Welcome to Year 6!

In year 6 this year, our teachers are Mrs Flory, Mrs Langford and Mr Aldred.

Mrs Manser and Mrs Aldous are our teaching assistants and Mrs Alderton is our HLTA.

Children may also be invited to work with Mr Cole within a small group.

Our topic for this term is...

'Blue Planet' 

This topic has a big focus on geography learning where we will focus on locating the world's oceans as well as the location of major rivers and seas within and around the UK. We will also be understanding the key features of a river, some the major rivers nearby and focusing on their importance to humans and wildlife.

During our English lessons, we will be focusing on the picture book 'Flotsam' - a book about anything floating in the sea that washes ashore. After this, we will be focusing on writing non-chronological reports based on the weird and wonderful sea-life found in the depths of the Ocean. In the second half of this term, our class novel will be 'Wonder' with a focus on fictional reading and writing. 

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural understanding in Year 6

• Our topic 'Blue Planet' allows us lots of opportunity to discuss the impact of pollution on our oceans and rivers.
• We will have weekly Jigsaw PSHE lessons focusing on the themes of 'Being Me in My World' and 'Celebrating Differences' thinking about our own behaviour within our communities, why some people may choose to behave differently and strategies we can use to help us resolve differences.
• We will continue to have fortnightly class council meetings for us all to share our ideas and our school council and rights respecting schools representatives will lead this discussion and feedback to SLT.
• In Year 6, some of us have the extra responsibility of being head boy, head girl, a prefect or a house captain. These require great leadership skills and for us to be role models for the rest of the school.
• Our Sports Leaders and Sports Ambassadors will also be busy ensuring physical activity is regularly happening in our class and choosing who will take home the class PE bag based on the sports values they have observed in PE lessons. 
• Our School Council and Rights Respecting Schools representatives will continue to look out for children displaying and noticing the rights of children around school and in our classrooms and will award them with the UNICEF stickers.
• Lots of us will have the opportunity to be great role models by working with the younger children in the school either as a reading buddy (listening to and helping the younger children to read) or as a play leader (running active lunch time clubs for the younger children). These roles allow us to have a high level of responsibility and develop a range of leadership skills. 

Spellings

Year 6 have three spelling lessons a week to recap previously learned rules, introduce a new spelling rule or pattern from the Year 6 curriculum and then plenty of opportunities to apply this new rule/pattern to games and dictation sentences. There is no longer a formal spelling test on a Friday for the spelling rule we have practised in school that week. However, your child will have a sticker in their yellow log telling them the rule/pattern for the week and may wish to practise this at home using any of their strategies to help them such as: rainbow writing, silly sentences, pyramid writing and look, cover, write and check.

To help you practise your spellings, you can also use the Spelling Shed online games through your EdShed login. Your login details will be the same as last year but if you have forgotten them then please speak to your class teacher. Find the login page here:

https://www.edshed.com/en-gb 

Home Learning

The home learning grid has been sent home to pick one activity to do per week. Paper copies of each resource are also available in a resource box found in both year 6 classrooms, along with lined, squared or plain paper. Home learning is due every Friday and will be monitored each week by your child's class teacher. Please make sure your child's home learning has their name on it and is put in the home learning tray each week. 

 Home learning club is on a Tuesday lunch time in Miss Edwards' classroom if children would like to complete it in school or are struggling to complete it at home and need some help. As always, if your child is struggling with completing their home learning or they have any questions, they should not hesitate to speak to their class teacher. 

Times Tables Rockstars

Times tables are the foundation for a lot of maths topics that we cover in Year 6. The quicker we are at knowing our times tables and the easier we find them, the easier we will find some of our new Year 6 maths learning. Please try and have a go on Times Tables Rockstars at home when you can and look out for some year group and phase competitions! 

If you need to know your login or password for Times Tables Rockstars check the front of your yellow log book or ask your class teacher.