13.02.26

Wow, here we are at the halfway point of the Spring term! Despite the rain, we’ve accomplished so much, including completing all three Welsh national tests – da iawn! In Literacy, we’ve wrapped up our writing and recording of podcasts about how various Galapagos Island animals have adapted to survive in their unique environment. The children made excellent use of the success criteria, speaking directly to their audience and incorporating music clips between sections to enhance their presentations. Our Maths lessons have been inspired by the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics. The students have been busy designing timetables for a day of viewing activities and costing out a trip to Milan. They’ve also been keeping a close eye on how many gold medals Great Britain is achieving, updating our classroom graph regularly. In PE, we’ve put in a lot of effort with clog dancing! Learning the pendulum step was definitely a challenge, but the children showed great determination. Everyone had the opportunity to build and code Leo, the personal trainer, using LEGO Spike. They even managed to programme him to record the number of sit-ups he completed! For Science, we’ve continued our studies on climate change and ecosystems. The children created characters suited to specific real-world environments and discussed whether their animals would survive by adapting to different weather conditions, such as floods and droughts. There were lots of engaging discussions and insightful contributions from everyone. We also linked this to our Humanities lessons, where the children made videos explaining what climate change is, some of its causes, and ways we can all help. They used scientific language while ensuring the tone was accessible for younger audiences. Don’t forget to check Google Classroom for your Eisteddfod half-term homework. Wishing you all a lovely half-term break!

30.01.26

Here we are at the end of January, and time is certainly flying by! We’ve had lots of interesting happenings in Dosbarth 6 over the past two weeks that we’re excited to share with you. In Literacy, we’ve been busy creating a class book inspired by Charles Darwin’s sketchbook. Each child chose an animal specific to the Galapagos Islands and crafted a non-chronological report based on specific success criteria. To present their work, the children used brown paper and a great deal of imagination to create a page for our class Galapagos Islands sketchbook. The results are amazing—fantastic work from everyone! We’ve also begun analysing podcasts, exploring how they differ from YouTube videos and the specific features that keep listeners engaged. Each pair has chosen a theme from our Beast Creator topic and is now writing their script, which is proving to be an enjoyable challenge. In Numeracy, we’ve undertaken lots of reasoning and procedural practice, recapping on various skills and applying them to solve problems where the initial method of calculation may not always be visible. We put our problem-solving skills to the test in a game of “Who Eats Who?” in Science, where we created a human food web using headbands and ropes. The children demonstrated a great understanding of what happens when one element is removed from the food web. PE has been lots of fun as we extend our gymnastic skills to vaulting. Everyone has made progress, moving from a leap frog to tables of differing heights. In RVE, we’ve been learning about the core values of humanists and how they compare to other religions. Climate change has also been on our minds, as the children created posters detailing human and natural actions affecting our climate, showcasing their mature responses to this complex topic. To celebrate Saint Dwynwen’s Day, the children coded a game on Scratch where Dwynwen catches wishes in a point-scoring game. There was plenty of teamwork and support during this lesson, with every pair producing a fabulous game. We’ve also continued our work with the Lego Spike, creating a breakdancing robot. 

Thank you again for your continued support and have a lovely weekend!

16.01.26

Welcome back to a brand new term! We are excited to dive into our new topic, Beast Creator, where we will explore the wonders of the Earth through the lenses of science and technology. We’ve already made a fantastic start! In literacy, we are studying "On the Origin of Species" by Sabina Radeeva. This wonderful book introduces concepts of evolution, adaptation, and natural selection, inspired by the work of Charles Darwin. So far, we have addressed common misconceptions about evolution, drawn inferences from images, and presented our findings on Darwin’s life and contributions. The students have also created summaries of the main themes using the Book Creator app, showcasing their understanding in a creative way. In numeracy, we’ve been busy drawing line graphs and interpreting data. We’ve also explored averages, including mean, median, mode, and range. The class has been split into groups to tackle an exciting challenge with LEGO Spike, where they are creating and coding a quality check robot. This task has proven to be quite challenging, but the class has risen to the occasion with great enthusiasm! Our science lessons have been particularly engaging, focusing on the flow of energy in food chains and key terminology. It was fabulous to see the students learn about a specific term and then teach it to their peers. Their teamwork and presentation skills were commendable! In expressive arts, we have taken on the role of musicians, learning to play the glockenspiel. The students have enjoyed playing together using the notes B, A, and G, performing a mix of jazz, rock, and folk tunes—bendigedig! In PE, we have started playing netball and learning gymnastics, acquiring many new skills along the way. To tie in with our Beast Creator topic, our health and well-being studies have involved analysing the differences between weather and climate, as well as the human actions contributing to climate change. The sensitivity and maturity with which the students approached this topic was fabulous. 

Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to an exciting term ahead! 

19.12.25

Wow, here we are at the end of our first term in Year 6! It has truly flown by, filled with so much fun and learning. The past two weeks have been brimming with Christmas-themed activities and events that have brought our classroom to life. In Literacy, we analysed the delightful Christmas advert featuring Edgar the Dragon from John Lewis. The children created their own sub-characters, wrote scripts, and even produced a digital advert using Adobe. The results were amazing, with groups incorporating an AI image generator to bring their characters to life. Great teamwork was evident across all groups! Our Christmas enterprise project took a lot of time and energy, but it was completely worth it—we raised an incredible £240! Diolch to everyone who supported us by bringing in jars, foliage and ribbon and purchasing items from our stall. The money raised will go towards enhancing our classroom learning. Forest school was lots of fun as the children made a life size sleigh for Father Christmas. The imagination was incredible with many added extras such as mince pie storage, feet warmers and an on-board elf workshop for running repairs! Take a look at the photographs to see all their hard work. This week has been a whirlwind with Christmas Jumper Day, our festive dinner, the Oak’s Christmas party, and a visit to the pantomime. In between all the excitement, the children also made Christmas cards, calendars, and a special gift for someone dear. Diolch yn fawr for all your support and kindness this term. Nadolig Llawen, and I look forward to seeing you all in the new year! 

5.12.25

With Christmas fast approaching, Year 6 continues to be super busy! Our preparations for the Christmas enterprise are well underway, and the excitement is palpable. In literacy, we have been focusing on creating radio adverts using Canva recording software. The children are layering their adverts with music that suits their products, using persuasive and descriptive language to help listeners visualise the beautiful lanterns they are promoting. It’s wonderful to see their creativity shine through! Our maths lessons have also embraced the enterprise theme. The children have been calculating costs, predicting possible profits, and understanding what value for money means. They have begun making their products to sell, and a big diolch to Mrs Stone for lending us her expertise in helping create our stars for sale. We recently completed our maths and humanities project, where we collected data, analysed it, and presented our findings in pie charts. The children drilled down into why we travel to school the way we do, comparing their findings with population data and completing a detailed write-up to inform. A real highlight of this fortnight was the wonderful afternoon spent bell ringing at St Nicholas Church. The church volunteers were amazing, demonstrating how to ring the bells, and the children had a fantastic time, as you can see from the photographs! We also enjoyed a live lesson from the Open University on algorithms, codes, and prime numbers. It was great to see everyone so engaged and involved in the learning process. Finally, a big diolch yn fawr to all those who attended our art gallery and joined in with making foil armatures and portraits. We hope you had as much fun as we did! 

 

 

21.11.25

I hope this newsletter finds you well after the recent awful weather. Despite the challenges, Year 6 have continued to work hard, and I am very proud of the respect they showed for Remembrance Day. The students wrote and performed persuasive speeches to express why we should continue to mark this important day. They made fantastic use of the green screen to enhance their performances, bringing their speeches to life in a truly engaging way. In our expressive art sessions, we explored a new technique to capture the likeness of poppies. The children drew and glued the outline before filling it in with shaded pastels, resulting in some gorgeous artwork. Additionally, we have been creating wire sculptures in the style of Alberto Giacometti, focusing on capturing emotion without facial features. The end product, which follow on from our foil and clay armatures, looks fantastic, and we can’t wait to showcase these pieces at our Year 5/6 art gallery. We have also begun a mini humanities and maths topic, analysing how children get to school based on the estimated population figures of the surrounding villages. In maths, we have been focusing on division and pie charts, learning how data is represented visually and ultimately drawing our own pie charts. Although the weather altered our original plans for Children in Need, we still managed to hold our run earlier this week. On Children in Need Day, we completed a fitness session with Years 4 and 5, which was lots of fun! During Forest School, we undertook a Pudsey woodland quest, demonstrating how teamwork and kindness help us succeed—an extremely enjoyable afternoon was had by all! When we did complete our Pudsey run, year 6 managed to run the equivalent of 53km – amazing! We were also fortunate enough to have Google visit our school to teach the children about internet safety. The Be Internet Legends programme empowers younger children to navigate the web safely and wisely, allowing them to become confident explorers of the online world. We have been discussing our current media balance and whether we need to make any adjustments. 

Thank you for your continued support. 

07.11.25

What a busy fortnight we’ve had, especially with half term right in the middle! In Literacy, we’ve had a fantastic time creating stories for the BBC 500 Words competition. It’s been wonderful to see so many skills on display, from developing characters to drafting and editing. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed as the stories have now been submitted! As we approach Remembrance Day, we’ve also begun writing persuasive speeches. The children are exploring the importance of remembering those who fought for our country and our freedom, which has sparked some thoughtful discussions. In Numeracy, we’ve wrapped up our work on percentages and have moved on to factors and prime numbers. The children are making great progress and are really enjoying the challenges that come with these concepts. Our Science and Technology lessons have been particularly engaging this week. We investigated what clickbait is and discussed how to identify it before clicking. Additionally, we used a green screen app to create informative videos about the functions of the major organs in the body. The work on genetics has been amazing, as we learned about chromosomes and how we all have 46, making each of us unique. This knowledge was put to the test when we created “Reebops,” small animals made by selecting different combinations of chromosomes. Take a look at the amazing creations made from the same set of chromosomes, just picked in different orders.  In Humanities, the children wrote about how the transport, facilities, and location of Trellech, The Narth, and Overmonnow affect their population. They had previously worked this out using census data before half term, demonstrating impressive analytical skills. Lastly, we were fortunate to take part in a sign language workshop this week, teaching us vital communication skills that will benefit our community. Thank you for your continued support. 

17.10.25

What a super busy fortnight it has been for Year 6! In literacy, we have been deeply engaged in analysing the character of August Pullman from the novel Wonder. Our students used emotion graphs and “I Am” poetry to explore his feelings, showcasing some truly thoughtful work that demonstrates a great understanding of the text. We then turned our creative energies towards writing our own “I Am” poems, encouraging a deep dive into our individual characters and identities. The culmination of this was diary entries written from August's perspective, where the children expressed his emotions during a particularly poignant part of the book. In maths, we have been focusing on multiplying and dividing by 10, 100, and 1000. The students have applied these skills to find percentages of different amounts, using practical applications to calculate the approximate population of Trellech and its surrounding villages. The level of skill demonstrated by all has been commendable. Although swimming has come to an end for Year 6, we have embarked on a new adventure learning the fast-paced game of handball, which has proven to be both exciting and skill-enhancing. In Welsh, we have been practising expressing our opinions on various subjects, providing justifications for our likes and dislikes. We then utilised our oracy skills by reading and recording paragraphs about ourselves in Welsh. Da iawn dosbarth 6! In our expressive arts lessons, we began exploring the works of Alberto Giacometti and constructed armatures using foil. Creating figures from a single piece of foil and posing them presented quite a challenge, but the results were impressive! We also enjoyed our first trip to Forest School this year, where we continued our expressive arts theme by whittling sticks to create natural armatures. The fun and creativity experienced by all were evident! In science, we focused on our own bodies, learning about the major organs. To round off the week, we participated in "Shocktober", an initiative by the Welsh Ambulance Service, teaching vital life-saving skills such as CPR and how to use the emergency 999 number. These are essential skills for everyone to have. We also took part in the "Show Racism the Red Card" campaign, learning about hate crimes, who they affect and how to report them. 

03.10.25

What an exciting fortnight it has been in Year 6, brimming with learning and creativity on our current topic, "Who Do You Think You Are?" In Literacy, we have delved deeper into the characters from "Wonder" and crafted a school prospectus for Beecher Prep. The children have used persuasive language, ensuring a positive tone throughout their writing. Our literacy has taken a more scientific turn as we began researching and writing non-chronological reports on Treacher Collins syndrome, the condition experienced by the main character in "Wonder." This has sparked meaningful conversations about identity and understanding amongst the pupils. In Numeracy, our focus has been on pictorial methods of subtraction to reinforce the concept of exchanging. The highlight of our week was undoubtedly the lively game of "Refund Rush", where children used receipts to find totals and then practised subtraction to determine refunds. It was such a hit that they are eager to play it again! We also tackled multiplication using the grid method, applying it to calculate the average population in areas surrounding Trellech. Expressive Arts has seen us creating drawings that explore our personal and private identities, drawing the two faces we show and subsequently don’t show to the world. Additionally, we have begun studying the work of Alberto Giacometti. In Humanities, students took the time to write reflective letters to themselves about their identities, showcasing thoughtful insights. We’ve also created pieces of drama, considering how our actions impact others in terms of health and well-being. The live Spanish lessons are continuing well, with the children particularly enjoying the songs that allow them to practice. Fantastic attitude from the children in swimming these last two weeks, with this week's session involving clothing to simulate real life-saving situations. To top off a busy week, we held a wonderful harvest service in the church, where our Year 6 pupils led the service with respect and confidence. 

Well done, Year 6, for all your hard work and enthusiasm! 

19.09.25

Congratulations to all Year 6 students on their new roles! It is wonderful to see our ministers, house captains, and ambassadors taking the lead in our first pupil committee meetings of the year. Their enthusiasm and leadership skills are commendable. It is lovely to start our swimming lessons, which will help us build on the skills developed last year. It’s a fantastic opportunity for our children to enhance their confidence in the water. In literacy, we have recently completed our study of "Can I Build Another Me?" and embarked on writing Kenning poems about ourselves. This particular challenge was met with great creativity, and I am immensely proud of everyone’s efforts. We have now begun reading "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio, a wonderful book that beautifully illustrates the value of embracing our uniqueness. The students have been analysing characters, exploring vocabulary that conveys emotion, and using evidence and inference to describe the school the main character attends. In numeracy, our focus has been on recapping place value from millions to thousandths, as well as mastering addition through the column method using word problems and reasoning skills. Our topic, "Who Do You Think You Are?", has sparked a wealth of interesting activities. We are exploring family history and geography by drawing family trees, crafting interview questions for family members, and mapping out where our families have lived and were born. These discussions have provided valuable insights into how our backgrounds shape our identities. In expressive arts, we are depicting ourselves as others see us compared to how we view ourselves. Our ICT lessons have involved creating Google Forms to collect identity-based questions and compiling a database of the results. In R.V.E., we are discussing how to create a sustainable harvest and understanding the differences between sustainable and unsustainable food sources. It has certainly been a busy few weeks as we look forward to our upcoming harvest service. Thank you for your continued support

05.09.25

It is so lovely to be back and to see everyone again! It truly felt like old times for us, but it’s wonderful to have a change of classroom and a fresh perspective as we embark on our Year 6 journey together. Our new topic is "Who Do You Think You Are?" In this topic, we will be delving into our family history, discussing the meaning of identity, and honing our analytical skills. This week may have been short, but it has certainly been busy! We have commenced work on a short graphic novel titled "Can I Build Another Me?" This engaging book has sparked some fascinating conversations about identity and the uniqueness of everyone. In maths, we are exploring the place value of both large and small numbers within real-world contexts, which has been exciting for the students. Our humanities lessons have involved investigating our family trees to help us understand more about ourselves and our backgrounds. To finish our week, the children have been busy preparing their entries for the Usk Show, using pop art to create artwork based on the theme "Dreams Can Come True". Thank you for your ongoing support, and I am looking forward to a fabulous year ahead in Year 6!