Friday 22nd May 2020  09:52

I'm currently planning lessons for when I anticipate that you will be back, but on May 28th the government are planning to confirm whether we will return or not at the start of June.  Until then, everything is conditional.  Earlier in the week I spoke to most parents and confirmed who is planning to return.  Today I will ring the small number of parents I was unable to contact to speak to them about return.

I've already reorganised the classroom to meet the current guidelines for distancing.  We will contact you soon with more details regarding the return.

Today is Friday, so I'd love to see two pieces of writing by today.

Have a good day today and enjoy Half Term.

Mr. Davis

Thursday 21st May 2020  19:20

Excuse the delay, it didn't want to upload.  All this time working on a laptop and speaking in Zoom and Teams meetings, you'd think I had it sorted by now.  A letter is due to go out tomorrow with further information; I'll keep you updated as I can.  It's a Youtube video, so please watch with supervision.

Thursday 21st May 2020  08:33

Morning Crew.  I'm going to talk through a little of what the classroom and learning will look like when we return, this afternoon.  I have a short video to share of what the classroom is currently looking like and will talk through next term's project.  Once I've done that, I'm open to some questions.  A letter is going out today with a broad outline of reopening.  We'd love to give more detail but are being careful as government guidance is not settled and may well change.

Tuesday 19th May 2020  08:21

Hello.  Thank you to those of you who have contacted me to let me know if you are returning or not on 1st June.  If you have not done so yet, send me an email.  I'll be in school today phoning parents where I haven't had a response yet.  I'll also be starting to rearrange tables so that we have more space between ourselves in class.

I'll carry on with the cities information today - there are tasks for comparing places on the website in the Geography section.

Stay safe,

Mr. Davis

Monday 18th May 2020  08:14

Good morning again.  Welcome to a new week.  We are currently finalising plans for our return to school.  I'll start posting information and videos over the next couple of days to explain our return.  What would really help me would be to know who is expecting to return.  I know that for various reasons one or two people won't be able to return - for example if someone else within the house is very vulnerable if they were to catch Coronavirus.  Other parents may decide that they do not wish you to return; this is your parents' choice.  Could you let me know either way by email to Year6@becket.n-somerset.sch.uk - that will help me to plan groups.

Today's Maths is available via the Maths pages as always.  This week I have asked you to follow the early Oak National Academy plans.  This website was set up by a number of teachers with some government funding at the start of the lockdown and is aimed firmly at the appropriate level for Year 6.  I will add some support for the lessons over the next couple of days here - let me know if you have specific questions.  Stick with it - as with my lessons, the explanation often starts quite simply and then gets harder very fast.

Enjoy your day.  Mr. Davis.

Friday 15th May 2020  08:19

Good morning to you all.  There is a Geography quiz on the website today, based on your knowledge of the UK's cities, counties, rivers and seas.  Next week's Maths is now on the site - I want you to use the Oak National Academy resources for fractions and I'll provide you with some extra videos to support.

Send me some more writing - thank you for sending me so much!

We are in the process of finalising how we will rearrange the school for June 1st, based on the new rules that the government published on Monday afternoon.  We'll let you know how this will work very soon.  I'll post a video on here showing how that will work in the classroom once it's finalised.

Enjoy your day and have a great weekend.

Mr. Davis

Thursday 14th May 2020  08:56

So, hello for today.  The Geography section is expanding - I'd love to receive some additional information about cities in the UK that you or your parents know better than me.  I also sent out a Tweet yesterday with a request from Theatre Orchard.  They are after videos of your favourite places in Worle - see this link for more details.

Maths and Writing are available as ever.  If you've used the Oak National Academy resources, let me know how you got on - I'm interested in understanding if they are a good source of lessons for other children.

Wednesday 13th May 2020  07:27

I'm waking up earlier every day!  Our new house has blinds that let all of the light in, so now that it is very light by 6am, guess who's waking up at that time.

Today is Wednesday, so if you have not already done so, today is the day to send me one piece of written learning.  There are lots of options around the site, so have a look at something you haven't already done.  I started a new Geography section yesterday, based on cities and places around the UK and learnt something new about river names in the north east of England.  A new city will be added to the site today - if you want to help me with this by researching your own city, I'm happy to put it up on the site - start with the ten largest cities in the UK.

I went into school again yesterday to look at how we rearrange the classrooms so that we can return in June.  We'll use both the Year 5 and Year 6 classrooms.  One is definitely tidier than the other at the moment...

In an hour and a half, back in the real world, we would have been having the first Maths Arithmetic paper, and then after a short break we'd have had Paper 2, the Maths Reasoning paper, so at about 11am, breath a sigh of relief.

Enjoy your day and send me something fabulous.

Mr. Davis

Tuesday 12th May 2020  08:32

So, the one hour Reading SAT should have been starting in about 40 minutes - right now you would have been eating breakfast together.

The government published advice for reopening schools at about 8pm last night, so we've started to discuss how we do this.  There will be changes to the way that we usually work and we'll let you know how we'll do this as soon as possible.

Half term starts soon, so you'll be able to stay home for a week.........................

TODAY!  Maths as usual.  If you have questions around the ratio questions, do let me know and I'll see how I can add further support.  These questions will be ones that we come back to when we return to school as well as further securing our understanding of fractions.  One piece of writing is due in tomorrow - think through how you will organise this over the week.  I'm going to start some Geography learning around places - I'll tweet out the first piece of information soon.

Enjoy your day.

Mr. Davis

Monday 11th May 2020  11:25

Well, good morning again.  I hope you managed to get outside and enjoy some of the sun at the weekend.  Today would have been the start of SATs week!   You should have just finished your Grammar and Spelling test by now.  As a class you all worked tremendously hard across the year and whilst I know you've missed the exams (something I know many of you will not be sad about) Year 6 really is not just about SATS - you have made great progress across the year which will be really helpful for when you enter secondary school.

Boris Johnson made a statement last night which contained some important information about when we might return to school.  At the moment nothing has changed for the next three weeks.  We'll let you know how changes will be made when we can.

Thursday 7th May 2020  08:59

Good morning again.  Last working day of the week today as it's a Bank Holiday Friday, so yes, you're allowed to stay at home tomorrow - whohooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is the anniversary of VE Day and I'll be putting some learning on the website around this.  Maths, and PE are available as ever - lots of questions in Maths today, so do use the videos on the Maths: How we calculate page.  Thank you for the lovely stories again - I've had several in.  Your choice of vocabulary at the moment is truly outstanding - well done.  We need to continue to focus on apostrophes for possession and punctuating speech accurately.

Theatre Orchard were going to run a big festival on the school grounds in June.  They are collecting stories and are looking for short videos from you about your favourite place in Worle.  These will appear online so you will need to make sure that your adults are clear on what you are doing and give you permission (no forms or signing off needed).  Videos should be sent to engage@theatreorchard.org.uk.

Wednesday 6th May 2020  09:20

Good morning one and all.  So, if you haven't already done so, today's the day we'd like to see one written piece of learning from you.  There are a huge range of options around the website and you can choose questions, one of the stories that Mrs. Richardson is sending out or a longer text based on Science, History, PE and so on.  Send them to me at Year6@becket.n-somerset.sch.uk.

Some of this week's Maths was difficult to read on some devices - I've rewritten the questions below so that you can see the images.

Have a good day - it's nice and sunny, so make sure you get some good exercise outside at some point.

Mr. Davis

Tuesday 5th May 2020  13:20

Some of today's Maths lesson is difficult to view of you are using an iPad or iPhone, so I've copied the lessons below:

Ratio and proportion: describing a ratio as a fraction

Start by looking at the How to… video on the Maths section of the school website.  We are going to think about how to describe a ratio as a fraction:

So, looking at the pattern above, in total there are 10 tiles.  Four are red, so 4/10 are red.  This can be simplified to 2/5, and if you look at the pattern you can see that the tiles are in sets of five, each with two red tiles then three yellow tiles.  So, the fraction of yellow tiles is 6/10 or 3/5.

The most common mistake with ratio as a fraction is to forget what the whole is – so people often write the fraction of red tiles as 4/6 (meaning four red tiles and 6 yellow tiles) which isn’t how fractions work.

Look at this pattern.  What fraction of the shapes are circles?

What fraction of the shapes are triangles?

Monday's answers:

Look at this pattern.  What fraction of the shapes are circles?  15/35 or 3/7

What fraction of the shapes are triangles?  20/35 or 4/7

So, now for Tuesday's lesson.  The other lessons this week don't involve copies from a pdf document, so no more issues are envisaged.  Rapid Recap is still on the 

Tuesday's Maths

Maths: Ratio and proportion

Proportion is used to scale up something when we make more.  So, for example if we need 20ml of Ribena juice and 100ml of water to make a small glass of Ribena squash, then if we made ten glasses we need ten times the amount of Ribena juice and ten times the amount of water.

We started using the language ‘For every 20ml of Ribena, there are 100ml of water.  We can write this as 20:100

Fluency: So, using the ratio 20:100 answer these questions:

(7) If I use 80ml of Ribena, how much water do I need?

(8) If I have 900ml of water, how much Ribena juice do I need?

(9) Altogether, a large glass contains 360ml.  How much is Ribena juice?

Fluency:

     

Tuesday's answers

 

Fluency: So, using the ratio 20:100 answer these questions:

(7) If I use 80ml of Ribena, how much water do I need? 80 is 4 lots of 20, so 4 x 100 = 400ml

(8) If I have 900ml of water, how much Ribena juice do I need? 900 is 9 lots of 100, so 9 x 20 = 180ml

(9) Altogether, a large glass contains 360ml.  How much is Ribena juice? So, one glass contains 20ml of Ribena juice and 100ml of water – this is 120ml altogether.  So, three lots would be 360ml, which is 60ml of Ribena juice.

Fluency:

Tuesday 5th May 2020  09:03

Good morning to you all.  I've just recorded a how to... video for ratio.  This should help with the problems that I have left for Thursday's lesson.  There are quite a few problems in the lesson on Thursday so you might want to get started on those earlier.  No lesson for Friday as it's a Bank Holiday.

Have a good day,

Mr. Davisorigina file.

Monday 4th May 2020  07:56

Dear all, a jolly good morning to you and welcome to another week of home learning.  This is a four day week as Friday is VE Day - more about that later in the week.

There has been a lot of talk over the last few days about how we might return to school.  Much of it is contradictory - one newspaper says they know that everyone will be back in school, other papers say Year 6 to start.  Boris Johnson has said that he will give everyone a clear plan in the next few days.  We don't get to hear about things first, we will hear it at the same time as you: as soon as we have a clear idea of the government's thinking, we will let you know how that will work at Becket.

Maths is available on the site.  This week we will be focused on ratio: there are additional explanation videos (including at least one featuring me!) on the Maths: How we calculate page.

We'd like two pieces of written work in by Wednesday and Friday: you don't have to write it all in one go.  Choose two pieces of writing you want to complete: one could be a story from the Writing page (we are also sending these out via Twitter) but you don't have to write a story, you could choose something from elsewhere on the site instead.  Do lots of other learning as well.  Send your writing to Year6@becket.n-somerset.sch.uk when you are done.  If you want to send me more, that's great.  I will use two stars and a wish for marking.

Take care and email me if you need support.

Mr. Davis

Friday 1st May 2020  11:36

Plus, the new writing tasks have arrived on the website and via Twitter and below is a flyer from Worle School, open to all of you, whether or not you are heading to Worle.

Mr. Davis

Friday 1st May 2020  09:34

Good morning.  I'm planning next week's Maths lessons today.  Thank you for those of you who have already sent me writing - well done.  I'm looking for one piece by Wednesday and another by Friday (although next week has a Bank Holiday on the Friday which is why we've started now).

I'm planning on posting here again before the end of the day.  Work hard.

Mr. Davis

Thursday 30th April 2020  09:06

Two a week!

Today, we launch Two a week!  We would like you to write two pieces of writing a week and then send them to me via the class emails.  We would like one piece by Wednesday and another by Friday.  Throughout the website you will find boxes with ideas for short and extended writing tasks.  We would like one short and one extended task a week (in any order - or two extended tasks if you wish).

The task should match your learning age - a short task in in Year 6 could be answering several questions.  You don't need to finish a task in one day: you could write a paragraph a day for an extended text and send us the finished text on a Friday.  It should include all of the really good features of a piece of Year 6 writing that we have learnt this year.  There's one day less of learning next week so I'm launching now to give you time to complete before Friday's bank Holiday.  Good luck!

Yesterday, I completed the History: Patricia's World War II unit of learning.  Next week I'll go for the Iron Age unit of learning I want to create.  I've also spent some time working on the Geography folder with more to come on Volcanoes and Earthquakes there.  If you have a Geography unit you'd like me to add, learning about Japan, or South Korea, or New York for example, then let me know your ideas.

Mr. Davis

Wednesday 29th April 2020  08:22

Good morning.  We are currently adding some additional boxes to the website to indicate short and extended writing tasks.  They look like the box below:

We recognise that many of us need a clear structure for learning, so from next week, we are going to ask you to send us two pieces of written learning a week: either two extended tasks, or an extended task and a short writing task.  We'd like to leave the choice of task up to you, so explore the website and choose those you wish to complete.  One of the tasks can be a story from the Writing section and we're going to start updating these twice a week.  We're also creating a new Ethics section with ideas for you to consider and discuss.

Today I've been updating the Geography section and will continue with the History section later.  Enjoy your day.

Mr. Davis

Tuesday 28th April 2020  09:05

Good morning.  The rain has arrived, so I have an excuse not to cut the grass.  Hope all is well with all of you.  Today I'm going to phone those of you I couldn't get through to last week (I did at least manage to leave a message with everyone) and I'm also working with Ms Richardson on establishing some slightly longer writing tasks.

Your daily Maths lesson is on the Maths pages and yesterday I did another 'How to...' video for column multiplication.  Don't forget the story prompts on the Writing page.

Have a good day...

Monday 27th April 2020  08:57

Welcome to a new week of learning at home.  Unfortunately, after some really lovely weather, rain is forecast in the next few days so lots of reason to stay inside and work hard!

A new week of Maths learning is available via the Maths pages and I've also started to create some 'How to...' videos there.  If you have a request for a 'How to...' send me an email and I'll see if I can add it.  There are also story prompts on the Writing page - we'll add more story writing ideas during this week.

I'm going to add some more to the History: Patricia's World War II page - I'm also starting to gather resources for a new history project next week based on the Iron Age.

Have a good day today and please send me some more art - I'm really impressed with what I'm receiving.

Mr. Davis