Yr6 Weekly Update – 23/9/16

We hope you all had an enjoyable long weekend – the students seemed to enjoy themselves!

Unit of inquiry

In order to find out about the governing systems at KJS we invited Ms Thomas and Mrs Gridley (PTA secretary) into our classrooms. They gave explanations of how the features of the governing systems (succession, welfare and economy, representation, leadership and decision making) relate to the system they are involved with. Some Y6 students even attended the PTA AGM to witness first-hand how the succession of committee members is carried out. This week the Y6 teachers held a formal debate in front of all the Y6 students with the motion ‘Mobile devices have no place in the school day’. For the majority of the teachers it was their first time being involved in a formal debate so we were able to share how we felt about being out of our ‘comfort zone’. The students were really engaged and learned lots about how formal debates work and what skills are involved.

Maths

We are continuing to work with place value and big numbers. Students have been showing their understanding of the base 10 place value system by designing posters to show how the system works.

We’ve been finding out ‘how much is a million?’ and representing our data in an infographic. Different representations of KJS expenditure have been analysed and compared with the view to selecting a suitable type of representation to show the world population data. Some classes have been introduced to the website ‘easel.ly’ to create an infographic.

English

The students have been developing their communication skills in class debates – being a ‘respectful listener’ appears to be a target for a number of students at this time. The cartoon Animal Farm is being analysed in terms of how it demonstrates the features of governing systems, the devices used to engage the viewer and looking for examples of non-verbal communication. The students are becoming more familiar with persuasive language.

Reminder from the Music Department:

Please send in items that can be ‘upcycled’ to make a musical instrument eg percussion or wind instrument.