Year 6 have realised that their everyday school life requires them to remember many things!  Time tables, spellings, punctuation rules, homework, vocabulary, scientific facts…the list goes on and on.  It comes as no surprise that our brain oversees these things; and that working memory differs from one person to the next.  Indeed, the ways in which individuals can process, retain and recall information is dependent on many factors.

With this in mind, Year 6 set out to investigate how strong their own working memory is.  Each student created a memory board based upon a theme of their choice. The range included: foods, drinks, sports, football teams, football payers, landmarks, art styles and more!  The memory boards included an array of images and words.  With the ground work complete, Year 6 students were ready to experiment.

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Our biology strand of science concluded this term with Year 6 students presenting a research project based upon the areas of extinction and endangerment within our animal kingdom.

Year 6 were posed with the challenge of selecting four extinct animals and four animals who are on the endangered animals list.  After making their selections they had to carry out research using both traditional and digital resources to find out information about their selections.

The extinct section of the project examined theories presented by scientists to determine why extinction occurred for certain species; descriptions of how extinct animals looked when they roamed the earth; and environments and adaptations relevant to their survival when they lived.

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Year 6 recently played a significant role in Provo Primary School’s annual Halloween Party.   They were set the challenge of designing, creating and implementing the games that could be used.  The design brief enabled the students to focus on games that would be fun to play, could be differentiated easily across different age groups and maintained a spooky theme to fulfill the atmosphere of a Halloween party.

The students in Year 6 were grouped into 5 teams and posed with the above challenge.  Getting straight down to work they blasted ideas before settling on a firm notion that could be developed fully to meet the needs of the design brief.  The planning stage also considered how prizes would be allocated to winners, how many people would be needed to operate the games, resources and materials needed to build and so on.

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Year 6 have been learning all about the animal kingdom this term in science.  This strand of biology has focused on the importance of classification and variation.  Year 6, wearing their scientist hats, have discovered that classification is all about sorting; and variation is concerned with differences between species.

With this in mind, Year 6 quickly realised that the animal kingdom is divided into two main groups: vertebrates and invertebrates.  Vertebrates are animals who possess a backbone and invertebrates do not.  Moreover, it was quickly ascertained that further classification would be needed in order to group organisms together more readily based upon similarities and differences.  More research revealed that scientists also classify vertebrates and invertebrates into subgroups depending on certain characteristics.

Please look at the photographs below and judge for yourselves how well we have coped with getting to grips with lots of new scientific vocabulary and the classification of our animal kingdom.

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“Great success and a huge shout out to Provo Primary!”

Congratulations to our Year 6 students and all of the supporters who took part in Jill Beckingham’s ‘Footsteps4Good’ charity walk today.

Our Year 6 can all be very proud of the ‘footsteps’ they’ve taken today to make a difference to  children’s lives.

Loose change donations that they collected will go to the local ‘Food for Thought’ charity that aims to ensure all Turks & Caicos Islands school children are nourished and therefore able to reach their full potential. The main focus of the charity at this stage is to provide breakfast to all government school students.

Thank you to everyone for your support.

Year 6 have just returned from their week long field trip to the Dominican Republic.   An experience never to be forgotten with ever lasting memories.  Staying at Rancho Baiguate in Jarabacoa provided the perfect mountainous backdrop for an array of team building activities, cultural learning, language emersion, environmental studies; and the opportunities to develop further independence and responsible attitudes.  Our students were true ambassadors for our school and it was a pleasure to spend a well-deserved week away from home with them.  Please read a few comments below from our Year 6 students to get an idea about the experiences encountered and the powerful impact a residential trip can have on a young mind.    [Read more…]

Here are the Year 6 at the airport, ready to embark on their week long eco-adventure, residential trip to Rancho Baiguate, Jarabacoa in the Dominican Republic.

At Provo Primary, we feel that residential field trips integrate academic and social development by providing students with an opportunity to investigate and apply academic knowledge to the outside world, as well as develop their personal and social skills, through a broad range of activities away from their home environment.

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We would like to congratulate all 9 of our Year 6 students on their successful post-primary entrance exam results.   All of the children have passed every exam taken and have been accepted into the schools of their choice – either the British West Indies Collegiate, the TCI Middle School or at other international schools.

Six of our Year 6 students took local school Year 7 entrance exams:

In total, 37 children from the Turks and Caicos sat the Year 7 British West Indies Collegiate exams for 9 available places.  We are extremely pleased that all 5 of our students who sat the exam were offered a place.

All 6 students were offered a place at TCI Middle School out of only 12 available places.

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Year 6 have been studying the historical era of World War 2. In particular their learning has focused on the Holocaust, Blitz, Spies, WW2 Leaders, Impact Then and Now along with many other important areas that attributed to this frightening time in history.

Year 6 have found this time period fascinating and at times they have been heavily touched and moved by the powerful elements that have featured within lessons. With this in mind they set about writing emotive poetry based upon the events that occurred at this time to express their thoughts and feelings regarding the issues explored in class.

Emotive poetry is designed to evoke a strong emotional response after reading. Please read a selection from our class and see if our knowledge of the time period and figurative language techniques used meets this end!

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Congratulations to all of our Year 1 – 6 classes!  Our Topic Learning Showcase was a magnificent demonstration of the tremendous talent, hard work, knowledge and creativity of all involved.  It was lovely to see so many family and friends come along to support the event and take part in the activities on offer.  The children all really enjoyed the experience, both of sharing their knowledge with others, and also getting the opportunity to visit and learn from all the other classes too.  An all-round success!

Thank you also to everyone who helped put together all of the amazing costumes – we were very impressed with your creativity, attention to detail and resourcefulness!

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Year 6 were presented with the task of investigating some new technology resources at Provo Primary School today. Advertised as ‘an invention kit for the 21st century’, it was a session of experimentation, creativity and collaboration, with three groups exploring our new ‘Makey Makey’ interface controling kits.

Each group was given a Makey Makey kit, along with access to an array of resources to use with it.  Encouraged to read and follow the instructions included in the box, and to simply try things out, it wasn’t long before each group understood their potential and were busy working together to come up with their own inventive applications. Connecting their Makey Makeys with cucumbers, potatoes, carrots,  coins and playdough they were soon playing pianos and bongo drums, and creating control pads for computer games.

By the end of the session, through their own experimentation and interest, the students had learnt about the basics of computer input devices, had explored circuit making and had investigated the conductivity of different materials. Not bad for a 60 minute lesson!  It was particularly exciting to witness the moment when they realised that they themselves were conductive!

Makey Makeys are simple invention kits but, with so many possibilities, they offer incredible potential for child-initiated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning.  Our Year 6 were certainly enthralled and buzzing with ideas on what they are planning to develop in their next session.  We look forward to seeing what they come up with and sharing their creations with you!
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