History

Today Shakespeare Class visited Coventry Cathedral to learn about the Blitz in Coventry. They investigated the ruins, new cathedral and the blitz museum with a recreated 1940’s kitchen, classroom and Anderson shelter. They heard the story of the cathedral and the events of the night of the 14th November 1940. They were able to get a feel for what it was like during wartime Britain and how people coped during the World War 2 with the challenges of evacuation, rationing and air raids.

They also discovered the symbols found in both the old and new cathedral and the meanings behind them. Coventry Cathedral is known all over the world as an international centre for reconciliation as it uses its own story as an example of the journey taken from a place of conflict to one of peace.

Shakespeare PE

As well as swimming this week, we have been practising our football skills in PE. We focused on turning and defending the ball. For the warm up we had to stop the ball with the body part called out. We teamed up in groups of four and formed a diamond shape to work on defending the ball. It was great fun and we all made progress and improved our skills. By Sophie M

Fun in the Sun

Rock Up and Paradise Golf - End of term trips

We had a fabulous day out at Rushden lakes with children showing great determination and resilience. Many children were climbing for the first time, and despite intial intrepidation, were soon reaching great heights - seemingly fearless.

Leaver's Disco

Year 6 showed off their fabulous dance moves at last night’s 'Leaver’s Disco’. They all looked amazing in their party outfits and enjoyed a fun time together, out on the playground, with DJ Butler’s summer tunes on the sound system. They feasted on pizza and Eaton Cocktails!

Y6 to Rushden Lakes

Shakespeare Class enjoyed a fabulous day at Rushden lakes. After walking to the lakes we were met by Katie from The Wildlife Trust and James from Fabula Arts.

They took us around the main lake where we were introduced to different aspects of nature through poetry and arts based activities. This included making our own vocal music about the willow tree, creating our own moth art as well as our own Cinquain poems about a heron.

After having a well deserved lunch we then played hide and seek in the play area before heading back to school - tired but fulfilled after a really fun day.

 Y6 Art

Shakespeare Class showed off their artistic flair this week, sketching parrots from the Amazon rainforest with Mrs Eaton - they used a range of media to complete their work including charcoal, crayon, water colours and Aquarelle pencils. I think you'll agree that their work is fabulous.

Left to right - Tallyn, Alyssia, George, Amelia, Harley, Courtney, Ellie B, Ellie F, Grace 

Euro 2020

This Friday the Euro 2020 Football Tournament kicks off. Shakespeare Class are holding a class sweepstake and teams were selected this week. Alyssia and Summer put up a Euro display in the corridor which looks great. The winner of the tournament will be presented with the trophy when the tournament ends in July. Alyssia and Summer

Shakespeare's Science

Today Y6 researched solar eclipses and found out that an eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when the Earth, sun and moon line together. the moon casts a shadow over Earth. We learned that we should never try to look at the eclipse without proper eye protection as it can cause retinal burns that cannot be repaired.

So that we could observe the eclipse safely we made different solar eclipse viewers out of cardboard boxes, aluminum foil and white paper. Some worked better that others. By Amelia, Zak and Tyler

 Shakespeare Class Celebrate Great Results!

Some of us were disappointed that SATs were cancelled this year (due to Covid) because we really wanted to prove what we could do. This week we completed the 2019 SATs papers in SPAG, reading and maths. We were expecting them to be difficult, and they were, but we all showed great resilience and completed all 6 papers. Everyone of us improved our scores and made good progress in each of the tests, which we all feel really proud about. Millie and Ellie

 Attendance

We want all of our children to attend school every day, as we know that not only will this enable them to achieve their very best academically, but that it also helps them to develop social skills, make friends, and experience a variety of different activities every day.

Congratulations to Shakespeare Class for 100% attendance this week!

Well done to you all!

Y6 Swimming

Well done to Shakespeare class who had an exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable swimming session at the Splash Pool this week. Millie and Courtney bravely jumped into the deep end and safely swam to the side for the first time. We were all extremely proud of them for showing great resilience.

There were also a number of children who managed to complete their 25 metres this week. This a great achievement, as government guidelines state that by the time children leave KS2 they should all be able to do the following:

• Perform safe self-rescue in different water based situations
• Swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• Use a range of strokes effectively, for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke.

We will be swimming every week until the end of the summer term, to give our children in Y6 the best opportunity of achieving these targets before they move on to secondary school.

Year 6 Science

This week Shakespeare Class started their new science topic – Inheritance and Evolution. Our first challenge was to be able to explain what fossils are, how they are formed and why they are important. Next, we made our own clay moulds and cast fossils (dinosaurs and shells). We researched the job of a paleontologist and two days later we excavated our fossils using carefully selected tools. This was so much fun. At first, we weren’t sure they were going to work but most of us were really pleased with the results.             Jayden and Summer

Shakespeare Class Do Science 

Science Week was a fun filled week full of exciting science activities.

We made foam rockets constructed from pipe insulating foam and used them to investigate the trajectory relationship between launch angle and range in a controlled investigation. The rubber band was stretched. When we released the rocket, the rubber band quickly returns to its original length, launching the foam rocket in the process. We adapted our designs to give the best performance.                         

We also made paper aeroplanes and helicopters. We learned how a paper aeroplane, glider or helicopter falls to the ground much more slowly and gracefully than a scrunched-up piece of paper. It’s because of the forces generated by air pressing on, and moving over, the surface of the paper. We carried out lots of other exciting activities including making slime – which is a Non-Newtonian fluid – out of corn flour and water. We all had a great week.                     By Tallyn and Evan

Y6 PSHE

We watched and carried out an example of an effective short workout. The workout increased our heart rate. We thought about effective exercises for low, full, core and upper body.

We then made up our own workout routines and challenged each other to complete them. We set ourselves 20 seconds for each exercise with a 15-second break in between. Then, we made adjustments to our workouts to make them more strenuous.

By Jayden

Music

Shakespeare Class were getting musical this week. The whole class were set a music lesson all about syncopation. They learned a new song and performed syncopated rhythms. We were really impressed with their performance.

Shakespeare Class Science

Today we looked at how sedimentary rocks are formed. We have already learned about igneous and metamorphic rocks. We used chocolate to model how sediments are forced together, when pressure is applied, to form rock.

We grated some milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate. Then we layered the chocolate in a plastic cup and applied pressure to the chocolate. This caused it to become one solid rock.

Then for the best bit - we ate the chocolate!

By Jayden and Csongor

Keep Fit

Shakespeare Class have been keeping 'Lockdown Fit' with the help of Marcus Rashford and Joe Wicks this week. Has everyone at home got back into the 'PE with Joe Wicks'? They're a real workout!

World War II – Anne Frank and the Holocaust

During Hitler’s reign over Germany he enforced lots of rules that discriminated against Jewish people. In our classroom after lunch our teacher allowed some of us to choose any drink we wanted – orange juice, milk shake or water but she told some of us (we later found out it was those of us in Tigers) that we could only have water. We then learned that this was to represent how the Jews were treated. Those of us who were only allowed water were not told why.

Kaycie-Mai said she felt hurt, like she didn’t matter, and didn’t know why she wasn’t allowed a choice.

Ellie felt like the teacher didn’t care about her or that she must have done something wrong.

Ellie B, who was given a choice of drink, refused because she felt bad for her friends who could only have water.

We looked at different sources of evidence to find out about the rules which included:

• Jewish people being forced out of their homes
• Having to wear yellow stars
• Being forced to leave their towns and villages to live in ghettos
• Having to give up all of their valuable belongings
• Not being able to marry non Jews

 Later, we all wrote letters to express our shock and horror at the treatment of Jewish people.   

By Ellie B and Csongor (Shakespeare Class Councillors)

Disability Awareness Day

Yesterday was Disability Awareness Day and we learnt about lots of different disabilities; mental as well as physical. Some of the disabilities we learned about included: blindness, deafness and also autistic spectrum disorder.

We were lucky enough to have a Zoom call from a lady called Helen who works for Blind Dogs for the Blind. She told us that some blind people use guide dogs to find their way out but some choose to use white canes. Guide dogs have white harnesses so you we were asked not to distract or pet these dogs whilst they are working as it could distract them.

For deaf people, we learnt the alphabet to spell out words in sign language. We also learnt how to sing Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. We learned about the different causes of blindness, there was: retinitis pigmentosa, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration and glaucoma, and we were actually able to see what it was like to have these conditions using special glasses.

We also watched a special presentation from Kayla, one of Alfred Street’s own, who made the brave decision to have her leg amputated when she was a pupil in Year 4. She told us that she lets nothing get in her way or stop her doing what she wants to do. Her bravery really inspired us all. We asked her brother Joshua to thank her for sharing her amazing story with us all.

We learned an important message, that all people no matter what their disability, just want to be treated with respect and kindness the same as everyone else.

By Bradley and Courtney (Shakespeare Class Councillors)

WWII Day

Anti Bullying Week

PROBLEM SOLVING 

Y6 love Maths and some of us are very skilled at problem solving. Tallyn and Bradley showed great resilience today.

WWII Rationing

We were surprised when we weighed out the small amount of rations that each adult received. Even though we were learning about history we also did some maths to convert ounces to grams and shillings to pence. By Amelia

Week 1 Autumn Term 2 

It's great to be back after a week off to recharge our battteries! Everyone has seemed really happy to be back at school this week. As the weather has been mostly dry we have been able to have some fun at breaktimes playing a new game introduced to us all by Jaden. We also completed our next Commando Joe Mission which involved building shelters out on the playground. This linked closely to our history and DT work. We have displayed many great examples of creativity and teamwork this week, and supported each other both in lessons and during our social time.

Week 7 Autumn Term 1

This week Shakespeare class have been busy researching the different air-raid shelters used during WWII. They designed their own Anderson shelters and 'Dig for Victory' gardens. They used a range of materials and were extremely creative with their designs - take a look at some of their finished shelters.

Week 6 Autumn Term 1

This week Y6 had great fun during their science lesson. they were tested different ways to prove that light travels in straight lines. Mr butler was extremely impressed with their ability to use scientific vocabulary to explain their findings.

Year 6 also impressed Mr Butler and Mrs Smith this week showing excellent communication skills when working on our new Talk for Writing topic. We are looking at information texts and the features that they include to enable us to be able to write our own. Mr Butler fooled many of us (including Mrs Smith) with some photographs and news reports of dragons out on the rampage! Today we worked enthusiastically on our Cold Writes, about one of the dragons from Harry Potter - next week we will work on our new targets to improve our writing further.