Welcome to Year 6 Eagles Class 2024-2025! 

We have made a fantastic start to our learning this year.

Term 1

Electrifying Games!

In Science, we have learnt about electricity.  This has included investigating the brightness of a bulb and the volume of a buzzer in relation to the voltage used in the circuit.  We have also worked in threes on a D&T project which involved designing and creating a prototype for an electronic game. Our games were enjoyed by Kingfishers Class, who tried them and offered us feedback so that we could evaluate their effectiveness.  We enjoyed working on following an enquiry:  ‘Is salt dough a conductor of electricity?’ by finding ways to use salt dough in a circuit in which a LED bulb was lit using 9 volts.  As part of our home learning, we researched Nikola Tesla, conductors and insulators, whether water is a conductor of electricity and the effectiveness of green power – some of us made some fantastic wind turbine models.

Response from The Entertainer

In English lessons, Eagles Class planned and wrote letters to The Entertainer, Bluewater.  The aim of these letters was to persuade the manager to stock their products.  We would like to thank Manager, Ashley and Team at the store for their helpful and engaging response - it was very well received by Eagles Class.  

Sustainability advocates!

This term, Eagles Class participated in an online event with NFU Education.  This involved learning more about farming in the UK and also aimed to inspire children to connect with careers in science, technology and engineering.  The children were taken on a journey around several farms, meeting farmers from diverse backgrounds and hearing about what their work involved.  They learnt how celery, wheat and chillis are harvested along with how meat and eggs are brought to supermarkets.  These ingredients were then collected in a kitchen and used to make Caribbean curry patties.  The children learnt a lot and were keen to get involved in the cooking aspect of the experience.  Please find Tan Rosie's Secret Recipe for these patties on the Eagles Class Google Classroom if you would like to have a go.

English – story writers and poets!

Our class reading book this term was An Eagle in The Snow by Michael Morpurgo.  We used this story as inspiration to write a setting description and further developed it into a narrative.  We also wrote our own versions of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem: An Eagle, and created a display of our published poems with illustrations. 

P.E – hockey players and gymnasts!

We have worked collaboratively and with great enthusiasm on our hockey skills as well as our gymnastics skills whereby we learnt how to mirror, match and contrast sequences both on and off apparatus.

Harvest Performance – presentational skills!

We finished this term by performing our whole class poem: Autumnal Treasure Box to our parents and the rest of the school.  We wrote this as a whole class; it was inspired by Kit Wright’s Magic Box poem, and learnt it off-by-heart in order to recite it with confidence.  We all felt very proud of everyone’s performance.

Eagles Class deserve a wonderful half-term break – full of autumnal treasures!

Best wishes, Mrs Jandu J

Term 2

Anti-bullying Week

This has been a fun-packed term!  We began the term by understanding the terms: bullying, anti-bullying and respect.  Eagles have shown great maturity in their comprehension of these terms and we continue to work hard on doing all the right things within school, in public and at home.  A particular highlight of the week involved working together with younger children from Swallows and Swans classes.  The respect shown between these age groups was both warming and encouraging to see.  In English lessons, we worked on writing letters from the perspective of a teacher to a Little Bird who bullied Big Bird; the children wrote in character and used ambitious vocabulary.  In their home learning, they created some motivational posters on how to demonstrate our school value of  respect.

Remembrance Day

We hope you enjoy reading some of our Remembrance poems.

STEM - Robotics webinar

Eagles Class have taken part in a STEM Ambassador's webinar in which they learnt about various careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.  This session was specifically aimed at inspiring our pupils into careers related to robotics.  We gained an insight into two new developing projects: a fire-fighting drone, enabling life-saving action to be taken in otherwise high-risk situations, and technology enabling the physical care of vulnerable and less-abled people.  Eagles Class were very interested in this work and learnt that the main attributes for them to master at the moment in order to access such careers are: curiosity, hard-work and resilience.

History - World War Two

Our TASC activity this term has involved researching various themes related to WW2.  Eagles Class collaborated very well in groups of threes and fours to produce display posters and presentations on their findings.

Kent Life - World War Two Experience

As part of our history project, Eagles Class have visited Kent Life Museum and Zoo and experienced what it would have felt like to live through the second world war.  Everything they experienced both complimented and consolidated what they have learnt in class.  The workshops included:  RAF Navigation, Dig for Victory, Rag Rug Making, Tractor Ride, WWII House, Home Guard and Evacuee Experience.  A wonderful day was had by all; Eagles Class conducted themselves beautifully, representing our school very well.  

P.E - Country Dance

In P.E lessons, Eagles have had an amazing time keeping-fit and exploring their creativity through country dance.  They learnt various traditional dance moves and merged these with their own modern moves to create some original dances.

Evolution Experts!

Eagles Class participated in an online workshop with The Natural History Museum.  We were guided through three missions to answer the following questions:

What is evolution?

Why does evolution happen?

How does evolution happen?

The children were very interested in the evolution of the feet of mammals such as horses, understanding why storms may lead to the adaptation of lizards and tracking plants and animals on a timeline around 250 million years ago.

Christmas Celebrations!

Here are a few photos of Eagles enjoying Christmas jumper day on the day of our Christmas Fayre; wearing our origami crowns on the day of our Christmas lunch; all dressed-up for the Christmas disco; and the making of our Christmas cards...

Best wishes to all Eagles over Christmas! 

Mrs Jandu 

Term 4

Design and Technology - Anderson shelters

Continuing our work on WW2 history, Eagles Class researched, designed and created Anderson shelter prototypes surrounded by gardens.  We worked hard on considering how to create textured effects and on joining methods including how to use a hot glue gun safely.  We also worked on our TASC skills:  generating ideas, implementing these and organising ourselves and equipment were particular strengths.

Letters From The Lighthouse

In English lessons, we have been reading Emma Carroll’s Letters From The Lighthouse.  We have worked very successfully on applying our VIPERS reading skills: learning how to understand unknown vocabulary and how to define it using the text; inferring meaning using both the illustrations and by using the author’s clues; enjoying opportunities to predict what might happen next; explaining meaning by deciding what our point is, providing evidence for this and explaining its meaning; retrieving information directly from the text; and both summarising and sequencing events in the story.  We have very much enjoyed sharing this chapter book together and some Eagles are already reading other literature in our class reading area from this author. In writing lessons, we have written a balanced argument on the evacuation of children during WW2; written letters to sweethearts from the frontline; written character descriptions and a flashback story based on an animated film: The Piano; written a story based on a dilemma faced by characters from Letters From The Lighthouse; and written an official spy report from the perspective of The Ministry of Defence.  We have been busy readers and writers!

Haka Dance Moves!

In gymnastics, we have worked on synchronisation, mirroring and canon skills with partners and in small groups – both on and off apparatus.  In Dance, we have learnt the art of the haka, which is performed by rugby players with the aim of intimidating their opponents – something Eagles found equally entertaining and challenging in terms of applying the required facial gestures and necessary aggression!  

Light Physicists!

In science lessons, we have learnt how to explain how we see things, built on our prior knowledge of shadows and enjoyed exploring the phenomenon of refraction and seeing colour.  We have carried-out many investigations using torch light.

Computing

This term, we have explored Artificial Intelligence.  We have learnt how to input prompts, receive responses in both text and image form and how to refine our prompts to receive specific responses.  We also debated the ethical issues behind the expansion of AI in modern society.  Eagles were very much divided over whether they agree with surgeons being replaced by robotic substitutes should they ever need surgery…  We marked Online Safety Day by focussing on identifying scams and making decisions on how to deal with these.  We also worked on the importance of keeping our online identities private and how to create strong, protective passwords. 

Best wishes for a restful February half-term!

Mrs Jandu J