Welcome to Year 6!

Year 6 is an extremely important year as we prepare for the children to become independent and reflective learners. As well as enjoying a broad and balanced curriculum, the children work incredibly hard and take on many extra responsibilities. All children in Year 6 are considered role models for the rest of the school and make a valuable contribution to the wider school community.

The children have a fantastic work ethic and positive attitudes and are making excellent progress. 

We would like to thank our incredibly generous parents at St Thomas' who found the time to make some delectable food for us to sell and those who donated money during Holy week. Year 6 raised over £400 for St Joseph's Penny! 

The children visited the 3 different continents around the classroom, that were involved in the Triangular Trade, to find out what they had to offer and what they wanted in return.

Digital Art

The year 6s used digital manipulation in order to create a modern day version of David Shepherd’s famous paintings. They sketched onto acetate, chose a background and imported their pieces into a graphics package where they edited to create their final four images. 

A trip to the countryside as evacuees

We time-travelled back to 1940 and dressed up as WWII evacuees. We bid our parents farewell and boarded a steam train to our new homes. Most of us were chosen by various business owners, but some were left behind and had to knock on the door of villagers, begging to be taken in.

The children represented the circulatory system, by following the same pattern of the blood vessels, which carry blood around our bodies. One child acted as the heart in the middle and pumped the ‘blood’ around the body.  Another child represented the lungs and another as the body. Additional children acted as the blood who travelled through the blood vessels, starting from the heart, walking up the left side of the figure eight to the lungs, past the lungs and back down the right side to the heart. They then travelled from the heart to the body along the right side of the eight and then back to the heart. They became oxygenated blood when they reached the lungs (by holding the red card), and then de-oxygenated blood (by turning the card to blue) when they had made their way around the body.

Mathematics

Our first Maths topic in the Autumn Term is 'Number and Place Value'. 

The following skills and facts will be practised and daily to secure the children’s mathematical understanding:

• Times tables related facts e.g. 40 x 90   0.8 x 0.7 etc;

• Counting forwards and backwards in positive/negative numbers as well as decimal numbers from any given starting point;

• Formal written methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division;

• Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions;

• Explaining and reasoning;

• Problem solving in each topic to ensure thorough understanding.

As the children have missed some time at school, their tables tables facts may not be up to standard. Without knowing these facts rapidly, they may struggle with the more complicated calculations, including fractions. Therefore, please ensure children are practising daily until they have reached 'Challenge 6 Gold' in school. They can use 'Times Tables Rock Stars' (TTRS) for practise.

• Times Tables.doc

Our Class Novel

With Year six's first topic being WWII, our class novel is ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll. Set in February, 1941, twelve-year-old Olive Bradshaw and her little brother Cliff are subjected to months of bombing raids in London, finally resulting in them being evacuated to the Devon coast. The only person with two spare beds is Mr Ephraim, the local lighthouse keeper. But he’s not used to company and he certainly doesn’t want any evacuees.

Desperate to be helpful, Olive becomes his post-girl, carrying secret messages (as she likes to think of the letters) to the villagers. But Olive has a secret of her own. Her older sister Sukie went missing in an air raid, and she’s desperate to discover what happened to her. And then she finds a strange coded note which seems to link Sukie to Devon, and to something dark and impossibly dangerous.

We are incredibly excited to see what the children think of this thrilling book... the book that brought Miss Lomas to tears...

We will use this story as a basis for our writing throughout the term, reading sections, paragraphs and chapters at a time. This will then allow the children to explore different text types and styles of writing. For example, they will write precise summaries, plot predictions, diary entries, emotive letters, character and setting descriptions, alternative chapters and endings.

Reading Comprehension

Children in Year 6 will be taught explicit skills to help them in their understanding of difficult texts, including top tips of how to answer questions to prepare them for their assessments in May.

They will be encouraged to read a wide range of stories, non-fiction texts, poetry, plays and textbooks in order to understand that texts are structured in different ways and written for different purposes.

Children will be reminded to check their reading makes sense, discussing their understanding of the meaning of certain vocabulary as they read. They might also be encouraged to ask questions about the text to further develop their understanding of what is going on and draw inference about character actions, speech or motives, providing evidence. Inference involves using the clues in the story or picture to make a good guess. It involves figuring something out which isn’t fully explained and draws on a child’s existing knowledge of the world. They may story map in order to follow the story or re-read sentences or sections.

They might also be encouraged to make predictions based on what they’ve already read, summarise key points to show good comprehension and look out for interesting phrases that authors uses.

Handwriting

Handwriting is a focus for us this term as they cannot be assessed as year 6 expected level without writing legibly and fluently, in accordance with the school’s handwriting policy. All children are now mature enough to be writing in pen, rather than pencil by this stage and should be expected to join consistently, excluding the break letters b, p, q, y, g, and f. They might still need reminding of certain rules such as: never joining capital letters to the following letter.

PE

As the children are now in year 6, they are allowed to come to school on a Friday in their PE kits, consisting of black shorts (they may wear tracksuit bottoms when it is cold), a white t-shirt and pumps or trainers. They will be working with our sports coach throughout the year to develop various skills in their games lessons. Some of these skills will be tailored to meet the on going competition calendar. Your child may therefore be asked to represent the school in various competitions throughout the year, both within and after school time.  

What can you do to help your child in Year 6?

• Purchase a watch for your child so that they can read the time throughout the day;
• Ensure your child reads every night. They do not need to read to an adult (although this is always beneficial) and they do not need to read for hours at a time - unless they wish to of course! Ten to fifteen minutes every night is perfectly acceptable as long as they are reading and they have understood what they have read. Your child will have a focus for their reading diary so they know what they have to write (we are beginning with summaries).
• Allow your child access to a dictionary so that they can check the meaning of words which they cannot work out themselves.
• Expose them to different experiences and different places to extend their understanding of the world.
• Homework will be set as and when required to assist the children in their learning. Encourage them to complete homework on time. If your child is struggling with anything, they should ask a teacher for help - that is what we are here for!
• Most importantly, make sure they have plenty of sleep and early nights so that they are ready and able to learn.

It is important that in year 6, we support and encourage your child to allow them to fulfill their potential. It is also paramount to prepare and develop them so that they are ready for their move to high school. To ease this transition, your child will move between the two year 6 classes for the teaching of various different aspects of the curriculum and they will be taught by various adults including Miss Lomas, Mr Stenton, Miss Abbott, Miss Lanahan, Miss Kendall and Miss Downie in order for their learning to be tailored to their ability.