Geography
What is the Amazon like? Well, we have found out haven’t we. We looked at what our local area looked like – urban area but with some areas that are farmland and forest areas. We next used our map-working skills to find out which continent the Amazon Rainforest was in and how many countries that it covered. As a year group, we could easily locate Stoke-on-Trent on a map and knew where it was on a map of the UK and Europe. Is the Amazon in Europe? Nope. It’s in South America. They are miles away from our local area! Next, we looked at why the Amazon Rainforest is important. Wow! There are so many reasons: it produces 20% of the world’s oxygen; the biodiversity, from the plant life to the animal life that lives there, is vast in comparison to England and should be identified and protected; the Amazon regulates our entire planet!; medicines that we use in the UK come from the Amazon – cancer medicines have their routes in the Amazon; it is globally important due to what it gives to the world; finally, indigenous people live in the Amazon. They would not know what to do in Meir – and we would not know what to do in their environment – so they must be protected! We next looked at the city of Manaus – see our English text below – and looked at what it actually looks like. We compared it to Stoke-on-Trent and it was an interesting comparison – we even brought Maths into this – check out our line diagrams! Manaus looks totally different to Stoke – the land use is totally different and we have a completely different temperature and rainfall. We explored this through mathematical data and presented our findings – we are always inquisitive! The Amazon is always changing and we explored that – it has linked to our first Y6 unit centred around the ways that we must sustain the world that we live in and the Amazon Rainforest is at the centre of it. Talk about linking up our learning!
VR Experience
We ‘travelled’ all the way to the Amazon Rainforest during this unit. We two amazing sessions with a very informative teacher, who showed us the depths of the Amazon, beneath the water and how deforestation looks in Brazil. Check out our photo!
English
In our English lessons, all of our writing has been focused around our ‘Amazon Rainforest’ unit of Geography and heavily linked to our wonderful, engaging reading text: The Explorer by Katherine Rundell. This is the second book by this amazing author that we have read this year following on from our first text in Year 6 – Rooftoppers. We enjoyed this text just as much as the first – for some of us, more so – and loved reading about the characters of Fred, Lila, Con and Max, a group of children who crash land in the Amazon and have to fend for themselves to survive. Whilst searching for a way to Manaus, the meet the mysterious explorer. From this, we have written about each layer of the Amazon using research skills and putting facts into written form as a chronological report. Further to this, we have put together two pieces of writing for anyone who finds themselves trapped in the Amazon: one tells you how to build a den and the other how to trapped, cook and eat a tarantula!! Finally, we focused our writing on narrative again. We all loved the Explorer and the tantalising clue at the end of the text, set 12 years later. Therefore, our story was a sequel to the book in which one (or more) of the characters travelled back to the Amazon in search of the explorer. Amazing ideas and brilliant writing as ever Year 6!
Maths
SATS may be over but the Maths keeps flowing in Year 6! We have looked at co-ordinates, angles, angles in triangles and quadrilaterals and found missing angles using a number of mathematical skills. We’ve even turned our hand to algebra so that we know what we are doing with this when we go to the high school. As ever, we have continued to embed all of the arithmetic skills that we have honed not just in Year 6 but in all of our time at Crescent. We love Maths and have become fantastic mathematicians – watch out high school, we’re ready to show you what we can do!
Science
Our final Science units of the year have been full of light, electricity and fun! We started by finishing our unit on light, looking at how light works in the real world. Refraction was covered in a very interesting experiment with predictions cast and conclusions gained. Finally, our focus has been on electricity. We tracked the progress of humanity and how light and heat were gained from the Stone Age to the modern day – obviously electricity plays a huge part in that for us now. We explored who invented the light bulb and role played what would happen to our world if there was no electricity. This unit also allowed us to recap our learning from Y4 – we loved seeing old photos of us creating components – and we did this by naming the scientific symbols in a component. Next up, the good bit: making lots of circuits, both hands on with the equipment and using apps to help us create a circuit. Once we could do that – very easily actually – we experimented with making a bulb brighter, a buzzer louder and a motor get faster. We even put ourselves into the shoes of an electrician and explored what happened if we wired a component incorrectly or added too much power. Finally, we explored the difference between a series circuit and a parallel circuit, finding out which was better and why!
RE, PSHE and SMSC
All of the subjects above have had a certain theme this time: our future after Crescent, at the high school and beyond! In RE, our thematic focus has been on how faith helps people when life gets hard. Through this, we have explored how various religions support those of that faith, from community interaction to the holy texts and what the words tell those of faith. In PSHE, we have been looking at independence and how people become more independent as they grow older. Through this, we have explored friendships and how they develop, grow, change or even end as people get older and how new friendships are formed. The subject of relationships and marriage have also been explored – a key focus was on how these look different and are accepted and celebrated in a modern society. Finally, we have explored what will happen when they move up to the high school, working on transition to the various high schools and how they will change and grow as they become teenagers and young adults. Our SMSC Day this time was ‘Future Fest’. We dressed up around the job that we want in the future – what a mix of jobs Year 6s want! – and looked at how realistic it is, what qualifications we need to get that job and what aspirations are. The wonderful JCB even came in to talk to us about a career there – from university pathways to apprenticeships, everything was covered. Our teachers around the building also shared their career pathway and how they ended up at Crescent and there was a great mix – from university to the army, the staff have done lots of things before being our teachers.
Design and Technology
Alton Towers
After all of our hard work, not just over the course of this year but over the last 8 years at Crescent, we deserved a treat. What a way to do it! Alton Towers is always an amazing experience and we thoroughly enjoyed it! Check out our pictures…
Flip Out
After all our hard work, not just over the course of this year but over the last 8 years at Crescent, we deserved a treat. What a way to do it! So many of us chose Flip Out as our experience and we enjoyed every minute! Check out our pictures…
And finally…
As ever in Year 6, it is always an emotional goodbye. For so many of the staff at Crescent, we have seen these children grow from the first moments that we walked through the doors to now. They embody the progress that has been made in our school and we could not be prouder of them than we are now. It is never goodbye, it is always a heart-felt well done and we will see again soon. Year 6… you have been amazing!!
