St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Thame

Year 6

Happy New Year

Exciting times ahead -Year 6 are eagerly look forward to finding out more about Space in 2019.

Last year was pretty exciting for space exploration. The Mars InSight lander touched down in November, a mission launched to try to 'touch the Sun', a car was blasted into space in February and the International Space Station (ISS) marked 20 years since it first started orbiting the Earth.

So what's in store this year?

Follow the link below to find out what's happening in this years Space Calendar.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/46716310

Learn more about NASA and its missions.

https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/text/extras/Game_Descriptions_National_Standards.html

New Horizons: Nasa Ultima Thule probe news 1/1/19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VYY7gI3SiU

Christmas 2018

Year 6 celebrated in style - they had a class party for reaching their Dojo target.

Well done Year 6 :)

12th December 2018

Preparing during Advent

Year 6 have been busy thinking about how we might prepare during the season of Advent. We have explored the Advent prayers in depth, reflecting upon what they mean and what messages they give us about how we might prepare during Advent. We then created posters to inform others. Please take a look at the gallery pictures below.

Class Dojo

We were also lucky enough to have an art lesson from Charlie on how to draw unusual creatures - it was great fun! It was his Class Dojo award. Many of us are on our second award for great behaviour for learning - we are working towards an end of term movie on the book we are studying called 'Wonder', written by RJ Palacio.

Wonder

Today we put ourselves in role as August, the main character in the book, to explore the meaning of different precepts. We are loving every moment of the story - August is such an amazing character to get to know. Do take a look at some of our precept interpretations above :)

P4C

Bitten by the philosophy bug we are enjoying learning more about 'life' and 'ourselves' by asking and attempting to answer BIG questions. This week, after exploring a Christmas story about elves, we had a long debate about Santa's naughty list, what it means to be naughty, along with degrees of naughtiness. Is it as easy for everyone to be good, or do some find it easier than others? Is it true goodness if you are only being good because you want something? Is it right to label people? Take a moment to ponder...

Breaking news...

The year 6 Christmas Enterprise project was a huge success thanks to families and staff who supported us. There was a real buzz of excitement in the air as the doors opened. Whilst some of us were a little nervous, we soon got into the swing of selling our products - boosted by thoughts of the charities were were raising money for.

When the total amount raised was announced we were stunned! We raised over £1250 - a record amount!

We were complimented on the range of products we had produced, both for their quality and inventiveness. And, whilst not all of us want to go on to own our own businesses, we all learned valuable skills for life -it is an experience we will never forget :)

We wrote letters to our younger selves following the event, with our reflections in. We also wrote a thank you to our parents and returned their investment.

We hope you enjoy the photos.

Thanks to ALL who supported us.

St Joseph's Young Enterprise 2018

So far it has been a bit of a whirl wind – but we are loving it. Choosing our teams was challenging, we had to consider our different personalities and what type of people we wanted within the team. It was important to have a balance of personalities in order to work well as a team. Too many panthers is never a good thing!

We have been lucky enough to have two business people come to share their knowledge and experience. Mr McGarry has worked for Disney, amongst other companies, he has now set up a business of his own. He taught us all about the importance of integrity, honesty and respect in business – highlighting some big business failures that had been in the press. We were surprised to hear that you could set up a company at a young age, and that there are people younger than us who are already successful entrepreneurs. You don’t need big premises or lots of money to start a business – in fact a good starting point is a GREAT idea.

Mr Heaney gave us some top tips for being in business - he talked about the importance of ‘knowing you can do it’, which links to the learning we did on mindsets at the beginning of the year. He also made it quite clear that you need to give people what they want and that listening to your market is key. In all of this though, in order to succeed, teamwork is key.

We are looking forward to agreeing on and making our products for the Christmas Fayre and hope that lots of people come along to see what we have achieved – and of course buy our products!

11th November 2018

Remembrance Service in Thame

"They shall grow not grow old, as we that are left grow old,

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them."

It was wonderful to see so many people at the Remembrance Service today. The sun shone down on everyone as we took time to reflect on lives lost in conflict from WWI til now.

9th October 2018

Poetry

This week we have enjoyed listening to poems from home - the variety presented has been amazing - creating a real buzz for poetry in the class. Thank you for sharing 'special' poems from home.

Endangered

Our endangered topic is causing quite a stir and encouraging us to ask some BIG questions about life and the future of different species - not least our role in protecting them for generations to come. We have also been learning more about endangered animals. Fascinated, we have explored different biomes and ecosystems, then created some amazing factual posters which we presented to each other. See some of our amazing posters below...

1st October 2018

Whipsnade zoo

Today we visited Whipsnade Zoo - we had an amazing time learning all about some of our favourite animals and some animals we had never seen before. The staff at the zoo gave us a talk on endangered species and the risks that they are exposed to. We were surprised and shocked at some of the hazards these animals face, many of which are preventable. Have a look at what we got up to...