Today was a very special day in Smalley sporting history! Our successful cricket team represented the Amber Valley borough at the County finals at Belper Meadows. Seven teams from all over Derbyshire attended the event and the standard was very good.
having lost our first game, we went on to win the next two and in the 3/4th playoff, we conquered again, which resulted with us taking 3rd place in all the primary schools in Derbyshire.  A fantastic attitude, alongside great teamwork and cricket skills throughout has been the key to their success. Thankyou to those who came along to support, very much appreciated. 

After school this evening, a team of our Year 6 children attended the Heanor Cluster of the cricket rounds at Langley Mill United cricket club. Split into groups, we were successful in all our matches and went on to win the round overall. Some great bowling, fantastic fielding and excellent batting ensured a place in the finals next week at Denby Cricket Club. Despite a late finish, the children left with happy smiles all round. 

Summer 2 - week 2

This week year 6 have started looking at a new text in our reading lessons - The Nowhere Emporium. This book is fantastic for those who liked Harry Potter, and presents plenty of mystery and intrigue even if you didn't!

We have also begun to practice for our sports day event next week - rapidly approaching!

Several of our children attended an AVSSP golf competition at Ormonde Fields golf club this week. In two teams of two girls/boys, they each played a short course of 9 holes in pairs. Out of 13 teams, we finished in 3rd and 7th place respectively. Despite the changing weather conditions, everyone had great fun and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Well done to our budding golfers! 

Welcome back to the final half term of the year!
Our learning this half term is based around the global theme Social Justice, Identity and Diversity.
We will continue with our geography topic: ‘Where in North and South America would you choose to settle?’
We will continue to use our text, ‘The Arrival,’ to lead our learning and to inspire our English lessons where we will be writing a story opening. We will then use a modern version of ‘Goldilocks’ to turn the light-hearted fairy tale into a formal newspaper report.
A massive well done is in order for everyone who worked so well during our SATs week. Our main focus now shifts to continuing to make progress in our writing, deepening our wider curriculum learning (such as geography) and preparing for year 7!

SATs Week

Well done to everyone for such a great effort during their exams. The week has been a long time coming, but all of your hard work this year has paid off. Hopefully, everyone feels proud of their work and is happy come results day. Year 6 will be enjoying a chilled day for the rest of Thursday, with party games and fun to come on Friday (before returning to some normality next week!). 

Well done again to everyone! 

SATs

With the year 6 SATs fast approaching, I wanted to share with you the timetable for the week ahead. We want to encourage children to do their best, but also to know that they are only trying to improve themselves, and not to compare to anyone else. 

We'll look forward to seeing as many people as possible for breakfast and yoga on Monday morning. Have a chilled weekend!

Please scroll down for various slideshows of the week’s activities:

Boreatton Park has been our home for the last few days and the whole team has enjoyed our time there, despite the weather. Lots of challenges faced and conquered, memories made along with fun, tears and laughter. Thank you, it’s been a blast! 

Our Year 5/6 children took part in a tournament at Ripley Academy this week. With over 10 teams taking part, they played several rounds of singles games and both teams improved massively throughout. The final results showed that we we had not only taken first place but the runners up place too. Fabulous team spirit and excellent sportsmanship from everyone, the Smalley winning streak continues! Well done to all our children.

World book week! (Spring 2, week 2)

This week we have had a big focus on reading. In year 6 we were lucky enough to spend some time with our buddies in the reception class to promote a love for stories and reading. Children have been decorating plates in a 'guess the book' style, which has been interesting to see and decipher the clues!

Hot chocolate! (Spring 2, week 1)

Inline with our Maya topic, the year 6 class have been learning about how the Maya have influenced the modern world. As one of the first civilisations to use cacao beans, it only seemed right that we try some ourselves!

Mount Everest (spring 1, week 5)

This week we have been finalising our topic on mountains and, in particular, on mount Everest. We have combined our geography and writing topics to create newspaper reports about the challenges facing Everest in the modern world, including climate change and tourism. We also learnt about the great explorers who have faced the worlds tallest mountain and survived!

Some of our Year 6 children attended the Amber Valley Heanor Cluster Dodgeball tournament this week at William Gregg Leisure Centre. Playing in mini leagues, we successfully went through to the final stages winning the tournament overall by beating local team, William Howitt. The children were outstanding and did the school and themselves proud. Well done to all! 

Police visit! (Spring 1 - week 3)

This week year 6 had a visit from the local police. The support given from the local team has been fantastic. This visit had the children exploring their decision making and consequences, linking back to our previous topic on knife crime.

Last week before Christmas!

This week we have been finishing off some units of learning, and decided to finish our DT topic off with a bit of cooking! We had a look at a 1940 era recipe to tie in with our WW2 topic and rationing. The children all worked in small groups to prepare a pear crumble which they could take home to bake. I hope these were okay in the taste test!

Today, we have been enjoying making and playing our own board games in class, having a math themed escape room activity, and watching Christmas films. 

All of the year 6 staff wish you a very merry Christmas.

Christmas build up! 4/12/23

This week has seen us decorating the school ready for Christmas! The class have taken a little time out to get creative with some Christmas card making. Our stories and reading have been following a Christmas theme, and we're getting ready to see the fabulous nativity performed by the KS1 classes next week.

In maths we will shortly move onto looking at measurements as we approach the end of our unit of fractions. English continues to follow the theme set out by our text, Letters from the Lighthouse. We have learnt about the life of evacuee children during the WW2 period, and will soon be writing a letter from an evacuee as an independent piece.

SATs Practice Week! 27/11/23

This week we have been testing ourselves with some practice SATs papers. This has been a great opportunity to find out what it could be like when we do the real thing, and hopefully settle some nerves about the experience. It also gives us opportunities to see where any gaps in knowledge may be and adapt teaching to suit the needs of the class.

This year’s Gregg Cup journey started last Thursday 9th November with a semi-final game against local school, Mundy Juniors, at the Heanor Town ground. After a very good start, we conceded two goals before pulling one back from a penalty. We equalised only to find the goal disallowed by an offside decision. Our heads dropped as we conceded two more goals , finishing 4-1. Congratulations to Mundy ,who went on to meet Loscoe Primary in the final. Well done to the team who represented school impeccably and showed great camaraderie and passion throughout.  

Prior to the Gregg Cup final, we were delighted to take part in the Penalty King competition against the other teams who entered this year. Each taking three penalties in turn against the keeper, our player was awarded the title, having been the only one to score two from his three kicks. Well done and congratulations, you did us extremely proud! 

Remembrance Day 10/11/23

Today year 6 took the lead in the school service for Remembrance Day 2023. They put in their best efforts in singing, acting, and reading to our audience of guests before leading them to the war memorial for our two minute silence.

All of the children performed fabulously, and we couldn't be more proud of them for this. Lest we forget.

Autumn 2 6/11/23

Welcome back to Autumn 2! I can’t believe how fast time has gone by, as the pumpkin decorations have come down and we now look towards Remembrance, Children in Need and Christmas! 

Everyone has settled into their new class brilliantly and new routines, roles and expectations are becoming much more embedded into every day. As we build on these, we will look to increase the children’s independence by giving them chance to follow some routines without guidance. As the weather turns colder and wetter, please make sure that everyone comes in with a suitable coat. We are keen that children are able to be outside during their break time. 

Cromford Mills Trip

Today we visited Cromford Mills for our school trip. It was a great day, despite the heavy rain, that really brought our 'heritage' theme to life. We had been reading Oliver Twist in school, and learning about child workers during the Industrial Revolution. Children had chance to see, first hand, the types of jobs that children would do, the technology of the era, and even dress up and have a go!

Eventually the rain meant we had to come back to school, earlier than planned. However, we all enjoyed the day all the same!

Autumn 1 - Week 6 (12/10/23)

Today the year 6 class had a bit of a different morning! Our local police came to chat with the class and do some work around county lines issues. Keeping children informed and aware of how to keep themselves safe, as well as provide an interesting change from normal routine.

This week sees us finish off our topic on Oliver Twist as the children complete an independent write. They have been enjoying a Friday treat of watching some of the musical film, bringing the text to life!

Autumn 1 - Week 5

Individual photographs - Monday 9th October.

This coming Monday (9.10.23) the photographer will be in school to take our individual photographs. Please do not send children in their PE kit on this day. They will need to bring their PE kit separately, so that they can get changed later on.

Class Dojo!

The class have been enjoying earning Dojo points, and I have asked the school council to come up with a list of possible rewards that their peers can spend them on. We will be working towards a class target and individual targets for achievements. 

Topics

This last week has seen us start our history topic around the industrial revolution, with a particular focus on child workers in mills and factories. In computing, children researched different countries and practiced working together to create presentations that they delivered to the whole class. 

We have started looking at the character of Fagin in Oliver Twist, and exploring the writing and the film adaptions as we build up to our big write.

We are looking forward to exploring John Flamsteed Community School later today for another experience of life in secondary education (and a bit of fun!).

Mr Channing

Autumn 1 - Week 3

This week we can see class 6 settling into their new routines and embedding their learning behaviours. We have started our core topics with a focus on Victorian era history through our text of Oliver Twist. The children have enjoyed unpicking the characters and watching some clips from the musical. 

This week we will visit Heanor Gate secondary school on Friday 22nd September (please see the attached letter). The children will get a first hand experience of life in a secondary school, where they will meet teachers, try some lessons and experience assembly. Exciting!

Mr Channing

-  Year 6 teacher