Year 6

Yearly Overview

Key Dates for the Diary

• Key dates:
• 19^th February – Term 4 begins
• 20^th – 23^rd February – Mock SATs
• 26^th February – Maths Week
• 1st March - National offer day for secondary schools
• 4^th March – World Book Week
• 7th March -  World Book Day
• 11^th March –Whole school Assessment week
• 17^th March – Science week
• 28^th March – Last day of term 4.

PE

Both Mrs Panting (St Paul's Class) and Mrs Muyuka (St Peter's Class) PE day will happen on a Friday

The children will be expected to wear their PE kit to school on their PE days. They will keep this on all day, so they do not need to bring in their daily school uniform. All children must wear a white polo shirt (logo optional), burgundy shorts, plain black shorts, or tracksuit bottoms. In addition, the school jumper/ cardigan should be worn to school on these days.

Interventions

There will be interventions daily. These will be available to support each child in their learning. For your child to get the most out of their interventions, please arrive promptly at school at 8:30.

Homework:

As we are approaching SATs, the children will receive homework (on the Jotter page) Every Friday. This is to be completed by the following Friday. Children will be rewarded for this homework. Please support your children in completing this in addition to the activities below.

Spellings 

Spellings will be given on a Monday in your child's learning journal and should be practiced at home every night for 10 minutes ready for their spelling test every Friday. These spellings should be practiced by writing them into sentences, so the children understand the meaning of each word. If your child misspells a word from the spelling list in the Friday test, this will be identified in their learning journal with a dot next to the spelling, so that parents can see the error made and continue to work on this spelling at home.

Reading

Your child should be reading daily and having their learning journal signed at home when they have read to you. Your child will receive 2 house points per day they have their journal signed plus an extra 5 if they had their journal signed every night! Once the book has been finished, the children will have the opportunity to complete a quiz based on the book and then change it for another of their choice related to their given reading range.

Those children who read every night, and have their journals signed indicating this, will be awarded a raffle ticket. They have the opportunity to earn more raffle tickets through completing quizzes on books they have read. At the end of each term, the raffle will take place and prizes can be won.

Times tables

A consistent focus should be given to times tables. The children in year 6 should be fluent in all times tables up to 12 and able to apply, recall and use the inverse (division) with ease. Please ensure you are supporting your child in achieving this.  We would encouraged children to spend 10 minutes per week on Times Table Rockstar in order to improve their accuracy and speed with these to allow for them to become more fluent.

Jotter Learning Platform

At St Michael’s we subscribe to Jotter; the learning platform designed with primary schools in mind. Children are growing up in a fast-changing online world and we strive to ensure that they gain the essential skills both within and beyond school. Teachers will keep you up-to-date with your child’s learning. Your child will be able to download and upload work and complete tasks. There will be pages where much of what you see has been created by the children themselves. This is their chance to shine as they write content and collaborate on research.

Jotter gives children the opportunity to explore concepts such as wikis and blogs in a safe environment. We hope you enjoy using Jotter as much as we do. To log in please type in your child’s username and password. To obtain this information please speak to your class teacher.

If you would like to contact your class teacher:

Please write a comment in your child's learning journal- these are checked daily and any non-urgent messages will be replied to.

If your message is urgent then please do contact the school office to arrange a return phone call or an appointment.

Collective Worship 2023-2024

Term 4 Collective Worship

Term 3 Collective Worship

Genesis 6:13-22

This week we pondered Noah's service to God. Noah had faith and believed that God will be with him always.

²² Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

We can emulate Noah's example by trying to follow what God wants us to do with our lives. Loving God and loving our neighbours.

This week we celebrated the theme of Reconciliation. The children discussed what the meaning of Reconciliation was, how Jesus showed this Sacrament. We heard from 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 where we learnt that God sent Jesus to reconcile with us and bring us closer to Him through His only Son. We understood that God is always ready to forgive us and will never hold our trespasses against us. The children created artwork to demonstrate what the meaning of Reconciliation was to them and going forth how we can demonstrate this Sacrament in our lives. 

In Collective Worship this week, children explored God's Compassion. They learnt that God is a God of justice and therefore we can always emulate His ways through fairness and justice for all. These link to both the RE this term, Topic and Science. They also looked at James 2:14-17 which reminds us that faith without actions is dead. They learnt that they need to stand up and do something for those who are in need.

This week, children explored the difference in faiths and how we can show our beliefs in God.

We looked at Proverbs 3: 5-6 which invited us to trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and He will make your paths straight.

These are things we can do to show our belief in God.

This week, our Collective Worship focused on our School and the CIRCLE values. The children heard from various scriptures where Jesus showed our CIRCLE values through his teachings. Then we role-played scenarios that demonstrate these values in our everyday life and how we can be more like Jesus. 

This week we head from Galatians 5:22-23. The children reflected on the Fruits of the Spirit and what this teaches us in the way we live our lives. 

We went forth creating posters to demonstrate the meaning of these fruits

The children explored the relevance of Our Mother Mary and drew our own images of her to remind us of Her holiness.

This week, we celebrated St. Michael's Day, our Patron Saint. We read Revelation 12:7-10 where we discovered that St. Michael took part in a battle in heaven and conquered the devil together with other angels.

This week, our theme was Natural Disasters. We heard from Psalms 28:9 where we learned that we have been given a gift of God's world. It is up to us to look after it and carry those less fortunate than ourselves to offer compassion and support. The children composed a class prayer to ask for support in this task. 

The prayer leaders have worked so hard and they should be proud of a very well-prepared session; teaching the rest of the children the responses during Mass. They have also taken the time and effort to learn Our School's Patron Saint's Prayer- St. Michael, The Archangel.

In our first week of Collective worship, we explored our class saints. We took scripture and key messages that represent St Paul and St Peter and their missions to spread Jesus' Good News. The children then responded by creating self-portraits of how they can be more like their saint or chose to respond with a prayer.

Collective Worship 2022-2023

This week, our theme was Praise.

We listened to David's Song of Victory: Psalms 18. The class then decided to go forth by sharing their own love and praise for God and demonstrating the way they grow in knowledge of God by creating their own class hymn of praise.

This week, we heard from Matthew's Gospel 18:12-14 The Lost Sheep. We reflected on the heavenly message that God loves everyone equally and that if one of us loses our way through sin, He will be there to guide us back to Him. The children completed an activity of 'leading the blind' around the classroom. Through this we created our own parable. We can often feel anxious when things go wrong or we have sinned, but God is always guiding us. We may not be able to know God's plan, but by having faith in Him, He will guide us on the right path. During Lent, we may encounter difficult times or times of temptation, but if we remember that God has a plan for us and is guiding us, this can help us succeed and become stronger spiritually because of it. 

As we start our Lenten Journey, we learned from the book of Joel how we should behave during this season. The class discussed the areas to focus on during Lent and how we can become closer in our relationship with God and reflect on Jesus' time in the desert. The children made their Lenten promises: fasting through giving up something that will challenge them; their improved spiritual relationship through prayer and Alms Giving by giving something to others that will improve their lives.  

During collective worship, Year 6 looked at the scripture Luke 10: 38-42. We thought about Martha who was trying to be a good hostess and how we could apply that principle to our own lives. The children wrote welcome messages to visitors of our school, to our classrooms, and to our places of worship. 
They thought about ways that they could also improve their welcomes and how to share better, quality time with others.

This week's theme was Love One Another and Faith. The children discussed the meaning of the New Commandment John 13:34 and how Jesus gave us this New Commandment. The children recognised that this New Commandment encompassed all other commandments given. They explained how the Love described in this scripture is brotherly/sisterly love and how our brothers and sisters all over the world.

The children demonstrated faith, through trust falls and then rated the things they love in order of importance to them.  

We have been celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. St Paul came together as a class to represent the carol, Hark the Herald Angel Sing, to be displayed in St Michael's church

This week we heard from Mark 1:1-8, where we are reminded that Isaiah prophesises about the coming of the Messiah and how John the Baptist prepares the way for him. The children were able to link Jesus' coming to our own baptism and rebirth  as Jesus shows us the way to live a Good life. The children then went forth by creating a whole class peace chain. They wrote ways they can demonstrate and bring peace to those around them and our brothers and sisters around the world. These have been created into a chain, demonstrating how actions of peace can spread.

As we enter the period of Advent, our theme for Collective Worship was Waiting for God. The children read from Isaiah 11:1-10 and reflected on how it was prophesised that our Saviour Immanuel would come to Earth to save us and bring us the Kingdom of God. The year 6 children discussed the true meaning of Christmas and how we can prepare to welcome Jesus. They then decided to go forth by creating advent calendars and freeze frames to express the different ways in which we can spend our days  of Advent preparing for the arrival of Jesus.

Lord Jesus, Master of both light and darkness,

send your Holy Spirit upon us as we prepare for your coming. Help us to try and seek your voice even when are minds are not focused. We look forward to your coming among us. 

Amen 

Our theme this week was based around Proverbs 28:19 - Working hard. The children discussed the literal and spiritual meaning of the scripture and then chose to interview each other about it and how we can bring the word of God into our own lives.  

This week we have been celebrating Inter Faith and Anti-Bullying week. Our prayer leaders chose the scripture: 2 Timothy 1:7 'for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.' To show how we should stand up and reach out to those people who have faced injustice. The children created art celebrating how we are all different yet part of one community. 

The children then led a prayer: Dear God, open my eyes to see the things that really matter. Help me to focus on loving others rather than my worries and concerns, because you can help me with those. 

Amen.

This week, year 6 took part in writing and delivering a mass with the theme of Remembrance and that our body is the temple where Jesus resides in our soul. Our reading came from the 1st letter from Paul to the Corinthians 9-17 "For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building." We are all working together to build a peaceful world of freedom. Unfortunately, freedom isn't free. Someone had to pay the price for us to have the freedom that we enjoy. There are men and women all over the world, who have helped to pay that price. Some have served in the military and many of them have fought in wars. There are people all over the world, who had loved ones, who gave their lives fighting for our freedom. These are the ones that we honour, as we celebrate Remembrance Day.

While reflecting on these messages and remembering those who have given their lives for the good of others, we have made poppies - a national symbol of Remembrance.

Our theme this week was around understanding poverty. Using the parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37, we discussed where Jesus features in this parable, where we feature, either being like those, who walked by, is like us when we sin. We linked our understanding of poverty to Nelson Mandela's quote: Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. We then role played and interviewed those in poverty. We wanted to understand what we could do (not just giving money) to help those in poverty. Time, kindness, understanding and love were among the answers to what people in poverty seek. 

Year 6 have been look at the scripture Luke 12:16 - 21 which tells us the parable of the rich man who had more than enough but did not share any of his wealth with others. We examined this scripture and thought about how we could apply the message of it to our own lives. We thought about the concept of sowing seeds, growing them and then when it comes to harvest , sharing our produce with others. We imagined ourselves as trees with the roots being what we have chosen to spend our efforts on now and the branches being what those efforts will produce for ourselves and for others. 

St Paul delivered the very first class assembly of the year for parents and pupils of KS2. They performed aerobics and then explained how their circulatory system works, allowing our bodies to perform. The children then explained that we are all perfectly, wonderfully made, that we must be grateful for our designer. The children praised God through hymn and prayer.

Loving God, Lord of heaven and earth, this earth, our home belongs to you. Give us grace to love it as you do. Give us courage to give ourselves, as you do, for the good of all people and all of your creation.

Amen

A truly wonderful assembly!

This week the prayer leaders led our collective worship around the theme of 'Foundations and Rebuilding our Community'. The children read the parable of the wise man, who built his house upon the rocks: Matthew 7:24-26. The class created a mind map of what makes our community, linking it to our school values: Church, Independence, Resilience, Care and Concern, Learning and Enjoyment; as well as those values of God's Kingdom, which is our duty to spread to bring peace and harmony to our community. 

The children responded with pictures of community and values that build these as well as prayers thanking God for the community they have.

This week we have been celebrating the Feast of our Patron Saint - St Michael. We learnt about his victory in battle over Satan in the Book of Revelation - Revelation 12:7-9, ‘’Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The huge dragon, the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth and its angels were thrown down with it.’’ and the prayer to St Michael, written by Pope Leo XIII, which was highly recommended by Pope John Paul II, beginning: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, keep us safe from the wickedness and snares of the devil.’’

The children responded by writing their own prayers on feathers to decorate the wings of Michael the Archangel. 

This week, in light of the Queen's death, the children decided to theme their collective worship around wisdom. They chose scripture from 1 Kings 3:1-15 where Solomon asks for Wisdom. The children then decided to respond by creating acrostic poems using the word WISDOM to King Charles III to have wisdom and strength to rule England, like King Solomon.

In our first week of Collective worship, we explored our class saints. We took scripture and key messages that represent St Paul and St Peter and their missions to spread Jesus' Good News. The children then responded by creating self-portraits of how they can be more like their saint or chose to respond with a prayer.

Collective Worship 2021-2022

During our first collective worship, we explored our class saints. We discussed key mission statements from St Peter and St Paul looking at scripture and how they spread Jesus' Good News around the globe, facing their own challenges and standing up for what they believed in, in the face of adversity. The children chose to respond by creating self-portraits surrounded with ways they could be more like their class saint or with a prayer of gratitude for what these saints achieved. 

St Paul's Class Assembly 

St Paul's Class did an amazing job in their class assembly.

The theme for this assembly was Justice in God's Kingdom. 

The children linked their talents with ways that they can support the world and allow God's Kingdom to grow and flourish. 

Collective Worship

As a Catholic School, we attach the greatest importance to Collective Worship in the life of our school. We give our children opportunities to grow in faith, love and compassion to Jesus by reflecting the true meanings of Jesus' words.

This term our Collective Worship will be based on celebrating the St Michael's Community as we make preparations for Christmas and the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We will be celebrating the event of All Saints Day on the 1st of November, remembering all of the Saints and the legacies they have left for us. 

On the 13th of November we will take time on Remembrance Day to pray for all those who have given their life for the liberties which we have today.

Week 1: Epiphany

Matthew 2:11

Week 2: Jesus is the same, today, yesterday and forever

Hebrews 13:8

Week 3: The water of life

Samuel John 4:13-14

Week 4:  The bread of life

John 6:32-35

Week 5: Light in world

Genesis 1:1-4

Week 6: I am the Good Shepherd

John 10:1-18

On 1st November, we celebrated All Saints day. We reflected on Ephesians 5:8-13 "For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light..."and thought about how we can follow in the footsteps of the saints. We created our own prayer to the saints as well as researched and designed our own posters and fact files on our class and house saints. 

We have been celebrating Diwali in class, finding out all about 'the festival of lights' and how it is celebrated across the world. In class, we have been creating our own Rangoli influenced works of Art as well as attempting to design some artwork.

On November 11th, we remember all those soldiers, who gave their lives to fight in the war. Therefore, this week's theme for collective worship has been remembrance. The children reflected on the passage from the Book of Revelations 21:4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'

Unfortunately, freedom isn't free. Someone had to pay the price for us to have the freedom that we enjoy. There are men and women all over the world, who have helped to pay that price. Some have served in the military and many of them have fought in wars. There are people all over the world, who had loved ones, who gave their lives fighting for our freedom. These are the ones that we honour, as we celebrate Remembrance Day.

While reflecting on these messages and remembering those who have given their lives for the good of others, we have made poppies - a national symbol of Remembrance.

This week, we used Psalm 138 to inspire us about how we can use our God given gifts and talents. In this Psalm,  we have found out that David played the harp and was an accomplished musician. Psalm 138 praises God for giving him the gift of music and used it to spread the word of the Lord. We wrote speeches and designed our own advent promises of how we will use our gifts and talents to spread the word of the Lord.

In St Peter's Class we have explored the theme of 'Advent' for our class assembly. We chose to use scripture from Matthew (1:21) as this tells us about the coming of Jesus and the significance of his arrival. We remember this time as a joyous occassion and have used this as inspiration for our dance work using the music of 'Joyful joyful'. This made a good link with our Music study on Pharrell Williams and his well known song 'happy', which the children sang beautifully, with a wonderful violin accompaniment. 

This week year 6 have been exploring the theme of 'Trusting in God', the children spoke about the act of prayer and how significant this can be in building up a relationship with God. The children reflected upon difficult times and how having this relationship with God can allow us to share our concerns with us and explored the help he can provide us, if we trust in him. We used Psalm 51 to learn from the example of David and how through the confessions of his sins he was able to gain forgiveness, some pupils then wrote prayers using this scripture for guidance.

This week Year 6 have been exploring the theme of 'Leadership', considering the qualities we would like for these to have and thinking of some current example of great leaders. We continued to explore David through Psalm 78 and think about the leadership qualities he had and why he was chosen by God, we then looked at how like David, we too can be chosen to be leaders. Children chose to go forth by designing their ideal leader, using David's example, and annotating them with the qualities they desired.

This week marks the feast of the Epiphany, where the Wise Men visited and brought gifts to Jesus in Bethlehem. The children in year 6 have reflected on Matthew's scripture (2:11) 'On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.'

Some children chose to go forth by demonstrating what gifts they would bring to Jesus at his birth and have illustrated these.

Jesus: Today, Tomorrow and Forever

This week in Collective Worship, the pupils in Year 6 have been exploring Jesus and how his constant love can be an element of consistency in all of our lives and reassure us during uncertain times.  We've been exploring the scripture of Hebrews 13:8 and how this can be used to support us. In response the children chosen to right prayers sharing their gratitude for the constant love of Jesus.

Water of Life

This week Year 6 have been exploring the theme of the Water of Life, thinking about what these words mean and how they relate to our faith. We have been exploring the words spoken in John 4:13-14, and how Jesus refers to us never being thirsty, how this means if we follow his word we can be satisfied physically and spiritually. In response to this the children have produced some excellent watercolour art work representing the Water of Life.

Bread of Life

This week in Year 6 we have been learning about the Bread of Life, Jesus teaches us that in order to be satisfied spiritually we need the 'Bread of life'. We have been reflecting upon the scripture in John 6:32-35 and how this shows Jesus to be a sustainer of our life. The children decided to respond to this message by using their artistic skills to recreate the bread of life using clay to show this. 

Making Peace with Enemies

This week the children discussed what peace meant to them and reflected upon how they can show it to others, we discussed how it is easy to be peaceful to friends and people we do not know, but a great deal harder to make peace with enemies. We reflected upon the scripture Proverbs 16:7 and how this teaches to make peace even with our enemies and what lesson we can learn from this. The children made links with the current conflict in Ukraine and wrote prayers to encourage a peaceful resolution to the the current conflict. 

Thinking of Others

This week Year 6 have been exploring how we can show consideration towards other people, the children discussed the small acts they can do daily that will make other's around them happy. We discussed the idea of prayer and how this can be used to show compassion for others that we can not always see in the World. The children reflected upon who they would like their current prayers to think of and brought up the events taking place in Ukraine. The children wrote prayers to those affected by this and their families asking God to protect them and provide them with strength and reassurance during this time.

Resisting Temptation

This week in Year 6 we have been reflecting on the theme of temptation and considering how we can resist it, using Jesus to give us strength in doing this. We used the scripture Luke 4:1-13 and discussed how temptation is a relevant theme during this time of Lent and the benefits of us resisting temptation and how this can allow us to have a deeper connection with our faith. The children chose to create posters in order to educate others on how they too can resist temptation

Light in the Darkness

Through this weeks theme we discussed the role of light in our lives, how it guides us and shapes what we are able to achieve. We reflected upon the fact that Jesus also plays this role in all our lives, how he can guide us and show us the way. We explored scripture relating to the Transfiguration, Luke 9:28-36, and how this represents Jesus as being our light in the darkness. The children chosen to express their worship with the creation of an acrostic poem and art work. 

Holy Week

On our return to school this week we took time in Year 6 to reflect on all of the events of Holy Week and what we can learn on this. We read the scripture of Mark 16:1-8 and used the theme of resurrection to remind ourselves that even in the most difficult times there is always hope. The children then thought about how they can help others in the world by supporting charities that continue to give people around the world hope. In response to this the children created prayers, poems and artwork to go forth with their message.

The children celebrated the Month of Mary. We listened to a reading from the book of Acts 1:14

"They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers."

The children chose to go forth by creating a piece of art to resemble her loving kindness and selflessness and write a prayer to Mary our Mother.