Our final week!  We have of course been preparing for this day for the last seven years, but now that it's here it seems a little unreal.  There's been no winding down, as we have been busy to the very end.  On Monday we enjoyed Stratton's Got Talent.  On Tuesday we cooked up a storm with Meliny and the Kitchen Club, to prepare a 3 course meal for some of the adults who have supported us in our time at Stratton.  A huge thank you to the PTA for making this happen.  On Wednesday, PC Davies came to talk to us about drugs, we also enjoyed the Jungle Book pantomime and the BBQ after school.  Thursday, still not running out of steam, we had our leavers' assembly and managed to make one or two parents cry!  Now finally, it is the last day of term and all that remains is to read back the letters we wrote to ourselves a year ago and sign each other's photo books and shirts.

To all of Class 6,

I wish you all a well deserved summer break and the best of luck in your new schools.

Mrs Cartwright

Not only have most of the children been out for their induction days this week, we have had a lot of fun activities in between.  On Monday, we took turns in manning our stall in Cirencester market, courageously advocating for beating fast fashion.  The children gave away clothes and spoke to people about the perils of Fast Fashion and what people can do to improve the situation.  The children proved themselves knowledgeable and the members of the public, as well as Cirencester Town Council, were very impressed with their passion.  They also raised £46.20 for Oxfam.  On Tuesday, we welcomed members of Swindon Town Football Club.  Thanks to Theo's persuasive letter they came to give us a free football coaching session.  On Wednesday, we enjoyed forest school, making land art and finding newts.

It has been another busy week rehearsing.  It is incredible how much they have managed to learn and put together in such a short time.  We can't wait for opening night next week.  This week has also been history week, and as we have been learning about 20th century conflict, we had a trip to Cirencester Air Raid shelter and museum.  We enjoyed learning about the trains bring evacuees, the unnecessary gas masks, the machine guns and the medal winning pigeons!  

This week, in between rehearsals of our production, we have enjoyed two special days.  On Tuesday, we travelled by train to Gloucester, where we followed a treasure trail around the city and celebrated our time in primary school with a leavers' service at Gloucester Cathedral.  On Friday, we enjoyed working with children from all through the school to create our very own Big Frieze, telling the story of the Bible from beginning to end.

This week we have really enjoyed starting to prepare for our production - it's been amazing to see the progress in only one week.  We have also been preparing for our Leavers' Service at Gloucester cathedral next week and of course our Singing in the Park.  It was also amazing to have some of year six join us after school - and into the early evening - to prepare and speak in front of all the new reception parents.  They did a fantastic job and we had so many positive comments from those who attended, complimenting them on their bravery and eloquence.

This week, we have thoroughly enjoyed Wellbeing week and all the great activities we have been lucky enough to participate in.  On Monday, we enjoyed our whole school singing session, where we set a really good example for the rest of the school.  Children went out to represent the school for various things, including the Knex challenge, the LiteraSee project and the Town Council project.  In all of these instances the children showed their creativity and thoughtfulness.  In school, the children have enjoyed yoga, Beanology, Forest School and many more fun activities.

After a heavy week of CAKE, we were in need of some exercise, so a walk to the park, an extended play and a swim were exactly what was called for.  A well deserved day for everyone - they worked hard for this.

With a bank holiday to start us off, it's been a fairly relaxed week.  We have enjoyed our computing and pe lessons. We have also worked hard at improving our writing and have listened respectfully to the writing of the year 2 children, giving them some lovely positive feedback.  We know we've got a busy week next week, but there are lots of nice things happening too - notably cake!  Look out for information about our Be Yourself Friday, which will be a celebratory day for all the children's hard work.

This week, some of the children represented the school in the second round of the nature quiz.  They did amazingly well and lost by only one point!  At the end of the week there was a maths quiz and while we didn't win, the children did themselves proud, coming in the top third.  In between quizzes, we enjoyed the usual PE lessons and the children performed some amazing French presentations, explaining what environmental challenges they see and what they will do to help.  We hope to set up another call to our French partner school very soon, so that we can have a genuine audience.

This week we have been lucky to have visitors come in to support us in our Wellbeing and PE.  On Monday, we had our second visit from PC Davies, who came to talk to us about staying safe online and on Tuesday we enjoyed our final session with Miss Blacker from Deer Park, who taught us how to pass the ball in football.  We're looking forward to putting these skills into practise at the end of the year when Swindon FC come in to teach us (thank you Theo).

Thank you so much to all the parents who donated items (and possibly even bought some) for the Class 6 Toy sale.  The children made £91.71.  This week, the children voted to save their money, have another sale next term and try to raise enough money for everybody to have an ice-cream at the theatre or maybe a hot dog while we're in London.

This Tuesday, we had a lot of fun on Maths Day, considering how maths is often presented as a problem to be solved and the skills and learning behaviours we need to be able to do this.  We had great fun in the Escape room.  Huge congratulations to the Silver Team (James, Nell, Ryan, Jacob and Isla B) for being the first to solve the problems.  We then enjoyed creating our own maths day raps, poems, posters and songs to tell people all about maths and problem solving.

This week, we also held our own mock election.  The children were divided into groups to plan their election campaign.  They produced manifesto, chose a candidate, wrote a speech and made a poster.  We then staged a pre-election event, where the candidates delivered their speeches to Class 5 and everybody participated in a secret ballot.  This has really made us want to learn more about democracy in this country and we are looking forward to visiting the Houses of Parliament on our trip to London.

This week in our wellbeing lesson, we have been learning about money, worth, saving and spending wisely. To complement this, we have set up a used toys, games and book sale on Friday after school to try to raise some money to buy some of the items that the children felt would be useful for the class. Thank you to all the parents and carers who supported us by offering donations or giving their child some money to spend with us.  We'll let you know how much we raise and what we choose to spend it on.

We also really enjoyed our football lesson with Miss Blacker from Deer Park school, who taught us how to dribble the ball.  We are looking forward to our next session with her in a fortnight's time.

In science this week, we have started a topic on Light.  We can now all describe how light travels in straight lines from a source to an object and is then reflected and when that ray of light hits our eyes, we can see the object.  We enjoyed modelling this with wool.

What a busy week! On Monday, we welcomed Meg, a nutritionist from Caterlink, who came to talk to us about the school meals, thanks to the persuasive letters written by Maya and Florence.  Meg was impressed with our knowledge of the Eatwell plate, but went on to teach us a few new things, including the way Caterlink sneak in whole grains and plant based proteins into our meals, without us even noticing.  On Tuesday, we had our day in court and both of our teams made their cases successfully, the prosecution team securing a conviction and the defence team ensuring our defendant was released!  The children were magnificent! They learned their lines, acted their parts, improvised and wowed everybody - we couldn't be more proud.  Thank you so much to all the parents who helped out by providing costumes and giving lifts, it all came together beautifully.  Unfortunately, PC Davies had to cancel due to ill health on Wednesday, but we look forward to seeing her next term instead.  On Thursday, we walked to church for our Easter service, where Rev. Minns (and scruffy) encouraged us to think about what kind of King Jesus was - perfect for our next term's RE lessons!

We have really enjoyed science week this week. With visits from FGR, a forensic scientist, an aerospace engineer, a mechanical engineer and a cell biologist we have learned more about the varied and interesting jobs a scientist might do.  We enjoyed completing our own experiments and worked well in teams to build a marble run, make a lava lamp and grow gummy bears!  We hope to see lots of parents this afternoon to tell them about the science behind it all.

This week Class 6 enjoyed dismantling vacuum cleaners in DT to figure out which components we will need in order to create our own mini vacuum cleaners.  Next week, we are looking forward to making our own impellors and attaching them to motors.  In science this week, we had the opportunity to look at some real fossils and try to figure out what living thing might have left these impressions, how long ago they might have lived and what that might tell us about evolution.

It was wonderful to see everybody back and eager to get started with our new term's work this week.  We have started looking at our Mock Trial, which will take place on Tuesday 19th of March.  Please look out for letters nearer time about this.

We ended the week with some fun in the hall trying out a few different 'rock 'n roll' moves and some pirouettes.

This week, in preparation for our involvement in the Mock Trial competition, Class 6 were visited by two magistrates.  We learned to identify different offences and order them by their severity. We now can't wait to read the scripts for the competition.

This week Class 6 have been creative! They have enjoyed making their stop motion animations and contributing to the new school mosaics.  We all look forward to seeing the finished products.

What a lot of fun we had this week at the Young Voices concert in Birmingham!  It was an opportunity to perform in the world's largest children's choir, in an enormous arena, alongside professional performers.  With their friends around them for support., they confidently gave it their all and had a thoroughly fabulous day.  We were so proud of them.

For more pictures please see the music pages of the website.

Our courageous advocate this year is Martin Luther King and we learned about him on Monday, which was Martin Luther King day.  The class found out about the five key events in King's fight for civil rights and worked in groups to present an assembly for the rest of the school.  This was a great demonstration of their ability to work together.  We hope that their learning about Martin Luther King will inspire them to become courageous advocates themselves, standing up for the things they believe in.  On Tuesday we enjoyed portrait club in our art lesson.  The first rule of portrait club is, 'everybody poses!'  The children really started to look closely at each other, looking for the lines they could see rather than drawing what they think they see.  See if you can see the likenesses.

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break.  It was great to welcome Class 6 back this week.  We have slipped easily back into the routine and everybody seems eager to work hard. 

Well done to those children who volunteered to read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe over the Christmas holidays as part of the LiteraSee project.  It was wonderful to see some art work already emerging.  Mr Redfern will be back next week to run the LiteraSee art club on Monday lunchtimes.  If any children who didn't previously take a book, but would now like to join in, please come and see me.

In our wellbeing lesson this week, we played some tapping games to illustrate just how fast content can be spread to many other people over the internet. The children could all explain why this means you must 'Think Before You Click!'.

We have started a new lunchtime club this term for the children interested in participating in the Gloucestershire Wildlife Quiz, they have been busy researching names of birds and insects and a host of other facts.  Their enthusiasm was exciting and I wish them all the best of luck in preparing for this fun competition.

In computing they are all excited to start their new topic, all about stop motion. We look forward to seeing their videos at the end of term.

If you missed the welcome letter and curriculum over view, please find them on the Term 3 and 4 section of the website.

Mrs Cartwright