P6 had a great time visiting the Parliament buildings at Stormont!
 

We were able to share the experience with our friends at Brownlee Primary as part of shared education! 😁 

Wednesday 14th October

See decimal subtraction sheet from last Wednesday.

Welcome letter for P6 parents 2020/21

Hi everybody,

This is a bit of a long read but please have a look at it - it just outlines some of the things I will be putting in place to address the issues we will be facing on our return.

Thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly

---------------------End of school year--------------------

VERY IMPORTANT INFO FOR NEXT YEAR:

29/06/2020

Good morning everybody,

Mr Anderson has put a document on the school website detailing the plans for restarting school in August which I have uploaded here for you to see. There are big changes to lunch times, homework policies and other areas of school life but the biggest news for you is that P7 pupils will be in school every day - full days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday, with Wednesday being a half day to allow for deep cleaning of the classrooms and learning areas. As our classrooms are too small to allow all pupils to fit in with the 1 metre distancing requirements, half of the class will be taught by Mr Weatherall and the other half will be taught by another teacher - not me, unfortunately. I'm sure Mr Anderson will let you know when he has someone lined up for the job.

The second document I have uploaded here is the groupings for the restart. As far as I know, it hasn't been decided yet which teacher is taking which group, so this is just for the kids to see which of their classmates they will be with. 

Lots of changes and new information and it could change again before we actually get everybody back. If you have any questions about all of this let me know and I will try my best to answer them.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly

Week 11 - Wednesday

Please see weekly explanation sheet for links to today's activities.

Week 10 - Tuesday

Please see explanation sheet for links to today's activities.

Week 9 - Wednesday

Please see explanation sheet for links to today's activities.

Week 7 - Tuesday

Please see explanation sheet for links to today's activities.

Dublin Trip November 2019

Thought it might be nice to look back at some of the photos from our Dublin trip in November. I couldn't get access to all of the photos but I hope everybody is in at least one of these.

Week 4 - Wednesday

Please see explanation sheet for links to today's activities.

Maths Revision

28/04/2020

Good morning everybody, I have uploaded some documents below to help with Maths learning. Every year we would normally have these printed out for the pupils to take home and revise over the summer. There aren't any activities to do but they are very useful for revision and cover all the main topics for P6 and also a lot of the knowledge they will need for P7. If you have any spare time in your day, it will be helpful to take a look at these booklets (even five minutes a day will make a big difference over the next few months).

Take care,

Mr K. Donnelly.

Week 4 and BBC Daily Lessons

Good morning,

From this week, we are going to start making use of the lessons and resources the BBC is providing. In each lesson, there are videos to help with understanding and activities to complete. The ones I have looked at so far look really good and I think they will be nicer to do than loads of worksheets. The links to each particular lesson will be in the explanation sheet for each week from now on.

Thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly.

This is a document which outlines the process for registering your child for the AQE transfer tests in P7. Registration does not open until Wednesday 29th April but all the information should be in there to tell you how to do it when it opens. It's going to be a completely online process this year, no postal option.

Have a good weekend everybody.

BBC Bitesize

From today, BBC Bitesize are offering great daily lesson resources which cover a lot of the topics we would have been doing in class. They seem to be very high quality and will be really useful to look at for help and extra activities. It seems to be based on the English curriculum, so our topics will be spread out over P5, P6 and P7, there might even be some useful stuff under P4. The link to the webpage is below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/dailylessons

Important Information: Friday 3^rd April is the last day I can be contacted by email. For data protection reasons, all communication must be via Seesaw after this date. If you are not already signed up for Seesaw, please contact me urgently at kdonnelly2351@gmail.com.

Note on Transfer Test Preparation

02/04/2020

Just to keep you all informed, I am trying to put things in place to keep our transfer preparation as close to what we would be doing in school as possible. However, in school, every preparation activity would be completed under simulated test conditions, within a structured environment allowing timely feedback and, ultimately, using group learning to overcome challenges. Obviously it will be mostly impossible to recreate these conditions with our current situation. Having spoken to a number of colleagues in different schools, I would say this is an obstacle that every P6 transfer pupil in NI is facing, so, rest assured, we are in the same boat as every class and every child we will be competing with if and when the test goes ahead.

We are currently in the process of digitising our bank of transfer preparation materials so that we can upload them for you to access remotely and we are also in the process of acquiring new materials to assist you and your child at home. We are hopeful these materials will be ready to be uploaded after Easter. Please note: these materials have to be paid for by the school; they are licensed materials and we will not be allowed to post them on the website for open access. I will only be able to send you a private link to access them and this will be done via Seesaw. If you have not made contact with me for a Seesaw code yet, and you will want to access our transfer preparation materials, you must send me a message urgently to kdonnelly2351@gmail.com. For data protection reasons, I will not be using the above email address after Friday 3^rd April. It is vital you contact me before then, if you are not already registered for Seesaw, as my only point of contact after that will be through Seesaw.

I know how supportive you all are of your children and this is going to be a big challenge to try and prepare them for what is a very difficult test - even under normal circumstances. In addition to the practice papers we are preparing for upload, I have been able to source a lot of material to help with understanding the questions which will come up on the test and this will be available on our website after Easter. As you know, I will be available to contact via the Seesaw app where I will try my best to work through and explain the difficult concepts that will come up on the test.

It will be important not to apply undue pressure during this time when we are all under a lot of stress and may well have family members or close friends directly affected by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. We will get the resources to you and make the best use of them we can, following our normal school timelines. We would not have been doing any prep or work over our Easter holidays so I hope everyone can relax as much as possible and enjoy this time with their families. Have a great Easter and stay safe.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly.

Cinemagic Films

Since the cinemas are all closed, here is a link to view the films we made with Cinemagic in February. They are very good and I think everybody had a great time writing, directing, acting and filming.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ElzUnHS5v-d40_bgTi12PU_LW_kX7AOr?usp=sharing

Communication Reminder

27/03/2020

Good morning, I hope everybody is keeping well. Just a reminder, if you haven't already done so, to send me a quick message to kdonnelly2351@gmail.com so that I can send you your child's code for SeeSaw. This is very important as, after today, the only way you will be able to contact me will be via the SeeSaw app. This will be especially important for those of you wishing to prepare your child for the transfer test in November as the preparation materials I will be posting will be difficult and they could well need extra support with them.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly

Very Important Update

23/03/2020

Sorry for all the updates today but this is an extremely important one. I will be trialling the Seesaw family communication feature this week. Anyone who has received a code for their child will soon receive an email from Seesaw with a code to enable you to contact me on the app. I am intending to have this all ironed out by Friday. If it all goes to plan, I will be deactivating the temporary Gmail account then. This means it is very important that you contact me to connect you to Seesaw before Friday 27^th March.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly

Level of work and learning tasks

23/03/2020

At this time, more than ever, I don’t wish to cause any undue stress around learning. As with every class, we have a range of different current ability levels represented. Please remember that a number of our pupils would have been given extra help and support throughout the school day to understand the P6 curriculum – which is incredibly extensive as we also have to cover a lot of P7 topics for the transfer test. Without this help they may find it difficult. If, at any point, you find that the tasks posted here are causing too much stress, do not feel under pressure to complete everything. The activities posted on Seesaw will be much more open-ended and accessible for all and hopefully more enjoyable to complete.

At some point in the near future, the material posted here will be solely for those wishing to prepare for the transfer test in November and material for all other pupils will be via Seesaw.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly

Seesaw & Reading Update

Just a quick note: could everybody please make sure it is the Seesaw Class app they have installed and not the Parent & Family version, otherwise the code I give you may not work. Could anyone who is interested get in contact by this Wednesday so I can get you added in?

As you know, it will be very important to keep up with reading over this period. For anybody who is running low on books to read, I would recommend signing up to NI Libraries online where you can get access to e-books for free. See link below:

https://www.librariesni.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx

Learning from Home Initial Plans

23/03/2020

Good morning,

Hopefully everyone is keeping well. Thank you to everyone who has emailed me so far about their individual code for SeeSaw – I will be replying to you all this morning. If you have not already done so, could you send a quick message to kdonnelly2351@gmail.com with your name and your child’s name as I will be supplementing the activities posted here with activities on SeeSaw starting this week. See post from 20/03/2020 for more details.

I’m still trying to figure out the best way for all this to work but, at the minute, I’m thinking I will post a plan for the week every Monday and then post the necessary activity sheets daily throughout the week. I think this will help to keep the work in manageable amounts for the class.

I will include an explanation sheet with the activities. Some of these tasks will just be revising things we have already done in class so won’t need a lot of explanation; others will be brand new and will need a lot. As always, feel free to use Google to help or contact me at the above email address. As I can only reply to one person at a time, I may not be able to get back to you immediately but I will try to reply as quickly as possible.

For this week, I have dipped into the Work from Home pack. I don’t know how much of this will have been done already but it is important, especially for the Maths topics, that it is done in the right order to allow pupils to understand the topics that will follow. If you have already done some of the tasks, just complete anything you haven’t done and check SeeSaw for extension tasks.

I think we’re on Week 18 for spellings. Somebody please correct me via email if this is wrong.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly.

Communications and SeeSaw trial

20/03/2020

Good afternoon,

From what I understand, some other classes in the school have set up SeeSaw for learning assignments and activities which can be done at home on tablets, laptops or phones. To register for this, each child will need an individual code, which will allow them to join our class on SeeSaw. Could I ask anyone who is interested in trying this out to send me a quick message to kdonnelly2351@gmail.com and I will reply with your child’s unique code. Because of GDPR, could you please include your full name and your child’s name and I will assume that you are happy for me to send the code via email.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly.

School Closure Work From Home Arrangements for P6

19/03/2020

Dear P6 parents and pupils,

Hopefully by now you have received a note from the school outlining the arrangements put in place to help us keep things working as well as possible while all this is going on. I will be posting regular updates to this webpage so please check back often for updated learning materials. I will try to make sure everything I post has answer sheets included so that you can go through and correct it yourselves at home. Most of the focus will be on Maths and English but I will try to add some Science/History/Geography in as well. I’ll not attempt any Art - your ideas will be much better than mine. I will also post links to websites which will be helpful.

For those of you thinking about the transfer test, I have digital versions of some of our practice papers which I will post on the days/weeks we would normally be doing them in school. I will also post an answer sheet and try to explain the difficult questions as best I can. Any resources you can access online will be very useful. I know we spoke at the parent meetings about websites you can use – try https://www.thetransfertest.com/ for more info.

Please see the Work From Home post below, there should be enough in there for 2 weeks and it is based on the work we would have been covering in class. Apologies, some of the sheets did not scan very well, skip them if they’re too difficult to make out.

Please be aware that almost everything posted here will be new topics which would have been explained and taught (very well) in class and understanding it may not come easily at first. This situation is not ideal but get as much practice as you can, use all the online resources and websites you can access and, most importantly, make sure you stay safe.

Many thanks,

Mr K. Donnelly

Work From Home

Please see the accompanying letter regarding this work.

World Book Day

Pancake Tuesday

Aladdin Arts & Crafts

SERC Science Fair

Just before our February mid-term break, we made the trek to SERC Lisburn and donned our lab coats to take part in their 'To Infinity And Beyond' event for NI Science Week. We learned all about the importance of heat shields on rockets and got to test our own propulsion systems using vinegar, baking soda, water bottles, and a lot of space.

Time Games

We discovered that telling the time can be fun. Some of us may even have learnt something along the way.

Shared Report Writing

Combining our WAU topic of Vikings and our writing focus on report writing, we got together in groups to create shared reports on Viking weapons. There were a lot of gruesome facts involving axes, swords and spears and how the Vikings used them to attack their enemies.

Our Waste Our World

Also in November, we visited the Island Centre to learn all about recycling and sustainable development at the Our Waste Our World show. We learned about how long it takes for some common household items to decompose and thought about some ways we could reduce the amount of waste we produce.

DELAMONT

In November, we visited Delamont Outdoor Activity Centre, just outside Downpatrick. While we were there, we took part in an adventure walk, a creepy night line, an archery competition and wall climbing. We also had a campfire where we roasted marshmallows. 

Viking Houses

Well done to everyone for the amazing work they put in to building their model Viking houses. We were able to create a model Viking village in the assembly hall with all of our designs. Special thanks to Gary and Mrs Wells for cleaning up all the excess straw, grass, etc.