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.

Our Year 6 students have started the year extremely well and we are already proud of of the progress that they are making. 

Year 6 Residential

In order to help our pupils grow in confidence and develop independence, they partake in a residential in the Lake District. As well as giving the teaching staff the opportunity to build relationships with the children, we see the positive impact of their residential experience both on their academic outcomes and their wider development.

RHS Bridgewater Trip

The Year 6s travelled to the RHS Garden Bridgewater in Autumn 1, to revisit their 'plants' topic in science from the previous academic year.

As well as exploring the 153 acres of gardens, they participated in a workshop where they looked at how plants reproduced, including looking at spores under a microscope, and investigated how some plants have evolved over time.

STEM Workshop

We thoroughly enjoyed participating in the EKO Robotics Challenge, delivered by Hyett Education, where we built and coded robots to complete a mission. All pupils worked as a team, problem-solved and developed their creative thinking skills.

Our year six classes worked extremely hard last week to produce a moving performance of Rudyard Kipling’s beautiful poem ‘If’, which they shared in school assembly.

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.

Design & Technology: Food Technology

Explore à Design à Make à Evaluate

Our first topic was to make an authentic Woolton Pie. This was a popular dish during WW2, especially when food and meat was rationed, but vegetables were accessible or home-grown. They weighed their ingredients, prepared and chopped the vegetables, rolled the pastry and cooked their dishes, before tasting and evaluating.

The children surprised themselves with how well they prepared and cooked their pies. They enjoyed them so much that they didn’t save much for their families; however many went home and made it again!

Challenge Book Winners

Congratulations to our first 2 winners Muhannad and Samuel, who have read all 6 challenge books and have completed detailed book reviews and recommendation slips.

They also completed this achievement in Year 4 and 5, meaning they have now been awarded all three badges: Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Black History Poem Winner

Mathematics

Our first Maths topic in the Autumn Term is 'Number and Place Value' followed by Addition and Subtraction and then Multiplication and Division. 

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.

By Year 6, children should know all tables tables facts. Being able to recall them fluently is vital: they may struggle with the more complicated calculations, including fractions if they are not. 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.

https://play.ttrockstars.com/auth/school  

Our Class Novel

With Year Six's first topic being WWII, our class novel is ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll. Set during WWII, in 1941, we follow Olive and Cliff, as they’re evacuated to the coast of Devon after being subjected to months of heavy air raids across London. A coded note links the disappearance of their sister Sukie to the town they are staying in, and Olive is determined to unravel the mystery.

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

We will use this story as a basis for our writing throughout the term, allowing the children to explore different text types and styles of writing. 

Evacuee Role Play

In our writing lessons this week, the year six children participated in a role play as World War II evacuees, being sent to the countryside for safety. As you can see, the children really got into the characters of the poor children who were chosen last in the billeting process!

Reading

Our aim is for all children to see the benefits of reading but we also want it to be something that they choose to do because they love it! There is strong evidence linking reading for pleasure and educational outcomes but the benefits of reading for pleasure go beyond this and stretch throughout a person's life. Reading increases our understanding of our own identity, improves empathy and gives us an insight into the world view of others.

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.

Our pupils will be taught explicit skills to help them in their understanding of difficult texts. They 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.

Computing

Autumn 1: My Online Life

Science: The Circulatory System Demonstration

The Year 6s 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 represented the lungs and another as the body. The rest of the class acted as the blood, travelling around the body.

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.

Science - The Circulatory System:

Investigating the parts of a heart

History – WWII

In our history lesson this week, we had a fantastic time exploring World War II artefacts: one of the children in class kindly let us investigate and discuss items belonging to a relative who had fought in the war. From postcards sent from the frontline to a soldier’s service book, we were fascinated to find out more about what life was really like as a World War II soldier.

PE

Children 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 and Mr Stenton for their dance and gymnastics 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 practise reading 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 (including online) 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 fulfil 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 different aspects of the curriculum and they will be taught by various adults including Mrs Jowers, Miss Cooper, Mr Stenton, Mrs Abbott, Miss Kendall, Mrs Sutton and Miss Carter in order for their learning to be tailored to their ability.

Additional Work

We often get parents asking for additional homework; however when we give this out, we will use part of a lesson to go through it and correct any misconceptions.

We do understand your keenness to allow your children to complete extra work, so below are some activities and websites they can do at home. This is obviously in addition to their reading every night. 

The Oak Academy (all subjects)

This a website set up by the government to support children's learning. There are lessons on every subject and for every year group.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/

Corbett Maths

Arithmetic, reasoning and problem solving questions.

There are videos and questions on specific topics or for revision, choose ‘5 a day’: Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum levels – we suggest Silver for the Autumn Term, progressing to Gold and then finally Platinum.

https://corbettmathsprimary.com/

Maths Bot (arithmetic)

AI generated arithmetic questions.

https://mathsbot.com/primary/ks2

Rapid River (spellings)

A spellings 2-player game (great for siblings or to play with an adult on a tablet).

https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/rapidRiver/index.html

The Maths Playground

This website has lots of enjoyable activities. A clear favourite is alien angles.

https://www.mathplayground.com/alienangles.html

BBC Bitesize

The below link has an array of subjects for every year group.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/levels/zbr9wmn

The Mark 10 Mission

This is an excellent website to help children pray.

https://www.themark10mission.co.uk/

Google Earth

Google Earth is a brilliant geography resource and all year 6 children should be able to find their own homes using it

https://earth.google.com/

BBC Iplayer

This has some amazing documentaries. It is important that the children know about the world and their place in it. Anything by Sir David Attenborough is highly recommended.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer