Welcome to the Wagtail Class Blog!

15th September 2022

We are all very excited to be back at school and have enjoyed starting a number of new topics. In English we are learning about 'Intrepid Explorers' and have studied the achievements of Matthew Henson: the first man to reach the North Pole. We are now looking at Shackleton and are curious to discover the fate of the crew of 'The Endurance' after the ship was crushed by the ice in the Antarctic. In History we are learning about Dover Castle and enjoyed our lesson on the Roman pharos still standing on the site today. We have also been lucky enough to have extra PE sessions this term and have enjoyed our first cricket sessions, alongside our usual PE slots of Netball and Leadership. Finally we have welcomed a new classmate at the start of the term and have worked hard to make sure he feels welcome and at home at Lady J.

We are looking forward to next week's learning, which will include more on our Science topic, evolution and inheritance!

22nd September 2022

This week in Maths we have been learning about inverse and we are now confident in the commutative law. We have also enjoyed some fabulous Art lessons. We have been studying Sarah Winkler and this week we looked at how she creates textures and had a go ourselves. We have continued our English learning by creating a diary entry as a member of Shackleton's crew. Some of us this week were also lucky enough to go to the cricket ground in Canterbury and watch some cricket - they had a fabulous time!

Next week we will be doing more of our leadership learning in PE and we are excited to be able to apply what we are learning about leading sports and games. We are also looking forward to a music teacher joining us on Friday afternoons to give us whole class lessons!

7th October 2022

Wagtail class have had a very busy week in the lead up to our PGL residential trip! We should start by saying we are all very excited for next week and cannot wait to enjoy all the fun activities planned (although less excited about our early morning start on Monday!) Have a fabulous time everyone!

This week Ms Foster came to class to announce our new Team Captains. We are very proud of those children chosen in Wagtails class: 

Brady (Yellow team)

Henry (Yellow team)

Arty (Blue team)

Natalie (Green team)

In Science this week we did a moth hunt and learnt about Darwin's theory of evolution. We have also learnt about the discovery of the Endurance (Shackleton's ship) after 107 years! We have also enjoyed our first music lessons with Mr Connelly. 

This week we did our first practice of SATS papers to get to know what they look like and the class have all worked really hard to show all of their fantastic knowledge. 

We look forward to posting again after PGL! 

20th October 2022

This week we all started a little tired after a fabulous time on our PGL trip. Highlights included: the giant swing, rock climbing, the trapeze, the beach walk, the zipwire, the sensory trail and the aeroball. We even enjoyed the food! There was lots of singing and the cabins were spacious and cosy. Rooms 8, 11, 6 and 13 won the tidiest room competition - well done!

This week we did a mud run to raise money for Cancer Research - it was really fun and we all got very muddy!! Some people even decided to roll in a puddle to get extra muddy and we ended up with it all over our faces!

In our learning this week we have started a new topic of World War 2 in History, exploring how Hitler came to power and the causes of the war. We have also written a newspaper report about the discovery of Shackleton's ship. 

Yesterday we worked on a Christmas card design (we know it's early!!) and these are coming home on Friday for parents/carers to order in time for Christmas!

We are all excited for half term and hope to have a restful break :) 

10th November 2022

This week in history we made posters about key events in WW2, including Dunkirk, the election of Winston Churchill and the Battle of Britain. We are looking forward to our WW2 experience day on Friday and will share pictures once we have them! In maths, we have been looking at long division which we have found quite tricky. We have worked hard though and have nearly cracked it.

Today we have voted for our school council and we eagerly await the results.

Congratulations to all those children who achieved star awards last term - we are very proud of you all!

18th November 2022

What a week! So many exciting and unforgettable experiences to share.

Firstly this week we have done bikeability which was extremely fun, although a little bit wet at times with all the rain! We learnt road safety, all about a signal sandwich (look, navigation, look again!), secondary and primary position. All the children who completed the course have received a booklet and certificate, with badges on the way - well done everyone!

We also had a World War 2 experience day on Friday. We enjoyed a drama workshop in which we acted out scenes from life in Britain during WW2. We also all made origami poppies, learnt morse code and dressed up in WW2 inspired outfits. 

Today we are wearing spots to support Children in Need - we hope to raise lots of money for this amazing cause!

This week our curiosity certificate went to Amelie - congratulations!

25th November 2022

In Maths this week, we have working on fractions, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions.

In English we are looking at Macbeth. Over the week we have been writing an internal monologue from the viewpoint of Lady Macbeth. 

We have been making circuits in science and testing how many cells are needed to make a light bulb brighter.

In art, we have finished creating a silhouette scene depicting 1940's London. We used pastels for a sunset background and then carefully cut out a skyline from black card to place on top. Everyone has been very complimentary of each others!

In PE this week, we have been doing hockey as well as dance. We have been learning a style of dance called the Lindy Hop!

14th December 2022

The end of term has been very exciting for Year 6! We have been practising our Christmas song (I want a hippopotamus for Christmas) - we made hippo masks and learnt a dance before performing it for our class video. We hope you enjoy it!

This week we are making Anderson shelter/winter shelters in DT and using our science knowledge about electricity to include working lights and even a buzzer. We have already made our plans and are excited to get building. We will upload some pictures of the final results!

We have decorated the classroom for Christmas, including some super snowflakes and a few fabulous paper chains. We have also made Christmas crowns ahead of our Christmas lunch tomorrow. We enjoyed Christmas jumper day and have really been getting in the festive mood. 

We have continued to work hard on Maths and English, learning about metric measures and finishing our unit on Macbeth with an internal monologue as Lady Macbeth and a number of play scripts. We have loved Macbeth and enjoyed exploring Lady Macbeth's character!

We are all very sad that this week is the last with Bob - Wagtail's class will miss him a lot!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and look forward to posting again in the new year!  

15th December 2022

Today Wagtails have enjoyed Christmas lunch and have been writing Christmas poems. Some of them are so beautiful we had to share!

A Winter Walk - Alicia

A lake made of iced crystals, 

A forest made of frozen footsteps,

A cave made of hanging daggers, 

A tree coated with snowflakes. 

A sky greeted with a dozen dazzling stars, 

A setting made of blurred mumbling,

A lonely fox raiding a dustbin, 

A snowflake made of perfect imperfections. 

An icy path made of dancing leaves, 

A snowy hill made of running water, 

A raccoon covered with hail stones, 

A cup filled with hot chocolate. 

Christmas - Sara

A music box made of frosted feathers, 

a cracker made of Christmas cheer, 

A nutcracker made of shimmering snowflakes, 

Christmas is near. 

Wearing pyjamas all day, 

Bulging presents full of special treats, 

Crackers detonate, 

We have waited all year.

Silver tinsel glints, 

Snowdrops gently drift, 

Merry laughter fills the room. 

Silver Winter - Yasya

When first snowflakes fall, 

And the first tune of robins come, 

The ninety one days of winter

Soon will come. 

For me, winter is not just

Snow, ice, Christmas tree, it's a

Fun, joy, a happiness, 

A chance to feel the warm inside me. 

And every morning I look 

In the frozen window, in hope

To see the footsteps of

Christmas, among the snow fields. 

Silver snow will make

Us feel a warm inside us,

And sing out cheer

Warm words of joy. 

Have a fabulous festive season everyone!

6th January 2023

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that you enjoyed the holidays and had a wonderful Christmas. 

This term we are excited to start a new English topic. On Tuesday we did a drama workshop to recreate the story of Sleeping Beauty with the whole of Year 6. We are now writing our own version of the story, trying to include PRAMS (Personification, Repetition, Alliteration, Metaphors and Similies). We will be moving on to study the Wedding Ghost and started reading some of it this week. 

In Science we started learning about the heart and we had lots of great questions!

In Geography we are starting to learn about Wye and its origins as a settlement. We are going to be doing fieldwork this term and have a trip planned to try and help us answer questions about geographical features of Wye. 

In Maths we are learning about ratio and additive and multiplicative relationships. 

Bella and Brady have been working on posters for the car park reminding parents to turn off their engines when waiting for their children at pick up time. We are very proud of them for doing their bit to help improve the environment. Poppy and Natalie have also been part of an eco-club this week that is encouraging others to care for the environment - well done girls!

Congratulations to everyone who won star awards at the end of last term - we are very proud of you all!

12th January 2023

The whole class is very excited this week about our new school dogs. Some of us have been able to see Maddie and Wolfie and we hope we will all get plenty of snuggles in the future. We have all read and learnt the rules about how to behave around them too and know how to keep safe. 

In PE this week we started tag rugby - everyone got very muddy but we had a fabulous time and everyone had a lot of fun!

Some of our class went to an Athletics event at the Stour Center. The team came eleventh out of twenty teams and we are very proud of the contributions that our class made. Well done everyone!

We have started our Art learning this week with line drawings. This week we learnt all about shading. We are looking forward to seeing what else we can learn in future weeks. 

In Science we have been learning about the heart and the blood flowing around our bodies. This week we did an investigation into heart rate and how is affected by exercise. 

Finally we started our character descriptions of Jack in English - they are looking very good so far!

20th January 

This week we have enjoyed lots of fun activities. Lots of us went to the school disco and had a great time. We are very proud of Otis who sung in the Young Voices choir at the O2 - well done Otis!! Some of us also joined Mrs Burrell's new World Culture's club after school and made Brazilian carnival masks. 

In science this week we had a fun lesson with Mr Godden making 'blood' - honey hoops were red blood cells, with water and red food colouring making the plasma. We used marshmallows to make white blood cells and finally pink marshmallows for platelets. 

In maths we have been practising our arithmetic skills and working with decimals. In art we are continuing our life drawing using fruit and vegetables. We are learning to shade objects using a 2B and 3B pencil and thinking about tone and shading. In English we have learnt about including dialogue with the technique ADD (action, dialogue and description). 

This week we are excited to do ,more art and also go on our Geography fieldwork trip - remember your wellies!

26th January 2023

The highlight of our week was our Geography fieldwork trip on Tuesday. We were lucky to welcome Lauren Baker from the Our Stour Project to help us learn all about the River Stour and plastic pollution. We learnt about the wildlife in the river Stour and made posters to help prevent littering. We went litter picking on the fields behind the school and collected all sorts of rubbish - two whole bags in total. We got a little bit muddy and some people lost their shoes but we all had a super time!

In maths we have been learning about multiplying and dividing decimals and have some home learning involving money to help us practise! We are learning about suspense writing in English and are putting our best spooky vocabulary to good use. In french we have learnt about healthy and unhealthy foods and can now say a simple phrase in French about what we eat and don't eat. 

We are very proud of Emke this week for representing our class in a Science quiz - well done Emke! We also have three boys (Henry, Brady and Jake) representing Lady J in the football against Kennington - good luck!

We are looking forward to the upcoming dance-a-thon - best outfits at the ready everyone!

1st February 2023

We have had a busy week this week, learning lots of new things. In Maths we have learnt about percentages and fraction, decimal, percentage equivalents. We are now applying this to learning percentages of amounts. In English we are embarking on a new style of writing: narratives with flashbacks. We have finished reading the story of the Wedding Ghost - we have really enjoyed it but are not too sure about the ending. We are planning to rewrite our own versions next week!

Wagtails have been very interested to learn all about the strike action taking place this week and have asked lots of interesting questions. We have looked at our rights and how this links to the action being taken. 

In PSHE we have been making posters about stereotypes and writing letters to Amazon about inappropriate product names and products. We are also learning about drugs in Science and the affect that they have on our body. 

Congratulations to those children who received 5-star reader certificates this week: Henry, Otis, Rowan and Yasya. Great reading everyone - keep up the hard work and hopefully we can hand our more certificates soon!

We are all excited for the Dance-a-thon next Thursday! Our Dance squad are raising money for a competition and we are really proud to be supporting them. 

Finally, on Friday we are taking part in a TTRockstars Competition against Year 4 - get practising those times tables everyone!

9th February 2023

This week we are excited for half term ahead but we will miss school while we are away. It's been another busy week. In English we are writing our narrative flashback about the Wedding Ghost - they are already looking amazing, and Mrs Burrell is hoping we might be able to publish a few of them on the school magazine. We have continued to practice our Maths and have done some more practice tests this week so that we are ready for the summer. Everyone scored really well and tried extremely hard. We have also been drawing skulls in Art.  

Tag rugby this week has been really fun - we did a mini version of the Six Nations!

Geography has been very exciting this week as we have started our final Geography enquiry, answering a "big question" about Wye. We are hoping we will be able to share some on our blog soon.

Finally Monday was wake up shake up which we all enjoyed (or at least most of us did!) and today is the Dance-a-thon so we are excited to get our dancing shoes on! 

23rd February 2023

Welcome back everyone to Term 4!

This week in English we started our new topic - social activists and civil rights. As our first lesson, we the boys write the rules in their favour, while the girls created posters of protest at the unfairness of this situation! Some of the rules included no women in the workplace, women being unable to vote for leaders and women having to do everything that their husbands said. Understandably the class agreed this was a very unfair way to run the world and the girls made some super slogans in protest. 

In Geography we have started learning about the population and how it is changing over time. We were surprised that London is relatively small compared to some other big cities. Mexico City has 18 million people living there! We also checked a population counter showing babies being born every second and there are now over 8 billion people living in the world - that is a lot of people!

In RE we learnt about Gandhi - we learnt people attempted to assassinate him on six occasions and he that he got married at 13. This term we are also doing some revision work in Maths and have new knowledge organisers to help us recap all of the information we need to know. 

Congratulations to all those children who received star awards for their learning last term: Anna, Aisha, Henry, Jessica, Yana A and Fareeda (our unsung hero!) - we are very proud of you all!

2nd March 2023

Wagtails class are really excited for world book day tomorrow. We have got some really cool costumes planned including: Matilda and a Lady Detective! On Monday, we had a workshop with Lucy Strange and the children brought in their favourite books to share. We all found some new book suggestions and loved sharing our favourites with others. We will also be doing buddy reading with year 3 this week.

In Maths this week we have been learning Algebra, which has been really fun, and in English we have been writing a letter to Mr Gladstone about votes for women and discussing the match girls strikes.

We will post some photos of World Book Day next week so you can see our fabulous costumes - happy reading everyone!

10th March 2023

We have had another busy week in Year 6! Tuesday we had a fabulous day dressed in our pjs! This was as a reward for winning our lunchtime points. 

We have also enjoyed a fabulous art day! We looked at Clarice Cliff and her ceramic designs. We then combined her work and art deco designs to create a printed plate design, which we are going to turn into a pin badge in support of the suffrage movement. 

In English we are writing a balanced argument about whether or not the suffragettes should have used violence to achieve their goals. 

Next week is STEM week and we are really looking forward to hosting a range of visitors and diving into a range of different workshops and Science lessons. We will let you know how it goes!

23rd March 2023

We have been very busy recently in Year 6 and wanted to share some of the fabulous things that we have been doing as part of STEM week: 

We made STEM posters explaining all about STEM and what it is. We also researched jobs in the STEM world and got inspired about the future. We also did a moldy bread experiment, growing mold and seeing how long it would take in different conditions. The results were pretty disgusting (see photos below!)

We were lucky enough to have lots of visitors:

- Mrs Pratt come and and visit us from Wye Free School. We did an experiments looking at alkalai and acids.

- Charlotte came in to do x-ray sculptures with us. We made them out of broccoli, strawberry, sponge, straws, wire and cocktail stick (among others)

- Sarah also came to speak to us from the Francis Crick Institute to tell us all about the fabulous work that she does there. We learn that her science labs are all open plan and some have glass walls - this is so that the scientists talk and collaborate. She taught us how they used ferrets to help find vaccines against the flu. 

Finally we watched a live stream from the NFU about how sheep are connected to seaweed! Sheep's wool creates a really environmentally friendly rope. Baby kelp are planted into the wool and added to the seabed to create a kelp forest that helps regenerate the ocean and absorbs huge quantities of carbon dioxide. 

We have attached the pictures from our x-ray workshop to our class pages so please take a look!

27th April 2023

This week in English we have continued our work on the Lady of Shalott. We have written a diary entry from the perspective of the Lady of Shalott. We are also learning about the other main character, Sir Lancelot, and will being writing a character description. 

In RE we are learning about the different beliefs that people have about what happens after death. In Science we are learning to classify living things into groups and practising lots of Latin words!

For PE this week we have started learning Danish longball. We are also doing cricket. We have been learning about accurate throwing and are practising our bowling skills. We are also working on using our collaboration skills for fielding. 

We are very excited to have started learning the songs for our end of year production - we are looking forward to revealing what we are performing soon!

4th May 2023

This week we have celebrated the sun with SUN DAY. As part of this, we made seed bomb figurines in the style of Anthony Gormley. We have also done some sun poetry and we are writing our thank yous to the sun for our display. On Friday we will have a celebratory assembly to share our learning. 

We are excited to be finishing the tale of the Lady of Shalott this week. We have written an internal conflict in a persuasive style and are keen to see what happens when she leave her tower!

In Science we have explored the many wonders of plant classification. This week we looked at different types of plant including, algae, mosses, ferns, conifers and others. We have created an information page and next lesson we will heading outside to see what plants we can find and try to classify them. 

We are all busy preparing for our SATS next week, doing some final revision. Remember to get a good night sleep and have a good breakfast on the day everyone! We have worked so hard all year and we are excited to be able to show off what we know and then spend some time focusing on our end of year activities and production. 

Finally, this weekend is the King's Coronation. We will be celebrating on Friday in red, white and blue and are writing a time capsule entry next week. 

18th May 2023

SATS are finally finished and we are so pleased to have got them out of the way. We are very proud of all our hard work and how amazing all of our friends have been in supporting us. Well done everyone!

We are continuing rehearsals for our end of year play - auditions have begun this week and we are excited to find out which parts are going to which children. Everyone is very excited. News on prop design and set painting to follow soon!

This week in art we have planned our memory museums, ready to make next week. We are busy collecting all of the items that we will need to do this and bringing them into school. Photos of the finished products to follow! In English we are preparing a narrative recount - our last piece of the term - on the Lady of Shalott. We are hoping to revise and write this piece up in neat for display! We learnt about gird references this week in Geography and had a look at the Port of Blyth on an OS map. 

25th May 2023

This week had been a very busy one for Year 6 - we have enjoyed two DT afternoons, making steady hand games with buzzers and applying our knowledge of circuits from Science, and we have also had a fabulous Art Day creating memory museums. These have been inspired by our favourite memories of our time at Lady J - PGL featured highly and we have been very creative and resourceful in representing our ideas!

Please see photos below: 

In English we have been writing our final piece for the Lady of Shalott, creating a narrative recount. Mrs Burrell is extremely proud of how far we have come with writing this year - turns out we love writing just as much as she does now!

We have also been excited to find out our parts for the school production. Lots of children auditioned (48 in total!) and we are very proud of everyone who was brave enough to give it a go. Everyone who wanted a singing role has got one, and we are really excited to start rehearsals in full after half term. Get practising everyone!