After measuring, cutting and crafting their boxes for their day and night model, the children have used sponges and acrylic paint to craft their own space designs.
Decorating our final products
Category : Year 6 News
Tag Rugby – evasion and quick reactions!
In their first lesson of the new half-term, Year 6 dived straight into tag rugby to practice their evasion and reactions as part of a lesson on attacking and defending. In the lesson, children worked strategies to avoid being tagged when in possession of the ball, such as using footwork and feinting, and also how to be an effective defender, by remaining light on your toes to react quickly to the attacker’s movements in defence. Once the children had practiced 1v1 situations, they moved onto games where two defenders worked against an attacker, where they used strategy to tag the attacker by remaining in a defensive line. A great lesson to begin our new scheme in PE!
Gears in Motion
This week in Science, Year 6 have been diving into the fascinating world of simple machines to explore how mechanisms like levers, pulleys, and gears reduce the force needed to move objects and change the direction of forces. Working collaboratively in small teams, our young engineers took a systematic approach to investigating how gears interact with one another. They set up hands-on experiments, communicated effectively and measured their results carefully to uncover how variations in gear size affect force and movement.
Through their collaborative experiments, Year 6 drew brilliant scientific conclusions about how gears function: when a smaller gear with fewer teeth turns a larger gear with more teeth, the larger gear rotates more slowly but produces significantly greater force.
Conversely, driving a smaller gear results in greater speed but less output force. We are immensely proud of Year 6’s scientific curiosity and teamwork—be sure to ask your child at home how these gear principles make pedalling a bike uphill so much easier!
Authors, illustrators and now educators!
This half term Year 6 have created a wonderful piece of writing aimed at Year 4 children.
They were tasked with producing an informative, fun, educational and engaging information text about one of the planets in our solar system and WOW, did they rise to the challenge! The work produced was exceptional and a real credit to their hard work and pride.
Following this, the Year 4s were lucky enough to get to not only see these exceptional pieces of work, but our Year 6s sat with them, enthusiastically read them, talked through the process and expertly answered the brilliant questions posed by our Year 4s.
Both year groups were an absolute credit and it was a genuine pleasure to watch. Great work to all involved!
Year 5/6 Boys Football Champions! ⚽️
In this year’s Legacy football tournament, a team of skilled, determined ballers managed to not only win the entire competition but only concede one goal all tournament. Mr Chadwick noted the team showed humility and the sportsmanship of the group throughout the tournament, modelling out character traits whilst representing the school. Great effort, team NJS!
Danger! Danger! Circuits and Electricity!
This afternoon, 6CC explored electrical circuits and used a Tea Party protocol to build their knowledge of key components and terminology. They then investigated various classroom materials to determine whether they were conductors or insulators before learning how to draw clear, scientific circuit diagrams. Well done, class!
Exploring day, night and the phases of the Moon ☀️🌑
In science this week, Year 6 explored why we have day and night, as well as the fascinating reasons behind why the Moon appears to change shape in the night sky.
After investigating these cosmic phenomena, the children were amazed to discover that it is Earth’s rotation—rather than the Sun moving—that causes us to perpetually experience daytime when facing the Sun and nighttime when facing away from it. Building on this, they also investigated the lunar cycle, mapping out how the Moon’s phases are created by its orbit around Earth and the changing angles of sunlight hitting its surface.
This hands-on inquiry led to fantastic writing outcomes, with students producing detailed, accurate explanations featuring high-level scientific terminology. Who knows—we might just be raising the next generation of astronomers and scientists!
Digital Leading Experts!
This morning, the children of Year 6 were lucky enough to partake in a digital workshop from ClickView! Using their IT skills, the children investigated and explored the new software and in themselves, became digital leaders! Great work, Year 6!
Y6 Crew Week = Complete!
Year 6 have hit the ground running this week, throwing themselves into exploring our core character traits through a variety of hands-on tasks. Class 6CC have bonded brilliantly, and watching pupils collaborate so seamlessly across their crews has been a true highlight.
Among the pupil favorites were ‘courage charades’ and a collaborative crew graffiti project, where each child crafted an individual oil pastel piece to build a vibrant mural now displayed in the Year 5/6 corridor. Demonstrating incredible determination, the children also tackled a massive crew challenge—walking, jogging, and running laps of the field to push their collective limits. Together, they logged an average of 880 laps (66 km) per class, reaching a staggering combined total of 265 km! That is the equivalent of scaling the height of some of the world’s highest mountain peaks.
For Mrs Blunt and me, it has been wonderful getting to know the children we haven’t previously taught, while watching familiar faces continue to grow and express themselves. We are both thoroughly looking forward to the exciting year ahead with this incredible group!
Year 5/6 Netball Tournament @ Laurel Academy
This afternoon, ten girls from upper school represented NJS in a netball tournament at the Laurel Academy. Across six fixtures against other schools in the Doncaster area, the girls performed well winning two games but not securing enough points to progress to the final.
For the majority of the team, it was a competitive debut in a netball team but there was great experience to hand with the likes of Olivia, Peggy, Dolly and Autumn. Standout performers include Lottie, who performed well in the final third of the court, and Katie who was fierce in the centre role, playmaking and interception passes. For both girls, it was their first time playing netball. Well done to all the girls for all their effort this afternoon, it was a pleasure to see!
