Vincent van Gogh | St Mary's Catholic Primary School

Welcome to

Vincent van Gogh Class (Year 6)

A picture paints a thousand words...check out what we've been up to in Year 6!

Leavers' Party 2019

To celebrate their time at St. Mary's, Year 6 had their leavers' meal/party on Thursday 18th July. We sat down to a three course meal, folowed by games such as hide and seek around school, then a disco. A great time was had by all.

Summer Production - Summer Holiday

On Tuesday 16th July, KS2 held their Summer Production 2019 - Summer Hoiday, at Fleetwood High School. They worked super hard to learn the songs, their lines and put on a great performance. It was great to see the hall packed out with parents and fmaily to support the children and school.

Pleasure Beach - 4th July 2019

A fantastic day on our end of year trip to the Pleasure Beach. The children had a great day making the most of the rides, fun and sunshine. The Big One was tackled, lots of fun especially getting wet on rides in Nickelodeon Land, plus all you can eat buffet for lunch and donuts at the end of the day.

Sports Day - 3rd July 2019

Sports Day was another great success and the last one at primary school for Year 6. The sun was shining and the children had a great time enjoying doing lots of activities: penalty shoot out, archery, fancy dress dress, 60m sprint, egg and spoon and so much more.

French Day - 2nd July 2019

Madame Bottomley arranged an MFL day based on France as the children learn French in school. As part of the day, the children were able to wear red, white and blue, completed French tasks like researching French-speaking countries, selfie phone French conversations, construction of French iconic landmarks, as well as running and visiting our own French cafe set up in the school hall.

Leon makes his First Holy Communion

Leon made his First Holy Communion on Sunday 23rd June. Usually this is done in Year 3 but having relocated to Fleetwood, joining St. Mary's part way through Year 5, he was encouraged by the parish and school to make it. Staff and some of his peers from his class, surprised him by joining him at Mass to celebrating making his Holy Communion.

Raft Race Team 2019

Harvey, Leon, Michael, Lily, Sky and Molly took part in the Fleetwood Schools' raft race today, Friday 14th June against the other primary schools in Fleetwood. They learnt how to build a raft and then participated in a race. Everything was going to well on the way there, however as they went to turn round, the raft fell apart and the children ended up in the water, which they enjoyed!

Leavers' Hoodies have arrived!

After a few extra weeks of waiting, we have finally received out leavers' hoodies! The children were so excited and grateful. They can now wear these for the remainder of the term. Only 6 weeks left as Year 6 and more importantly as children of St. Mary's!

Beach Trip

Year 6 spent the morning (Friday 7th June) on the beach. We did lots of activites: a beach clean, tug of war, musical chairs (with a race), sand art and making sandcastles. Luckily it stayed dry and we had a great morning enjoying our local area.

Bible Explorers

These workshops on Bible Explorers chronologically strings together some of the key stories and figures the students may have intermittently heard about and puts them in context as well as highlighting in a dynamic, creative way many of the religious words, concepts and traditions that underpin Christianity. Below is Amanda's feedback form which she shared with us about her experience of being a visitor to Year 6 during the 4 weeks.

Bible Explorers feedback form

Maths - Making Board Games

After working so hard during SATs week, we had some fun in our Maths by working in groups to crete our own Maths board game for another year groups, concentrating on a specific area of Maths for example, times tables tables, fractions, money etc. The children after designing, making and testing them then invite some children from the appropriate year group to participate in their game.

Seaside Sunsets

In our topic lesson we are learning about the seaside and how it has changed over time. We have been looking at images of the sunset in Blackpool and have tried to produce our own watercolour pictures using blending techniques.

SATs Treat - Cinema, Beach Park and Homework

Fabulous day out together! We went to the cinema, ate our lunch and played at the Beach Park then at the end of the day, the children received their homework for the weekend - HAVE FUN!

Team Challenges - SATs are over!

Well done to Ben, Jayden, Leon, Molly, Lily and Evie who were the winners of a team challenge. After a busy SATs week, we spent Thursday afternoon completing team challenges: a wall squat, picking letters out of alphagetti, drawing on someone's back for the leader to guess and feeding someone chocolate mousse. Lots of laughs all round and a great way to spend an afternoon after a busy, hardworking week.

SATs Week - a yummy breakfast at ABC Cafe

During SATs week, Year 6 were able to come into school early for a SATs breakfast at the ABC Cafe for fruit, toast and juice. The children have done themselves proud; they've tried their best, stayed calm and been there for each other.

End of Spring Term - Jelly Bean prayer and mock SATs

A busy end to term with the Year 6 successfully filling the Jelly Bean jar after giving up dojo prizes, as a class, during Lent. They followed the Jelly Bean prayer, with each colour representing a different action, linked to their work and their treatment of others. The last week saw us complete a SATs mock week, where the children worked brilliantly. We had Eli, Libby and Jose as our most improved winners, one for reading, one of maths and one for grammar.

Retelling the events of Good Friday

As part of our RE unit 'Jesus, the Messiah' and the events in school related the season of Lent, Year 6 wrote their own version of the events that took place on Good Friday, concentrating on the pain and suffering Jesus experienced and he made the ultimate sacrifice for us. This linked with us creating two of the forteen stations we had displayed in the hall on our day of reflection.

Stations of the Cross - 9th April

Creating our own 'Stations of the Cross' is part of our Lenten tradition at St. Mary's. Each class create two stations each, representing that part of the story of Good Friday in their own way. These are pictures from the Year 6 children engaging with the story and having time to make their own personal reflection in the reflection books or with stations that were interactive. The children's reverence and respect was evident throughout their time in the hall and children spent time in silence and in prayer together.

Prayers about Loss

As part of one of our stations for our school's reflection day about the events of Good Friday, Year 6 thought about station 8 - Jesus meets the women of Jersalem. We thought of Jesus' words from the Bible and how he did not want them to weep for him; they were because they were losing him. Here are some examples of the thoughtful and personal prayers that Year 6 wrote on the theme of loss which we displayed with the station.

MFL - Saying what is in our town

Van Gogh class have been writing sentences about our town. They have started to use positive and negative phrases to describe the buildings in Fleetwood. To illustrate their sentences they have made their own triaramas.

Meeting George Fouche - Inspirational speaker

George Fouche came into school on Friday 29th March to talk to the children about who he is and how he sees life, to ensure that adults and children can fulfil their dreams. George spent an hour with the whole school and then complete workshops with some classes. He shared his past: growing up in South Africa, becoming a professional rugby player, becoming a qualified maths teacher, which led on to him becoming a headteacher of a secondary school, after suffering an injury of a broken neck, where he was told that he couldn't play again and was paralysed. This led to him spending the two years in hospital recovering and despite what he was told he trusted the nurses, worked with them and went on to walk again and in fact give up teaching to have a 7 year career in professional rugby once more as he was so determined, competitive and driven to be who he truly wanted to be. George now spends the majority of his time racing all over the UK in every type of school and institution imaginable delivering his acclaimed shows and workshops sharing his story as an example that dreams can always be fulfilled, everyone possesses the ten key characteristics to being successful and resilience can be learned. George is the UK’s number ONE educational aspirational speaker.

What is our body made up of?

Steve Rossington, from Salford University, came back for a return visit to spend some more time with Year 6. Steve concentrated on sharing more about his job at the university as a chemist and lecturer with a focus on teaching about the human body and how it is made up of molecules that link with mirror image of lines of symmetry on shapes like a square, pentagon and hexagon have.

The Way of the Cross - Stations of the Cross in church

During Lent, seven of our Year 6 children have been attending The Way of the Cross, a special service each Thursday held at church by Father Michael, which is open to parishioners. Our children have participated in children from the child's point of view during the service. At the end, the children, along with Mrs Halloran have been joining the parishioners from some lunch and conversation.

Science Day - 22nd March (making ice-cream, testing metals and making 'sweetie' blood)

Steve Rossington, a science lecturer from Salford University, came in school to launch our Science day with a literally BANG! He demonstrated to the children the effects that certain gases have on different items, for example he froze apple, banana and flowers all using carb ice (dry ice). He then visited each class for small workshop, when visiting Year 6 he made ice cream, which the children got to eat. He used cream, sugar, milk and carb ice and mixed it altogether which almost instantly it transformed into crystals of ice cream.

Year 6 had the opportunity to visit Mrs Hoy, head of Science, at Cardinal Allen for a chemistry lesson. The lesson focused on testing different types of metals and their reactions with hydrochloric acid.

Back in the classroom for the afternoon, Year 6 used their knowledge of the circulatory system and made their own blood - with sweets. We recapped on the components of blood, the function of each part, then made our own representation using honey for the plasma, Haribo strawberries for the red blood cells, white chocolate buttons for the white blood cells and rainbow drops for the platelets.

Sea Creature Artwork

Today, Tuesday 19th March, we were visited by an artist (sculptor) who worked with the children for half a day. The theme the sculptor worked around was 'The Rainbow Fish' by Marcus Pfister. Children made a range of 3D fish, shells and other sea creatures. The finished pieces will be fired locally and then returned to school for final painting and decoration. All of the pieces will then be used as a display to initiate the 'Fleetwood in Bloom' competition. We have been invited by Wyre Council to participate in this because of all the work we have done before. This was a great opportunity for the children to work with a practising artist, see a potter's wheel in action and be part of something in the community.

World Book Day 2019

Some of our children from Van Gogh Class during World Book day celebrated on Friday 8th March with our Mr Men and Little Miss theme, thinking about our aspirations.

Auschwitz Mind Maps

As part of our English unit on reading 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', the children created a mind map on information regarding Auschwitz and the events that occurred there with the Holocaust. The children were shocked by the information that was shared in the book and that they learnt from their research.

Ash Wednesday Mass

On Wednesday 6th March, as a school, we went to Ash Wednesday Mass at church and received ashes and communion. Year 6 children shared their readings and prayers with the congregation and everyone fully participated in Mass with hymns and responses.

Mardi Gras

Today in French we celebrated 'Mardi Gras'. This is what Shrove Tuesday is called in France. Although it is a great 'carneval' occasion, it is not the day that the French make pancakes: that day is known as 'La Chandeleur' (Candlemas) and it happens in February. The children talked about the similarities and differences of this Christian tradition which precedes Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.

Young Voices 2019 - MEN Arena

Some of our Year 6s attended the Young Voices 2019 at the MEN arena in Manchester on Tuesday 12th February, joining 6000 other children in singing together and listening to some famous singers too.

La Fête de Saint Valentin