Welcome to Year 6!

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.

The Year 6 Team 2019/2020

Class Teachers:

Johnstone Class Teacher: Miss Murphy 

Monet Class Teacher: Mrs Downie

Holbein Class Teacher: Mr Pallant

Teaching Assistant:

 Ms Landau

Our PE day is now on a Wednesday. 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.

Week Beginning Monday 2nd June 2020

Monday 1st June 2020 is an INSET day, therefore there is no learning for this day.

Week Beginning Monday 18th May 2020

Week Beginning Monday 11th May 2020

Week Beginning Monday 4th May 2020

Week Beginning Monday 27th April 2020

Week beginning Monday 20th April 2020

Friday 3rd April 2020 - End of Term

Today is the day that we officially break up for the Easter holidays for 2 weeks!

Well done to adjusting to a new way of learning at home for couple of weeks and it is now time to relax and enjoy the break. Although this holiday will be different to other school breaks, we hope that you make the most of spending time with your family, doing activities that you enjoy and that you keep yourself active while staying at home. Below we will place a link with some fun ideas to have a go at during this time.

Further learning updates will be posted to this page after the Easter holidays. 

We hope that you stay safe, well and have an enjoyable break,

Miss Murphy, Mrs Downie, Mr Pallant and Ms Landau

Link to fun activities that can be completed at home:

https://www.scouts.org.uk/the-great-indoors/

26.03.20

Hello all,

As we come towards the end of the first week of a different way of learning, we wanted to send a message to say that we hope that you're all keeping safe and well.

We hope that you have managed to find a routine of completing some English, maths and afternoon subject learning each day as well as completing home activities that you and your family enjoy. It is very important for your physical and mental health that you complete some daily exercise to help keep yourself active while at home. Both at school and at home, we have been finding the daily PE with Joe Wicks workouts (live from 9am every weekday morning and can be accessed on Youtube at Body Coach TV - these can be done live at 9am or at any time after) brilliant to get ourselves moving and to release all those feel-good hormones that come with exercise.

Below we have also attached some links to additional learning opportunities that you can access to keep yourself learning and feeling good.

Keep visiting this page regularly for your learning and updates. Adults can email: lmurphy@rounddiamond.herts.sch.uk if you have any questions during this time.

Stay safe and keep smiling,

Miss Murphy and Mrs Downie

Additional learning links:

• Audible is free for as long as the schools are closed, so if you run out of books on BugClub, there are lots of audio books for children of all ages. Find this at: https://stories.audible.com/discovery 
• GoNoodle is good for practical dance and mindful activities
• BBC Supermovers has videos relating to a range of activities
• Topmarks has a range of interactive activities to support learning for a range of subjects

School Closure Home Learning - 18.03.20

Attached below are a range of home learning opportunities for children to complete during this period of school closure. This learning covers the 2 weeks of teaching before the Easter break. MyMaths and Bug Club have also been set and children have been given their passwords for these. Any children without access to the internet will be given a printed pack.

We recommend that children stay in a regular routine of completing English, Maths and afternoon subject learning daily to ensure a sense of stability, routine and allow them to progress with their learning.

Twinkl, an educational resource website which is used at school, has also given parents a free-month access code to use during this period of school closure. The free access code is: PARENTSTWINKLHELPS and can be used at www.twinkl.co.uk/offer

They have a range of high-quality resources and explanatory PowerPoints across year groups and all subjects that will be extremely useful for additional learning or to focus on specific learning areas.

If you have any questions regarding this learning please email: lmurphy@rounddiamond.herts.sch.uk

We would like to thank you for your continued support at this time.

The Year 6 Team

Writing learning

Below are a range of writing tasks on fiction and non-fiction topics. Please use the differentiated writing mats and sentence starter document for ideas, support and to recap skills we have been working on throughout the year. Some tasks may also require you to do some research using the internet to gather ideas.

The English Faculty have been considering ways in which to make effective changes to our home learning expectations at Round Diamond. As part of this process, we have looked at opportunities to promote the enjoyment of high quality texts, both in school and at home.

To support this, each year group has created a ‘Summer Term Recommended Reading List’. The list has been put together by class teachers and has been designed to give children the opportunity to explore a range of texts at home, over the course of year.

Alongside this list are some question prompts which can be used to start discussions about what has been read. The questions are in line with our weekly VIPERS teaching, that focuses on individual skills within reading – Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Summarise.

Please note that this home learning is not compulsory. We hope that you will be able to enjoy some (or all!) of the recommendations by buying the texts if you wish. Equally, the question prompts can be used with any book you choose to enjoy with your child.

History - Ethelred the Unready - 16.03.20

As part of our history learning, we learnt about the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready and how he used Dangeld to pay the Vikings to try and stop them from attacking during his reign...and how this didn't stop them because the Vikings learnt that they could keep coming back for more money!! Using this learning, we created a poem on Ethelred the Unready in the style of the one attached below. 

13.03.20 - PSHE -  The Importance of Hand Washing

This week in PSHE, we reiterated the importance of thorough hand washing to keep ourselves healthy. We watched videos on how to wash our hands thoroughly and then created posters to advertise the useful steps. Find the video was used at the link below. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/51698180

Science - Creating Periscopes - 5.03.20

This week in science, the children created periscopes using cereal boxes that were kindly donated. We used these to help understand how light is reflected to help us see. We explored the angles of incidence and reflection to help us understand how we see our reflection in some objects and not in others. 

02/03/20 - Discussion Texts

To help us with our discussion writing this week, we researched the use of animals for human benefit to explore more about the themes raised in our class text: Pig Heart Boy. Each group took and different view and a different area to research including use of food, drug testing and xenotransplantation. We then presented our findings to the class to help us make our own  opinion on the topic. 

New Science Topic - Light - 27.02.20

Year 6 begun their new Science topic of Light this half term by exploring how light enables us to see. We learnt the science behind it before creating group presentations to demonstrate how light travels in a straight line from a light source, bounces off an object before travelling in a straight line to our eyes. 

13.02.20 - The Day the Chairs Quit!

In English, we have been reading 'The Day the Crayons Quit' as part of our learning on persuasive writing. Today, the chairs in all Year 6 classrooms decided they would quit after being mistreated by not being tucked in and being swung on constantly! Our job was to write a letter to the chairs to persuade them to come back. Luckily, most of us had earned our chairs back by break time!

03.02.20 - Geography - Grid References

This week in Geography, we learnt how to read four and six-figure grid references to give exact locations of places. We will be putting this learning together, alongside this half term's learning on compass directions, reading maps and OS Map Symbols to create our own map using these skills next week. 

House afternoon - Rule of Law - 30.01.20

This afternoon, we had a house event where children in the same house from Years 1-6 came together to discuss the importance of the British Value - Rule of Law. We then worked together to come up with the laws we would make if we were Prime Minister. Children came up with some really thoughtful laws such as ways to reduce plastic and provide more money to the NHS.

It was great to see many of the Year 6 children acting as leaders to their younger peers, with our House Captains helping to direct children to the correct classes and children supporting younger ones during the task and then sharing their learning in our sharing assembly. 

Compass directions - 21.01.20

We have been developing our map reading and directional skills during geography. To build on our knowledge of locating places on a map and our knowledge of longitude and latitiude, we learnt about the 8 points on a compass and how a compass works by taking some outside and trying them for ourselves. We then used this knowledge to locate countries on a map. We will use this knowledge again next week when we explore OS maps of Stevenage.

Year 6 - Evolution and Inheritance - 07.01.20

To begin this half term's science topic on Evolution and Inheritance, the children had an awe and wonder session to explore inheritance. They were given pictures of members of staff and their parents, who they then had to match up based on similar inherited characteristics. I think the children will agree that it was quite a challenge, but really helped us to understand the difference between inherited and acquired charactertistics in a fun and practical way!

Happy New Year!

Spring Term 

The Year 6 team all hope that you have enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing break! We are very excited to welcome you back to a new term.

This term, we are embarking on a new learning journey in our history and geography learning. In History, we will be exploring the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England, looking at the range of battles and raids that occurred in this era and what that meant for our country.

In geography, we will be learning the skill of reading 6 figure grid references and applying this to develop our understanding of major UK cities and places in the wider world, particularly through a comparison between our hometown of Stevenage and Boston, USA.

Within English this term, we will be developing our skills of fiction writing by creating short stories before moving onto applying non-fiction writing skills to persuasion texts. We will be progressing our reading skills by using a range of texts to develop comprehension skills in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We are starting the term finishing off the book 'We Were Warriors' by Emma Carroll which is a sequel to the popular 'Letters from the Lighthouse' that the children enjoyed during Autumn 1. Reading for pleasure is still something we are promoting and this term we will begin to enjoy some of the stories that children voted to read last term,  including Floodland, Bubble Boy and the London Eye Mystery.

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 applying our developed arithmetic skills to reasoning tasks.

Our first study in science is called 'Evolution and Inheritance' and will involve exploring scientific theories behind how species have evolved and how variation occurs through inheritance. In Spring Term 2, we will be studying the topic of 'Light'.

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!

17.12.19

In Year 6 this week, we have been sharing our Home Learning projects. The task was to make a World War 2 shelter, with the option of also researching different ways in which people protected themselves during air raids. We saw a wide range of impressive designs; some complete with real soil, lifting roofs and bunk beds! Some children accompanied their projects with impressive PowerPoint presentations and it was obvious that everybody had put in a great amount of effort. Well done to everyone who produced a project - what a great way to end our World War 2 topic!

13.12.19 - Letters from the Lighthouse

This week, we finished our class book of Letters from the Lighthouse which we have been reading this half term and focusing our writing and guided reading lessons on. The children absolutely loved the book and were kept hooked throughout by the fantastic action, vocabulary and engaging characters. We finished our unit by writing our own book reviews on our experience of the book. Luckily for us, we will be starting the sequel: When We Were Warriors, after Christmas!

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.

27.11.19 - Reading learning

This week in English, we learned about Kindertransport, a non-fiction topic linked to our fiction class text of Letters from the Lighthouse which is linked to our World War II topic. We watched a video (that is linked below) to learn about real-life experiences of Kindertransport and then answered some comprehension questions on it. This learning helped us to understand more about the experiences of the character Esther, from our class book, who has experienced this. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/46877532

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.

12/11/19 - World War II

This week, we celebrated Remembrance Day, which is a very important day every year, but even more significant as we have been studying World War II throughout this term. This week in topic, we learnt about the difference types of shelters that people used to protect themselves during air raids. From this, the children have been set a home learning challenge to create and research their own air raid shelter. 

7/11/19 - New Science Topic: Electricity

Welcome back after half term! This week, we started a new science topic on Electricity. We started our topic by completing a comprehension activity to find out some facts about the history of electricity that led to the electricity we are lucky enough to have today.

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.

Maths - w/b 14/10/19

This week, the children have been showing some fantastic dedication and resilience towards our SATs Practice week by carrying out past reading, SPaG and maths SATs papers. The children have shown brilliant focus throughout this and have been excited to find out their achievements and learn about their next steps. During maths on Thursday and Friday, we learned and applied our knowledge of fractions, decimals and percentage equivalents. 

Rose Blanche - Take One Book - 07.10.19

This week in English, we have started a Take One Book linked to our World War 2 Topic. Rose Blanche tells a story of WW2 from a German child's perspective. We will finish our unit by writing our own short stories based on the book.

01.10.19 - World War 2 Baking

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!

2018/2019 Academic Year

The Year 6 Team 2018-2019

Class Teachers

Miss Bacon (Monet)

Miss Murphy (Johnstone)

Additional Adults

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.

Johnstone Science - Light - 25/02/19

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.

17.01.18 - Edebele Mud Huts

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. 

Topic Day - 21/11/18

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.

26.10.18 - WW2 Poetry

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

Heart Dissection - 25/09/18

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! 

Key Dates - Autumn Term 2018

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!

Welcome to a new academic year!

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.

Rehearsals are now underway. We will keep you posted with updates and sneak peeks into our rehearsals. 

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!

Writing in Year 6. Wb 11/06/2018

Following our SATs tests, we have continued to work hard in our writing. We are still building our portfolio of learning to show the high standard of writing that takes place in Year 6. 

We have looked at many many interesting texts, namely ‘The Lady of Shallot’ in Monet and Johnstone sets. We have used this as a stimulus to evoke wonderful responses and narrative pieces. 

We have included these in a class silent gallery to share our learning. 

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

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.

http://www.greatleighsprimaryschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Ultimate-KS2-Maths-SATs-Organiser-Y6-Daily-Mini-Videos-Puzzles-for-Y5.pdf

Investigating Heart rates - 9th November 2017

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. 

Thursday's are musical for Year 6. We all join together to sing and learn musical techniques with Ms Thomas and Mr Meek. We really enjoy the fact we are all involved however confident we are in singing.

Below are a few videos for you to join in the musical fun!

Y6 Open Afternoon

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...

Monet Class began their Light topic by investigating, debating and discussing their existing knowledge.

We were presented with questions to challenge our thinking and make us consider things, such as; the uses of light, how we see and why we see different coloured light.

We were also presented with higher level questioning to deepen our understanding of light.

We found so much that we know...but can't wait to find out more! 

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!

And Year 6 have arrived!

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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Science Moderation

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!!!

CONGRATULATIONS JOHNSTONE!

Winners of the attendance award with

100% attendance this week.

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