Welcome back to the P6a blog! We hope you enjoy reading about what we have be exploring with Mr Atkinson in his Learning Journeys.

Last term we finished the Learning Journey, Roads of the Future which encouraged  the pupils to explore the Sustainable Development Goals. P6A investigated how the SDGs could be incorporated into designing a new road and reflected on what were the most important factors to selecting the best place to build them on. They also learned about the properties of a variety of materials and used atlases and online maps to locate different roads in Scotland.  The class also compared different types of road crossings and we discussed some examples that exist in the local area.  Whilst debating the construction of the HS2 the class examined the pros and cons of using other modes of transport which led to some great conversations. The final experience of this Learning Journey involved working in teams to successfully construct a sustainably designed road for the Transport Scotland – Academy9 Sustainable Solutions Challenge which is linked to the A9 road project. The groups displayed excellent communication, collaborating, critical-thinking, initiative, adapting and creativity skills when designing their Tinkercad prototypes which they successfully used to assist with building their models. I was so impressed with everyone’s efforts and thank you again for donating materials.

We have just recently started our new Learning Journey, Adapting to Climate Change. P6A as been researching how far animals can communicate and then we revisited different types of measurements. We started off with converting and then the pupils were challenged to solve calculations involving measurements. Building on this, the class explored how to draw using scales and then we all went outside to draw scaled distances of how far animals can communicate using chalk.

Hi P6a readers, I wanted to update you on what we have been doing in our most recent Learning Journey since my last entry.

The pupils have been fascinated with learning about AI and they have effectively used the Meta-Skills of critical thinking and curiosity to investigate the impact of this technological development in our lives. P6A displayed excellent collaboration, leadership, communication, initiative and adapting skills when working in groups for the Sky Up Academy Studios project. This challenged each group to research and summarise facts about an aspect of AI and use their extensive notes to create a script for their team’s news reporters. They then selected media clips, music and green screen backgrounds before recording their news reel. The class has also been discovering how the internet works and have learned about the different hardware pieces in computer that make it function. In addition, we discussed the limitations of AI and then the class attempted to create their own AI programmes to solve maths questions by giving it accurate and clear prompts. P6A also participated in an online workshop as part of Maths Week Scotland called “Defend the Rhino with Maths and AI” which taught the pupils how AI is being used to help assist organisations with protecting endangered species. This involved pupils applying their knowledge of maths, numeracy, and data science skills to analyse CCTV data from across a South African national park. Then they used a machine learning model to recognise images of poachers.

Hello to all the P6A blog readers, it’s Mr Atkinson here! As you will know this year I am doing NCCT for P6A with a focus on developing Crookfurs Enquiry Based Learning approach so I wanted to give you an update of what we have been doing.

Building on our knowledge from the P5 Learning Journeys, the class have explored  what can be constructed on land and investigated the pros and cons. They also applied their curiosity by finding out the impact the different land uses have on the environment. Equipped with this information, the pupils utilised their Meta-Skills of collaborating and communicating to prepare for their debates on this issue. I was highly impressed with their thorough research and well-structured arguments resulting in some compelling points being made. In pairs the pupils have also written fact files about how specific flowers have benefited modern society, such as how they are used for medicine and textile, they are used for medicine and textile which they presented and shared to their peers.