In the mornings, Year 6 study English and Maths in Southdown classroom with Mrs Smith. In the afternoon, they join Mrs Keys (Mon-Thurs) and Mrs Goswami (Fri) and Year 5 in Woodlands to cover the rest of the curriculum.
In Year 6, we no longer follow the coloured book bands used in other years of the school as the focus moves to reading a wider range of both fiction and non-fiction books from different cultures, times and authors. Children are encouraged to select books to read for pleasure and expand on genres and authors that they have previously enjoyed.
Homework
Each week, children will be set some type of written homework. This could be Maths based, English based or a mixture of the two. To help prepare for High School, this will not always be set on the same day and will not always take the same format. There will always be at least four days (including a weekend) between homework being set and collected.
The majority of homework tasks will be given a "guide time". If the homework is taking much longer than this, then the child should bring in what they have done and we will look at it together at school - this is an encouraged and expected part of the learning process.
We have a weekly spelling test. To begin with, spellings will be set each week to learn and will include words from the year 3/4 and year 5/6 lists. As we move beyond February half term, we will begin to introduce "blind" spelling tests which can feature any words which follow common spelling patterns and those from the KS1 and 2 spelling lists.
As already mentioned, reading is really important. Children are asked to read a minimum of 25 pages a week and record this in their diaries. Sharing reading with an adult is a really valuable experience and you should aim to do this twice a week - this may be the child reading to an adult, an adult reading to the child, reading together or simply discussing the book that your child is reading.
English
This term, our class reading book is "Can You See Me?" by Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott. It tells the story of Tally, a young lady with Autism, as she moves on to high school and navigates friendships, family and new situations.
We will be examining a range of different fiction and non-fiction extracts during Whole Class Reading to widen the children's experience of different types of writing.
Much of our writing is based around the class book. This term, we will be focusing on the accuracy and flow of our work, editing and developing it so that language and tone suit the reader and the purpose of the text. We will focus on diaries, descriptive writing, persuasive writing and poetry.
SPAG this term:
Spelling - homophones, suffixes and prefixes.
Punctuation - parenthesis
Grammar - Formal and Informal Language. Tense.
Maths
In Maths, we will be focusing on Algebra during the first half term before moving on to look at converting measurement. As we move into the second half term, we will be looking at shape, including properties of shape, volume and area.
In Maths, we follow the small steps method and all children will work with apparatus, pictorial representations and maths problems at different times. Solving maths problems using our knowledge is an important part of our lessons and this term, there is a focus on tackling written maths problems efficiently.
English
We will begin this year looking at the book "Here We Are" by Oliver Jeffers. This work will have a personal development focus and will include poetry, letter writing and making a video to introduce the school to the new starters in Portland Class.
We will then dive into some literary history, exploring one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories. Along with the famous detective, we will try and solve "The Case of the Sussex Vampire".
Our third text of the year will be "Stormbreaker" by Anthony Horowitz - the first in the very popular Alex Rider series of books. We will look at how the author crafts the opening of an adventure story and establish the elements that set up an adventure; investigate character and plot; explore settings in the story ; and create and advertise our own "Super Spy Gadget" for teenage spies.
We will be examining a range of different fiction and non-fiction extracts during Whole Class Reading to widen the children's experience of different types of writing.
Much of our writing is based around the class book. This term, we will be focusing on the accuracy and flow of our work, editing and developing it so that language and tone suit the reader and the purpose of the text.
SPAG this term:
Spelling - homophones, suffixes and prefixes.
Punctuation - colons and semi-colons
Grammar - Parts of speech and sentence structure.
Maths
In Maths, we will be focusing on Number during the first half term - looking at place value with numbers up to ten million and the four operations. As we move into the second half term, we will be looking at fractions and shape as well as beginning to look at the order of operations (BODMAS).
In Maths, we follow the small steps method and all children will work with apparatus, pictorial representations and maths problems at different times. Solving maths problems using our knowledge is an important part of our lessons and this term, there is a focus on tackling written maths problems using Bar Models.