Last week, year 6 visited the Imperial War Museum to round off our History topic on WW1. We had such a great time exploring all the primary and secondary sources in the museum! The poppy installation was breath-taking and we even saw the cannon that the first British shot was fired from in WW1!
Author Archives: Mrs Thomason
Remembrance Day Event
This morning, Year 6 joined the Friends of Blackley Forest for their annual Remembrance Day Event in the top meadow. The children shared poems that they had written based on events in WW1, the sacrifices that soldiers make, and hopes for a peaceful future, with members of the local community. We listened to The Last Post, played on the bugle as it traditionally would have been, and observed a 2 minute silence that started and ended with cannons in the distance.
Word Wizard!
Year 5 have been working really hard this year using Reading Plus and we have our first official Word Wizard! Congratulations to Rayyan for being the first person to read 50,000 words – WOW! What an achievement! We wonder who the next Word Wizard will be…
We’re not rude, we’re R.U.D.E!
Year 5 and 6 had a brilliant, interactive workshop with Dean Coady OBE from the Safeguarding Education Team. He talked to us about about each aspect of R.U.D.E: Respect, Understanding, Dangers (from the street) and Equality, and what is acceptable and in keeping with our community and school values.
Dean shared some of his own experiences of living in Manchester and travelling the world, and brought the session to life with photographs of him spending Christmas in South America and becoming a Masai Warrior in Kenya, and showing us currency from around the world and his medals from his time as a soldier and police officer. We talked about cultural acceptance, how we celebrate our diverse community, and how British Values are really Human Values.
It was a very inspiring morning and we hope Dean can come back and visit us again soon, with even more of his amazing stories!
Cubed Numbers
We love using multilink – even in Year 6! Physically making cubes helped us to understand cubed numbers so much more!
The Somme Memorial
Year 6 visited the Battle of the Somme memorial in Heaton park this morning as part of their history topic on World War 1. We had a go at sketching some of the tribute tiles.
Maths Competition!
On Wednesday, Bowker Vale hosted a maths competition for children in our local cluster. Children from St Anne’s RC Primary School, Abbott Community Primary School, Unity Community Primary School and St Clare’s Primary School joined us to take part in four rounds of maths challenges that really got our brains working hard. All the children showed amazing collaboration skills, resilience and determination, and had so much fun! Congratulations to the winners: Abbott Legends! We can’t wait for the next one!
Cooking Up A Storm!
Our Year 6 cooking group made homemade pesto AND garlic flatbreads from scratch this week! What a delicious pesto pasta tea they’ll be having tonight – yum yum!
Super Learning Day – Upper School
To launch our updated super learning powers, we have spent the day in a range of workshops held by different teachers across our phase. We have had such a fun day developing our growth mindsets!
Learning to be like Captain Curious with Mr De Boer!
Learning to be like Resilient Ranger with Mrs Pendleton!
Learning to be like Miss Motivator with Mrs Makwana!
Learning to be like Creative Crusader with Mrs Thomason & Mrs Hyde!
Learning to be like Cooperative Kids with Mr Myatt!
Learning to be like Enthusiastic Enforcer with Mr Dean!
Powerful Choices in Years 5 and 6
On Friday, Bigfoot Arts Education visited our school to deliver an educational assembly and workshop called Powerful Choices.
This programme has been designed specifically for Years 5 & 6 and is an early intervention approach to exploring with young people key messages around the topic of peer pressure, knife crime, gang violence and, ultimately, how to:
- keep themselves and others safe
- recognise and manage risk in difficult situations
- have mutually respectful relationships
- have difficult conversations with their peers and grown ups
- understand the laws around, and consequences of, carrying weapons
- access support and get help if needed.
Children in years 5 and 6 participated in an interactive assembly led by Hannah, and a creative workshop to look more intricately at how we can make informed decisions, as well as helpful conversation starters for exploring sensitive topics. This was a fantastically positive opportunity for students to work together in a safe and supportive environment in order to understand more about rights, choices and consequences.