Our Year 6 class had a brilliant end to the term with a residential trip to Norfolk Lakes. You can read some of our accounts of the trip here, and enjoy having a look at the many, many photos!

Introduction (Lucas C and Koa)

On our year six residential, we had a fun time exploring all the adventures activities including swimming, climbing, archery, kayaking, canoeing and plenty more. It was a 30-minute drive to Norfolk Lakes, and we stayed in a hotel with 5 or more people in a hostel. It was a two night stay along with three days to enjoy all the activities we had planned. We all needed allot of clothes and shoes for any activities and a sleeping bag and pillow for the nights to stay. 

Arrival  (Grace and Millie J)

When we arrived, we got associated into groups for our rooms and activities. There would be around ten children in each house, one girl room and one boy room also an adult. The instructors showed us our house and then left us for a bit to get settled in. For example, the adult in our house was Miss Walker and the people in the girl’s room were Grace, Millie J, Molly-Mae, Mia, and Rose. In the boy’s room was Henry, Koa, Chibueze, Theo C, Lucas G and Arthur.  

Water Activities  (Lorena and Callie

The first water activity was canoeing. We were on the boat with three or two people. We had to work together by paddling to make the boat move. Unfortunately, a group fell in. Then we did kayaking where  you are on a boat all by yourself (Callie fell in twice!). We did a race and Albert won!
Next up was giant stand up padel boarding (some people jumped in!). There were four giant boats with eight people on three and seven people on the other. We paddle into the middle of the lake and made a square with the boats to make a swimming pool. 
Then there was raft building. It was quite tricky! We had to tie eight barrels together and it held sticks on the sides.  Callies one floated and Lorenas one broke. As Lorenas group was angry, they attacked Callies group! (Thomas and Millie J survived!) 

Outdoor Activites (Lukas W and Harrison)

We did obstacle course which you needed to climb over and under the wooden obstacle and climbed the A frame and the M frame which are the two main obstacles and the challenge of it was to swing over the mud pit and crawl through the army crawl section. After that, we went to the blind trail and go through the maze with a rope next to you which will lead you to the end. The last outdoor activity was the low rope which you needed to go all the way around the obstacle with a partner giving you the fist of friendship. And the challenge was that you need to go around the obstacle again with a over filled cup trying to spill the least amount of water. And if you lose to your partner, your partner get to spill two whole cups on your head!

Indoor Sports  (Arthur and Lucas G)

We did 2 indoor sports. They were archery and wall climbing. In the archery session we made a pizza using what we hit. White was dough, black was an oven, blue was a topping of our choice, red was sauce and yellow was cheese. During climbing we had to get to the top of the 2 walls.  

Food! (Finn and Thomas)

The class definitely enjoyed the food that the chefs cooked! A good thing about the food was the amazing selection provided-from chicken wings or cheese and onion pastry to a delicious English breakfast or a wide range of cereal. This was also served with an unlimited supply of orange and blackcurrant juice. 

DT

We have been really enjoying our DT project on Structures this half term. We did a series of investigations to test the strength of spaghetti and to see how we could improve it, then we used the results of this to make different structures from spaghetti and marshmallows. We’re also enjoying using our new DT sketch books to record ideas and pictures.

Science

On Feb 12th we had a visit from Dr Clare who came in to do a dissection of a pig’s heart for us! This was a fascinating session and we all learned so much from it. We used the visualiser so that we could see the heart on the board whilst Dr Clare talked us through the different parts of the heart and their functions. We were surprised by how strong the valves were, and it was interesting to see (and feel!) how the left ventricle was so much stronger than the right, so that it can pump the oxygenated blood all around the body. Lots of the children came up to touch the heart themselves and we all had lots of questions for Dr Clare to answer. It was a great experience!

Gymnastics

In January, we had three gymnastics sessions with coaches from Premier Education, who went through some different shapes and jumps with us. We then built on this for the rest of the half term, practising using these skills on the apparatus. We had lots of fun doing partner balances and were able to perform some lovely sequences in our final lesson.

Pyjamas!

We had a lovely day in our pyjamas on Feb 12th for our School Council fundraiser – and we were pleased to be the class who raised the most money! Thank you, parents!

Sweden class have been enjoying investigating the properties of light.  In this lesson, Year 6 learnt about the colours of the visible spectrum.  Using prisms and CDs, they explored how white light can be split into a rainbow.  They went on to learn that Sir Isaac Newton discovered that light was made of colours in 1666.  The children then created spinners with the colours of the visible spectrum which, when spun, combined to form white.  There were several ‘Wow’ moments in this lesson as well as great knowledge and questions shared by our Year 6 scientists.

Volunteers from Greening Wymondham came into school to talk to the Year 6 children about the importance of trees.  The children discovered that trees play an essential role in the health of our planet and in our own physical, mental and spiritual health. It was interesting to learn about how trees can live many hundreds of years, communicating and protecting each other too, through their roots.  As many more trees are vital for a healthy future, all the Year 6 pupils were able to chose their own tree to take home and plant.  We look forward to hearing about how your trees are growing, Year 6.

We had a brilliant time down in the Forest Schools area with Jules this week. We made things out of wood, climbed trees, made potions, looked for insects and even saw a deer run across the school field! As we’ve been doing our first practice assessments in the mornings, it’s been particularly nice having these sessions to look forward to in the afternoons. A big thank you to Jules!

We’ve had some very creative sessions in class with lovely Art and Music lessons. We started our Art unit by experimenting with different sketching pencils and drawing realistic sketches of fruit. These then became more surreal as we started to add unexpected colours. Stay tuned for pictures of how these have now turned into colourful paintings and pastel pictures. 

In Music, we have started using Charanga YuStudio on the ipads to compose our own rhythms and layer different drum sounds to create exciting music. We are looking forward to seeing what else we can create on here!

Congratulations to our new House Captains who had their badges awarded in a special assembly. Thank you to the parents for keeping it secret for us, and well done to the pupils – we know you’re going to be brilliant!

Thank you to everyone who came along to the residential meeting today. If you couldn’t make it, here’s the powerpoint to look through at home. Letters will be going home on Friday, then feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.