Month: November 2015

Hi all,

I hope you have all enjoyed your weekend. With the holidays fast approaching, just a quick note. If you are planning on pulling your child out of school early to visit family, please can you let me know in advance. I have planned all the lessons for the next two weeks and there are still some important assessment tasks that the students will be undertaking. Due to the amount that we have to cover, we will be working as normal until Wednesday 9th December when the students will submit their final essays. Thank you for this.

This week is a short, but busy one. Students will write their cornerstone writing pieces (expository essays) on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. This piece of writing is totally independent and helps to give us a snapshot as to where the students are and what their targets need to be for the rest of the year.

The remainder of this week and will be spent working on their small elements of fiction tasks and editing and revising the cornerstone essay to submit it as the final part of their Novel Study on Wednesday 9th December.

It is a busy time of year, and I have already planned in some less stressful, more fun activities throughout the next two weeks to give the students some much needed downtime.

Thanks and have a great week!

Hi all,

I know it has been a difficult week for many of us. Coping with the traffic stresses linked with APEC, and of course trying to come to terms with what has happened in Paris, Beirut, Baghdad and many other places this week. I have spoken with the children at length about these terrorist attacks. We have spoken about how we have to be brave and strong and not scared to live our lives in these testing times. We have spoken about how important it is that we welcome and embrace the Muslim people in our lives and do not stereotype an entire religion based on the barbaric actions of an incredibly small minority.

Quite a few of the children researched the terrorist attacks for their Current Events which has led to many questions about what is happening in the world. I am aware that talking about terrorism with 6th graders can be tricky and have tried to be sensitive and truthful about the subject, without going into too much detail. If you would like to talk to me about this, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

In school this week the students finished their Visitor’s Guides and started working on their Novel Study tasks. Their novels should be finished by Monday 23rd. I will begin conferencing with the children about their books next week and they will continue to work on a variety of tasks around the elements of fiction, including theme, plot and characterisation.

I hope you all have a restful weekend.

Hello all,

This week in SS the students will be continuing to work on their Visitor’s Guides. By now, they should have written the content, so it is a case of putting it all together into a brochure, complete with maps and images.

We will also have a short quiz on absolute and relative location on Tuesday.

In English, we will begin working on our Novel Study by examining setting and cause and effect within our novels. The children have another week to finish their reading novels and should now be well past the half way mark!

Hope everyone has a great week.

Well done to everyone who dressed up on Friday – you all looked amazing! What an array of characters we are! Try and guess who everyone is…

Hello all,

I hope you had a great October Break.

This quarter in SS, the students will create a Visitor’s Guide about a city of their choice. They will be writing about the man made features, human migration and demographics of their city.

We will also be looking again at relative and absolute location. Students will have a quiz on location on Monday November 16.

This quarter we are also embarking on a Novel Study. By now, the students should have chosen their novels and be well on the way with reading them. Their novels need to be finished by Monday 23rd November. This week, I will check in with them and we will spend our time developing our summaries and vocabulary cards.

Friday is our birthday celebrations for October, November, and December!

Let’s have a great week!