Author: Miss Goswami

To start off the week, Year 6 looked at the Moortown Primary School Community. We discussed what our logo looks like and why there are three different coloured children interlinked together. Our idea was that the logo represents children coming together, no matter their race or religion, working together and being friends to make the school a happy and healthy place.

The children also went to visit St Gemma’s Hospice. Whilst there, the children were given a tour and were told about St Gemma’s Hospice’s purpose. Year 6 learnt about how they help their patients.

In the afternoon, we talked about respect and self-respect. Then, they went on to describe what makes them unique and created a poster of all the things they were good at, their favourite things and what communities they are part of.

On Tuesday, we had a workshop about self esteem. The children discussed how it makes us feel when we compare ourselves to others; they said it would make someone feel unworthy, sad, upset and maybe even frustrated. Year 6 talked about how if we all looked the same it would be a boring world so we should celebrate out differences.

On Wednesday, we started the day with a zoom British values.

Our fluency text in Reading this week has been about one of the British values: respect.

Year 6 then had a visit from RNIB (The Royal National Institute of Blind People). The taught us lots of new information about blind or partially sighted people. Did you know only 7% of blind people can see absolutely nothing whereas the other 93% can still see something (light, shapes, colours etc.)? Chloe – a volunteer – talked about her experience her with sight too.

Help at home: Get your child to tell you the different ways you can help blind or partially sighted people.

We ended the day with a zoom about protected characteristics. We identified 9 and were able to name them all: Disability, Race, Sex, Gender reassignment, Religion or beliefs, Age, Marriage or civil partnership, Pregnancy and/or maternity leave and Sexual orientation.

On Thursday, we learnt about stereotypes and how to challenge them.

‘ I can challenge stereotypes by saying that it is not right to the person saying it.’

‘Discrimination was meant to be mean. Don’t join it, ignore it!’

‘Just be yourself.’

‘You can’t stop me from having fun.’

Help at home: How would you respond to these comments to challenge their stereotypes?

We also recapped our knowledge about the key facts about each of the 6 major religions. We talked about the religious communities that some children in our school might be part of.

Help at home: Discuss with your child all the different communities they are part of and what would the world be like if there were no communities?

In Reading this week, our focus text is ‘The Hobbit’ by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.

The Hobbit is a classic story of Bilbo Baggins – a home-loving hobbit who enjoys a quiet and contented life in his cosy hobbit hole and has no desire to travel afar. But then the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services, and soon Bilbo finds himself part of an extraordinary expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the Dragon – and on the way becomes the possessor of a very unusual ring.

In the lesson, the children looked at an extract which described the hobbit hole. They then had to draw and label the setting.

Last week, Year 6 made a mushroom and chickpea curry as part of their food technology learning.

They had to chop onions, measure spices, crush garlic and stir the mixture in order to make the curry. They knew how to stay safe and used cutting techniques like the bridge grip.

Once it was finished, they were able to taste what they had made accompanied with some naan bread. Most loved the taste with many children asking for more!

Help at home: Use the recipe we have sent home. Is there something they would change?

At Moortown, reading records help us to celebrate our love for reading. As a reminder, here is the key information you and your child need to know:

• Each time one of the children signs out a new book to read from the library, they can make note of these in their reading record and rate them out of 5 stars.
• Every Friday, I chose an activity for the whole class to complete in their reading record. More information on these activities is found inside the record.
• The children bring in these reading records every Friday for our Book Club lesson where we’ll discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
• Please accompany your child’s weekly activity with a short comment sharing with us the reading your child has been doing at home.

Take a look at some fabulous activities Year 6 have completed so far:

Help at home: Read with your child every day.

In our current unit of science – Living things and their habitats – Year 6 have been learning to classify organisms by their observable characteristics. An organism is a living thing (animals, plants and microorganisms).

This week, Year 6 have been learning about Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus was a Swedish scientist that changed the way people classify living things. He introduced a two-part naming system called binomial nomenclature. Each species was given a scientific name made from two Latin words. For example, humans are called Homo Sapiens.

Help at home: Can you find out any scientific names for other organisms?

This week, we are learning about notes and summaries. The purpose of these are to communicate key points. In yesterday’s lesson, the children distinguished between notes and summaries.

By the end of this week, the children will be able to make notes on a variety of different topics. They will have learnt how to use bullet points too.

Help at home: Watch this video about Ancient Egyptian pyramids. Can they create notes about this topic?

In our Living and Learning lesson this week, Year 6 learnt about discrimination and the protected characteristics.

Discrimination is defined as ‘the unfair treatment of people because of who they are or because they have a certain characteristic(s)’. We discussed examples and the impact of discrimination.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination based on protected characteristics.

We remember the protected characteristics by using the mnemonic:

DR S GRAMPS

Disability

Race

Sex

Gender reassignment

Religion or beliefs

Age

Marriage or civil partnership

Pregnancy and/or maternity leave

Sexual orientation

Help at home: Who makes sure these characteristics are protected?

This week, Year 6 took part in our ‘Grammar Games’. The children were in teams playing head to head against other members of the class to be named champions of ‘Grammar Games 2026’. We recapped our previous learning about adjectives, verbs, modal verbs and tenses.

Help at home: Discuss with your child what the difference is between a verb and a modal verb? Can they identify the word class of each word in the following sentence: The brave girl can run quickly.

In History, we have moved on from our learning about British History (the New Stone Age to Iron Age), to different civilisations around the world. The children used Chromebooks to research using AI. They were tasked to see if it could be reliable. To check this, the children visited different websites to read the information and see if it matched with what AI said.

After they had verified the information, they used trusted websites to create notes about the ancient civilisations.

Help at home: Discuss the ancient civilisation your child researched – what can they remember? Where was the civilisation located?

Year 6 have got stuck back into Forest School and really enjoyed it.