As part of our topic, The Victorians, Year 6 have been looking at a famous artist, William Morris. We noticed that his designs are repetitive and have different aspects of nature in them, including lots of flowers. He inspired us to do our own designs in our sketchbooks. Have a look in the Key Stage 2 corridor and see if you can spot them.
We turned these designs into clay tiles. We will be painting them as soon as they dry!
Year 6 have been researching about the Victorians and how they lived.
Below is a few examples of our research into the slums.
Victorian slums.
It was very hard for the Victorians to make money when you live a hard, unsuccessful life. They survived on not much food and wore horrible clothes. If you were poor you would possibly have a bath once a month or even longer.
London slums were the worst houses because they were very small and you would have had to share a house with many other people. It was possible for you to share a place with total strangers. The Victorian slum houses were very smelly and very different to the houses we have now in the 21st century. A Victorian house (slum) would have been all on one floor you would not have had not a lot of things in the house.
By Tiarno and Misha
Victorian Slums
A Victorian slum is like an apartment building where the poor used to live. There was only one toilet, one bathtub and a place to get water, all in the courtyard. If you couldn’t pay the rent you would get kicked out of the slum or be forced to live in the doss house. The doss house was where you would sleep in coffin like bedding or sleep hanging over a rope. There was a small shop in a slum where you could buy goods like bread, butter or fish. The people who lived in slums would make match boxes, grew cress and make wooden handles to earn money.
By Damon
Victorian slums
Slums were places where poor people went to live and work to get money for food. They were grimy, horrible buildings with lots of people living there. The “neighbours” weren’t very friendly. They would only have one or two beds, depending on how rich they were. The rooms were cramped up, with wallpaper falling of the mouldy, stained walls. The less fortunate may have had to share a room with another family. In one slum, they had one toilet so everyone had to take turns. If they were really unlucky, they had to use a bucket and brush and every time someone used it… they chucked it out the window!
By Inaiya and T
During science on Monday Year 6 investigated electrical circuits. We used the science apparatus to make the circuits and to test if the circuits were complete or not.
To become scientists we asked the questions
What if we added more bulbs to the circuit? Would it become brighter or not?
This week year 6 have been thinking about their history and what makes them unique. This weeks theme in writing has been autobiography, we have looked at the features and have read some. We talked about what has happened in our past and they presented their autobiography orally to a small group. Today they will be writing their autobiography, keep your eyes peeled for some examples of their writing coming soon!
This week Year 5 and 6 worked together this week because it was residential.
The week was themed around the Paralympics.
We researched Paralympics, making notes. We then wrote their biography’s. We also wrote a report about the Paralympics, transforming notes into a piece of non-fiction writing.
We did art in the style of Romero Britto, a famous Brazilian artist. We used an atlas to find out where Paralympians were from, we found it hard to find the countries on our world maps even though we tried to be very accurate.
We discussed what it would be like to compete in the Paralympics. We also played sitting down volleyball. It was lots of fun but it was really hard to not move for the ball! 
Year 6 have been learning about Roald Dahl this week as this would have been his 100th birthday. We have been reading and learning about the BFG.
We solved BFG word problems including converting between different measures.
We had a note from the BFG asking us to make Sophie a chair. We then had to upscale it 4 times to make one for the BFG.
We wrote instructions so we could tell other children how to catch dreams. We wrote our own dreams into a dream jar so it was ready for the BFG to catch.
We made dream catchers to help the BFG catch more dreams. We drew sketches in the style of Quentin Blake and used watercolours to add colour.
On Friday we could dress up as our favourite character from a Roald Dahl book, Mrs Harris came as the BFG and Mrs Webster came as Mrs Twit.
Have a look at some of our costumes:
Year 6 have been looking at the fruits of the spirit, we have been learning about self-control. We defined self-control as when you stop yourself doing something that would be wrong or hurtful. We wrote scenarios about when we have showed good self-control, we presented these to the class.
We discussed that it was not always easy to use self-control in some situations. To show self-control you can pray, count to 10, mediate, walk away or take a deep breathe. This might stop you doing something you will later on regret.
We worked hard to write some poems about self-control. We used dictionaries to check our spelling and a thesaurus to use precise vocabulary. We enjoyed presenting them to the class and even to Mr Ricketts. Below are some examples of poems, find our display to see more of our work.
As this academic year is nearly over we have been thinking about what we have enjoyed doing in Year 1. We have been discussing what our favourite parts have been and what we would like to do as we move on to Year 2.
In Autumn term we went to Sutton Park. We fed the ducks and went hunting for sticks. It was so much fun but really hard work!
We observed changes in the seasons and as it became winter we started to explore cold places in our world. We made a penguin display and wrote poems about penguins.
In Spring our topic changed again and we learnt all about different animals. We went on a trip to Twycross Zoo. We touched lots of different animals including a hissing cockroach and a turtle. We saw some bigger animals too, including lots of different kinds of monkeys, giraffes, elephants and even a leopard.
We made sandwiches for a tea party with the Queen. The tea party was so much fun, it was a shame the Queen was too busy to come!
Our parents came in to help us discover all about volume and capacity.
We have really enjoyed doing art in Year 1. Especially, Gruffalo puppets, paper fish and carnival masks.
We were also lucky enough to be part of the Bookshare project. We received 10 free books throughout the year and we went to a special celebration at Heartlands Academy.
Mrs Webster and Mrs Ali hope you all have a lovely summer holidays and can’t wait to hear all about it in September.
Year 1 have been doing lots of creative activities this week linked to Brazil and carnivals.
We made masks for the carnival by sticking feathers, gems and glitter on to our masks. We tried to make the symmetrical.
We made shakers so we could make lots of noise in the carnival. We had to carefully cover our bottle in glue then stick on the colours of the Brazilian flag on to it.
We went outside and created big pieces of art work in the playground by splatting paint onto big sheets of paper. Come and see them in the Year 1 classroom if you get a chance.
We also created some poems. We thought about what we could see, hear and smell at a carnival. We worked really hard to think of good vocabulary to use in our poems.
As part of our topic on Brazil we have been making Piranhas out of paper plates! We had to carefully layer tissue paper on to the plate so you could not see any gaps. They will be displayed in school for everyone to see.
