Once again, our summer term was filled with lots of fun activities to finish the children’s time at Westfields Junior School on a high! This term we have had World Earth Day, our Local Area walk, SATs, Walk to School week, Maths Day, transition visits with the secondary schools, Poetry Slam, District Sports and last but not least, our Year 6 production of ‘Robin and the Sherwood Hoodies’! The children have certainly enjoyed all of these special days immensely and it has been a joy to see them thrive throughout the term.

English highlights:
In English, at the beginning of this term we explored the theme of ‘Awe and Wonder’. This was a chance for the children to show off all of their writing skills they have gained throughout their time at Westfields. The children wrote suspense narratives and worked on using different features to build tension. In the second half of the term, we have been delving into texts with our overarching theme of ‘Deadly Disasters’. We began by exploring ‘The Flood’. We first made predictions, put the pictures in order and then had a go at writing our own version of the story. We also developed our creative writing skills by writing descriptive narratives. Alongside this, in Guided Reading, we also followed the same theme and explored the non-fiction book ‘Natural Disasters’ and a fiction book called ‘Floodlands’. As well as this, we used our Captain Communication and Confidence skills in our annual Poetry Slam! 6HC and 6ZN took first and second place in the upper school this year with their effective and enthusiastic performances!

Maths highlights:
Within our Maths learning this term, Year 6 started with revising all of their knowledge that they needed for SATS. The children worked extremely hard in lessons and extra revision sessions to recap their knowledge of the four operations, fractions, decimals, shape, algebra, statistics, BODMAs and more! After this, the children completed a range of problem-solving booklets to once again put their knowledge to the test. The children managed to find codes to unlock phones and solve ‘who dunnits’. We also had our first ever Maths Day! The children explored how Maths is all around us. They completed a Maths trail, listened to a maths based story and used Maths to draw impossible objects. We also made Maths based board games which were then shared across the whole federation!  It was a brilliant day which celebrated the wonderful world of Maths at Westfields Junior School.

Foundation subject highlights:
In Science, we have been focusing on animals, how they are classified and micro-organisms! We have learnt all about the Linnaeus system and how animals can be classified. Then we wrote a whole fact file on some rather unique animals that we have in our natural world. As well as this, we conducted our own experiment to see how mould can grow in different conditions – it was certainly a memorable experiment!

In History, we learnt all about the power of the Monarchy, discussing why Parliament runs our country instead of the King. We looked at key moments from the reign of King John, King James I, Queen Anne and Queen Victoria. In each lesson, we discussed who had more power and why. In the end, we had to decide whether or not the monarchy or Parliament should run the country.

In our final Geography unit, we looked at some ‘Deadly Disasters’! We discovered all about the different layers of the Earth and how tectonic plates can cause earthquakes, mountains and volcanoes to form. We looked at the impact that these can have on humans. It was wonderful to see some of the amazing home learning that the children created over the half term! From 3D models of the earth to some amazing volcanoes, the children’s hard work and passion for the topic was clear.

To say our Spring Term was jam-packed would be an understatement! In Year 6, we have participated in a wide-range of special events such as: World Religions Day, our Fantastic Finish, Wellbeing Week, Safer Internet Day, Westfields Has Talent, World Book Day, Potted Sports and not to mention our residential trip to Condover Hall! We had an adrenaline filled week with ziplining, climbing walls, games in the swimming pool, rocket launching and so much more! The children were a credit to our school as they immersed themselves into life at Condover and approached every task with determination and a great sense of fun! It was wonderful to see the children having the time of their lives – hopefully they made memories to last a life time!  

English highlights:
In English, we have been delving into texts with different locations matching in with our overarching theme ‘Location, Location, Location’. We began by exploring Kensuke’s Kingdom and learnt about a boy who was stranded at sea on an island with a mysterious man, Kensuke. Developing our reporting skills, Year 6 wrote a a newspaper report based around the disappearance of a person in mysterious circumstances, a survival guide for a desert island and a hybrid narrative about a disaster leading to an exploration of unknown lands. It was brilliant to see how creative the children where when selecting their language to create tension and atmosphere.

Moving onto a completely different environment, Year 6 wrote persuasive letters to convince Ernest Shackleton to allow them to join his crew that were hoping to complete their mission in being the first team to cross Antarctica. However, after learning that his journey was full of peril and disaster, the children wrote letters of complaint about their treatment whilst on this dangerous journey! We also learnt about Robert Scott and compared the two journeys. The children could then write a eulogy for either Shackleton or Scott to commemorate their achievements. The children certainly enjoyed learning about both of these intrepid explorers and their writing incorporated so many elements to make it effective!

Maths highlights:
Within our Maths learning this term, Year 6 have delved into calculating with and converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. We have worked hard to strengthen our arithmetic skills and strengthen our addition, subtraction, multiplication and division between fractions and decimals. Following on from this we explored problem solving with algebra and learnt how to find missing numbers that are represented with shapes or letters. We have also applied our knowledge of multiplication to support us in calculating with ratios, including using scale factors.

Foundation subject highlights:
Bringing the spark into our Science learning, the children began the Spring term with a focus on electricity.   We explored the different components of a circuit, the differences between voltage and current and even designed our own buzzer games using all of the knowledge we had gained about electricity. Next, we explored the human body, including our main organs and systems that keep us alive. We also focused on staying healthy and things that could harm our bodies such as having a poor diet, not exercising and the impact of drugs.

Continuing with our ‘Location, Location, Location’ unit, within Geography we have learnt about our local area of Yateley. We put this into context of the UK by exploring counties, cities, land use as well as transport links and natural resources. Then, we applied our knowledge of these features to explore Yateley and compared it to the nearby town of Camberley. During our learning, we visited Yateley High Street and mapped its features as well as completed surveys into what new and exciting features could be brought to Yateley to develop the town further.

Year 6 certainly started off their final year at Westfields with an incredibly busy Autumn Term. Our history topic of World War II meant we immersed ourselves into the 1940s Britain. Our jam-packed topic explored: the causes of the war, major events, living through the Blitz, propaganda, the role of women, and most importantly how it impacted Hampshire. (which was our overarching history enquiry question).

To deeper the children’s learning we also went on a fabulous trip to the Winchester Military Museums where the children benefitted from the knowledge of the historians who work there. During the workshops the children learnt about medals, the contributions of the Gurkhas, military uniforms, the Home Front and effectively using historical sources.

Not only this, but the children also enjoyed a Creative Day with three different workshops. They enjoyed making promotional Home Front videos on iMovie, code-breaking and learning how to do dances like the Charleston. This all culminated with a tea dance in the afternoon.

As well as this, our English learning journeys also had a History theme. Throughout the term, the children explored a range of fiction and non-fiction texts in our writing and guided reading lessons. We have discovered what life was like for a group of evacuees in ‘Carrie’s war’, delved into the magical world of ‘Narnia’ and even written our own flashbacks based on a film narrative text.

We have been really impressed with the children’s development of their maths knowledge over the Autumn term too. They have strengthened their understanding of place value, as well as tackled challenges with the formal methods for the four operations including persevering with long multiplication and division! The children then used these skills to solve real-life problems involving fractions. The children showed fantastic commitment when getting to grips with applying their existing knowledge.

The Year 6 children have completed lots of physical challenges this term. Using our Sports Premium Funding, some of the children have further developed their swimming strokes during our weekly swimming lessons at Yateley School as well as improved their understanding of road safety on their Bikeability courses. The children have learnt a lot about staying safe whether that is in water or out on the roads. Also, around the theme of keeping safe – the children enjoyed a workshop from Hampshire Fire Service. They learnt all about the fire triangle, how fires can spread and how to keep safe at home by ensuring they minimise any fire hazards.

In their Science lessons, the Year 6 children began with learning about light. They explored how light travels, how it enables us to see as well as the scientific concepts of refraction and reflection. Following on from this, they explored the ‘Theory of Evolution’ through their topic Evolution and Inheritance. During this topic the children learnt about natural selection, inheritance of genes within families and studied the work of famous scientists such as Charles Darwin and Mary Anning.

Not only this but the children also completed not one, but two DT projects! Linking with their history topic the children learnt about rationing and made some delicious Woolton Pies! Then, to end our busy term, they made moving Christmas shop windows. After learning about pulley mechanisms and using coding knowledge to programme lights and motors on Crumble kits, the children combined all of this knowledge to create fantastic Christmas themed window displays.

To say our Spring Term was jam-packed would be an understatement! In Year 6, we have participated in a wide-range of special events such as: World Religions Day, our Fantastic Finish, Wellbeing Week, Safer Internet Day, a Gremlin Dance Workshop, Westfields Has Talent, World Book Day, our Year 6 Local Area Walk, Science Week, Poetry Slam and Potted Sports! It was brilliant to see the children immerse themselves so enthusiastically in such a wide-range of events. The details of some of these events are below!
 
In English, we have been delving into texts with different locations matching in with our overarching theme ‘Location, Location, Location’. We began by exploring Kensuke’s Kingdom and learnt about a boy who was stranded at sea on an island with a mysterious man, Kensuke. Developing our reporting skills, Year 6 wrote a conversation between Michael and Kensuke, a newspaper report based around the disappearance of a person in mysterious circumstances and a hybrid narrative about a disaster leading to an exploration of unknown lands. It was brilliant to see how creative the children where when selecting their language to create tension and atmosphere.
           

Following on from this, we travelled with Alex Winters as he ended up stranded in the Amazon with the Yanomami Tribe. Learning how to further develop the organisation of our writing, we created non-chronological reports about how to survive in the Amazon jungle! Once again, the children used their existing knowledge well to organise their ideas and communicate the information effectively.

Moving onto a completely different environment, Year 6 wrote persuasive letters to convince Ernest Shackleton to allow them to join his crew that were hoping to complete their mission in being the first team to cross Antarctica. However, after learning that his journey was full of peril and disaster, the children wrote letters of complaint about their treatment whilst on this dangerous journey!

Within our Maths learning this term, Year 6 have delved into calculating with and converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. We have worked hard to strengthen our arithmetic skills and strengthen our addition, subtraction, multiplication and division between fractions and decimals. Following on from this we explored problem solving with algebra and learnt how to find missing numbers that are represented with shapes or letters. We have also applied our knowledge of multiplication to support us in calculating with ratios, including using scale factors.

Bringing the spark into our Science learning, the children began the Spring term with a focus on electricity.   We explored the different components of a circuit, the differences between voltage and current and even designed our own buzzer games using all of the knowledge we had gained about electricity. Next, we explored the human body, including our main organs and systems that keep us alive. We also focused on staying healthy and things that could harm our bodies such as having a poor diet, not exercising and the impact of drugs.

Continuing with our ‘Location, Location, Location’ unit, within Geography we have learnt about our local area of Yateley. We put this into context of the UK by exploring counties, cities, land use as well as transport links and natural resources. Then, we applied our knowledge of these features to explore Yateley and compared it to the nearby town of Camberley. During our learning, we visited Yateley High Street and mapped its features as well as completed surveys into what new and exciting features could be brought to Yateley to develop the town further.

Also, we enjoyed taking part in Science Week! Mrs Courtney gave use a number of tasks to help us investigate our local environment in school. The children chose a tree in our school grounds and investigated how old it could be, the types of tree it was, the wildlife that could live in and around the tree and to see if they could estimate how tall it was. We will revisit the tree in the Summer Term to see how it has changed! In addition to this, inspired by Isambard Kingdom-Brunel, we were also tasked with making the strongest bridge we could using paper and Sellotape – with varying results!

On top of all of this, we have enjoyed so many other events as part of our extended curriculum.

Another highlight was Well-being Week. During this week, we took some time to help understand what we could do to have a heathy well-being, including colouring, meditating, happy breathing, taking about our feelings, staying active and so much more! Part of this, was taking part in a workshop by Gremlin Dance! It is safe to say the children enjoyed it and learnt a few new moves.

Right at the beginning of the Spring Term, we also enjoyed inviting parents in to our ‘Fantastic Finish’ learning exhibition where the children could display all of their learning about our Autumn Term topic, World War II. It was truly amazing to see how much the children and parents enjoyed the activities in each classroom. I am sure the adults learnt a few new facts!

Year 6 started off their final year at Westfields with an incredibly busy Autumn Term. Our history topic of World War II meant we immersed ourselves into the 1940s Britain. Our jam-packed topic explored: the causes of the war, major events, living through the Blitz, propaganda, the role of women, Winston Churchill and most importantly how it impacted Yateley (which was our overarching history enquiry question).

To deeper the children’s learning we also went on a fabulous trip to the Winchester Military Museums where the children benefitted from the knowledge of the historians who work there. During the workshops the children learnt about medals, the contributions of the Gurkhas, military uniforms, the Home Front and effectively using historical sources.

Not only this, but the children also enjoyed a Creative Day with three different workshops. They enjoyed making promotional Home Front videos on iMovie, code-breaking and learning how to do dances like the Charleston. This all culminated with a tea dance in the afternoon.

As well as this, our English learning journeys also had a History theme. Throughout the term, the children explored a range of fiction and non-fiction texts in our writing and guided reading lessons. We have discovered what life was like for Lenny a young evacuee from ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’, we have explored the experiences of a group of evacuees in ‘Carrie’s war’, delved into the magical world of ‘Narnia’ and even written our own flashbacks based on a film narrative text.

We have been really impressed with the children’s development of their maths knowledge over the Autumn term too. They have strengthened their understanding of place value, as well as tackled challenges with the formal methods for the four operations including persevering with long multiplication and division! The children then used these skills to solve real-life problems involving fractions. The children showed fantastic commitment when getting to grips with applying their existing knowledge.

The Year 6 children have completed lots of physical challenges this term. Using our Sports Premium Funding, some of the children have further developed their swimming strokes during our weekly swimming lessons at Yateley School as well as improved their understanding of road safety on their Bikeability courses. The children have learnt a lot about staying safe whether that is in water or out on the roads. Also around the theme of keeping safe – the children enjoyed a workshop from Hampshire Fire Service. They learnt all about the fire triangle, how fires can spread and how to keep safe at home by ensuring they minimise any fire hazards.

In their Science lessons, the Year 6 children began with learning about light. They explored how light travels, how it enables us to see as well as the scientific concepts of refraction and reflection. Following on from this, they explored the ‘Theory of Evolution’ through their topic Evolution and Inheritance. During this topic the children learnt about natural selection, inheritance of genes within families and studied the work of famous scientists such as Charles Darwin and Mary Anning.

Not only this but the children also completed not one, but two DT projects! Linking with their history topic the children learnt about rationing and made some delicious Woolton Pies! Then, to end our busy term, they made moving Christmas shop windows! After learning about pulley mechanisms and using coding knowledge to programme lights and motors on Crumble kits, the children combined all of this knowledge to create fantastic Christmas themed window displays.

The Spring term has been jam-packed with exciting learning journeys for Year 6. Within our topic ‘Location, Location, Location’ in Geography we have explored our local area and within our English units we have contrasted this with a variety of locations from around the world.  

In English, we have been delving into texts with different locations matching in with our overarching theme ‘Location, Location, Location’. We began exploring Kensuke’s Kingdom and learnt about a boy who was stranded at sea on an island with a mysterious man, Kensuke. Developing our reporting skills, Year 6 wrote newspaper reports about his disappearance as well as narratives about meeting a stranger when shipwrecked.  

Following on from this, we travelled with Alex Winters as he ended up stranded in the Amazon with the Yanomami Tribe. Learning how to further develop the organisation of our writing, we created non-chronological reports and then structured our own journey narratives.

Moving onto a completely different environment, Year 6 wrote persuasive letters to convince Ernest Shackleton to allow them to join his crew that were hoping to complete their mission in being the first team to cross Antarctica. However, after learning that his journey was full of peril and disaster, the children wrote letters of complaint about their treatment whilst on this dangerous journey!

Within our Maths learning this term, Year 6 have delved into calculating with and converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. We have worked hard to strengthen our arithmetic skills and strengthen our addition, subtraction, multiplication and division between fractions and decimals. Following on from this we explored problem solving with algebra and learnt how to find missing numbers that are represented with shapes or letters. We have also applied our knowledge of multiplication to support us in calculating with ratios, including using scale factors. Finally, Year 6 developed their understanding of reading and interpreting graphs.

Bringing the spark into our Science learning, the children began the Spring term with a focus on electricity.   We explored the different components of a circuit, the differences between voltage and current and even designed our own buzzer games using all of the knowledge we had gained about electricity. Next, we explored the human body, including our main organs and systems that keep us alive. We also focused on staying healthy and things that could harm our bodies such as having a poor diet, not exercising and the impact of drugs.

Continuing with our ‘Location, Location, Location’ unit, within Geography we have learnt about our local area of Yateley. We put this into context of the UK by exploring counties, cities, land use as well as transport links and natural resources. Then, we applied our knowledge of these features to explore Yateley and compare it to the nearby town of Camberley. During our learning, we visited Yateley High Street and mapped its features as well as completed surveys into what new and exciting features could be brought to Yateley to develop the town further.

Within RE during the Spring term, Year 6 explored rituals and the empty cross as well as having a visit from the local church to help us further understand Christian’s beliefs around resurrection.

During our Computing lessons, we have learnt how to use a variety of applications and programmes to present information. We have created some fantastic mind maps to support our learning using technology as well as videos and quizzes all about self-regulation when it comes to screen time.

Another highlight this term was Well-being Week. During this week, we took some time to help understand what we could do to have a heathy well-being, including colouring, meditating, happy breathing, taking about our feelings, staying active and so much more!

During Stem Week, Year 6 explored the theme of growing as well as animals’ habitats. We managed to grow carrots from carrot tops as well as make penguins nests using only two fingers as our beaks – we certainly need a bit more practise at being a penguin!

During the Autumn Term, Year 6 have taken a tour back in time to explore what it was like to live during World War II. Their jam-packed history topic took them on a journey: beginning with the causes of the war, and learning about what is was like to live in London during the perilous Blitz, stopping to explore the role of women and how this changed during the war, and understanding what it was like to be an evacuee and finally examining the role of leaders and propaganda.

Alongside our fabulous History topic, the children have explored a range of fiction and non-fiction texts within their English learning journeys. We have discovered what life was like for Lenny a young evacuee from ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’, delved into the magical world of ‘Narnia’ and even written our own flashbacks based of a film narrative text.

To further develop the children’s understanding of life during WWII, Year 6 pupils enjoyed a Creative Day with a variety of workshops to learn about ration cooking, wartime music and clothing as well as experience their very own tea dance!

In November, the Year 6 children visited the Winchester Military Museums. During their visit, the explored many artefacts linked to World War II including uniforms, home front documents, weaponry and equipment to help survive the Blitz. The Year 6 children loved trying on the uniforms and immersing themselves further into what life would have been like during this time of conflict.

We have been really impressed with the children’s development of their maths knowledge over the Autumn term. They have strengthened their understanding of place value, as well as tackled challenges with the formal methods for the four operations including persevering with long multiplication and division!

The Year 6 children have also completed lots of physical challenges this term. They developed their swimming strokes during our weekly swimming lessons at Yateley School as well as improved their understanding of road safety on their Bikeability courses. The children have learnt a lot about staying safe whether that is in water or out on the roads.

Within Science, the Year 6 children began with learning about light. They explored how light travels, how it enables us to see as well as the scientific concepts of refraction and reflection. Following on from this, Year 6 explored the ‘Theory of Evolution’ through their topic Evolution and Inheritance. During this topic the children learnt about natural selection, inheritance of genes within families and studied the work of famous scientists such as Charles Darwin and Mary Anning.

To end our busy term, the Year 6 children worked together to complete their DT projects: moving Christmas shop windows! After learning about pulley mechanisms and using coding knowledge to programme lights and motors on Crumble kits, the children combined all of this knowledge to create fantastic Christmas themed window displays.

Poetry Slam 2021