Welcome to Cedar, Beech and Lime classes

The teachers in Year 6 are Alice Biggs, Dominic Carini and Andrew French

• Here is our Y6 Curriculum Letter Spring
• Here is our Y6 curriculum newsletter Autumn
• This attachment will show you the Holly Park End of Year 6 Expectations
• These are spellings which Y6 should know this year.

Our class reporter was Harry. He said: “This week we have been learning about a lot of interesting subjects. One of them was maths, we were converting decimals, percentages and fractions into each other. Another subject was English, in which we wrote a play script about a conversation between two of the main characters in our book Skellig. In science we looked at animals’ and plants’ habits, and how they have evolved to survive. In geography we have been plotting every country and capital city in South America on a map. In the final subject – history – we wrote a timeline about World War 2, which had many main events such as the Blitz, D Day and Operation Barbarossa. That is the end of my report.” 

Our class reporter was Freya. She said: “In English we have been writing a newspaper based on The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. We wrote a plan and we named Bruno’s family the Schmidt family. We also did D&T and made Anderson Shelters, a type of bomb shelter used in World War II – it involved painting shoe boxes and using corrugated cardboard and painting that too. We assembled it and cut the corners and a door. We also did some RE – we used the Chromebooks to find out the holiest places in the main religions, then we pointed the countries out on a map, once we had finished we did our coding assignments. In maths we did fractions, we learnt to divide and multiply fractions.”

Our class reporter was Eva. She said: “We have been learning about the vanishing point and perspective in art. The evacuation of Dunkirk in history; the next chapter of Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in English; playing handball matches in outdoor PE, BODMAS (Brackets, order, division, multiplication, additions and subtraction) in maths and on Friday comprehension with Mrs Pelham. 

ARCHIVE: Here’s what the children got up to in 2017-18

The Year 6 end of year show was a triumph and the children should be very proud of themselves. The children acted, sang and danced very well. Both casts of children did a splendid job. The scenery, costumes and props were great as usual and huge thanks go to Year 6 teachers and the Teaching Assistant team for all their work and commitment to produce such a great end of year event. What talented people we have at Holly Park! 

Here is Cast A

And here is Cast B

There are lots of pictures from Norfolk Lakes here.

JUNE

Our class reporter was Freya. She said: “We have been learning about business in Enabling Enterprise when we were building our own place of work. There were things like: pet spas, sweet shops, restaurants, go karting and many more. We’ve also been learning about motivational speeches like if your country is going into battle or you are fighting for your rights or something like that. With Mr Hogan we’ve been doing African drumming which is very fun and our main rhythm we go along to is cheese-and-onion-peanut-butter. With Mrs Pelham we’ve been studying the book Treasure Island which is about pirates. In maths we’ve been doing various things such as: fractions, prodigy and many others. There are many other things that we’ve been doing this week but that would go on forever.”

MAY

Our class reporter is Piotr. He said: “This week we have been learning about WW2, we were drawing timelines, we had Chromebooks to help us. Mostly we were doing maths – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. In the morning we were learning about radius, diameter and circumference and in the afternoon half of our class were doing prodigy and the other calculating practice.”

APRIL

Our class reporters were Sonyah and Utina.

Sonyah said: “In maths we have been working on calculations like multiplication and division. We’ve have only been doing that since we have our tests coming up. All week we have been doing double maths so we can be extra ready for our tests. In English we have been reading a book called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and we have been making notes about the characters. In PE we have been doing gymnastics. We have been doing counter tension and counter balance which means using a partner for different balance. In outdoor PE we have done jumping and running. Also for Project Britain Day we have been doing tennis and cricket.”

Utina said: “This week in maths we learned ratio and we did trials for Copthall as well as doing long running and short running. Also because we are in year six we are getting ready for the national tests and we have been going through the SPAG test as well as maths also reasoning.”

MARCH

Our latest class reporter is Albert. He said ” We have been (mainly) learning about passive and active voices in English. We have also done some work on the ‘Boy in Striped Pyjamas’ including writing a letter from the main character’s perspective and drawing a picture of one of the scenes in the book. In history we have studied WWII and listed which countries were either Allies or Axis. We have also experimented and researched how different objects restrict and quieten sound”.

Our latest class reporter is Calum. He said: “In science we did an experiment where we wrapped an ipad in different materials to see how sound travels through them. We used an app called Science Journal, it measured the sound in decibels. In maths we have been doing two step equations which links in with our last maths topic algebra. In English we have been reading The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. We wrote a letter to his friends.“

Y6 had a first aid company to come in and teach some basic first aid as we felt that this is an important life skill. The children learnt about how to bandage, how to stop a nose bleed and how to do simple resuscitation amongst other things.  The children really enjoyed it. 

FEBRUARY

Our latest reporters are Zach, Saimonas and Danyal, and Grace and Priya.

Zach, Saimonas and Danyal said: “This week was … test week! Everyone was sooo happy! This week’s basketball lesson was a bit different because we did it in maths classes. We did assessments. Then we had the pleasure of watching the Infant Show . It was about a hoop going into different pictures at the National Gallery and two people got it back. On Tuesday we wrote a complaint letter to anyone we wanted. On Thursday we started with creative writing using mostly speech. Then we did our last maths test out of three. We also finished our viewer work. Friday came like a flash. We started by doing our last test: the comprehension. Finally we had Mrs Pelham and music. Then … HALF TERM!”

Grace said: “In English we wrote a creative story using two characters and one setting and we had to write using mostly speech. In music we learnt how to do rhythms on an African drum. We did several tests during the week. In Spanish we learnt how to say the names of different clothes. At the end of the week some people went outside with Miss Biggs and played football and skipping whilst the others went inside to practise for the dance festival with Mr Stewkesbury.”

Priya said: “In English we carried on with The Viewer and finished off the ending. We also planned our letter to Mr Ian (the author who wrote it). In Maths in Mr Stewkesbury’s class we were learning about percentages and Miss Biggs’ class were learning about multiplying fractions. In science we have been learning about how sounds and vibrations are made.”

Our reporter this week was Aliya. She said: “This week in maths we have been doing percentages! We worked together on tricky percentage word problems and how to show a percentage using cubes. In English we have been writing our letters of complaint and discussing the rules of a formal letter. This week in PE we have been doing basketball with Mr Loftus (our outdoor PE coach), we have been learning how to balance a ball, switching hands and how to shoot it into a hoop properly. Well that’s a rap, another week bundles up with numerous amounts of hard work!”

Our Y6 reporters this week were Tarlan and Priya. They said: “So far we have learnt two different types of throwing such as bounce pass and chest pass. In history we have learnt the Ancient Maya beliefs; we have also done a Maya civilisation timeline. For English we carried on with The Viewer and finished the last chapter. In maths, as usual, we split up. Some people go to Mr Stewkesbury’s class, they worked on converting decimals, percentages and fractions. In Miss Biggs class they have been working on solving problems with fractions and they worked on division. We have also done some coding with algorithm drawings.”

JANUARY

This week’s class reporters were Zne, Erza and Lumini.

Zne said: “In outdoor PE we have been carrying on with basketball and have started working on passing. In English we’ve been finishing off our pictures books inspired by ‘The Viewer’ by Shaun Tan. In maths, we made posters about multiplying and dividing with decimal numbers and have started looking at ordering sets of data when they contain fractions, decimals and percentages. In computing we made our own Flappy Bird games, focusing on how event blocks in a program work. In science, we’ve been looking at Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. We carried out an activity, where ten children pretended to be ‘Spoon Birds’ and had to gather enough food to survive long enough to reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation. Finally, in history, we made timelines of the ancient Maya from 11,000BC to the 1500s.”

Erza and Lumini said: “We have been writing sentences with subordinate clauses and subordinating conjunctions. In all the sentences we included main clauses. Recently we have been reading a book called The Viewer. We’ve been rewriting it in our own versions and we have been drawing pictures for our story. We mainly have been writing and editing about an object of our choice. In maths we have been multiplying improper fractions and turning them into mixed numbers. In Cedar class they have been learning about decimals. This week we have been starting basketball lessons with Non Stop Action.”

Our first Y6 class reporter was Mei.

Mei said: “In maths we have been working on numbers with up to two decimal places – multiplying and dividing. We have also done some problem solving. In outdoor PE we have been doing basketball with a Non Stop Action coach, focusing on dribbling. In indoor PE we have been making routines with our learning partner with two types of travelling and two poses. In English we have been working on our Viewer project and added a few more pages to our picture books. We have now finished reading the original version. In IT we have done some more programming and talked about algorithms and using loops to simplify our algorithm.”

Year 6 have been learning about classification and adaptation in Science. They had a brilliant afternoon dissecting owl pellets!

In September we enjoyed a fantastic ‘Romeo and Juliet​’ workshop  delivered by the Young Shakespeare Company.

In September we had a super Enabling Enterprise project. The children had a great time designing their own gaming apps.

It has been an industrious and fulfilling term in Year 6; the children have settled brilliantly into life as the oldest year group at Holly Park and are enjoying the academic challenges that come with it. In November, we all had an excellent day at Neasden Temple. Our visit started by watching the daily Arti ceremony and looking around the Mandir. The children were fascinated by the incredible architecture and also enjoyed seeing at the sacred images of the Deities.

After looking around the ‘Understanding Hinduism’ museum visit, we were treated to a highly informative explanation of how the Temple was built – as well as a question-and-answer session with a member of the Temple staff. It was a super trip and the children represented Holly Park wonderfully.

Year 6 have done lots of work around the book ‘Skellig’ by David Almond. The project has led to lots of writing and also art work.

As part of their research into Life and Death, they have worked collaboratively to produce posters with key facts about the major religions.

Y6 have also studied about the Ancient Mayans. They have looked at the countries in central America and produced leaflets about them. They had a great curriculum workshop and produced Ancient Mayan masks and headdresses.

ARCHIVE – see what Y6 got up to last year

Y6 put on a very professional end of year show with Bugsy Malone.

You can see many more pictures here.

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, Year 6 designed their own imaginative creatures.  There were magnificent wings, flailing tentacles and razor-sharp teeth!  The children then used their designs to model their creatures using clay.  In the afternoon they made notes about their animal’s features and special abilities and then used these ideas to create some fantastic poems.

Our Y6 Digital Leaders have been going round the school to find out what the children are doing. Here are their reports:

• In Miss Mountford’s and Mr French’s maths group, they  have been doing Coordinates and in Mr Stewkesbury’s maths group have been doing Algebra and number sequences. In English, Year 6 have been writing about a book called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. On Thursday, Year 6 took part in an Enabling Enterprise challenge day to make greetings cards. In PE they have been doing activities in a circuit.

• In English, Y6 they have been reading ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.’  They then wrote a letter to Karl from Bruno. They also have been drawing the view from Bruno’s window. In maths, some children have been doing ratio and proportion, and others are doing how to find the area of triangles and parallelograms. Most of y6 made an animal out of clay, there were loads of animals. We also wrote poems or short stories about our animals.
• This week Y6 have been working on their viewer project. This is an example of the last page they have been working of ‘The Viewer.’ They have also been working on creating their objects that they used for homework, it is linked to the viewer project.

Year 6 had a fantastic time at their Ancient Maya curriculum day.  During the workshop they discovered more about various aspects of Mayan life including religious beliefs, basic diet, calendars, education and decorative arts.   They enjoyed dancing, singing and dressing up in traditional Mayan clothing and even got to have a go at the Mayan ballgame (unlike the Mayans, we decided not to sacrifice the loser after the game!)​

Here is some of the work we have been doing this term.

Year 6 have been learning about Gender Equality. Ethan told us that they were discussing in groups ideas for how to spread gender equality across the world. Katie told us that they watched a video showing the story of Malala and how she tried to do something about gender equality in her own country.

Year 6 also thought about famous people who had made a difference to gender equality – such as Rosa Parkes. They looked at famous female leaders in the world today. They decided that gender equality in our country has got much better over the last 100 years with more female doctors, headteachers, local MPs and even a female prime minister!

Mr Stewkesbury found that the proportion of women to men in top jobs in Barnet is 33:67