Below are some ideas for costumes - Home guard are usually in green and ARP's in blue. We do not expect parents to go out and buy new costumes, you can make them up with bits of clothing you may have at home as we will be adding extra props to them anyway.

Costumes to be in by Friday 3rd July for the dress rehersal the following week. The production will commence at 6pm on 9th July. Please can all children return to school by 5pm on that date in order to get them into costumes and face painting.

Welcome to Succeed Class - Year 6

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

James 1:5

Welcome to Year 6 - Succeed Class. We have 31 children in Succeed class this year, all striving to achieve their own personal goals. I, Miss Fleming, am the Year 6 teacher and alongside myself will be Mrs Dench (who will teach the class on Monday's,) and Miss Milner as our class Teaching Assistant. We all share the same goal - to guide, to support, to learn, to laugh and to ensure that memories are made. We are looking forward to the exciting, and hard-working, journey ahead! This term we will also be joined by Miss Abbondandolo who will be completing her teaching placement with us until July. I am sure that she will receive a very walm welcome back into class.

Now that the children are in Year 6, they will have many responsibilities around the school such as: leading by example as school role models to the younger children; taking the lead with School Council; participating as senior members of the GIFT Team; supporting younger children in reception with key reading skills; demonstrating sound knowledge of Internet Safety as members of the Internet Warriors; assisting within whole school assemblies; and representing the school at the various sporting competitions that we will be participating in throughout the year. It is sure to be a busy year!

As the year progresses, we will move onto discovering about our local environments through our 'Coasts' topic in Geography; finding out about the ancient civilisation of Baghdad; learning how important Greek History was to our own language and society; discovering the history of evolution through science and where electricity came from. All of this, as well as preparing for our SAT's and the not-to-be-missed end of year musical production, which is always a highlight in the children's calendar!

Your child's well-being is of vital importance to us and we want to ensure that they are happy and progressing. If you ever have any queries, questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us via our staff email:

nfleming@olsa.lancs.sch.uk

Routines in Class

At the start of the day, children will enter the classroom where they will settle into some basic daily arithmetic practise. Collective worship will happen every day for approximately 15 minutes. This will involve a collection of meditation, thought and hymn focused activities based around the CARITAS statements of the week.

Morning break will be at 11am. If you wish, you may send a healthy snack in with your child for them to consume at this time.

Reading:

We ask that you read with your child as often as possible. Your child will have a reading record that can be signed by yourself every time your child reads or is read to. In KS2, children will be expected to quiz regularly on Accelerated Reader upon completion of their book. As a minimum, we generally expect that children quiz at least once every fortnight. This helps aid their fluency and stamina to digest larger volumes of text that are expected within the Year 6 curriculum. This term, we have set the children a challenge to read at lead 35,000 words by the end of the term to receive a reading prize.

PE:

PE in Summer Term 2 will be on  Tuesday afternoon (Forest School). Please ensure that your child has the correct outfit to attend the garden area (wellies/coat) as failure to provide the necessary equipment will prevent your child from attending - all children have been reminded of the need to be prepared. Children will also receive discrete PE sessions on a Wednesday afternoon with FUNDA.  Children will be expected to wear PE kits on these days only. This consists of: Plain black leggings/joggers (no logo's or patterns), PE Top and hoody, jumper or cardigan. Please ensure that all earrings and jewellery are removed for sessions. It is important all children participate in PE sessions - if your child is unwell and cannot participate, you must advise the office on that date or provide a note to excuse.

Homework:

Homework will now focus upon key skills to enable them to revise previously taught topics to enable them to be fully prepared for the transition to high school.

Summer Term 2 Learning

Welcome back to what will prove to be yet another extremely busy term, full of learning and achievement. This will be your child's final term at Primary school and we aim to make it a memorable one with lots of high school transition activities, learning how to perform vital first aid and CPR alongside the much anticipated final production at the Ashcroft in July. Once all this has been completed, the children can relax into the final week with a memorable residential to Moorland Home, Leaver's Mass and the Leaver's assembly! 

In maths, the children will continue with Maths No Problem sessions, focusing on the areas of volume, position and direction, co-ordinates and negative numbers. They will also receive discrete sessions in the morning that focus upon fluency and recall of arithmetic skills to ensure they retain all learning taught so far.

In Literacy, we will be exploring the text, Swallows and Amazons, where children will create their own coastal adventure story linked to learning in Geography. We will be applying all the skills taught so far to ensure our writing is engaging with action, description and dialogue to advance the action, build tension and refine cohesion between pieces. They will then look at creating their own coastal poetry through imagery and figurative language.

In Geography, we will explore coastal regions of Blackpool and Hornsea to compare coastal towns, defences and erosion. Children will explore the features of coastal areas, develop their mapping and grid referencing skills and developing recognition of OS maps.

In RE we will explore the units of witness and healing. Here, the children will explore their own roles in society of how they can bare witness to the teachings of the Lord. Children will then move onto exploring other faiths comparisons to prepare them for the transition to high school. Through drama, role play and discussion, the children will have a greater understanding of the meaning of various extracts from the Bible to apply to their daily lives.

In science, children will investigate and recognise that light appears to travel in straight lines. Children will use the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain that objects are seen because they give out or reflect light into the eye. They will explain that we see things because the light that travels from light sources to our eyes or from light sources to objects and then to our eyes and show how the idea that light travels in straight lines to explain why shadows have the same shape as the objects that cast them.

In computing, the children will create their own VLOG on memories of primary school. They will plan and design scripts and recordings before editing and revising pieces to format their own presentations. I am sure the children will have such fun reminiscing about their experiences over the past 7 years.

We will continue to work on PSHE with a specific focus on transition. We will be exploring and researching their chosen high schools and will welcome into school visits from their prospective schools to talk to them further. We have the opportunity later in the term to attend Whitworth High school to participate in a cooking session where they have already planned and designed a meal of their choice to cook. We will also have the opportunity to participate in additional PE sessions at high school with a view to ensure they are fully prepared for the transition to high school of getting changed for sessions in their changing rooms. Further details of all of these will be sent via text message nearer the time so keep an eye out for them.

Diary Dates

• Tuesday 16th June - Whole school sports day 9am school field
• Thursday 18th June - Year 6 Topic Afternoon 2:15pm
• Thursday 25th June - Swimming Gala & Non Uniform (Crazy Hair Day)
• Friday 26th June - Mini-Medics training - Year 6 first aid course
• Thursday 2nd July - High school transition day
• Friday 3rd July - Summer Fun Festival 3:15-5:45pm
• Thursday 9th July - Year 6 production Ashcroft 6pm
• Monday 13th-Wednesday, 15th July - Moorland Home residential (more details to follow)
• Thursday 16th July - Leaver's Lunch & Leaver's Assembly 2p

Thank you once again to all the parents and carers who attended our last topic afternoon based on the theme of coastal images. The children created their own pastel/watercolour images and participated in a collective worship session.

As part of their DT session, children had to create their own starter, main or dessert from scratch. The children researched recipes and sought out ingredients for their design.  We then travelled to Whitworth High School to use their cookery room to complete their recipe. The children were responsible for following the instructions precisely, cutting their ingredients, selecting the correct temperatures and using tools to ensure the food was properly heated and cooked. The finished products were amazing!

This term, the children have been fortunate enough to have been offered a session of PE at Whitworth High in order to prepare them for transition to high school. The children had an excellent time going into the fitness suite and sampled a variety of equipment on offer - the punch bag was extremely well used! The behaviour was outstanding and they amazed the staff there (and ourselves) in the fact that they could get dressed within the 6 minute timer! No excuses now Succeed, you have proved that you are capable to do things for yourselves!

Every Tuesday afternoon, the children have Forest School time. This week, we set the children a challenge - to create an animal that would live in the forest area out of nature. The end products were all very creative - from snails (with slimy trails), bees, hedgehogs to birds, the imagination was fantastic! The children thoroughly enjoyed the time outside, some could not resist a dip in the bog though!

This week, Year 6 completed their SAT tests and were treated to a well-earned day of fun on Friday! We have been extremely proud of how the children have approached each test: with determination, focus and positivity. Every child worked to the best of their ability and should be extremely proud of all they have achieved over the years at OLSA! To reward their efforts, they had an afternoon of graffiti on the covered walls before ripping them off to release all the tension, we had hot chocolate script reading, apparatus out in the hall (which gave Miss Fleming heart flutters due to the highs they scaled) before finally receiving a visit from the ice-cream van and a pizza film afternoon. Well done year 6!!

On Tuesday morning and at lunchtime, a number of children have enrolled in Coach Tom's darts club. The children are thoroughly enjoying the session, practising their aim and accuracy and even working out their total scores - using maths and they never even realised! 

On Thursday, 5th March, we held our termly parent topic afternoon. This time, we based our learning on the importance of reading through creating some interesting illustrations for book covers, creating short stories of 250 words and crafts to help with reading skills. The event was well attended so thank you to all parents for attending - your support means so much!

On Thursday 5th March, Succeed class celebrated world book day with style. The costumes created were amazing and the children had lots of fun in them! They were treated to hot chocolate and biscuits in the reading cafe and enjoyed parading their costumes in the hall.

Children from Succeed class went to Liverpool Empire Theatre to watch the production of Matilda The Musical. The show was amazing and all the children really enjoyed the dancing, singing and lights! Their behaviour was exemplary, even with all of the traffic on the way home!

As part of our learning in Geography, the children had to use an atlas to locate the countries of South America. They then were tasked with the objective of identifying which countries the Amazon River runs through. The children were amazed by the expansive nature of this and how important the rainforest basin is to even us here in England.

On Friday, 14th November, children in Succeed class had a visit from Bacup Fire Service to talk about Road safety and awareness. They discussed how to be safe and be seen on roads during the darker winter months, how to travel in cars, on bikes and on public transport safely and effectively and what to do in cases of emergency. The visit was extremely useful for all children to understand the dangers on roads, particularly as the nights are becoming darker.

On Tuesday, 11th November, Year 6 attended the Whitworth Cenotaph to pay their respect alongside other local schools for remembrance. The children participated by laying a wreath on behalf of the school and sharing bidding prayers during the service. The children were extremely respectful throughout the whole service.

Parents and carers once again joined the class to participate in a topic afternoon based around the new Geography unit of South America. The children and parents were tasked with creating their own rainforest art piece. The creations were very competitive and original - even the parents were competing against each other! Thanks again to all that attended, your support is very much appreciated!

Children in year 6 participated in the theme dance around the world as part of a PE day. As we are learning about the continent of South America, we thought it would be appropriate to create their own Latin themed Cha Cha dance. It was very interesting watching some of the shapes being thrown in the dance - we certainly have some unique dancers! Well done Succeed for participating well in the spirit of the event.

At the end of the first half term, the children completed their DT project to design and build their very own playground. The children were set a brief to comprise of:

• colourful
• safe
• fun
• 5 objects
• one object to move
• one object to climb
• durable

The children had access to a variety of materials throughout the day to craft swings, slides, climbing frames and shelters. The finished products were very impressive - it was a hard decision for the staff to judge the winner!

This term, the children took part in a Pobble 365 Live Writing session on science fiction. The children joined children from all over the world including Dubai, Ireland and even Bacup!! They were tasked with creating their own space based short story and came up with some very imaginative pieces!

This term, Succeed class visited Whitworth Library as part of their learning on WW2. The  children listened to facts about WW2 from Amy and looked at a rationing pack for the army today. The children then had the opportunity to explore the texts in the library and select new books. 

On Thursday 23rd October, Succeed class investigated real animal hearts as part of their learning on the circulatory system in science. The children had the opportunity to explore a variety of hearts to identify the valves, aorta, veins, capillaries and chambers. The children were not afraid to get stuck in as you can see!

On Tuesday, 21st October, children in Succeed class visited Whitworth Museum to learn all about the impact of WW2 on Whitworth. The children explored a range of artefacts from rifles, helmets of the time, shell casings, stirrup pumps, radar alerts and gas masks. Some were even chosen to be our own little evacuees! The children had a great time and learned a lot to really enhance the learning that has been done in class. 

Every Friday, the children have been participating in cricket sessions with Chiggy. They have been learning week by week the skills of throwing, catching and batting before taking part in an actual match to display all skills. The children have made great progress so far and many balls have been lost over the fence from excellent batting skills!! Well done Year 6!

This term we have had a visit from Corum Life Bus to teach the children all about safety online and their mental well-being. The children looked at the variety of emotions that they can experience daily and how social media influences can affect or portray this very differently. The children were amazing in the session - very respectful with articulate questions and answers to test their understanding.

Microsoft Teams Access

Useful Links 

Accelerated Reader Login

Purple Mash

https://app.century.tech/login/