Year 6

Dear parents, guardians and carers,

Happy New Year! 

Assessments

SPTO's closure has prompted a change to our way of assessing the children. Therefore, on the week beginning 13th January will be our assessment week, where the children will do reading and maths tests. Writing is assessed throughout the year. 

CGP Homework Books - voluntary contribution

Homework books are now being used well in all four classes. A voluntary contribution of £6 per child can now be made on laser. 

Home Learning

Top education researchers tell us that homework has minimal impact for primary age pupils, unless it requires children to rehearse and practise.  We have therefore adapted our routines to reflect this. The routines for children in this year group are as follows:

• Weekly Grammar and Maths home learning in practice books where they will go back over the skills learnt in class.
• Reading and/or talking about their reading to an adult for at least 20 minutes, 5 times a week. This will be evidenced through reading being recorded in reading records. Reading records and reading books should be coming into school daily. Reading records will be signed by teachers to check regular reading is occurring.
• Learning spelling patterns linked to age-related expectations ready for use in dictation towards the end of every week. These spellings will be on year group notice boards and should be practised at home. 
• Reciting multiplication tables to increase their fluency so that they can be applied in other areas of maths and problem solving. These will be  tested in our weekly times tables challenge and will be sent home.
• Half-termly creative home learning will be set at the start of each half term and will celebrated and fed back on during our creative home learning showcases.

Spelling 

Spelling pattern   Curriculum words

(suffixes)

especially               recommend

competition            sufficient

cautious                 sacrifice

international           appreciate

infectious                apparent

Previous week: 

Spelling pattern   Curriculum words

(suffixes)

appreciate             harass

section                  foreign

spacious               interfere

subtraction           mischievous

ancient                 prejudice

CGP Targeted Question Books

Each week on a Thursday, Year 6 pupils will have to complete homework tasks from their KS2 revision books. The homework is due in on the following Tuesday. 

This week:

English - p 60, 61

Maths - p 68, 69

Previous week:

English - p 52, 53

Maths - p 62, 63

Letters

Keeping safe

Knife crime awareness

Ealing Council has sent this letter to all schools addressed to parents and carers. The content maybe more relevant to older pupils who attend High schools. In our PHSE curriculum, we talk about coping with peer pressure, including alcohol, drugs and knives. Our local PCSO also visits to talk about knife safety to pupils.

Dealing with peer pressure in PSHE

Our new PSHE unit is called "Say NO!" where we will be talking to the children about the subject of peer pressure and how to react in different situations.  Each lesson will discuss different scenarios including the dangers involving drugs, alcohol. smoking and knives. These are important areas so we approach these in a gentle discussion way where we discuss children's current knowledge and then focus on scenarios to help children consider how to act. We will be following up on the subject of knives  and peer pressure through a lesson with our local Police community support officer in March as well as follow up lessons on peer pressure throughout the year if needed. 

Cooking and Gardening

We are very proud to provide a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to attend class cooking sessions during school hours. Sessions commenced in September and an annual voluntary contribution of £12.00 to cover the cost of ingredients has been uploaded to your Laser school cashbook. Your prompt payment is really appreciated.

Mental health and well-being

Please see the links below which include useful information and details related to the menta health and well-being of pupils, including guidance, tips and helpful websites.

Reading

'Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body' - Richard Steele

• We encourage the children to read at least 5 times a week, recording each time in their reading records/planners. They should be signed by an adult at least once a week please and will also be signed by class teachers. Children must bring them in daily. The diary and organisation of this resource will prepare the child for further independence. 

• We have spent the first few days assisting the children in choosing appropriate level books, which include books from the recommended reading list. These are the books we would like the children to read. They will also be having the opportunity to choose books from the library. 

• We will also focus this year on reading high quality texts to the children due to a wide range of academic research on the benefits of this. We now have a daily story telling session where will we read to the children a focus book which will be a book we are reading in English or a book from the recommended reading list. 

Our focus books

• The railway children
• Hansel and Gretel
• The diary of Anne Frank
• Street child
• The Hobbit
• Macbeth

Year 6 recommended reading list

The English team in school have worked hard to identify 40 appropriately challenging books for the children in Year 6. The recommended reading lists contain 40 age-appropriate books for children in Year 6 which will capture the children's imagination. The lists contain colour-bands and a description of the books so that the children are able to 'cherry-pick' their favourites according to their book-band level and their personal interests.

While it is not compulsory for the children to read these books, it is highly recommended as it will deepen your child's inference, retrieval and vocabulary skills while also strengthening their love for reading. 

At the end of each half-term, teachers will award bronze, silver and gold certificates in reward assembly to pupils who have read a set number of books from their year group list AND completed a short reading response activity. The children have been provided with a lined A4 book to record their response activity in. 

Ideas for these short reading responses might be any one of the following; 

- Describing settings and characters from the story

- Identifying possible alternative endings

- Predicting what might be in a sequel (the next book if the story was carried on)

- Summarising the story in 6 bullet points 

- Writing a book review

If you have any queries or questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher.

Times Tables Rockstars!

Times Tables Rockstars is a online programme we have introduced to encourage children to have fun with multiplication facts while improving fluency, recall and speed. Children can access it in their own time on any IOS, Android or Windows device.

What is it?

Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of  times tables practice. This programme has very successfully boosted times tables recall speed for hundreds of thousands of pupils over the last 7 years in over 4500 schools - both primary and secondary - worldwide.

How does it work?

Incorrect answers are always immediately corrected in front of your child so that they start to associate the correct answer to every question. The clever code behind the scenes works out which times tables facts each child is consistently taking longer to answer and then it gradually starts to present these facts more frequently until they have mastered them. It will also ask related division questions 20% of the time in order to reinforce division facts.

Is this instead of the times table challenge completed in class?

No, this is to supplement the times tables challenge, giving children a fun way to practise and challenge themselves.

Where does this fit with National Curriculum expectations?

From June 2020, all pupils at the end of year 4 in England will take an online multiplication tables check .The national curriculum specifies that pupils at this stage should be able to recall the multiplication tables up to and including 12x12.

The check aims to support pupils to master multiplication skills, which are essential for future success in mathematics. It will help to identify pupils who have not yet mastered this mathematical concept, so additional support can be provided.

How do I log in?

Log in here: https://ttrockstars.com/login, use your child'd details that came home at the end of the Summer Term, lost them? Speak to your child's class teacher.

Learning This Week

Maths

This week, we are working on geometry.

English

We will be writing a narrative and autobiography based on the events of our current book, Street Child.

Fielding Learning Challenge Curriculum - History - Why was Queen Victoria so iconic?

 Follow the Year 6 link below to our Knowledge Organisers designed for each challenge. This will provide you with the key information we aim for children to have learnt by the end of each challenge. 

Specialist subjects