Year 6

Welcome to Year 6!

The staff working in this year group to support your child's learning are: 

 Ms Hughes, Ms Sheehan, Ms Verta, Ms McVie, Mrs Chidiac, Mrs Marlow and Ms Habert.

Homework & Routines

Homework will be set and given out on Thursdays and returned on Tuesday. The weekly homework will include: spellings, maths, SPaG, TT rockstars and challenge homework. Children are also expected to read for 20 minutes each day, preferably with an adult.

Please ensure that your child comes to school in their PE Kit on the day of their two PE lessons.

6AV - Thursday and Friday

6JS - Thursday and Friday

6VH - Monday and Friday

English

This half term,  we will be focusing their World War Two using the novel, Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian.  The story conveys how Britain is on the brink of war when young William Beech is sent to live with Tom Oakley in the village of Little Weirwold. Tom Oakley is a sad, reclusive widower who slowly accepts the idea of having the boy live with him. Tom soon discovers William has been a victim of child abuse and greatly needs his love and care.

We will also be exploring different perspectives during the war through two wartime stories; Hidden and Rose Blanche.

Rose Blanche is a picture book about a young girl living in a small town in Germany.  One day, some trucks with soldiers show up and take over the town.  Later, people from the town are rounded up and put on trucks that drive them away.  Rose, curious about these truckloads of people, decides to follow them.  She follows the trucks out of town and through fields and forests until she comes upon some buildings surrounded by barbed wire and where there are lots of children just standing around...

Using these texts, we will be writing letters, in role, as William Beech; an evacuated child from World War Two.  In addition, the children will use role play, freeze frames and role on the wall to fully understand what life was like during this turbulent time.

We will also be exploring figurative language by writing their own poems using Rose Blanche as their stimuli.  In addition, the children will take on the role of 'Dounia' in Hidden where they must use empathy, role play and research to aid the writing of setting and character descriptions.

Mathematics

This half term, we will be exploring the following topics in Maths; the four operations, word problems, fractions, percentages and a range of mental strategies.  This will be achieved through, mental arithmetic tests, using various apparatus and pictorial representations.

Science

This half term, we will be focusing our learning on Evolution and Inheritance.  We will be looking at Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and survival of the fittest and whether there is sufficient evidence to support his theory.  As well as this, we will be looking at working scientifically, making predictions, planning fair tests and experiments and recording data and observations.

Religious Education

This term, we will explore the Importance of Pilgrimages through different faiths. The children will continue to develop their study of different religions and compare and contrast the beliefs of different faith groups. We will be focusing on the six main religions and comparing for differences and similarities that occur on each pilgrimage.

History

This half term, we are continuing our learning about WW2. We will be looking at and learning about how women made an impact in taking over job roles whilst the men were at war. We will also be learning and discussing world leaders and their contribution to try and end this war and also the impact on many countries, and how lives changed after the war.

Geography

This half term, we will be comparing modern day Whetstone to Whetstone during WW2. We will be looking at similarities and differences of physical features. We will also be locating countries that were invaided by Germany and how they were affected by this.

Art

During Art lessons this half term , we will cover skills such as watercolour washes, blending with oil pastels, collages and charcoal drawings

Design & Technology

This half term, we will be following rationing recipes to make a savoury and sweet dish from WW2. We will also constructing a life-size Spit Fire using paper maché and tissue paper to recreate the image of a camouflaged soldier.

PSHE

This half term, we will be developing our emotion wellbeing and healthy relationships by learning that there is nothing that they should be afraid to ask about. We will also learn about how to manage requests for images of themselves or others; what is and is not appropriate to ask for or share; who to talk to if they feel uncomfortable or are concerned by such a request.

PE

In indoor PE this half term, the children will be learning all about dance.  They will effectively respond to a range of stimuli, improvising freely using a range of controlled movements and patterns and select and use a range of compositional ideas to create motifs that demonstrate my ideas.

In outdoor PE, the children will be focusing their learning on invasion games such as hockey and football.  By the end of the half term, the children will successfully choose when to pass or run with the ball, so that they keep possession and make progress towards the goal, perform football skills with greater speed, recognise and describe the best points in an individual’s and a team’s performance, identify aspects of their own and others' performances that need improvement, and suggest how to improve them and organise ideas to be more successful.

Spanish

In Spanish this half term, the children will be writing about themselves, this will include: their name, how old they are, their favourite colour and where they live.  In addition, they will learn question words and conjunctions which they will use to extend their sentences.

Music

This half term, children have been studying the French composer Eric Satie. They have been looking in depth at Satie's Gnossienne #3. Using this piece, pupils have identified notes used in the scales of this piece. They have also been learning accidental notes (sharps (#) and flats (b)), naturals and chrommatics. Children have been using their previous study and knowledge of octaves and triad chords to help them create a melodic piece in the style of Eric Satie's Gnossienne #3. 

Computing

Coding Level 6 More Complex Variables

This half term pupils learn to use variables in more complex ways, e.g. to convert between imperial and metric units of measure and to manipulate inputs to create useful outputs, e.g. writing code that uses prompt boxes which ask the user to input values for variables.

Online safety

Our online safety focus this half term will take place during Anti-Bullying Week 2021 which is happening from Monday 15th – Friday 19th November.  The theme is ‘One Kind Word.  The children will attend a special assembly and have an opportunity to wear odd socks. During our computing session we will focus on Cyber/online bullying and what to do in this situation.