Welcome to Year 6’s Class Page!

Miss Logue (6L), Mrs Straczek (6S),

Mrs Dudzinski and Mrs Milinska

Year 6 have made an impressive start to the new academic year; they have shown drive to succeed and a mature attitude towards their work. The children are aware of the importance and challenges of this year and have discussed strategies we can adapt to help us reach our personal and academic targets. We know that a resilient attitude towards challenges and a growth mindset will help us to make progress in all areas. We look forward to being ambassadors for our school and undertaking our prefect roles!

Religious Education

Our first unit during this term is ‘Creation and Covenant’. Children should be able to show an understanding of the literary forms found in the Bible texts studied, including the use of metaphor, symbolic language, and poetry. They will be able to simply explain the Church’s teaching on the purpose of the second Creation story and the purpose of scientific accounts, referencing Laudato Si’, and making links with the term ‘stewardship’.

They will also reflect on the ways in which the discoveries of science can lead to a deeper appreciation of the greatness of God and God’s love for all Creation. Children should also be able to use theological vocabulary to describe and explain the belief that sin damages the relationship with God, the relationship with others and relationships with the created world, making relevant links with the second account of Creation and Laudato Si’.

Children, throughout the school, will be constantly reminded of the importance of Laudato Si - a document produced by Pope Francis on how to care for ‘Our Common Home’–and how we, as Christians and occupants of the Earth, are duty-bound to look after it more than ever.   After half-term, we will gain a deeper theological understanding of the preparation and celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ as we prepare for the season of Advent. 

All pupils will also be taking part in Prayer and Liturgy sessions, Gospel Assembly and Hymn-Singing Assembly each week. 

English

During English lessons, we will be studying three texts this term, which are linked to our history topic: World War II. We have started our first text, Bombs and Blackberries, which is a play written by Julia Donsaldson. Already, the children have shown wonderful engagement with this text and have drafted some wonderfully descriptive writing, which will be used when publishing their own narrative pieces in the coming weeks. Later in the term, we will be reading ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll and then ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne. We are also continuing to work on our reading fluency, comprehension skills and understanding of SPaG, whilst learning lots of new, challenging vocabulary. 

Maths

We will be revising key skills and concepts in maths lessons this term, including: place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as fractions, decimals and percentages. We are starting to prepare for our SATs with arithmetic fluency and reasoning practice in our lessons. We continue to encourage children to be proficient in their timetables as this is something which is vital for every aspect of mathematics. We ask that you encourage your children to use Times Tables Rockstars and SATs Companion to support their learning. 

Science

During our Autumn 1 topic, Living Things & Their Habitats, children will be aiming to answer their enquiry question: “How can we identify, group and classify animals, plants and microorganisms?”

To do this, they will explore the conditions for life and the differences between living and non-living things. Children need to understand the criteria for living and non-living things. An animal is living because it can breathe, move, eat, grow, excrete and reproduce. A plant is living because it can move towards sunlight, make its own food, grow and reproduce.

Children will be carrying out an identifying, grouping and classifying enquiry. They should think of ways that animals and plants can be grouped based on their features. They will also explore microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses and fungi and should understand that some microorganisms are helpful and vital for humans to function properly. We will also learn about the work of Carl Linnaeus and his system of classifying organisms and how he classified organisms based on their physical appearances.

In Autumn 2, children will build on their understanding of circuits to construct and draw series circuits as they begin their new topic: Electricity. They will look at complete and incomplete circuits, explore reasons why a circuit may be incomplete, explore variations within circuits and the effects of having fewer or more components. Children will complete a fair test to explore how the voltage in a circuit affects the brightness of bulbs and the loudness of buzzers. Children have already been introduced to variables in Year 5 and, when planning this investigation, they should identify the independent, dependent and controlled variables. They will then be encouraged to evaluate their results and suggest experiment improvements.

Expectations

We encourage all children to demonstrate a high standard of behaviour at all times in order to create a safe, respectful and happy learning environment.

Each class has participated in the process of making a set of ‘Golden Rules.’ The children have agreed to follow the rules as they understand that this will help their learning.

Respecting each other and all members of staff is expected and reflects the ethos of our school. 

The children are required to listen carefully and to develop their self-control and concentration in class and in the playground. 

The children are aware of the school system for house points, which will reward positive behaviour – they can use the online ‘shop’ to buy items in trade for House Points!

Hygiene – We ask that children are encouraged by parents and guardians to recognise that good hygiene is paramount in leading healthy lives.

Working together with parents and guardians plays a big part in establishing good relationships and standards of behaviour. Thank you for your continued support.

Homework

We are encouraging children to take an active role in their own learning as they will soon be coming to the end of their time at primary school. We will be giving out a larger volume of homework both weekly and during the holidays. We expect the children to take responsibility for their own learning and to organise their workload accordingly. Failure to submit homework on time will result in homework being completed during detention on Friday afternoons. 

LBQ and Google Classroom

Please check your child’s LBQ’s accounts for tasks set – this is a useful tool to support their learning at home and prepare them for their tests. Children can find further useful links/resources in the ‘Classwork’ section of Google Classroom. As teachers, we will be able to monitor your child’s progress and use this as a teaching tool to enable them to meet their individual targets. 

Please attend our Curriculum Talk and refer to our Curriculum Map for further information about your child’s learning and how to support at home. There are also some website links under the ‘revision’ tab which will be useful for revision after a topic is taught.  

We ask that you continue to support your child with daily reading at home and a little and often approach to revision to ensure that the concepts taught are fully embedded.

 

Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to working with you this year!