Shwmae everybody,
I hope everybody and their families are managing to keep safe as we enter the third week of the summer term working at home. We will be recognising the bank holiday on Friday of this week so you will not need to do any school work on Friday of this week.
Thank you to everyone for the hard work you have put in so far. I know there are circumstances that will make working difficult at home so I am really appreciative of the time and effort you are putting in to completing work at home.
Try to give yourself some structure for the week if you haven't as yet - remember I have submitted an example timetable for you to use or use parts of but if you have a system that is working for you and your family please do that.
Obviously things will change day to day at home for a variety of reasons but don't forget you are preparing yourselves for Year 7 so try to have some level of independence and take some initiative to do your work without parents having to ask you.
Yet I am realistic that you are still only in Year 6 and these are not normal circumstances so you will be relying on parents to guide you with your timing, which I am grateful for.
I would like to thank all parents for the support you have given to your children in encouraging them to keep working at home, I really appreciate your support.
Online support - remember to communicate with me if you are experience difficulty in any area.
Even though I am submitting the answers for the maths problems - if you would like to go through how to do something pleas try messaging someone in your working group and if you can't get help post it on the TEAMs and I will be happy to go through it with you.
J2E and sharing work
What to upload? - Photos: lots have people have uploaded photos of your STEM work which is great. Others have uploaded photos of work on the maths questions or literacy comprehension work. Thank you for taking the time and effort to do this but it I do not expect you to do that in addition to the digital work we are completing. As I am sharing the answers I am relying on you to work through these and mark on your own or with a parent. I am happy for you to communicate a digital log if you like to say what you have done but again this is not compulsory.
Ideally, just use J2E to store your digital written tasks done on Office 365 - word / PPT or if using the J2Office apps (the equivalent of Word and PPT that will save straight) to the docs.
Do you need to share work with me? If you upload it to J2E then no, as I can see your files straight away and I will be checking and trying to communicate with you. If you are still unsure how to upload a document to J2E whether using a laptop / PC or a tablet / i-Pad please let me know.
Do you need to share all of your work with your learning group? - No - only unless we've specified it in the instructions.
Peer assessment - some of you may have seen the threads on TEAMs this week about peer comments on the learning conversations. Unfortunately, as we suspected, I have had confirmation from HWB support that only the learner who has posted a comment and I can see any comments written - which is why those who have commented on a peers work are just seeing ..... - what I am doing is copying and pasting the comments for now so that you can see what your team have commented.
But from now we will need to think of another way of completing peer assessment - most likely we just create a peer assessment group document that you can comment on when you need to.
However, for the most current piece of writing - Reviewing Swallows and Amazons - just self-assess your own writing before I comment on it please. If you have already shared your writing with peers that is fine or if you would like to share it with them to compare what they thought of the film then that is fine
*Please communicate with me if you are having any difficulty with completing digital tasks (for what ever reason) and I will do my best to support you. Don't forget to touch base with your new home learning groups for support as well, as your peers might be able to help you with a query if they've managed to do it themselves.
Maths - As we have a shorter week this week I won't upload any additional test questions, there will just be some work to do on area and volume - I will be posting instructions in the TEAMs folder tomorrow.
I will add answers for last weeks questions tomorrow morning - if you still need to finish off any do those first then check them.
Language:
Spellings - as I mentioned last week try and get back into a routine with your spellings (lists are in TEAMS)
Writing - just to finish your review of Swallows and Amazons if you haven't done so already. As an additional task you can post a review on intofilm on our club page (or review another film if you want to)
Oracy task - I will provide some more details / resources to support you with what I would like you to do for the oracy review task. But - it doesn't have to be about Swallows and Amazons - it could be the first film you reviewed if you wish or / it could be about another film of your choice.
Comprehension task - I will be uploading another reading task and questions - this week it will be about Caves and Caving!
Quiz - thanks to all those who joined in with the quiz last Friday - even though it wasn't live I think it seemed to work well and I enjoyed the interaction between you all on TEAMs.
I did mention last week about having two quizzes but as we have the bank holiday on Friday we will just go with the one quiz, which Harry, Regan and Tom have kindly volunteered to lead. This will be on Tuesday afternoon at 1.30pm - the same format as last Friday - the boys will share the questions with me and then I will share them with everyone that afternoon so hopefully some more people can join in as well.
Emily, Isabelle and Saffy have agreed to do the 3rd quiz (which was going to be Friday) but we will save it until after next week.
If you and your team would like to lead the 4th quiz speak to each other and let me know that you would like to do it.
Topic, Welsh and science task - I will choose an idea from the topic list of ideas for you to do next week and will add details of the Welsh - I will add some resources that will help you to prepare your profile about you!
Science challenge - I am going to set you one of the engineering challenges - number 3 Spaghetti bridges (pg 52) - so you will need to source some normal spaghetti and some rubber bands.
This challenge will be over two weeks so if you don't have time / any spaghetti at home this week you can have a go next week. If you do have a go take some photos for your J2Efolder.
Here is a video to go along with the instruction card:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9U6lyoIqg
Tomorrow - the first thing I will upload in the Week 2 resource folder will be the maths answers and the reading comprehension answers (Golden Dreams) and will then upload the new resources later in the day.
I have a meeting in the morning with Mrs Harries but will join in on TEAMS when I have finished.
Diolch everyone,
Mr Ball
