Latest Learning 2025-2026

19.06.26 - Doctor Bike!

 

Will the fun ever stop for Year 6? 

It appears not! This week and last, Dr Bike have been into school teaching children how to fix and maintain their own bike. This week taking groups of children with our very own Ms. Holmes overseeing, around the local area to improve proficiency and road safety awareness. They have had a fantastic time doing it. We really recommend cycling as a way of staying fit and healthy and a good way to travel to and from school.

 

12.06.26 - Nell Bank!

This week our Year 6 pupils went on a residential to Nell Bank in Ilkley. Unfortunately, the weather was extremely wet, however, we did not let that ruin our fun! We had numerous adventures, including a hike and team building activities. The children developed their independence, resilience and collaboration learning cogs throughout the experience! A huge thank you to the staff that supported this experience for our pupils.

22.05.26 - Writing!

As we are writing a narrative setting in English this week, we have immersed ourselves in the sights, sounds and smells of the Arabian Bazaar. We have enjoyed role-play, being both customers and traders, imagining how we would sell our products. We have used figurative language to describe every aspect of a day in the market place - watch this space for some good examples!

 

15.05.26 -Chess Club!

Year 5 and 6 have been invited to learn chess during their lunch hour. As a busy, inner-city school we have a lot of children on the playground and we wanted to cater for everyone's tastes. They can go out and exercise and then come back to join us for some quiet, focused fun with a friend or find new friends to play with. 

It has been a growing success, beginning with 1 or 2 children and now about 15 children are enjoying learning strategy, turn-taking, dealing with winning and losing in a safe, supportive environment. The goal is to teach explicitly the social skills needed to become confident, co-operative and social young people.

Chess has been proven to:

• Improves Memory and Cognition: Regular play enhances visual memory and overall cognitive abilities.

• Boosts Strategic Planning: It trains the brain in decision-making, requiring players to anticipate consequences and plan moves ahead.

• Increases Focus and Concentration: Chess demands deep concentration, helping players manage distractions and develop patience.

01.05.26 - Reading!

With SAT’s fast approaching, the children have been consolidating their skills in reading, whilst we still focus on enjoyment of a text across the day, reading from 1001 Arabian Nights and learning the story of Scheherazade, who prevented her imminent death through the sheer power of ‘telling a good story’. The links to the cultural heritage of some of our children, the images of the bazaar, the villages in the desert conjure memories and family conversations of holidays, childhoods and photographs from the past. 

We have been reminding ourselves of how in fiction, the story mountain helps us to quickly understand a text: who are the characters, where is it set, what is the problem. Then deepening our understanding of the text, by discussing how the author creates impressions of character and atmosphere and quickly finding evidence in the text to support our answers.

 

24.04.26 - House Points Launch Week!

We are back after the Easter Break with a refreshed outlook on team spirit throughout upper Key Stage 2 with the launch of House Points with teams of local hero’s: Arthur France, Nicola Adams, Jason Pitter and Gertrude Paul. These are all famous people from Leeds and very local to where we live. They have made significant differences to the lives of people in our community. We have started this first week by litter-picking at lunchtimes and the children have really enjoyed working together to look after our school and co-operate with each other.

 

27.03.26 - PSHE!

 

PHSE: I know who my trusted adult is

We had a wonderful workshop with Crossing the Line - a drama performance that showed a young boy's problems with gangs in his hometown and the effects on his relationships with his mum, dad and brother. We all watched intently as the brilliant actor played the character of Adil, and through a 20 minute monologue, expressed all his decisions, his reasons, his life before and after getting involved with the wrong kind of people. Afterwards, we discussed the story in great detail in small groups.

• Who could Adil have told? 

• Who were Adil’s trusted adults? 

• How could Adil make a change to his life now?

The children are very aware of the dangers of becoming friends with older boys/ girls / men / women and that it if it feels wrong, it probably is. 

Here is a little bit of information about the director Parvez Qadir:

Director: Parvez Qadir

"Parvez Qadir has worked as a professional actor for more than 15 years, and was involved in a Bafta award winning Drama series ‘The Cops’ which honed his skills in film, TV and stagecraft. Born and raised in Rochdale, and from a South Asian heritage, he strives to create ambitious work in the the heart of the community to elevate marginalised voices through co-creation “

13.03.26 - Literacy!

 

Embedding foundational skills in our writing has been a focus for Year 6 this year ready for high school. Handwriting, punctuation and using a wide vocabulary in all our writing is the goal, taking pride in our presentation as well. 

For our greater depth writers we want them to select the appropriate form for themselves and show that they can apply their writing skills through a range of genres. 

Our audience for these finished pieces of non-chronological reports about the local history of our area are those who may have lived here for years and not realised what is on their doorstep as well as visitors to the area.  

We are making copies of our work and taking them to the Reginald Centre Library on Chapeltown Road so that they can be accessed by all.

 

06.03.26 - Literacy!

This week in writing, Year 6 have been working on a new project about the local area. Writing a non-chronological report about Harehills, Chapeltown or Chapel Allerton. All of our children have learnt something new about the rich history of our local area: be it the history of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the first Gurdwara in Leeds on Chapeltown Road or the building of our own modern school!

Our writing was preceded by The Windrush Child - where the children had to write about two characters in Benjamin Zephaniah’s novel Leonard and Mark. They re-imagined the conversation between them that took place when Leonard challenged Mark’s ignorant and racist views of immigrants. 

As a school and a community, we welcome people from all over the world and this is reflected in the long history of welcoming immigrants into Harehills. The children wrote passionately and proved that our rule of ‘choosing our words carefully’ most certainly is a ‘Rule for Life.’

 

 

27.02.26 - RE!

The pupils in year 6 are currently learning about Buddhism in Religious Education as part of the Belonging and Believing Syllabus. The Spring  topic is: How do Buddhists live a meaningful life? This week, the year 6 children have visited Kadampa Meditation Centre in

Leeds to get a real insight into Buddhism. This aligns with our RE Curriculum – learning beyond the classroom and our enrichment opportunities in school. Our aim is to bring pupils’ learning to life and allow them to enhance their knowledge of Buddhism and its practices as part of a wider understanding of different cultures within our community.

 

06.02.26 - Science!

This week Year 6 have been building on their knowledge of classification which they began in Year 1. Sorting animals into groups has grown into learning the skills needed to analyse the similarities and differences between organisms and organise them with a classification key sometimes known as a branching key. 

The children have immersed themselves in their learning around animals and their habitats. This week our knowledge of Carl Linneaus’ work, our knowledge of the 5 kingdoms and microorganisms culminated in being able to create questions for a classification chart. We needed to first know what an invertebrate and a vertebrate were and then be able to turn those features into questions. Furthermore, choose the appropriate question that separates two organisms. 

As you can see the children have been able to discuss their questions to create shared work and are also learning to disagree with each other whilst providing evidence.

 

30.01.26  French!

Our French lessons at Bankside are delivered by the expert Ms Lamprey. Our topic this week is animals! After looking at the vocabulary and masculine/feminine nouns, the children then used their previous knowledge of adjectives to write sentences about the animals that they like. We use a lot of oral rehearsal together before the writing process and the children are enthusiastic and proud of their ability to speak French!

Learning languages is something Bankside children are excellent at, at our school we celebrate the variety of languages that children speak and they bring a lot of knowledge and expertise to this lesson.

23.01.26 - PE!

Play on! The rain didn’t dampen our spirits in Year 6 this week! The children are focusing on the physical cog this half term which focuses on performing moves with good body tension and linking actions together so they can flow, for those who perform well they can focus on improved fluidity of movement and meet the pink challenges. The children practice the skills through fun interactive games and build towards learning the game jumpball where the goal is to knock the opponent's balls off the cone before the opposing team. Tactics and strategies are explicitly taught and time for practice, social interaction are part of the lesson, where a spirit of fair play is rewarded.

 

16.01.26 - History!

As Bankside historians, the children have been analysing census’ records from the local area beginning after World War 2 ended. We are discovering how immigration has shaped our local area and culture, learning that many countries from the Commonwealth were called upon to help Britain rebuild after WW2. We have looked at the same house in Harehills over the decades and using research have discovered the shape and movement of immigration in our community. Many people from Caribbean countries arrived as part of the Windrush Generation on steam boats to the docks of cold, dark England and worked rebuilding and transforming the country after years of war. We are bringing the history to life through our writing as we read The Windrush Child, and get to know the character of Leonard and his first-hand experience of England in the 1970s, a place where discrimination lurked around every corner - forcing us to consider what has changed for us today?

 

 

09.01.26 - Welcome Back!

Welcome back to all the children, a chilly, icy start but bright blue skies! This week we have settled in with reminders to all children in PSHE lessons that their mental health is important to us, and we will give them tools to understand what a healthy mind feels like and when to ask for help. There are many changes for Year 6 in the coming year and utilising their natural-born resilience that they all have inside of them already, will help them to cope with challenges ahead. Talking to each other and realising that others feel similarly is useful too. Taking time to get to know each other and time to be creative away from devices and distractions is something Bankside would like to embed in our children. This week, as Ms Reid got to know her new class, they painted and created together.

 

 

12.12.25 - Literacy!

Year 6 have just finished writing the most brilliantly imaginative portal stories! We were inspired by other books, including Leon and the Place Between, to write about a magical land. We spent a lot of time working on using expanded noun phrases and figurative language to make our descriptions as rich and evocative as possible, before carefully planning our stories following the conventions of portal stories. After some careful editing (being sure to check our tenses), we are really pleased with the finished pieces.

05.12.25 - Maths!

It’s been a big month of fractions for Year 6 and we have been blown away by how much they have learned in a short time. With growing confidence, they can now tackle fraction problems involving all four operations, and some of us have even begun to apply our mathematical skills to solving a range of reasoning problems. As you can see, our children take great pride in the presentation of their work and they know how important it is to work tidily and systematically in order to avoid (and notice) mistakes. Well done, Year 6.

 

28.11.25 - Reading!

We love reading in Violet Base. As well as teaching our children how to become really effective readers through activities like vocabulary studies and text annotations, we are encouraging them to develop their own preferences. Some of the ways we do this are by asking children for reviews and recommendations for their classmates, and by inviting children to choose a ‘lucky dip’ book based on only a few clues about the themes in the book. We talk to our children about their likes and dislikes so that they know what to look out for in a bookshop or library, and they can also be adventurous by trying out something new! We know how important it is to be familiar with a wide range of genres and make sure that our reading curriculum introduces the children to as many different styles and authors as possible.

21.11.25 - Computing!

This week, the children have used their Computing lessons to develop their typing and word processing skills. They worked together to plan a Powerpoint in which they presented information in bullet points, prose and through captions with diagrams. They explored different formats and layouts and learned that (often) less is more when it comes to presenting information to an audience! We were really impressed with the work they have been creating and can't wait to see them present it to us next week.

 

07.11.25 - Into University!

Year 6 have had a very busy and exciting week with IntoUniversity. The focus of the week was on the Creative Arts, so we had a brilliant trip to Leeds Art Gallery where we enjoyed learning about the art and artists on display there, before taking part in a sculpture workshop. The children couldn't believe that you can make art out of anything at all, and really enjoyed getting creative and working together to build their own sculptures out of all sorts of materials.

As always, the intent of the IntoUniversity week is to raise our children's aspirations and teach them about different career paths. One of their favourite activities was exploring different university prospectuses and racing each other to find a subject for each letter of the alphabet. They were blown away by the variety of courses! It was so exciting to see them enthused when discussing their plans for the future.

24.10.25- History!

Year 6 have learned so much about World War 2 this half term - the children have been fascinated! We have learned abotu the events that led to the declaration of War and discussed at length whether appeasement was an effective political decision. Then, we learned what life was like for Britons at home during the war - how they rationed food and kept themselves safe during the Blitz. It was particularly interesting to compare how Leeds and London were affected by bombings. The children can talk really confidently about the role of propaganda during the war; they are developing really impressive Historian skills! Our topic culminated in a visit from a WW2 expert from Murton Park. He brought along lots of brilliant artefacts for the children to explore, and was so impressed by how much the children have learned.

17.10.25 - PSHE!

This week, Year 6 took part in an online workshop about the British Values. We discuss these every week during assemblies but the workshop was a really interesting opportunity which prompted lots of discussion! We thought hard about why it is important to have these values and considered what life in Britain would be like without them. We were particularly passionate about the rule of democracy as we all agreed how important it is to have our voices heard. Next week, we are going to create a display about everything we've learned about British Values so far.

10.10.25 - Science!

This half term, we have been learning all about the cardiovascular system. There’s been a lot to learn and we’ve been working hard to get our heads around all of the new vocabulary. We were lucky enough to be able to dissect real hearts and spot all of the chambers and blood vessels we’d been reading about. The children were a bit squeamish at first but soon became fascinated and are now ready to explore careers as cardiologists!

We also made models of blood using various pantry items - they look a little bit disgusting but it was a brilliant way for the children to learn the components that make up blood and the role each of them play. 

 

 

03.10.25 - Literacy!

Year 6 have completed their first ‘hot task’ this week: a persuasive letter from the government, asking parents to evacuate their children during WW2. We have been inspired by our book for the half term: Letters from the Lighthouse, and our History topic of WW2. 

We began by discussing the issue of evacuation - why was it such a contentious issue for some parents? Once we understood this, we planned how we could persuade more reluctant parents by using modal verbs, facts and statistics, emotive language and rhetorical questions. We spent time editing our work before publishing in our Bankside Best handwriting. Well done, Year 6!

26.09.25 - Maths!

We have a year group of very keen mathematicians this year! As well as ensuring we are confident with our mathematical fluency by practising written methods of the four operations, we have already begun exploring how we can apply our skills to solving all types of reasoning problems. For some of us, we need to prioritise our recall of KIRFs so we are developing independence using manipulatives to help us. We have made a strong start to maths, with some of us even confident enough to volunteer to demonstrate their methods for the rest of the class, who are a very respectful audience.

 

 

 

 

19.09.25 - Reading!

Our Year 6 book corners are looking cosy and inviting, ready to be explored. At Bankside, we know that reading can transport us to all sorts of magical places, and we are getting really brilliant and losing ourselves in a good story or learning about all sorts of amazing things in a non-fiction text. 

As well as taking time to read independently, we also prioritise discussion around texts. As a class, we are currently reading Letters from the Lighthouse by an Emma Carroll, and have been talking together to really try and visualise the story in order to understand it better. Alongside that, we have been learning lots of strategies we can use if we have a breakdown in understanding. We love reading and we love learning how to be a really GOOD reader.

 

12.09.25 - Welcome Back to School!

Our new Violet Base children are settling so well into Year 6! We’re very proud of the way they are getting to grips with new routines, coming in calmly each morning, taking pride in looking so smart in their uniforms and putting their Bankside Best into their learning. We’ve got stuck straight into reading and enjoying texts together. They are also having the most fantastic time being back with their friends after the summer break. We’re really looking forward to seeing what wonderful achievements the year has in store for us.