🌟 Spelling Bee Success! 🐝📚

Today, our school was buzzing with excitement as children from Year 2 to Year 6 took part in our annual Spelling Bee! 🏆✨

Over the past few weeks, pupils have been working incredibly hard to learn their spellings. From tricky letter blends to confident articulation, they have shown real dedication. 💪🧠

When the moment arrived, each participant demonstrated remarkable resilience and courage. Taking the stage in front of the whole school is no small task, yet our spellers stood tall, spoke clearly, and gave it their very best. 🎤👏

We are incredibly proud of every child who took part. Their effort, determination, and enthusiasm made today a wonderful celebration of learning. 🎉📖

A huge well done to all our super spellers! 🌈⭐

We had an amazing Science Day today! 🔬✨

Our investigation question was “Does the amount of sugar in a biscuit affect how many times it can be dunked?” 🍪🫖 We planned our experiment carefully and then carried it out—managing to sneak in a biscuit tasting too! 😋 We discovered that biscuits with more sugar tended to soften and break more quickly, while biscuits with less sugar held their structure for longer and survived more dunks. ✔️

After our investigation, we headed to a workshop in the hall with Rebecca.
First, we explored circuits 💡🔋 and learned that if a circuit is broken, the lights or buzzers won’t work. Then we took on a physics challenge, using only our breath to blow a cup out of a stacked tower. 🌀🥤 Finally, we used physics again to create a mini tornado effect to lift a sunken satsuma from the bottom of a water jug all the way to the top. 🍊💧

Parents of our Year 6 children joined us for Together Time 😊, where we explored the feelings surrounding the upcoming move to high school. It was a valuable opportunity to share thoughts openly—recognising the worries 😟 many of us hold about new routines, unfamiliar environments, and increased expectations—while also celebrating the excitement 🎉 that comes with greater independence, new friendships, and fresh opportunities. The session helped us understand that these mixed emotions are completely normal, and by talking them through together, we can better support our children as they take this important next step. Thank you for coming to see us in school 💛 and being part of this special time.

🏃‍♂️ Parkour Session 3 – Vaulting & Safe Landings!

Today, Year 6 took part in their third exciting Parkour session, building on the skills they’ve already started to master. This week’s focus was all about vaulting and landing safely — two essential Parkour techniques that help us move confidently and in control.

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🤸 Learning to Vault

We used a range of low equipment so everyone could practise safely and try out new movements at their own pace.

Pupils worked together in small groups to learn how to:

• 👀 Keep their eyes looking forward
• ✋ Use their hands to support and guide their movement
• 🦵 Swing their legs smoothly over the equipment
• 🦶 Stay light on their feet

It was brilliant to see everyone challenging themselves and celebrating each other’s progress!

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🛬 Landing Safely

A key part of Parkour is making sure we land with control and care. Today we practised:

• 🦵 Bending our knees to absorb impact
• ⚖️ Keeping our balance centred
• 🤫 Landing softly and quietly
• 💪 Using our arms for extra stability

With each jump, pupils became more confident and more aware of how their bodies move.

🎬 To begin, we watched a short silent film that introduced us to the three main characters—Rock, Paper, and Scissors. Without dialogue, we had to pay close attention to their actions, expressions, and interactions to understand the emotions and relationships portrayed in the video.

🧠 As a class, we discussed what we thought the characters were feeling, why certain events happened, and how their personalities could be shown through descriptive writing. We also explored how music, movement, and timing in the video helped build tension and atmosphere.

✍️ Using the film as our inspiration, we planned and wrote our own narrative version of the story. We focused on developing:

• 🌟 Strong character descriptions
• 🌈 Detailed settings
• ⚡ Powerful verbs and figurative language
• 📖 Clear story structure with a beginning, build-up, conflict, and resolution

🖊️ Each pupil then drafted their story, edited it carefully, and created a polished final version. We are extremely proud of the creativity, imagination, and effort shown in every piece.

🌟 Have a read through some of our fantastic stories and see how we brought the characters of Rock, Paper, and Scissors to life!

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Year 6 Begin Their Persuasive Writing Journey!

This week, Year 6 have embarked on an exciting new writing adventure: letters of persuasion! Our mission is to learn how to write confidently and convincingly—just like real campaigners, activists, and opinion leaders.

To kick things off, we explored a WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like). By reading it carefully, we pulled out all the key features that make persuasive letters so powerful. We spotted things like:

• Strong opening statements
• Clear arguments backed up with evidence
• Emotive language to make the reader care
• Rhetorical questions that make you stop and think
• Powerful conclusions that leave a lasting impression

Once we understood what makes a persuasive letter successful, we moved on to reading a range of other examples. This helped us build a toolkit of useful stock phrases, such as:

• “Surely you agree that…”
• “It is essential that…”
• “Have you ever considered…?”
• “Without immediate action…”

We also learned how important it is to use the right register—that means choosing words and tone that suit the audience. Whether we’re writing to a headteacher, a local councillor, or even a famous figure, we now know how to sound polite, confident, and persuasive.

Year 6 are already showing fantastic promise, and we can’t wait to see the brilliant letters they produce next. Watch this space for updates on our writing journey!

Our Amazing Algebra Adventures!

This term in Year 6, we’ve been diving into the exciting world of algebra—and guess what? It’s not as mysterious as it first sounds! Algebra is all about using letters and symbols to represent numbers, and it helps us solve problems in clever new ways.

Forming Expressions

We started by learning how to build algebraic expressions. An expression is like a mini‑maths sentence.
For example:

• Instead of writing “3 × a number,” we can write 3n.
• Instead of saying “a number plus 5,” we write n + 5.

We found out that letters like n, x, or b can stand for any number—and that’s what makes algebra so powerful!

Substituting Values

Next, we practised substitution, which is just a fancy way of saying “swap the letter for a number.”
For example, if n = 4, then:

• 3n = 3 × 4 = 12
• n + 5 = 4 + 5 = 9

We enjoyed trying different values to see how the expression changed.

Finding the Value of Letters and Symbols

Finally, we learned how to work out the value of a letter when we’re given a formula or equation.
For example:

• If n + 7 = 15, we can work out what n must be.
  We simply think: “What number plus 7 makes 15?”
  The answer is n = 8!

• If 5m = 20, then m must be 4, because 5 × 4 = 20.

We’ve discovered that solving equations feels a lot like solving puzzles—and we’re becoming fantastic algebra detectives!

Today we had our very first lesson in our parkour unit, and it was an exciting start! We explored different quadrupedal movements, such as crawling and travelling on all fours, and learned some basic floor vaults to help us move safely and smoothly over obstacles. After practising each skill on its own, we combined the movements and the vaults to travel across benches and mats, creating our own mini parkour routes. It was great to see everyone growing in confidence and trying new ways to move!

Year 6 Write Powerful Lindisfarne Monologues

This week, Year 6 have been learning about the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in 793 AD. To help them understand what it might have felt like, the children wrote monologues from the point of view of a monk living in the monastery.

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✍️ What We Did

The class learned about:

• What life was like for monks
• How the Vikings arrived on longships
• Why the attack was so shocking
• How to show a character’s thoughts and feelings in writing

After this, the children imagined they were monks and wrote their own monologues describing the terrifying moment the Vikings arrived.

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🌟 What We’re Proud Of

The monologues were:

• Detailed – with great descriptions of sounds, sights, and emotions
• Creative – many children used strong vocabulary and dramatic language
• Thoughtful – the writing showed real understanding of how the monks might have felt

Year 6 worked extremely hard and produced some fantastic pieces of writing!

🌐 Year 6 Take Part in Safer Internet Day!

This week, Year 6 celebrated Safer Internet Day. We spent time talking about how to stay safe online and how to make good choices when using the internet.

We shared how we use the internet every day — for games, videos, chatting and learning — and we discussed how to use it responsibly.

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🤖 Learning About AI: The Good and the Bad

After Safer Internet Day, we explored Artificial Intelligence (AI).
We found out that AI is all around us — in games, phones, search engines and even spelling tools!

🌟 What We Did:

1. Real or AI?
We looked at pictures and writing to see if they were made by a person or by AI. Some were tricky!

2. Spot the Problem
We talked about how AI can be misused, such as:

• spreading wrong information,
• copying work,
• changing photos,
• making things that could upset someone.

3. Making Good Choices
In groups, we discussed how to use AI safely and fairly.

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💡 What We Learned

Year 6 discovered that:

• AI can be helpful — but it sometimes makes mistakes.
• Not everything online is real.
• We should always think carefully before sharing or believing something.
• If we are unsure, we should ask a trusted adult.

🍕 Year 6’s Brilliant Build‑Your‑Own Pizza Day!

Today, Year 6 swapped their pens and pencils for aprons and rolling pins as we spent the whole day becoming real‑life pizza chefs! From mixing flour and yeast to taste‑testing our final creations, it was a day full of teamwork, creativity, and (of course) delicious food.

👩‍🍳 Step 1: Making the Dough

We kicked things off by learning how proper pizza dough is made. Flour everywhere? Yes. Sticky hands? Definitely. Giggles and excitement? Absolutely!
Everyone worked hard to knead their own ball of dough until it was soft, stretchy, and ready to rise. Some students even discovered they had a natural talent for kneading!

🔪 Step 2: Chopping the Toppings

While the dough rested, we moved on to preparing our toppings. The classroom quickly turned into a colourful kitchen full of chopped peppers, onions, mushrooms, sweetcorn, and more.
We practised our safe cutting techniques, and it was amazing to see how confident and careful everyone was.

🎨 Step 3: Designing Our Own Pizzas

This was where the creativity really took off! Once the dough was rolled out, each student designed a pizza that truly showed their personality.
There were smiley‑face pizzas, rainbow‑topping pizzas, and even some very cheesy creations. Everyone took great care arranging their toppings just the way they wanted.

🔥 Step 4: Into the Oven They Go!

Next came the moment of truth! One by one, our pizzas went into the oven, filling the room with the mouth‑watering smell of fresh baking dough.
The excitement grew as each pizza came out looking golden, bubbling, and absolutely delicious.

😋 Step 5: The Best Part – Eating Them!

After all our hard work, we finally got to taste the results. And what a success!
Not only did the pizzas look amazing, but they tasted fantastic too. Many students said this was the best pizza they had ever had—and the secret ingredient? Making it themselves!

There was lots of excitement  as the children taking part in Schools Alive recorded the audio for their upcoming performance at the Winter Gardens!

They worked brilliantly together, using their loud, clear voices and putting real enthusiasm into every line. The recording session gave them a fantastic preview of what it will feel like to perform on the big stage, and their energy was wonderful to see. We can’t wait to hear the final performance—well done, everyone!

RSE Week at School!

This week has been RSE Week (Relationships and Sex Education), and Year 6 have been learning about some really important topics that help us understand ourselves, our bodies, and how we communicate with others. Here’s a look at what we’ve covered in class.

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🗣️ Communication in Relationships

We explored what good communication looks like in all types of relationships—whether that’s with friends, family members, or people in our school community.
We talked about:

• Listening carefully to others
• Speaking honestly and kindly
• Respecting other people’s feelings
• How misunderstandings happen, and how to fix them
• Why healthy relationships make us feel safe, valued, and supported

Good communication helps everyone work together and get along.

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💻 Communication Online

Talking to people online can feel different from talking in real life. We discussed:

• How to stay safe online
• Why we shouldn’t share personal information
• What respectful messages look like
• How to spot something that doesn’t feel right
• Who to talk to if we’re unsure or uncomfortable

We also learned that it’s okay to step away from online conversations and that being kind matters just as much online as it does in person.

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🧬 Puberty

We learned that puberty is a natural stage of growing up that everyone goes through—just at different times. During puberty, the body begins to change to become physically mature. Some of the things we covered include:

• Changes in height and body shape
• Hair growth
• Skin changes
• Emotional changes
• The importance of hygiene
• Why everyone’s journey through puberty is unique

The main message: puberty is normal, and it’s okay to ask questions about it.

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👶 From Conception to Birth

Finally, we learned about how a baby develops. This included:

• How a fertilised egg grows into an embryo
• How the embryo becomes a developing baby (a foetus)
• What happens inside the womb over nine months
• How the baby gets nutrients and oxygen
• How amazing the human body is at creating and protecting new life

We approached this in a scientific way, focusing on biology and the incredible stages of human development.

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🌟 A Great Week of Learning

RSE Week helped us understand more about ourselves, the people around us, and how to build healthy, respectful relationships. We learned how to communicate clearly, stay safe online, look after our bodies, and appreciate the amazing science of human growth.

Year 6 have handled these topics maturely and thoughtfully—well done everyone!

Year 6 Science Blog – Our Fair Test on Hand Cleaning Products!

This week in Science, Year 6 have been busy carrying out a fair test to investigate a very interesting question:

Which hand-cleaning product works the best?

To test this, we used slices of bread and different hand-cleaning methods. After applying a different cleaning product to our hands—such as soap, hand sanitiser, wipes, or even no cleaning at all—we each pressed our hand onto a slice of fresh bread. Over the next week, we’ll observe how much mould grows on each piece and compare the results.

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How We Made It a Fair Test

We learned that a fair test means only changing one thing at a time, while keeping everything else the same. Here are some examples of what we controlled:

• Same type of bread: We all used slices from the same loaf so the bread’s freshness and ingredients wouldn't affect the results.
• Same size handprint: We used one full handprint on each slice to keep the amount of contact equal.
• Same storage conditions: All slices are being kept in sealed bags in the same place so they grow mould under the same temperature and light conditions.
• Same time of contact: Each person pressed their hand on the bread for the same amount of time.
• Only one variable changed: The only thing different about each slice is the cleaning method used.

We talked about how these factors help make the experiment fair, so our results will be more reliable.

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Our Predictions

Before starting, we made our own predictions about which bread would grow the least mould.

Some of our ideas included:

• Bread touched after using soap and warm water might grow the least mould because soap removes dirt, oils, and most bacteria.
• Bread touched after using hand sanitiser might also stay cleaner because sanitiser kills many germs quickly.
• The bread touched with no cleaning at all would probably grow the most mould, because more germs would transfer from our hands to the bread.
• Wipes might work, but some of us thought they may not be as effective as washing with soap.

We also explained why we thought these things would happen, linking back to what we’ve learned about microbes and how they spread.

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What’s Next?

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be checking our bread samples to see how the mould grows. We’ll record our observations and compare the results to our predictions.

Stay tuned—our findings might surprise you!

This week in Maths, the children have been busy becoming percentage pros! ⭐ They learned how to find percentages of amounts, like working out 10% of 50 by dividing by 10 ➗, and then using this to build up to other percentages. For example, if 10% of 50 = 5, then 20% must be 10! 💡 They also explored how to work backwards to find the whole when only a percentage is given. For instance, if 25% = 8, they used multiplication to discover that the whole amount must be 32 (because 8 × 4 = 32). 🔍 Using bar models 📊 and number lines helped them visualise their thinking, and they enjoyed solving real‑life puzzles like discounts and sale prices 🛒. The class worked brilliantly and showed great perseverance—well done, Year 6! 🎉

Today, PCSO Debbie visited us to talk about careers in the police. She gave an overview of the many different roles within the force, including dog handlers, the mounted division, the support unit, and traffic officers, explaining how each team plays a vital part in keeping communities safe. She also described what day‑to‑day life is like for a police officer, from responding to emergency calls to working with the public and supporting vulnerable people. In addition, she talked about the key skills needed for the job, such as good communication, teamwork, problem‑solving, staying calm under pressure, and being able to make quick but responsible decisions.

This week in Year 6, we have been learning all about monologues and exploring a range of different examples. We talked about the key features—such as speaking in the first person, sharing thoughts and feelings, and having a clear voice—and we highlighted these in the texts we read. Today, during our shared writing session, we worked in pairs to continue a monologue about a child starting their first day of school. It was exciting to build on the character’s emotions and experiences, and some of us even had the chance to act out our monologues, bringing the writing to life!

🕺 Our Second Dance Session! 💃

Today we had our second dance session, and it was fantastic! ✨

🔄 Recapping Last Week

We began by going over the dance phrases we learned last week. Everyone did a great job remembering the moves! We spent some time refining them so they looked smoother, sharper, and more confident. ✔️

👯 Working Together

Next, we worked in pairs and small groups 👥 to start linking our phrases together. This was a great chance to share ideas, help each other, and experiment with different ways of moving.

🔗 Linking Movements

We explored clever ways to connect our phrases using:

• 🚶 Steps
• 🔄 Turns
• 🦘 Jumps

It was brilliant to see so much creativity, teamwork, and enthusiasm across the room!

🌟 What’s Next?

By the end of the session, our routines were already starting to come together. We’re excited to keep building on them next week!