Year 6

Update for Week Beginning: 20.01.20

Last week, we began exploring Travel Writing in English and have been looking at ways to make our writing really exciting and persuasive. We’ve also been looking at Eco Tourism in The Galapagos Islands and we are beginning to see both the impact of humans on the natural world and yet, the importance of being able to learn about nature at the same time. Eco Tourism is a key way of managing the interactions between humanity and nature and, this week, we will be looking into this in more detail.

In Maths, we continued to learn about reflection and translation alongside percentages and BODMAS. Whilst the maths groups are generally working on similar topics, the pace is being differentiated so that we ensure that everyone is confident with the concepts as we go.

Gym was all about headstands this week and it is great to have an expert coach in Mr Burke helping us with our skills. Mrs Dodd even had a go at a headstand and received some very helpful feedback from the students in improving her upside down posture!

This week:

In order to boost our confidence in tackling the challenges of tests, we are having another practice this week. It’s a great opportunity for both the students and us to see how well our learning has been embedded this term and we are confident that we will all be able to celebrate some improving scores. As always, we do not want the children to worry or become anxious about doing tests  – your support with keeping them level headed, calm and confident when taking on life’s challenges, including tests, is much appreciated.

Alongside the tests, we will be continuing to hone our skills in arithmetic and grammar as well as enjoying some more learning about Galapagos. We will be delving deeper into Eco tourism on the islands and setting a Dragons’ Den style challenge for the children to develop an eco friendly holiday opportunity which supports the wildlife and sustainability on the islands. Please also save any newspapers as our model making will be beginning next week.

The Y6 Book Club  board is up and our current two reads are ‘Fing’ by David Walliams and ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. We’d love to see some  reviews and comments up there.

General Information:

PE and Games lessons will be on Tuesday afternoons and Thursday and Friday mornings. Please ensure that suitable kit, including tracksuit bottoms and school sports jumpers are in school – this will enable all children to participate fully.

The Year 6 library slot will be on Thursday afternoons, when children will have the opportunity to change their books.

Homework:

New project homework has been set and is on the year group page together with the project overview. Children should complete at least 3 tasks as well as continue to read and practice arithmetic and spelling. Additionally, following a news report on Newsround about use of mobile phones in schools, children can choose to substitute one task for a well thought out persuasive letter to the leadership team of St. James’ about whether or not we should consider allowing phone use for learning!

We have made the decision as a school to purchase some CGP 10 minute revision books to support the children in their learning. If you are considering purchasing revision books of your own and are concerned about ‘doubling up,’ then please speak to one of the Year 6 team and we can offer our advice. We will cover all the topics in school and your support with consolidation is much appreciated. It helps the children to be really ready for the next stage of their learning both this year and beyond but there are a whole range of ways to help without the pressure to spend any money. There are some useful revision/ practice tips and tools in the home school diaries and, during the latter part of this term, we will be sending home some optional revision packs with a wide range of booklets and revision tips in.

As a school we continue to subscribe to MyMaths, Time Tables Rockstars and Prodigy Maths, which are all great learning resources to support maths development – we encourage the children to engage with these as much as possible!

New My Maths has now been set:

• Four quadrant grids – line lengths and mid-points or Four quadrant grids – translation and reflection
• Percentages

We would also really encourage the children to continue reading as regularly as possible and to discuss what they have been reading. It is also helpful to  practice spellings – there is a list of Year 5/6 words in the children’s home school planners, however, by this stage in their career, spelling all words correctly is important (so feel free to mix spellings revision up!).

Key Dates

Parent Workshop – Weds 22nd January, 6pm – see parentmail for more detail

(Please see the school calendar for more information on upcoming dates for the diary).

Any questions, please do catch us in the playground.

Mrs Dodd and Mr Holland