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Year 6

Welcome to Year 6.

Our class teacher is Mrs Huntley, and our teaching assistant is Mrs Simpkin.

  • History – Discovering St Albans’ Victorian Heritage

    Our History topic this term focus on the impact and legacy of the Victorians on our city. As part of this, we participated in a walking tour of St Albans, organised by St Albans Tour Guides and the St Albans Museum and Gallery.

    We learned all about our city’s Victorian history;  we discovered much about the history of many of the buildings in the city, including the Cathedral and seeing where The Abbey School started. It was fascinating to hear how and why St Albans grew in size during the Victorian period and to learn about the contribution of key figures such as Samuel Ryder, Walter Lawrence and Eleanor Ormerod.  Following this, the children will be presenting  the impact of their chosen Victorian figure on St Albans and debating whether their legacy was as great as (or greater than) that of the Romans on the city.

  • Feeling Good Week – outdoor learning

    The focus of this year’s Feeling Good Week at Abbey Primary has been  on how being outside in nature is beneficial for our mental health. Not needing an excuse to get outside, Year 6 donned their wellies last Friday and headed for the Nature Area for their briefing from Mr Astley. They were tasked with prepping the area designed for a barefoot sensory path, helping to build a new Hugelkultur spring bulb bed by planting some of the bulbs kindly donated by Abbey School families and creating a dead hedge border by the fence. They got stuck in to the tasks immediately, with coats quickly being shed, and absolutely loved the activities. As you can see from the photos, they did an amazing job and Mr Astley commented, “I was so impressed with how the children rose to the tasks and worked together. Year 6 this morning were UNBELIEVEABLE!”       Way to go Team Year 6!

  • Science – investigating light

    In Science, we have been looking at light this half term.

    As part of this topic, the children planned and set up experiments using torches, mirrors, card with holes in and other opaque objects. They were challenged to prove not only that light travels in straight lines but also that it can change direction when reflected from an object. In addition, they were able to investigate how rays of light are reflected off the surface of a smooth, shiny surface like a mirror at the same angle at which they hit it.

    They then built on this knowledge to explore how refraction occurs. Light passes through different materials at different speeds; for example, light travels faster through air than it does through water. When light moves from air to water, it slows down and that can cause it to change direction. This is caused ‘refraction’. They observed refraction first hand by drawing a horizontal arrow on a piece pf paper, which they held behind a glass. Refraction causes the arrow to appear to have flipped 180 degrees, so that it is pointing in the  opposite direction! Refraction also causes a pen to look like it has been cut in half when placed in water and a pencil to look like it is curved, when in fact it is straight!
  • Make Do and Mend WW2 Design & Technology

    In Design and Technology, we looked at ‘Make Do and Mend’ – linked to the rationing of clothing and fabrics in WW2. We talked about how there was a shortage of new clothing so the government encouraged people to create new clothing and toys from old and outworn items. The children were asked to bring in old clothes and fabric items from home to use to create their toys.

    The children started by thinking about their designs and who they were making their toys for. They drew out draft ideas, annotating them with notes regarding the materials they would use and the design details. Once they had planned their toys we then had  a sewing lesson in which the children learned how to use running and back-stitch. They also practised sewing on buttons.

     

    Once they were confident with their stitching ability, they then cut out their designs and started to stitch together the pieces in order to create their toys. Each of the toys was  made using 100% recycled materials and they are all unique!

  • Geography reindeer hunt

    Year 6 enjoyed an active session of geography fieldwork on Friday afternoon with  Adrian from Active Outdoor Discovery.

    Emulating the Romans’ system of measurement, the children were challenged to measure the length and width of the playground using their own footsteps and they learnt that the concept of a mile derives from a thousand paces.

     

    They then had to use their best map reading skills to interpret a map of the school grounds in order to find the various reindeer markers that had been hidden around. They put into practice what they had been taught about reading maps and showed great teamwork. There were huge smiles and rosy cheeks all round!

     

    Thank you to Mrs Murden for organising the session!

    Mrs Huntley

  • World War Two Evacuee Visit

    Year 6 WW 2 evacuee visit – Autumn 2 2023

    Our history topic this half term in Year 6 is World War Two and we were lucky enough to have a VIP come into class to talk to us about her experiences of life as a young girl during the war

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    Sally Ambrose was 3 years old and living in London with her parents and younger sister when war broke out in 1939. After her school was bombed and completely destroyed, she and her classmates were all evacuated to Yorkshire, along with their class teacher. Waving their parents goodbye, she (aged 6) and her younger sister Jane (aged 3) set off by train, carrying a small suitcase of belongings, enough food for one day and wearing a label around their necks. They had no idea where they were going and the journey took two and a half days! When they finally arrived, they were lined up in the village hall and waited to be ‘chosen’ by a foster family who would look after them. She and her sister were lucky – they were selected by a lovely family and lived with them for nine months before returning home as Sally caught bronchitis (a nasty chest infection) because of the cold and snowy conditions in winter there. She then spent the rest of the war living in London, which proved to be very dangerous. Their entire house was destroyed in an air raid and they were trapped for three days in the basement where they had been sheltering. Whilst they were lucky to be alive, they lost their house and all of their belongings apart from the clothes they were wearing and her parents had to rebuild everything from scratch.

    Sally talked to us about what it was like to hear the bombs falling, about rationing and having very little food to eat, about school during WW2 and described the scenes in Trafalgar Square on VE Day in 1945 where she was with her father. It was truly incredible to hear her memories of the war and the children were enthralled to hear what she had to say, hanging on her every word. They had countless questions to ask and she answered each and every one of them!

  • Geography fieldwork trip – River Ver

     

    This half term, Year 6 took their Geography learning out of the classroom and into the river, quite literally!

    Having studied rivers in class, Laura from the Chilterns and Chalk Streams Project came into school to talk to us about our very own chalk stream, the River Ver. We learned about the importance of the river and the wildlife that it sustains and then after lunch we headed out to the river to take part in two fieldwork activities.

    The first activity was river dipping, which was run by volunteers from the River Ver Society. We were given nets and shown how to kick up the river bed to disturb the creatures hiding in the river, with the hope that they would then swim into our nets. It was incredibly exciting to empty our nets into the trays to examine the numerous creatures that we had caught!

    After that, we then collected scientific data on the width, depth and flow of the river. This also involved us getting into the river (again, much excitement – and a few wet feet!) and in order to measure the speed of the flow we timed how long it took for 5 dog biscuits to float along a 5-metre stretch of the river!

    Commented one very keen participant, “It was such a brilliant trip; I loved it!” Huge thanks to Laura from the Chilterns and Chalk Stream Project and John from the River Ver Society as well as the parents who accompanied us on the trip.