Welcome to the class page for Monet and Johnstone Class.
Join us this term and see our exciting learning journey, along with other celebrations we take part in.
We have a lot to share and can't wait for you to be able to take a sneak peek into our learning in our final year at Round Diamond.
Class Teachers:
Johnstone Class Teacher: Miss Murphy
Monet Class Teacher: Mrs Downie
Holbein Class Teacher: Mr Pallant
Teaching Assistants:
Teaching Assistant: Miss Mason
Teaching Assistant on Monday and Tuesday: Mr Taylor
Our PE day is Friday. Please ensure that children have the correct school PE kit in school with them each day. As we move into the winter months, please ensure that children have an appropriate school PE jumper and jogging bottoms to keep them warm during outside PE lessons.
Wednesday 4th September 2019 - Children return to school
Monday 9th September 2019 for the afternoon - Crucial Crew
The children will be out of school during the afternoon to participate in a carousel of activities related to key safety issues such as fire safety, first aid and road safety.
Monday 9th September 2019 at 3:30pm - PGL meeting
Come along to the school hall at 3:30pm for a talk about our upcoming PGL meeting to include the activities, meals and what to bring.
Monday 16th September to Friday 16th September 2019 - PGL Trip to Caythorpe Court
Children participating in our residential will be away for this week. Children who are not going will be taking part in a project at school.
Thursday 10th October 2019 - Harvest Festival
Come along to see the children celebrate Harvest. Times to be confirmed.
Monday 16th October-Wednesday 18th October 2019 - SATs Practice
During English and maths time across these dates, children will be taking part in some practice SATs tests.
Tuesday 22nd October between 3:50pm and 6.00pm - Parent Consultations
Book an appointment in advance to see your child's home class teacher to discuss their progress this half term.
Wednesday 23rd October between 4:00pm and 8:00pm - Parent Consultations
Book an appointment in advance to see your child's home class teacher to discuss their progress this half term.
Monday 28th October-Friday 1st November - Half Term
Monday 9th December-Wednesday 11th December 2019 - SATs Practice
During English and maths time across these dates, children will be taking part in some practice SATs tests.
Thursday 19th December 2019 - Christmas Performances
Come along to watch the children perform their Christmas celebrations. Times to be confirmed.
Friday 20th December 2019 - End of term at 2:00pm
Autumn Term 2019
The Year 6 team all hope that you have enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing summer break! We are very excited to welcome you back to a brand new school year.
You are about to begin your journey into your final year of primary school at Round Diamond. Although this is an important and challenging year, we have lots of fun learning and new experiences planned along the way.
I'm sure lots of you are starting to get very excited about our PGL Trip to Caythorpe Court commencing the week beginning Monday 16th September 2019, which will include lots of fun activities such as: kayaking, zip wire, climbing, giant swing and lots more!
Our topic for the whole of this term is 'The Great, The Bold, The Brave' where we will be closely focusing on WWII to study key events, key individuals and the ways of life during this important and fascinating period in history. During this historical topic, we will also have lots of cross-curricular links with subjects such as DT, art, geography and music.
We will also be linking this topic closely to our English learning during this term. We are starting the year by exploring Anne Frank's diary through text types such as recounts, newspaper articles and survival guides. In guided reading, we will be using the popular wartime text 'Goodnight Mr Tom' to develop our comprehension skills. Other texts we will use include writing a short story using 'Rose Blanche', writing Blitz poetry using the poem "That Night of Death" and the novel 'Letters from the Lighthouse' which we will use to inform different styles of writing such as letters, non-chronological reports and balanced arguments.
In maths, we will be exploring a range of mathematical topics to continue to develop our fluency, reasoning and problem solving skills, with an increased focused on securing our arithmetic skills during the first half term.
Our first study in science is called 'Animals including Humans' and will involve studying and investigating the circulatory system, how our body transports water and nutrients and how to keep our bodies healthy.
As you can see, we have a jam-packed term filled with lots of new and exciting learning opportunities. We hope that you are looking forward to it as much as we are!
6.12.19
On Wednesday afternoon, we read through some extracts of books from our Year 6 Reading List. We then voted for our favourites in order to choose our new class texts. The winner was 'Floodland' which we will start reading after Christmas. The runners up were 'Bubble Boy' and 'The London Eye Mystery' - we will read these texts later in the year. We really enjoyed having the opportunity to read extracts from the books and are looking forward tp starting to read them in class!
06.12.19
Year 6 were visited by Herts County Council on Tuesday. They showed us the dangers of using a mobile phone near the road and talked to us about the safest places to use a mobile phone when out in public. We did some activities which showed us how using a mobile phone affects your concentration. We then designed posters to advertise the dangers of being distracted when walking or cycling near roads.
22.11.19
This week, we have been enjoying our Cross-Curricular Days. On Monday, we had a visit from Stevenage Museum, who launched our days with an assembly about the Romans. In class, we then researched Roman Gods and Goddesses, wrote charachter descriptions about Jupiter and Juno and did some drama activities in order to get into character. We also learned how to make and use a sundial, created leaflets about the Roman Baths and made mosaics similiar to the ones that Romans would have used to decorate their homes.
23.10.19
In Science this week, we carried out an investigation into how our heart rate changes. First, we took our resting heart rate and recorded it. We then took part in some moderate and vigorous exercises and recorded our heart rates afterwards to see how much they had changed. We repeated this three times, then worked out our average heart rates for moderate and vigorous intensity exercises.
Linked to our WW2 topic, Year 6 had a go at baking a wartime treat, linked to our learning on rationing. We begun by learning about which foods and items were rationed during WW2 and researched some WW2 recipes. We then created an Eggless Sponge which we then tasted and evaluated. Although they were slightly different to cakes today due to the ingredients, they were popular amongst the children! Lots of children showed great enthusiasm in the topic and we have therefore encouraged them to research some of their own WW2 recipes that they could make at home. If you do, please send us a picture, or even better, bring us some in to try!
To immerse ourselves within our new WW2 topic, we carried out a carousel of activities for the afternoon. We started by mind-mapping what we already knew about WW2. We then carried out activities related to how the war started, rationing, morse code and evacuation. We were also very lucky to have Mrs Umney share some real WW2 artefacts with us that were given by a family member. These included a war helmet, gas mask and box and a shell. We then added our new learning to our mind maps to use for future lessons.
On Monday afternoon, Year 6 attended Crucial Crew. They took part in a carousel of activities to learn about water safety, e-safety, street safety, electrical safety, fire safety, first aid and feelings and emotions. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were really engaged and involved throughout the activities. We were very proud to have their brilliant behaviour praised by the volunteers running the event. Well done Year 6!
06.09.19
We have had a great frst week back in Johnstone and Monet classes. We have started some fantastic learning on Anne Frank's Diary in English and Place Value in Maths. We have also created some beautiful paintings, inspired by our class artists. Take a look at our artwork below!
Miss Bacon (Monet)
Miss Murphy (Johnstone)
Mr Pallant (Y6 Setting)
Mr Haig (Y6 Teaching Assistant)
Mr Taylor (HLTA cover)
Miss Buchen (Cover teacher)
Our PE day is THURSDAY. Please make sure children have their appropriate school PE kit in school on this day.
Year 6 have started a new science topic on light. On Monday, we learnt the science behind how we see and put it into practice as you can see from the following photos and video.
Holbein English
This week in English, we have been looking at a narrative poem- “The Singing Mermaid.”
We have looked at performing the poem and here is our attempt at it.
Linked to our topic learning on Africa, Johnstone Class created Ndebele mud huts. We looked at the traditional paintings by the Ndebele bride and replicated the geometric patterns and bright colours when making our own mini huts! Take a look at our creations below.
7th January 2019
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
We are excited to be back and ready to continue our learning journey.
The children have spent the day immersed in activities linked to our WW2 topic. We decide to use our design and technology skills and follow instructions to measure and assemble gas masks and gas mask boxes that were used in WW2. We even perfectly presented the real gas mask instructions onto our box. You can see some pictures from our creations below.
15/11/2018 Basketball
Year 6 children represented the school in basketball matches against the Giles school.
The first team team continued their preparations for the County Final by beating Giles School 28-22. The second team then played their first match as a team and competed well but lost 20-30 in a well fought contest with the Giles School.
Round Diamond 1st team 28 Giles School 22
Matas, Andreas, Jackson, Justin, Tayah, Casey and Artemis.
Round Diamond 2nd team 20 Giles School 30
Aaron, Ciaran, Rhys, Billy, Isobel, Amy.
Miss Murphy's English set have been writing some WW2 poetry, based on the 1940 Coventry bombing. We started our learning by looking at the poem That Night of Death by J.J Rattigan which looks at the impact of the attack from the people in Coventry. The children then wrote their poems from the perspective of the Luftwaffe who released the attack that night. The children focused on using emotive and figurative language, rhyme and high-level vocabulary to describe the events of the historic attack in a four line, four verse structured poem. Photos from our poetry performances are below.
23.10.18 Year 6 Maths Learning
Mr Pallant's Maths group have been developing their 3D shape learning by looking at finding planes of symmetry.
Both Miss Murphy and Miss Bacon are very proud of the Year 6 children after their dedication to, and performance in, their final Harvest Festival at Round Diamond. The children put a lot of effort into learning about the role of foodbanks, creating their foodbank posters and learning their lines and roles for the performance, alongside singing the songs.
The children did themselves proud. We hope you enjoyed the performance if you got to watch!
We value discussion in our maths lesson. We discussed our learning journey and were able to complete tasks to consolidate our angle knowledge from our learning this week.
Holbein Maths
Year 6 had the opportunity to watch a lamb heart dissection linked to their science topic of the human circulatory system. They were shown the different parts of the heart and we discussed the function of each part in a successful circulatory system. There was a great buzz in the classroom and all children were fascinated by the experience. It helped to consolidate their understanding of the heart and certainly wasn’t your average science lesson!
Year 6 have made a really positive start to their year. Lots of information to take in and lots to remember, but they have risen to the challenge.
Thumbs up to a great year!
Thursday 6th September 2018 - PGL Meeting
This will take place in the main hall at 3.45pm to discuss arrangements for our upcoming PGL residential.
Monday 10th September 2018 - Crucial Crew
Year 6 will be taking part in Crucial Crew during the afternoon. The event looks at teaching the children important safety measures through a range of activities. This will take part during normal school hours.
Wednesday 12th September 2018 - Home Learning Workshop
This will take place in the main hall at 3.40pm to discuss home learning expectations throughout the year.
Monday 17th September - Friday 21st September 2018 - PGL residential
Year 6 are starting the year with a bang with a week long exciting residential to PGL - Caythorpe Court Adventure Centre.
Tuesday 9th October 2018 - School Individual Photos
Wednesday 10th October 2018 - Harvest Festival
We will be looking forward to you coming to see the different ways we have chosen to celebrate Harvest Festival this year.
Monday 22nd October 2018 - Parent Consultations
This will take place with your child's home class teacher between 3.50pm and 6pm.
Wednesday 24th October 2018 - Parent Consultations
This will take place with your child's home class teacher between 4pm and 8pm.
Monday 29th October - Friday 2nd November - Half Term
Enjoy yourselves for a well-deserved rest!
Wednesday 14th November 2018 - Year 6 Open Afternoon
Come and spend the afternoon seeing some of the exciting learning we have been undertaking this term.
Wednesday 28th-Thursday 29th November - Cross Curricular Days
Friday 30th November - Occasional Day
Wednesday 19th December 2018 - Christmas Performance (am and pm)
We will look forward to you coming to watch our performance to get you into the festive spirit!
Friday 21st December - End of Term
We hope you have a wonderful Christmas break!
The Year 6 team all hope that you have enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing summer break.
We are very excited to welcome you back to a brand new school year.
You are about to begin your learning journey into your final year of primary school at Round Diamond. Although this is an important and challenging year, we have lots of fun learning and new experiences planned along the way.
I'm sure lots of you are starting to get very excited about our PGL Trip to Caythorpe Court commencing the week beginning Monday 17th September which will include lots of fun activities such as: kayaking, zip wire, climbing, giant swing and lots more!
Our topic for the whole of this term is 'The Great, The Bold, The Brave' where we will be closely focusing on WWII to study key events, key individuals and the ways of life during this important and fascinating period in history. During this historical topic, we will also have lots of cross-curricular links with subjects such as French, DT, Art and Science.
We will also be linking this topic closely to our English learning during this term. We are starting the year by exploring Anne Frank's diary through text types such as recounts, newspaper articles and survival guides. We will then go on to compare and contrast two popular texts based around WWII called Goodnight Mister Tom and Letters from the Lighthouse and use these to inform different styles of writing such as letters, non-chronological reports and balanced arguments.
In maths, we will be exploring a range of topics to continue to develop our fluency, reasoning and problem solving skills.
Our first study in science is called 'Animals including Humans' and will involve studying and investigating the circulatory system, how our body transports water and nutrients and how to keep our bodies healthy.
As you can see, we have a jam-packed term filled with lots of new and exciting learning opportunities.
Friday 22nd June - Football World Cup 2018
As part of our cross- Curricular days, we looked at different elements linked to the FIFA World Cup. This included: designing football kits reflective of traditional colours and symbols, locating host cities, producing information factfiles on the history of the event and participating in a whole school football tournament.
The tournament saw us split into mixed ability teams, which gave us the opportunity to work with others in the year. Our teams also worked alongside other year groups and the final points were collated to name an overall World Cup winner.
Thorpe Park -12/06/18
As a celebration of the hard work shown this year, Year 6 children, along with the Year 6 staff team, took a trip to Thorpe Park. It was a great way to spend time with classmates and enjoy the thrilling and exciting rides that the theme park had to offer.
Everyone had a blast and despite the traffic hold up on the way home, everyone remained in high spirits throughout the day!
HALF TERM Monday 28th May - Friday 8th June 2018
Have a great break everyone!
Monday 14th May 2018 - Thursday 17th May 2018 - KS2 SATS WEEK!
We are prepared and ready for our end of KS2 assessments. We feel prepared and ready to take on the challenge. Wish us luck.
Revision in Johnstone
Today was Year 6’s last lesson before SATs week. The children have shown true dedication to their learning and have really made us proud with their attitude. In Johnstone, the children thought the best use of their time would be to create revision posters.
Dragon Boat Racing
We embarked on our first mini bus journey to Fairlands Lake to have a test run of what Dragon Boat racing entails. We were told that our techniques was very good - fingers crossed for the 24th May!
Creative Science - 4/5/18
Cross Curricular Science was a focus for Friday afternoon. We drew on all aspects of our science (adaptation, evolution, habitats, life cycles) to create our own animals to show their features and traits.
It was lovely to work together as a year group group and share ideas.
Colour Coding - 26.4.2018
We have been revisiting the colour coding that we have previously used to ensure we understand the structure of our sentences and how to adapt them using different noun forms.
We understand and the importance of using this to help us. Our aim is to continue using and apply across other learning to help understanding.
We used our 1Decision learning to help us look at dealing with peer pressure.
It was a surprise to see our own class member Rylee in the video!!
Happy Easter - 29/3/2018
The children have worked incredibly hard and persevered this term and we are proud of their efforts, including the energy and enthusiasm they have shown towards their learning.
To help with revision, SATs questions for SPAG, Reading and Maths have been provided for their folders and as well as this, they have lots of booster and revision activities on MyMaths.
Have a wonderful break and enjoy the rest.
School Values Afternoon - Year 3 &Year 6 (06.03.18)
Year 3 and Year 6 joined forces to complete their School Values tasks.
They completed poems about how they are either:
Responsible
Determined
Successful.
6.03.2018
Mathematical Minds in Year 6
We love a good mathematical challenge in Year 6 and so with SATs approaching ever closer, we are continuing to consolidate and further expand our knowledge through mastery.
From constructing pie charts, to balancing equations, we strive to achieve and develop to prepare us for September!
W/B Monday 19 February
I hope you had a great half term we certainly did! This week we had to catch up on learning and obviously learn new things. This week Year 6 has had the right mind-set towards their learning and have had great outcomes.
Miss Dhillon English
This week in Miss Dhillons English class we have been doing a take one book called: The heart in a bottle by Oliver Jeffers. We are doing this for a time period of three weeks. On one of the weeks we will be re-writing a narrative of this amazing picture book. Also, in SPaG we have been learning about Synonyms and Antonyms.
Miss Bacon English
This week in Miss Bacons English class we have been focusing on:Peter Pan. We have been also been doing a lot of descriptive writing. In addition , we have been doing DADWAVERS [which is where you get a picture from a scene in the book/movie and mind map descriptive words/phrases]. In SPaG we have been focusing on apostrophes and VIPERS. VIPERS mean: Vocabulary,Inference,Punctuation,Explain, Retrieve and Summarise.
Mr Pallant English
This week in Mr Pallants English group we have been doing Persuasive writing.
*** AUDIENCE RESPONSES ***
Nursery
'The singing was very good'-Leo James
'The dancing was beautifal.'-Sameera
Reception
'It was good, they were funny' - Fletcher
' I liked the handsprings' - Arti
' I thought it was very good because I liked the dancing' - Sophia
'When they came in they did cartwheels. We liked it because we didn't know people were coming out of the doors' - Renoir Class
Year 1
'I liked it when they all came on and backflipped.'-Tayla
'I liked it when they were kicking.'-Charlie
'I liked it when they were singing'-Zain
'We loved it.'-Matisse
'I liked it when they did the handstands.'-Meghan
Year 2
'We think it was amazing because it was amazing when the girls came flipping in.'-Van Gogh
'It was fantastic when they did the flips'-Maycie
'We liked the dancing when they were being determined.'-Dali
Year 3
'I love it because I liked the dancing.'-Dylan Stone
'The dance started very calm and then it started to get very like pop.'-Turner
Year 4
'It was very creative and lots of work was put into it.It was a great performance Year 6 were very confident.'-O'keefe
'We enjoyed when everyone came in. It was great when everyone worked together.'-Picasso
Year 5
'We enjoyed the sing,rap and solo's.I thought it was great when Darcy entranced with a front handspring and a cartwheel flick.'-Angel and Lauren
'We enjoyed the dance because it looked like they put a lot of hard work into it.Our favorite part was the start.'-Lowry Class
'We think it was very enerjetic and must off taken a lot of work.It was a very fun performance.'Cliff Class
W/B 5 February
Last Friday we practised our Joyful Joyful dance. Hopefully, we will be performing this dance to the school in non school uniform, but we're not 100%. Year 6 have been working very hard on this dance and have been taking some of their own time to practice. A few YR 6 girls and boys have been choreographing this dance. Also we have been working on Fair trade in our Topic learning by discussing about Imports and Exports. We have made our own Charlottes Cupboard display showing our own unique busses. Our topic is Going Global which is why we are learning about trading and Imports,Exports. Did you know: over 1000 products have the fair trade logo's.
W/B 29 January 2018
Last Friday we were grouped in our houses which are:St George,St David,St Andrew and St Patrick. We were all split up in different groups and were taken to different classrooms with different teachers. We were told to make flags with cotton buds and paint. Each house has a different colour and different design.On the Monday, we did Charlottes cupboard which is a site online that you can visit. It is the first UK package free, on wheels.You would go there to buy food that isn't packaged with plastic so it can save the environment.You can bring a jar or a container to store your food in. If you do not have a jar or a container that you can use, you can buy one there. Not only does it save the environment by saving plastic waste,it also reduces waste as you only buy what you need .
W/B 15th January 2018
Revision Support
Many of the children and parents have been asking about support resources for SATs. Please find the link below which provides the children with example SATs questions grouped into the different units. Alongside the sheets, there are YouTube videos to support if needed.
As part of our science learning, we have been looking at the effects of exercise on our bodies. We created our own investigations to measure the impact on our heart rates, considering our own variables.
After the initial planning, we carried out our investigations and recorded results. Our results were then presented in a graph to be able to draw conclusions and prove or disprove our predictions.
English Learning - W/b 7th November.
Both Monet and Johnstone chose Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian as their Take one book text.
Monet group were so interested and inspired in their learning from the book that they requested an extension of the learning and have applied the text to produce wonderful written outcomes.
Here they are applying their comprehension skills in a reading lesson.
It has been wonderful to see the children so motivated by their learning, so much so that a number of the class have bought their own copies of the book!
Week beginning 16th October 2017
This has been a busy week! Following our latest assessment tasks, we have identified our next steps to make us more independent and successful learners.
We used our PSHE lessons to discuss our challenges and included a lot of peer talk to help find solutions and support each other. We have created personal mantras to help ourselves and others.
We have also taken time to celebrate the successes we have had in our first term in Year 6. Our teachers all agree we have worked very hard and taken on the challenges that come with being the oldest in the school.
We are working well on the presentation of our learning and you can see the outcomes on the perfectly presented wall.
RDS Values Afternoon - 12th October 2017
Year 6 joined with Year 3 to take part in our Values Afternoon.
Monet joined with Turner while Johnstone joined Constable. It was a lovely opportunity to work with other members of the school community and share different ideas.
“I love learning with the younger classes, it makes me feel responsible for helping them”
“It’s been a great afternoon with lots of ideas and a fun activity. Some of us worked independently by ourselves and others joined in partners to show how we show our value”
We look forward to the next afternoon.
Parent Open Afternoon 11/10/2017
In Year 6, we invited our parents and carers to share our experiences of PGL. We thoroughly enjoyed retelling our favourite moments and memories from the trip. Thank you to the parents for joining us and also a big thank you to the staff who helped make the trip so enjoyable for us all.
Crucial Crew
Wednesday afternoon was spent at Bowes Lyon with Crucial Crew. The aim of the day was to further the children's knowledge and understanding of how to stay safe in a variety of situations. The children had the opportunity to learn more about the potential fire hazards at home, how to act safe around railway lines and roads and how to be safe around dogs. We even had a visit from Tigger the dog who taught us how to be kind towards animals.
It it was a fantastic day out, where the children continued to look represent Round Diamond in an exemplary way.
Week beginning 4th September 2017
Wow...what a busy first week back!
Both Monet and Johnstone began the week superbly and showed great examples of the school values as soon as they came in to their new classrooms.
The first week back saw us in our home classes for Monday and Tuesday, followed by maths and English setting commencing on Wednesday. A lot of learning has already taken place including, science, RE, humanities and French, as well as maths and English tasks.
Despite the busy start, the children have shown real maturity and high levels of effort across their learning and shared some of their thoughts to their first week:
'There is a lot to do and we need to be independent learners to achieve this, but we are up to the challenge!'
'I can't wait for PGL and until then I'm going to work really hard to meet my targets and complete all my learning'
' I want to set a good example and know I can this can be a year where I am RESPONSIBLE, DETERMINED and SUCCESSFUL!'
We look forward to displaying our first set of learning outcomes next week.
Monday 30th - Friday 3rd February 2017
Monet English
We began the week looking at furthering our persuasive learning. We have developed it into looking at debates; their purpose and creating our own. We have looked at different aspects of debating and discussion, linking this to our British Values and PSHE.
We have split into groups and formed our own teams to debate issues.
Johnstone English
This week in English, we have been preparing to write the opening to our stories. Using elements of our setting and character descriptions, we built up a bank of our 'perfect' story starters. Today we held a class Gallery. This gave us the opportunity to read over learning from peers we don't normally sit next to. It also allowed us to magpie elements of other's learning - a fantastic compliment to the author!
Johnstone Maths
We have been learning about averages within our Maths learning. Using a poem to help us, we have been calculating the mean, median, mode and range:
Hey Diddle Diddle,
The median's in the middle,
You add and divide for the mean,
The mode's the one you see the most
And the range is the difference between.
Compiling all of the week's learning, today we set about constructing bar graphs, pie charts and calculating the averages of our results.
23rd - 27th January 2017
Well...another busy week in Year 6. We have continued our Maths and English learning and look forward to sharing some of the outcomes of our perfectly presented hot tasks next week. We are continuing to challenge ourselves and see our progress and look forward to our parents seeing this as well at parents' evening.
This week our blog focus is on our RE learning. We have been looking at Buddhist worship and beliefs, including symbols that represent the faith.
Johnstone Class attempted to understand the role of meditation and how this can help focus our minds on a task. Some of us found this useful and it led to a in-depth discussion on its effectiveness for each individual.
Monet have looked at the Eight-fold Path and the lessons that it teaches Buddhist to learn from.
9th January 2017- 13th January 2017
Our first week back saw us get straight back into the swing of things.
We were introduced to our new topics and units of learning. We are excited to expand our learning and apply our skills to learn new and exciting information.
In Science we are looking at ELECTRICITY. We are going to be exploring the uses of electricity, its purpose and experimenting with making our own electrical circuits.
In Religious Education, we are learning about BUDDHISM. We will be looking at the origin of the faith and how it is demonstrated around the world by followers.
In our topic learning, our theme is 'MAKING THE NEWS'. We will exploring the development of different types of media and how we use them today. We will be linking it into our English and maths learning
This week we have brought together all our ideas in our knowledge harvest and are ready to go!
Happy New Year!
Welcome Back to School and the Spring Term.
Lots of exciting learning is planned and the children and staff are equally enthusiastic about the new term.
Please remember PE remains on a Friday, however children are expected to have their kits in school all week.
We are nearing the end of our first term in Year 6.
We have been looking at HONESTY for our Christmas celebration piece.
So we thought we would share our honest thoughts about our first term and what it is like being at the top of the school!
"Being in Year 6, you need to show others how to follow the rules and make the right decisions. I love my teachers
Miss Bacon and Miss Dhillon. My favourite lesson is maths because we make it cross curricular. We did some Pokemon Maths and that made everyone excited and happy!
Abbey- Monet
"I really like my learning. The best bit is I get to try new challenges. My favourite subject is PE and then maths.
I like being the oldest in the school."
Alfie - Monet
“The lessons in Year 6 and the teachers help. It can be tough being the oldest in the school. There are a lot of expectations and we work really hard to achieve our targets. Our SATs practice weeks help us prepare and our teachers work with us to fill any gaps and build our confidence.
Next term, I am looking forward to seeing my progress"
Rahman - Johnstone
"I like the lessons and the teachers because they make learning fun and we learn a lot. I haven't been here since the beginning of term, but I feel part of Year 6.
My favourite lessons are Maths and PE and I have achieved well in my SATs practice tests."
Harry - Johnstone
Cross Curricular Learning.
This week we are making cross-curricular links across our learning. We are applying all our knowledge from all our different subjects and then using these to challenge ourselves and find out more!
Here's a few things we are covering this week:
Sikh Creation Stories (RE)
The history of penicillin (Science)
Medieval Life (History)
Roman numerals (Maths)
Timelines (History/Maths)
We look forward to sharing our new cross-curricular learning with you by the end of the week!
SATS Practice Week : 5th December - 9th December
Year 6 will be having their SATs Practice Week next week. This is for the children to celebrate their progress and to be comfortable with the routines of the statutory assessments that take place in May.
Everyone of the children have worked so hard this term and shown such perseverance (even when they have found it really challenging) and we are sure they will be proud of their efforts after next week.
It will help us to identify the next step of the learning journey.
Monet and Johnstone welcome the parents to our open afternoon this half term. We decided to bring an active session to those who were visiting and were brave enough to include clay and paint. We made Dig For Victory gardens and some silhouettes of the London skyline during the war.
We all thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon and sharing our WWII learning with our parents.
Take a look below at a few photos...
PGL 2016
19th September - 23rd September
Year 6 spent the week at Caythorpe Court on their residential trip. The trip was the first time away from home for a number of children, but everyone got fully stuck in to enjoy 5 days of activities including kayaking, abseiling, rifle shooting, archery and high ropes.
Take a look at Round Diamond's Facebook page to see the photos of the trip.
You will definitely see a lot of smiling faces!
We haven't wasted any time and have got straight back into the swing of things.
First up was discussing the expectations for Year 6. The children looked through their timetables and topics. Monet Class even got into their first learning tasks before 10am!
The children have all come in superbly and ready to learn.
Keep it up!
Monet Class preparing their science books Johnstone Class taking in lots of information.
Welcome back Year 6!
We hope you are as excited for the new term as we are. We look forward to seeing you all and achieving great successes thus year.
Soon this blog will be filling up with all your exciting learning.
Miss Bacon, Miss Dhillon & Mr Pallant
TAKE ONE BOOK in HOLBEIN CLASS
The children in Holbein Class have been using Take One Book learning to create news reports. Our book of choice was 'The Incredible Book Eating Boy' by Oliver Jeffers. It's about a young boy, who discovers that if he eats books, he becomes intelligent! However, the more books he eats, the more muddled and confused he becomes! We have used this storyline to write poems, blogs, letters and news paper reports, as well as present news stories - which you can now watch! .
Year 6 have been working hard creating art learning for their upcoming production. They have been designing programme covers, backing images and posters.
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Children from Year 6 were chosen to take part in the science moderation issued by the government. 10 children were selected at random and completed different papers which ranged from 18 minutes to 25mins for each paper.
The outcome of the moderation is to look at the structure of the papers (layout, coverage) and to see how successful they are when presented to the children. The scores are not collected or fed back as English or Maths SATs are.
To ensure fairness, the rest of year 6 also completed a science exemplification assessment at the same time.
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Dragon Boat Festival
Well done to all the Year 6 children who participated with the Dragon Boat event at Fairlands Lake.
Both teams showed great determination and perseverance when racing.
Congratulations to Team 1 who came first, beating the reigning champions and recording a personal best time!
Team 1 Team 2
Well done Monet
Another success in the attendance cup.
100% attendance
A message for the Year 6...
Each one of you has shone this week
Your learning you've applied,
Clear determination to succeed was shown
And we're filled with such immense pride.
From morning breakfast with lots of toast,
to waiting for the end of the day.
Your smiles and energy have been the key
In the journey to our celebratory Friday.
Congratulations in what you've achieved,
as pupils you're supreme.
Let's look back and know we've done our best
What an amazing year 6 team!!!
A note from the teachers...
We are very proud of the effort and perseverance that the Year 6 children are showing. They are continuing to challenge themselves and secure their understanding across their lessons. They are displaying our values superbly!
Miss Bacon, Mr Pallant & Mrs Kennedy-Weeks
ATTENDANCE UPDATE
Congratulations to Monet Class who are currently tied in first position with Cliff Class for attendance since September with a respectable 96.8%.
Johnstone are currently 7th with 96.2%
Let's keep this up Year 6! Attendance ensures you can achieve your very best in your learning.
Dear pupils at Round Diamond Primary School.
I have just opened an envelope which contains some letters from you. How very kind of you to take the time to write to me!
Mrs Hinchliffe and I really enjoyed working with you and your teachers. We saw some amazing things at your lovely school. The most important thing to me was how ready to learn you all were and this means that you are making really good progress.
I know that you will all support your teachers to make sure that the little things we suggested as next steps when we visited will soon be part of what you do as a matter of course.
Thank you again for your letters, which I will cherish.
Good luck for the future.
With best wishes
Helen Jones
Senior adviser, PQSI