The day the helicopter came to school

Today will forever be known as "the day the helicopter came to school". What an exciting event.
I saw an advert for Heli-wise some time ago, offering schools free visits by a helicopter. I immediately sent an email, half expected to be told that they were oversubscribed. But it didn't take long before I was given a date and a risk assessment was being carried out. Yesterday we spent some time arranging the 400+ children in the school into a formation ready for a photo to be taken from the air.

At 10.45am the helicopter arrived! It circled the school and took a photo of the children in their formation. Then there was intense excitement from the children and staff when it landed on the field. The co-pilot then gave a half hour talk to the children about the helicopter and how it works. They were enthralled - everyone from Reception to Year Six!

The children then had their class photos taken in front of the helicopter. There was great delight when it finally set off again. It circled the school, taking aerial photos before setting off for its next destination.

What a fantastic event!

Twitter

I have recently discovered Twitter - a microblogging service. This is a blogging website where only 140 characters can be used in each update. The Year Six Teacher Twitter page will include updates about Year Six news, views, information and lots of other random items too! Hope it's useful!

Could this be the best advert ever?

Awesome!

Pip Davenport on Facebook

After his 'guest appearance' on the English writing SATs last week, it seems that Pip Davenport is working hard on creating a bit of publicity for himself!

The 19th century fairground ride inventor was the subject of the biography the Year Six children were asked to write in the long writing paper. Now, somebody has created a Facebook page for him! Ironically, he has joined the "It's Time to Stop SATs" group!

His first friend was a certain Citronella Garnet, whose name is made up of two characters from the SATs reading paper!

Very funny!

Maths Test B

So that's it - all over!

I thought that Maths Test B was slightly easier than Test A. The questions were all do-able. I didn't like the way that the Peaches question was asked. The number of times I read this out to children was incredible. It was a shame that 'perpendicular' turned up. This is a word you tend to use just a few times over the year, but it was worth 1 mark in the SATs. Rotational symmetry appeared for the second year in a row. But no ratio, and no co-ordinates - this is rare!

Anyhow, now it's time to get on with all those things we've put off for a few months!

Maths Test A & Mental Arithmetic Test

I thought that Test A was quite fair really, with a range of questions on many different topics. It gets clearer each year that the test goes in order from Level 3 questions, then Level 4 and then Level 5. The children's exam technique has definitely improved by doing their best questions first (but isn't it sad that 11-year-olds can do this). It's a shame that my maths class this year are one of my weakest.

The mental arithmetic test was not too bad at all, in my opinion. How my children agreed!

Reading Test

After our delight with the choice of writing for yesterday's tests, we were brought right back down to earth today with what I thought was a difficult paper. Some very tricky questions

Reading Test

After our delight with the choice of writing for yesterday's tests, we were brought right back down to earth today with what I thought was a difficult paper. Some very tricky questions and a not very interesting topic. How dull was that story?! I felt sorry for our pupils who used an enlarged paper - it was in black and white!

Writing Tests

I was really pleased with these tests!
The Long Writing test was a biography - Pip Davenport! Blimey, isn't this one of the first times ever that the task is actually a genre of writing that is actually studied in Year Six?! After picking genres that no one could ever guess at - finally we get one that we've studied this year! Speaking to colleagues from other schools, it would appear that some children were concerned about historical accuracies - e.g. worrying about things like Pip using a mobile phone or something similar. However, I feel this should be outweighed by their understanding of skills from our study of this style of writing.

The Short Writing test was to write a page from a book for Year Six memories! Blimey - if the children didn't have something to write about for this then they never will!! However, I'm curious to know if, when the results are published, the markers will publish the children's thoughts about their most challenging moment - the SATs!

The spellings today didn't seem too bad. I'm sure we've had a few of these before.

Topicbox

Topicbox is a fabulous website run by teachers where all the web links have been sorted by topic. You can find online activities and resources for every curriculum subject and every aspect of that subject.