborative element of this activity. Phew!
How have we crammed all this, and our dodgeball, daily miles, breaks and lunchtimes into three days??? Welcome to the crazy world of Year 6!
8.9.21
It's that time of year again - a new classroom, new teachers and a new start! Myself and Miss Burney are excited to welcome you all back to school after a long summer holiday, and to get started on all the great things we have planned - and after an unusual 18 months, we look forward to a little normality!
In the downloads section, you will find a sneak preview of what we will be learning about this term, and informaton about homework. Unlike previous years, we do not do 'chatterday' homework, but work will be sent home every day (not too much tho so don't worry!). PE will be on a Monday and Friday, and so a full PE kit needs to be in school those days. We have in school all the stationary you will need, and a fabulous range of reading books in our Library so all you need to bring with you the first week is a super positive attitude and a smile :-)
We look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday 8th September.